Now Playing Podcast Presents: The Fast and Furious Retrospective Series

In 2009, horror stepped into another dimension: 3-D. While franchises everywhere scrambled to cash in on the gimmick, the Final Destination series returned with its fourth installment, bluntly titled The Final Destination.

With Final Destination 2 director David R. Ellis back behind the camera, the film opens with a catastrophic speedway crash that gives psychic Nick a vision of death’s latest design. Escaping the initial disaster is only the beginning, as Nick and his friends face a deadly chain reaction involving a car wash, a swimming pool, and even a chain-link fence. Do the over-the-top kills and 3-D spectacle breathe new life into the franchise, or is this where Death’s design finally runs out of ideas? Listen to Arnie, Stuart, and Brock’s review on Now Playing Podcast to find out!

Special Ed

Jerry and Billy seem like perfectly normal neighbors… if you ignore the apple cores in the yard and the occasional garbage bag that looks suspiciously human-shaped. While the rest of the neighborhood goes about their business, teenager Charlie Brewster realizes the truth: the suave guy next door, Jerry Dandrige, is a vampire.

In 1985, Fright Night revived the undead with a clever blend of horror and comedy. Chris Sarandon brought charm and menace as the stylish bloodsucker Jerry, while Roddy McDowall stole scenes as Peter Vincent, a washed-up TV vampire hunter suddenly facing the real thing. Is this cult classic still immortal, or is it a relic best left in the coffin of ’80s horror? Stuart, Arnie, and Brock sink their teeth into the original Fright Night to find out, kicking off Now Playing Podcast’s full retrospective of the series, leading up to the remake starring Colin Farrell.

We will never look at Home Depot the same way again!

You could say Wendy’s senior year is a real roller coaster. Graduation looms, friendships are shifting, boyfriends are on the chopping block, and she’s having crystal-clear visions of a coaster flying off the rails. When her premonition saves a handful of classmates from a deadly ride, they think they’ve beaten fate. They haven’t, but maybe Wendy's magic camera can help her decode Death’s design before it claims them one by one. With original director James Wong back at the controls of the nail gun and the tanning bed, does Final Destination 3 deliver another twisted thrill ride, or is the track starting to buckle? Jakob, Arnie, and Brock step back in line to find out.

Seriously, dude, we're trying to eat...can't you at least walk downstream a bit?

Daniel Craig. Harrison Ford. Jon Favreau. Cowboys. Aliens. These creatives and concepts had Arnie, Jakob, and Stuart racing to saddle up to see one of the few non-sequel, big-budget spectacles this summer. Based on a comic series, Cowboys & Aliens mashes up Western grit with sci-fi spectacle: six-shooters, alien tech, and a desert showdown. Ride on over to NowPlayingPodcast.com and hear whether this high-concept shootout hits the mark.

Can we find the pregnant woman now, please?

In Final Destination, you can’t cheat death; you can only delay it. Part two picks up with the previous film's survivors still haunted by what they escaped, and Death ready to clean up loose ends. But Death can multitask, as we also have a new group of would-be victims trying to outthink a force that doesn’t play fair. With one of horror’s most infamous freeway pileups that made audiences side-eye logging trucks for years, does this follow-up sharpen the formula, or just repeat it with more blood and broken glass? Join Arnie, Jakob, and Brock as they revisit the second stop on Death’s itinerary and decide if this Destination delivers.

Galactus has the munchies and is following a surf dude for a snack... Is intergalactic weed involved?

With Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, 20th Century Fox doubled down on Marvel's First Family, bringing one of the most beloved cosmic storylines from the comics to the big screen. The mysterious Silver Surfer (voiced by The Matrix's Laurence Fishburne) arrives as a harbinger of world-eating Galactus. With bigger effects, higher stakes, and a fan-favorite character finally in live action, this sequel aimed to correct the missteps of the first film and expand the franchise into true cosmic territory. Is the third time a charm for the Four? Arnie, Stuart, and Jakob dive into the spectacle, the tone, and that controversial depiction of Galactus in this chapter of Now Playing Podcast's Marvel retrospective.

Wanna go take a listen?

After Scream rewrote the rules of teen horror, a wave of imitators hit theaters. Most crashed hard, but one survived... In Final Destination, high schooler Alex (Idle Hands' Devon Sawa) has a premonition that his flight to Paris will explode. He and several classmates get off the plane only to discover that cheating death comes with consequences. As Tony Todd (Candyman) ominously explains, death has a design, and it doesn’t like being interrupted. With elaborate Rube Goldberg-style kill sequences and a killer you can’t punch, outrun, or unmask, the film launched a franchise built entirely on inevitability. Now our hosts get on board and revisit the one that started it all to see if this high-concept horror still delivers suspense, or if its fate was sealed from the beginning.

Doom's so vain I bet he thinks this podcast's about him.

After decades of development limbo and one unreleased low-budget experiment, the Fantastic Four finally arrived in theaters in 2005 with a full studio push from 20th Century Fox. Positioned as the next Marvel team franchise to stand alongside X-Men, this big-budget adaptation brings Reed Richards (102 Dalmations' Ioan Gruffudd), Sue Storm (Idle Hands' Jesica Alba), Johnny Storm (Not Another Teen Movie's Chris Evans), and Ben Grimm (The Shield's Michael Chiklis) to life as they square off against Victor Von Doom (Nip/Tuck's Julian McMahon). With glossy effects, a $100 million budget, and clear plans for sequels, does this first official big-screen outing capture the mix of science fiction spectacle and family dynamics that made the comic a classic, or does it struggle to ignite? Join the Now Playing Podcast crew as they break down the film that finally gave Marvel’s First Family a theatrical release.

Did Avi Arad shout "Flame On!" as he burned the negative?

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four launched the modern Marvel Universe in 1961, redefining superheroes as flawed, bickering, deeply human characters. On screen, though, Marvel’s First Family has had a rockier path. In this first chapter of our Fantastic Four retrospective, Stuart, Arnie, and Jakob go back to 1994 and the infamous Roger Corman-produced Fantastic Four film. Shot on the cheap and reportedly made primarily to retain the movie rights, this version was never officially released, yet bootlegs turned it into a comic-book legend. Why was it shelved? Was it truly unwatchable, or just a victim of studio politics? Join the Now Playing Podcast crew as they examine the most unloved and abandoned superhero movie ever made.

Watch as Michael Bay and co. transform world history!

Transformers: Dark of the Moon stormed into theaters, smashing buildings and box office records, and dominating the Fourth of July holiday. Michael Bay’s third outing raises the stakes again, tying the Autobots and Decepticons to a secret Apollo-era conspiracy and unleashing some of the biggest action set pieces of the franchise. But does this installment actually improve on its predecessor, or is it another effects-driven juggernaut powered more by 3-D ticket prices than storytelling? Jerry, Stuart, and Arnie break down the action, the mythology, and Bay’s bombast to decide whether Dark of the Moon redeems the series or simply doubles down on what came before.