In this episode, Dr Cary Edwards joins me to discuss his new book The Vigilante Thriller: Violence, Spectatorship, and Identification in American Cinema from 1970-1976 (Bloomsbury, 2022). We discuss films such as Death Wish, Joe, Dirty Harry, and Taxi Driver, among many others, and the cinematic and social context that created the revenge and vigilante motif in 70s film. 

In this follow up episode to my best of the 1990s podcast I work through the Newton Talks top twenty films of the years 2000-2009, and I am joined by Dr Jennifer Wallis and Dr Chris Deacy, who give me nominations for their favourite movie of the decade.

In the latest of my filmmaker interviews I talk to Andrew Elias, writer and director of the upcoming Tales from the Great War (2022), a horror movie set in World War One. We discuss the making of the film, the inspirations for the stories it contains, and how Andrew approaches working with actors and crew. You can see the trailer here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P39nh8IzF8

In the tenth episode of my Cult Film microcast, I examine Paul Verhoeven's notorious Showgirls (1995), which failed with both critics and audiences on release, but which has since become a noteworthy cult movie. 

This episode is the second of two on the 25th EON produced James Bond film, No Time To Die. In this one, I am joined by New Zealand based journalist and Bond fan Lee Kenny. We discuss the plot and characterisation in detail, and also get into where the series can go next.

In this first of two episodes on the 25th EON produced James Bond film, No Time To Die, I am joined by journalist Lee Kenny, Dr Chris Deacy, who is a Reader in Theology and Religious Studies, and media lecturer Will Hill, to talk through our initial reactions to the film. 

In this episode Charlie Steeds, who has directed more than ten horror feature films since 2016, joins me to discuss his career and the challenges of low budget filmmaking.  Charlie's films include Escape from Cannibal Farm (2017), An English Haunting (2020), and Death Ranch (2020), which has recently been released on DVD and VOD. You can visit his production company website here: https://www.darktemple.co.uk

In this episode author Martin Harris of the University of North Carolina, discusses his new book, Leatherface Vs Tricky Dick: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as Political Satire, which provides an in-depth commentary on the links between Tobe Hooper's film and the Watergate scandal involving Richard Nixon. You can buy the book here: Headpress, 2021 - https://headpress.com/product/leatherface-vs-tricky-dick/. 

I am joined in this twentieth episode of Newton Talks by Black Country author and lecturer R.M. Francis to discuss his new novella called The Wrenna, set on the Wren's Nest Estate in Dudley. We discuss the book's influences in both social realism and horror, its fractured structure, and its relationship to sex, violence, and the abject. We also talk about working class representation, culture, and history. You can order The Wrenna from Wild Pressed Books for £10 here:  http://www.wildpressedbooks.com/the-wrenna.html

In this episode, historian of medicine and psychiatry Dr Jennifer Wallis joins me to discuss the relationship between the Victorian asylum and cinema, particularly the representation of the asylum in the horror film. We discuss 70s Amicus productions, Session 9 (2001), the reality of asylum life, and how cinema was used as entertainment in the West Riding Asylum in the 1920s. Jennifer is author of Investigating the Body in the Victorian Asylum Doctors, Patients, and Practices (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and has also contributed chapters on film to the Headpress publications Are you in the House Alone? (ed. Amanda Reyes), and Offbeat (ed. Julian Upton).
The image in the thumbnail is credited to Paul Rigby/Wellcome Collection: https://wellcomecollection.org