Optimism Vaccine

THIS WEEK: Onibaba (1964) and Kuroneko (1968)

For the final episode of Shawntober 2024, we expose Mr. Glinis to the gorgeous Japanese folk horror of Kaneto Shindo.

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THIS WEEK: House on Haunted Hill (1959), The Tingler (1959), Homicidal (1961)

Sometimes called the P.T. Barnum of Hollywood, William Castle made his mark in the world of cinema by promoting his kitschy horror films with one of a kind gimmicks.

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THIS WEEK: The Devils (1971), Gothic (1986), The Lair of the White Worm (1988)

We're taking Shawn on a trip across the pond to discuss transgressive auteur Ken Russell's contributions to the horror genre. Will we cure Shawn of his disdain for grand theatrical hijinks and flat British production? Probably not.

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THIS WEEK: The Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead II (1987), Army of Darkness (1982)

Like an incurable rash, SHAWNTOBER returns again so we can subject respectable film lover and Wiseman Cast host Shawn Glinis to all the horror films he's managed to avoid watching for decades. This year, we're starting off with a big blind spot: Evil Dead.

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THIS WEEK: Baby Cat (2023) vs The Towel Man (2021)

We're taking a little break from your regularly scheduled OpVac episode to prep for our favorite yearly tradition, Shawntober.

But don't worry, we won't leave you hangin'. Enjoy a little treat from the PATRON EXCLUSIVE feed: The debut episode from Caustic Content: Season 2 - The show where Steve and Miros compete head to head to find the absolute worst thing streaming on the internet.

And boy do we have a couple of beautiful specimens for you in this episode. It's a classic battle of an animal cosplay fetish film against a dollar store slasher.

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THIS WEEK: Caged Heat (1974), Crazy Mama (1975), Last Embrace (1979)

Before Jonathan Demme was hanging out with David Byrne and winning Oscars, he was pumping out exploitation flicks for Roger Corman and doing weird Hitchcock homages

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THIS WEEK: Manhunter (1986), Hannibal (2001), Red Dragon (2002), Hannibal Rising (2007)

After covering Jonathan Demme's Silence of The Lambs last week we decided to keep the ball rolling and cover the rest of the film adaptations of Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lecter novels. Not that any of us need an excuse to watch Manhunter for the 74726587432 time. Maybe we could have done without Bret Ratner, Hannibal's silly Italian hat, and the Samurai training montage though. Oh well.

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THIS WEEK: The Silence of the Lambs (1991), The Cell (2000), Longlegs (2024)

People keep telling us Longlegs is the new Silence of the Lambs so we figured we had better see how Osgood Perkin's screeching Nic Cage glam rock dollmaker stacks up to Hannibal Lecter. We watched The Cell too because Miros is ride-or-die for J Lo and who doesn't love Tarsem Singh and Vincent D'Onofrio in a bad wig?

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THIS WEEK: The Crow: City of Angels (1996), The Crow: Salvation (2000), The Crow: Wicked Prayer (2005)

What's that? There's a brand new reboot of the Alex Proyas/Brandon Lee film, The Crow, and it stars the guy who played Pennywise in the IT remake? While the cowards make their way out of the local Hot Topic and into the AMC theater on the other side of the mall, only ONE podcast is daring to ignore both the beloved original and the maligned remake. That's right. It's the only Crow-cast with only Crow sequels. Pull out your Discman and pop in a burned CD with your favorite Nu-Metal jams. It's time to fly high with Edward Furlong and embrace the Crow cash-ins.

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THIS WEEK: 300 (2006), 300: Rise of an Empire (2014), Meet The Spartans (2008)

Some things are so difficult to comprehend they boggle the mind to the point of madness. Who knew Zack Snyder would create the cinematic playbook for stylized dumb guy action and modern reactionary right wing fascism? Who could have ever dreamed a wildly successful non-Snyder sequel to 300 would be released eight years later, only to be wiped clean from our collective memory? Who could have predicted parody film slop auteurs, Friedberg and Seltzer, would have a decade+ successful run in Hollywood?

And, most importantly, who ever thought Optimism Vaccine would make it to 300 episodes?

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