Today, we’re rolling out the proverbial red carpet for someone making his debut appearance on My Bloody Podcast, director Stephen Shimek. If the name rings a bell, don’t worry, you’re not suffering from cinematic déjà vu. You’ve probably stumbled across Invitation to a Murder, The Maze, Joey and Ella, or the delightfully enigmatic The Magician’s Raincoat. Yes, Stephen made those. And if that’s not enough, he’s also married to Kristy Shimek. The editor, a frequent guest, and the unofficial patron saint of making directors look good in post.

The post Bonus Episode With Stephen Shimek on Murder At The Embassy (2025) first appeared on Boomstick Comics.

Joining us for this canine-and-carbine opera are two men who know their way around both a frame and a fight. Aaron Eckhart, the square-jawed statesman of The Dark Knight, Erin Brockovich, and Thank You for Smoking, and the film’s director John Stahlberg Jr., who has quietly been constructing a small universe of his own with the Muzzle franchise.

The post Bonus Episode with Aaron Eckhart and John Stalberg Jr first appeared on Boomstick Comics.

In Episode #184 of My Bloody Podcast, we plunge scalpels-first into John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), a film that has aged better than most of its human characters. We roam through the eerie lineage of the story, revisiting the 1950s original, back when aliens were tall, wooden, and shaped vaguely like your uncle’s coat rack, and marvel at the alternate-universe casting choices that nearly befell Carpenter’s classic. Yes, somewhere in a parallel dimension, Jay Leno is squinting suspiciously across a snowbank, and we should all be grateful we don’t live there.

The post Episode #184 – The Thing (1982) first appeared on Boomstick Comics.

There are few things more sacred in the horror podcasting world than two friends on a long phone call dissecting a film where a creepy man also loves to make phone calls. On Episode #183 of My Bloody Podcast, Chelsea and I pick up our proverbial Black Phones and dial directly into the cultural juggernaut currently haunting theaters. The Black Phone 2.

The post Episode #183 – Black Phone 2 (2025) first appeared on Boomstick Comics.

On Episode #182 of My Bloody Podcast, two death-defying dolls, Bryan Kluger and Chelsea, pick up their metaphorical scalpels to stitch together their thoughts on May, the 2002 horror film that nobody remembers except, of course, Bryan Kluger. (This is a man who spent twenty years watching nothing but horror movies and occasionally, when the moon was right, eating chicken wings.)

The post Episode #182 – May (2002) first appeared on Boomstick Comics.

On Episode #181 of My Bloody Podcast, the trio of cinematic slashers, Bryan, Preston, and Chelsea, sneak up on 2016’s Hush, Mike Flanagan’s lean, mean, and surprisingly quiet home-invasion thriller. You might remember Hush as the film that came after Oculus (the haunted mirror one) and before Flanagan ascended to Netflix sainthood with The Haunting of Hill House. It’s the movie that whispered, literally, “Oh, this guy’s good.”

The post Episode #181 – HUSH (2016) first appeared on Boomstick Comics.

Episode #180 of My Bloody Podcast is, to put it lightly, a pumpkin-spiced fever dream. It’s that time of year again, spooky season, when the air smells faintly of nutmeg, Spirit Halloween stores rise from the dead in defunct Pier 1 Imports, and every barista becomes a horror enthusiast with an oat milk frother. Naturally, we leaned into the madness and tackled one of the more bewildering entries in the Halloween cinematic multiverse. It was Halloween 6. Or Halloween 666.Or Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, depending on which president was in office when you were born.

The post Episode #180 – Halloween 6 (1995) With Mike P. Nelson first appeared on Boomstick Comics.

Episode #179 of My Bloody Podcast doesn’t so much begin as it laces up its sneakers. Bryan, Preston, and Chelsea, our well-worn trio of cinematic mall walkers summon a special guest, Susan Kamyab Stephens of ThisChixFlix, to join them on their longest journey yet, a brisk conversational trek through The Long Walk, Stephen King’s first stab at a novel, dashed off while he was still in college, presumably between ramen breaks and existential demonic clowns.

The post Episode #179 – The Long Walk (2025) first appeared on Boomstick Comics.

On Episode #178 of My Bloody Podcast, three horror aficionados do what any sensible millennials facing sky-high real estate prices would never dare. They metaphorically buy a house, albeit a haunted one. Their choice? The colonial fixer-upper from The Conjuring (2013), a property that’s been terrifying audiences for twelve years and is now worth, one assumes, at least three exorcisms over asking. With The Conjuring: Last Rites currently summoning millions at the box office, Bryan, Preston, and Chelsea decided to revisit the film that started it all, to see if its scares still rattle bones in 2025 the way they did back in 2013.

The post Episode #178 – The Conjuring (2013) first appeared on Boomstick Comics.

Bryan Kluger and Preston Barta of Dallas, Texas, two men who can quote John Carpenter faster than they can recite their social security numbers, sat down with Canadian filmmaker Sean Cisterna, whose polite menace belies his latest creation: Silver Screamers. The documentary, which will have its world premiere at Fantastic Fest in Austin, follows Sean as he wrangles a group of senior citizens into making a short horror film. Yes, you read that right. Seniors. Horror. Blood, guts, monsters, and Werther’s Originals, hand in hand.

During the conversation, Bryan and Preston pull up the metaphorical rug and shake out all the delightful dust bunnies. How Sean convinced retirees to swap knitting needles for fake blood, which movies he made them watch for “research” (spoiler: there were screams), and the unexpectedly tender moments that come from watching a group of octogenarians learn how to chop up a prop body on cue. It’s equal parts funny, sweet, and unexpectedly moving.

It's a little like if The Golden Girls had been directed by George Romero. Trust us, you’re going to want to find Silver Screamers as soon as you can. After all, it’s not every day you see grandma wielding a chainsaw and living her best life.

The post Silver Screamers Interview With Director Sean Cisterna (2025) Fantastic Fest first appeared on Boomstick Comics.