Keep the change, ya filthy animal. This week we're heading to Winnetka, Illinois for Home Alone (1990) — one of the most beloved, most rewatched, and most endlessly quotable Christmas films in the history of cinema. This is the movie that made Macaulay Culkin a superstar, cemented John Hughes as the king of American family comedy, and somehow became a holiday institution watched by hundreds of millions of people every single December around the world.

Written and produced by John Hughes and directed by Chris Columbus, the film stars Macaulay Culkin as eight-year-old Kevin McCallister, accidentally left behind when his enormous family departs for a Christmas vacation to Paris — and forced to defend his suburban Chicago home from a pair of bungling burglars, Harry and Marv, played with magnificent physical comedy by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. Catherine O'Hara and John Heard play the frantic parents, and John Candy turns up in one of the most charming and bittersweet supporting cameos of the entire decade.

We're digging into everything: the booby trap sequences that traumatized and delighted a generation in equal measure, Joe Pesci deliberately avoiding Macaulay Culkin on set so the kid would genuinely be scared of him, John Williams' Oscar-nominated score, the surprisingly emotional subplot with Old Man Marley, and the film's staggering commercial legacy. Home Alone earned more than $470 million worldwide and was the highest-grossing film of 1990 — and it held the record as the highest-grossing live-action comedy for over two decades. We're also talking about the wild behind-the-scenes story: Warner Bros. originally shut down production after it exceeded budget, only for 20th Century Fox to swoop in and rescue the film entirely. And John Candy filmed all his scenes in a single 23-hour day, was paid just $414, and improvised every line of his dialogue.

Is Home Alone the greatest Christmas movie ever made? Where does it sit in the John Hughes pantheon alongside Ferris Bueller, The Breakfast Club, and Planes, Trains and Automobiles? And does Kevin McCallister's booby trap gauntlet hold up as the greatest slapstick set piece in 90s cinema? We settle all of it.

Whether you're a Christmas movie fanatic, a John Hughes devotee, a 90s nostalgia obsessive, a Macaulay Culkin fan, a lover of great physical comedy, or just someone who watches this every single December without fail — this episode is essential holiday listening.

Topics covered: Home Alone 1990 | Macaulay Culkin | John Hughes | Chris Columbus | Joe Pesci | Daniel Stern | Catherine O'Hara | John Candy | best Christmas movies | best Christmas movies ever made | 90s family movies | Christmas comedy films | booby trap scene | Kevin McCallister | Wet Bandits | John Williams score | highest grossing comedy | best 90s movies | 90s nostalgia | Chicago Christmas movies | Winnetka Illinois | Home Alone house | movie review podcast | film analysis | John Hughes filmography ranked | best physical comedy movies | holiday classic films | Home Alone sequel | Kieran Culkin debut | Christmas movie rankings

Subscribe, rate, and leave us a review — and settle the debate once and for all: is Home Alone the greatest Christmas movie ever made, or does something else hold the crown?

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Yippee-ki-yay. This week we're heading to Nakatomi Plaza on Christmas Eve for Die Hard (1988) — the film that didn't just launch one of the greatest action franchises of all time, it fundamentally rewrote the rules of what an action movie could be, invented the modern everyman hero, and sparked a holiday debate that is somehow still raging 35 years later. Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? We're settling it. For good. Maybe.

Directed by John McTiernan and written by Jeb Stuart and Steven de Souza, Die Hard follows New York City cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) — in town on Christmas Eve to patch things up with his estranged wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) — who finds himself the only thing standing between a group of brilliantly organized terrorists and $640 million in bearer bonds, trapped barefoot in a Los Angeles skyscraper with nothing but his wits, a police radio, and an increasingly shredded undershirt. Leading the terrorists is Hans Gruber, played by Alan Rickman in what is inarguably one of the single greatest villain performances in cinema history. Reginald VelJohnson, William Atherton, Paul Gleason, and Alexander Godunov round out a perfect supporting cast.

We're going all in on everything: how this film completely reinvented the action genre by making McClane vulnerable, funny, and fallible at a time when the prevailing action hero archetype was an invincible muscle-bound giant like Arnold Schwarzenegger — who was actually offered the role and turned it down. We dig into the wild behind-the-scenes story: Willis was paid $5 million — virtually unheard of for an actor known primarily from a TV comedy — a deal the industry considered a spectacular gamble. We talk about Rickman's unforgettable debut, the Nakatomi Plaza location that was actually 20th Century Fox's own headquarters, McTiernan's masterclass in suspense and spatial filmmaking, and why Die Hard has never been equaled by any of its many, many imitators.

And yes — we are absolutely, definitively, once and for all addressing the Christmas movie debate.

Whether you're an action movie obsessive, a Bruce Willis fan, an Alan Rickman devotee, a John McTiernan admirer, someone who watches this every December, or just a person who has an opinion — correct or incorrect — about whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie, this episode is required listening.

Topics covered: Die Hard 1988 | Bruce Willis | Alan Rickman | John McTiernan | John McClane | Hans Gruber | Nakatomi Plaza | best action movies ever made | is Die Hard a Christmas movie | Christmas movie debate | best movie villains ever | 80s action movies | everyman hero | Bonnie Bedelia | Reginald VelJohnson | Alan Rickman debut | best action films of all time | action movie history | Yippee-ki-yay | Die Hard franchise | best Christmas movies | 20th Century Fox Plaza | movie review podcast | film analysis | greatest action movies ranked | best villain performances | Die Hard vs other Christmas movies | Arnold Schwarzenegger passed on Die Hard | best one-liners in movies

Subscribe, rate, and leave us a review — and stake your claim: is Die Hard a Christmas movie? Wrong answers will be dealt with accordingly.

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Wake up, Sam. This week we're orbiting one of the most quietly stunning, deeply human, and criminally underappreciated science fiction films of the 21st century. Moon (2009) is a film that does more with less than almost anything else in the genre — and if you haven't seen it, we're about to change your life.

The feature film directorial debut of Duncan Jones — yes, David Bowie's son — Moon was specifically written as a vehicle for Sam Rockwell, and what Rockwell delivers here is nothing short of one of the greatest one-man performances in modern cinema. The film follows Sam Bell, a man nearing the end of a three-year solitary stint mining helium-3 on the far side of the Moon for a corporation called Lunar Industries, with only an AI assistant named GERTY — voiced with quietly unsettling warmth by Kevin Spacey — for company. With two weeks left on his contract and his mind beginning to fracture under the weight of three years of total isolation, Sam makes a discovery that unravels everything he thought he knew about himself, his mission, and his life back on Earth.

We're going deep on everything: how Rockwell essentially acts opposite himself for the majority of the film in a technical and emotional tour de force that somehow never received an Oscar nomination, Duncan Jones' extraordinary debut that pays loving homage to the great cerebral sci-fi films of the late 70s and early 80s — Silent Running, Alien, Outland — while being entirely its own devastating thing, the film's brilliant use of practical effects over CGI, a production shot in just 33 days on a budget of $5 million that looks and feels like a major studio production, and Clint Mansell's hauntingly beautiful score. We're also talking about the film's rich thematic core — corporate ethics, identity, cloning, what it means to be human — and why Moon belongs in the conversation alongside 2001: A Space Odyssey and Solaris as one of the great philosophical science fiction films ever made.

Whether you're a hard sci-fi devotee, a Sam Rockwell fanatic, a Duncan Jones admirer, a fan of slow-burn psychological drama, someone who loves films that trust their audience to think, or just a viewer who wants to be profoundly moved by something both intimate and cosmic — this episode is essential.

Topics covered: Moon 2009 | Sam Rockwell | Duncan Jones | Kevin Spacey | GERTY | helium-3 | one man film | best sci-fi films of the 21st century | best sci-fi films ever made | psychological science fiction | cloning movies | identity crisis films | cerebral sci-fi | indie sci-fi | best directorial debuts | Duncan Jones David Bowie son | Clint Mansell score | practical effects sci-fi | best performances never nominated for Oscar | Sam Rockwell best films | philosophical sci-fi | corporate dystopia films | isolation movies | best films of 2009 | movie review podcast | film analysis | 2001 A Space Odyssey influence | Solaris comparison | best low budget films | BAFTA nominated films | Hugo Award winner

Subscribe, rate, and leave us a review — and tell us: where does Moon rank in your all-time sci-fi list? And does Sam Rockwell's performance here belong among the greatest ever put on screen?

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@RegularorMenthol

Contact us: [email protected]

Hold still. This week we're climbing the hill to the castle at the edge of the pastel suburb for Edward Scissorhands (1990) — Tim Burton's most personal, most achingly beautiful, and most enduring film. A Gothic fairy tale about loneliness, belonging, and the cruelty of the ordinary world toward anyone who dares to be different. And one of the most quietly devastating love stories ever put on screen.

Written by Caroline Thompson from a story she developed with Burton, the film follows Edward — an unfinished artificial humanoid with scissor blades instead of hands, the incomplete creation of a dying inventor — who is taken in by a kind suburban Avon saleswoman named Peg (Dianne Wiest) and brought down from his crumbling Gothic castle into the impossibly bright, pastel-colored world below, where he falls irreversibly in love with her daughter Kim (Winona Ryder). Also starring Anthony Michael Hall, Kathy Baker, Alan Arkin, and Vincent Price in his final film role before his death.

We're going deep on everything: how Burton conceived Edward Scissorhands directly from his own childhood feelings of isolation and inability to connect with people growing up in suburban Burbank — making this less a fantasy film and more a raw, thinly-veiled self-portrait — Johnny Depp's extraordinary silent-film-inspired performance that communicates more emotion without words than most actors manage with entire monologues, Danny Elfman's score which both Elfman and Burton consider their most personal and favorite collaboration, Stan Winston's astonishing practical makeup and scissor-hand design, and the film's devastating final act which remains one of the most heartbreaking endings in all of 90s cinema. Depp prepared for the role by studying Charlie Chaplin films extensively to understand how to generate pure sympathy without dialogue — and it shows in every frame.

We're also asking the bigger questions: is this Tim Burton's masterpiece? Where does it sit in the Burton-Depp collaboration that defined both of their careers? And what does the film's central metaphor — a gentle soul who can create breathtaking beauty but can never hold the person he loves without causing harm — still say about outsiders, artists, and the unbearable cost of being different?

Whether you're a Tim Burton devotee, a Johnny Depp fan, a lover of Gothic romance, someone who adores dark fairy tales, a Danny Elfman score enthusiast, or just a person who wants to feel something profound and beautiful — this episode is for you. Have tissues ready.

Topics covered: Edward Scissorhands 1990 | Tim Burton | Johnny Depp | Winona Ryder | Dianne Wiest | Vincent Price final film | Danny Elfman score | Stan Winston makeup | Gothic romance | dark fairy tale films | best Tim Burton films | Johnny Depp best performances | Tim Burton filmography ranked | suburban satire films | outsider films | best 90s films | best fantasy films | Danny Elfman best scores | Gothic films | best movie endings | most emotional movie endings | Caroline Thompson | 90s cult classic | movie review podcast | film analysis | best romantic fantasy films | Tim Burton and Johnny Depp collaboration | Charlie Chaplin influence | best silent performance in a talkie | Halloween films | Christmas adjacent movies | gothic fairy tale films

Subscribe, rate, and leave us a review — and tell us: is Edward Scissorhands Tim Burton's greatest film, or does something else in his filmography hold the crown?

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@RegularorMenthol

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When the chimes end — begin. This week we're riding into the Almería desert for For a Few Dollars More (1965) — the second film in Sergio Leone's legendary Dollars Trilogy, and the one that gets the least attention despite being, by almost any measure, the most fully realized, most emotionally complex, and most flat-out thrilling of the three.

Directed by Sergio Leone, the film stars Clint Eastwood as Manco — the Man with No Name — and Lee Van Cleef as Colonel Douglas Mortimer, a rival bounty hunter whose motivation turns out to be something far more personal than money. Together, this unlikely pair of cold-eyed professionals team up to take down El Indio (Gian Maria Volonté), a brilliant, ruthless, and deeply haunted outlaw and his gang — with Klaus Kinski lurking in the shadows as one of cinema's great unsettling supporting villains.

We're going all in on everything: why this film deserves to be ranked alongside The Good, the Bad and the Ugly rather than perpetually overshadowed by it, Lee Van Cleef's career-defining performance as Mortimer — a man whose quiet devastation in the film's final act recontextualizes everything that came before — Gian Maria Volonté's extraordinary turn as El Indio, Ennio Morricone's iconic score which Leone famously played on set while filming so his actors could perform to the music in real time, and Leone's revolutionary approach to the Western — extreme close-ups, operatic silences, and duels stretched to almost unbearable tension — that permanently changed how action cinema looked and felt. The screenplay was written in just nine days by Luciano Vincenzoni, yet somehow produced one of the most elegantly constructed revenge narratives in genre history.

We're also talking about the Dollars Trilogy as a whole — how to rank the three films, what each one contributes to the Leone legacy, and why the spaghetti western movement these films launched remains one of the most influential artistic revolutions in cinema history.

Whether you're a classic Western devotee, a Sergio Leone obsessive, a Clint Eastwood fan, an Ennio Morricone score enthusiast, a film history buff, or just someone who loves discovering that the one everyone skips past might actually be the best one — this episode is for you.

Topics covered: For a Few Dollars More 1965 | Sergio Leone | Clint Eastwood | Lee Van Cleef | Gian Maria Volonté | Klaus Kinski | Ennio Morricone | Dollars Trilogy | spaghetti western | Man with No Name | best spaghetti westerns | best western films ever made | Dollars Trilogy ranked | best Sergio Leone films | best Ennio Morricone scores | Colonel Mortimer | El Indio | bounty hunter movies | revenge westerns | Italian cinema | Almería Spain filming | best film villains | classic Hollywood westerns | movie review podcast | film analysis | Per qualche dollaro in più | best films of the 1960s | most underrated sequels | western film history | Leone vs Hollywood westerns | Clint Eastwood early career

Subscribe, rate, and leave us a review — and settle it once and for all: how do you rank the Dollars Trilogy? And is For a Few Dollars More the most underrated film in the whole series?

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The first rule of this podcast episode is: you absolutely talk about Fight Club. This week we're going deep on Fight Club (1999) — David Fincher's savage, visually revolutionary, and endlessly debated psychological thriller that bombed at the box office in 1999, became the defining cult movie of its generation on DVD, and has never stopped being argued about since.

Based on Chuck Palahniuk's 1996 novel and adapted for the screen by Jim Uhls, the film follows an unnamed insomniac narrator (Edward Norton) — disenchanted with his sterile white-collar life and IKEA-catalog existence — who meets the electric, charismatic, and dangerously free Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a soap salesman who becomes his alter ego, his idol, and ultimately the architect of something terrifying. Helena Bonham Carter is unforgettable as Marla Singer, the self-destructive chaos agent who disrupts everything. Meat Loaf and a young Jared Leto round out a perfect supporting cast.

We're going deep on everything: Fincher's jaw-dropping direction — his visual language born directly from years of music video work — which gave the film a kinetic, anxiety-soaked style that felt unlike anything in mainstream cinema in 1999 — Brad Pitt's performance as Tyler Durden which remains one of the most charismatic and dangerous turns in 90s cinema, Edward Norton's extraordinary work as the hollow everyman slowly cracking apart, the film's layers of hidden clues that reward and reward on rewatch, and the twist ending that genuinely shocked audiences and still hits first-time viewers like a freight train. We're also digging into the film's searing critique of consumerism, masculinity, and Generation X alienation — and the uncomfortable question of what it means that Tyler Durden became a genuine idol to some of the exact people the film was critiquing. Fincher himself addressed this directly in 2023, saying "It's impossible for me to imagine that people don't understand that Tyler Durden is a negative influence."

Is Fight Club David Fincher's greatest film — better than Se7en, Zodiac, The Social Network, and Gone Girl? What does it say about masculinity, identity, and late capitalism that feels more relevant now than it did in 1999? And where does it rank among the all-time great twist endings in cinema history?

Whether you're a David Fincher obsessive, a Brad Pitt fanatic, an Edward Norton devotee, a Chuck Palahniuk reader, a film theory enthusiast, someone fascinated by cult movie culture, or just a viewer who wants to argue about one of the most talked-about films ever made — this episode is essential.

Topics covered: Fight Club 1999 | David Fincher | Brad Pitt | Edward Norton | Helena Bonham Carter | Tyler Durden | Chuck Palahniuk novel | best twist endings in movies | Fight Club twist explained | best films of the 1990s | 90s cult classics | Generation X films | consumerism in film | masculinity in film | psychological thriller | best David Fincher films | David Fincher filmography ranked | best Brad Pitt performances | best Edward Norton performances | cult classic movies | movie review podcast | film analysis | Fight Club themes explained | Project Mayhem | Meat Loaf Fight Club | Jared Leto early career | best movies to rewatch | hidden clues in movies | defining films of a generation | best 90s psychological thrillers | Se7en vs Fight Club

Subscribe, rate, and leave us a review — and settle the debate: is Fight Club David Fincher's greatest film? And be honest — did you see the twist coming?

*We apologize for Chris's audio in this episode. He recorded on the fly, away from his normal setup.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@RegularorMenthol

Contact us: [email protected]

Don't worry if you don't follow the plot. Nobody does. And that's entirely the point. This week we're lighting one up and drifting into Inherent Vice (2014) — Paul Thomas Anderson's deliriously funny, achingly melancholy, and deliberately bewildering adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's novel, and one of the most singular, purely cinematic experiences of the last decade. This is the film that rewards surrender over comprehension.

Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and based on Pynchon's 2009 novel — the first Pynchon work ever adapted for the screen — the film follows Larry "Doc" Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix), a perpetually stoned hippie private investigator in 1970 Los Angeles, who gets pulled into a labyrinthine web of missing persons, shadowy cartels, real estate conspiracies, and lost love when his ex-girlfriend Shasta (Katherine Waterston) shows up at his door asking for help. The extraordinary ensemble cast includes Josh Brolin as the square, frozen-chocolate-banana-eating LAPD detective "Bigfoot" Bjornsen in what might be the funniest performance of his career, alongside Owen Wilson, Reese Witherspoon, Benicio del Toro, Jena Malone, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short, Eric Roberts, Michael K. Williams, and — narrating the whole gorgeous fog of it — singer-songwriter Joanna Newsom as Sortilège.

We're going deep on everything: what Inherent Vice is actually about beneath its deliberately tangled plot — the death of the counterculture, the end of the 1960s dream, paranoia as a way of life, and the unbearable weight of love you can't hold onto — Jonny Greenwood's extraordinary score recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and featuring an unreleased Radiohead song alongside tracks from Neil Young and Can, Robert Elswit's warm and hazy 35mm cinematography, and why this is the Paul Thomas Anderson film that gets better and stranger and more heartbreaking with every single rewatch. Anderson has described it as "like a Cheech & Chong movie" — which is both completely accurate and wildly undersells what it's doing.

We're also asking the essential questions: where does Inherent Vice sit in the PTA filmography alongside Boogie Nights, Magnolia, There Will Be Blood, and The Master? Is it genuinely his most personal film? And why does a movie deliberately designed to confuse you feel so emotionally devastating by the end?

Whether you're a Paul Thomas Anderson devotee, a Joaquin Phoenix fanatic, a Thomas Pynchon reader, a neo-noir enthusiast, a lover of 1970s Los Angeles atmosphere, a Jonny Greenwood score obsessive, or just someone who wants to watch a great film and not understand a single thing that happened and feel completely fulfilled anyway — this episode is essential.

Topics covered: Inherent Vice 2014 | Paul Thomas Anderson | Joaquin Phoenix | Josh Brolin | Katherine Waterston | Owen Wilson | Joanna Newsom | Thomas Pynchon adaptation | first Pynchon film | Jonny Greenwood score | Radiohead unreleased song | Robert Elswit cinematography | neo-noir films | 1970s Los Angeles | stoner detective films | end of the 60s counterculture | best PTA films | Paul Thomas Anderson filmography ranked | best films of 2014 | Boogie Nights vs Inherent Vice | There Will Be Blood vs Inherent Vice | most confusing movies | movies that reward rewatching | Benicio del Toro | Martin Short | Reese Witherspoon | Maya Rudolph | movie review podcast | film analysis | best literary adaptations | Pynchon novel explained | Doc Sportello | Golden Age Hollywood noir

Subscribe, rate, and leave us a review — and tell us: did you understand Inherent Vice on your first watch? And does it matter?

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@RegularorMenthol

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Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a vampire. This week we're riding into Santa Carla for The Lost Boys (1987) — Joel Schumacher's supremely stylish, wickedly funny, endlessly rewatchable 80s horror masterpiece that didn't just make vampires cool, it permanently redefined what vampire movies could look and feel like.

Directed by Joel Schumacher, the film follows two teenage brothers — Michael (Jason Patric) and Sam (Corey Haim) — who move with their divorced mother Lucy (Dianne Wiest) to the fictional California beach town of Santa Carla, only to discover it's the murder capital of the world, overrun by a gang of motorcycle-riding, leather-clad vampires led by the magnetic and terrifying David (Kiefer Sutherland). As Michael falls under the spell of the gang and the mysterious Star (Jami Gertz), it falls to Sam and the gloriously unhinged Frog Brothers — Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander — to save his soul before it's too late. Also featuring Edward Herrmann, Barnard Hughes, and a pre-Bill & Ted Alex Winter lurking in the vampire pack.

We're going deep on everything: Kiefer Sutherland's extraordinary, near-wordless performance as David — Schumacher himself said Sutherland "has the least amount of dialogue in the movie, but his presence is extraordinary" — the iconic boardwalk concert scene with shirtless saxophonist Tim Cappello, the film's revolutionary MTV-style visual language that made it look like nothing else in 1987, the legendary soundtrack featuring Echo & the Bunnymen's cover of "People Are Strange," and why the film is credited with helping permanently shift vampire mythology toward a younger, sexier, more dangerous aesthetic — directly inspiring everything from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Twilight to What We Do in the Shadows.

We're also talking about the Two Coreys — Corey Haim and Corey Feldman — at the absolute peak of their powers, the film's fascinating origins as a much more juvenile Goonies-style adventure before Schumacher transformed it into something sexier and darker, and what it means that this gleefully trashy, gorgeous, endlessly fun movie has only gotten better with age.

Whether you're an 80s horror devotee, a vampire movie fanatic, a Kiefer Sutherland fan, a Two Coreys nostalgic, a cult classic collector, a lover of iconic movie soundtracks, or just someone who wants to spend an hour celebrating one of the most purely entertaining films ever made — this episode is a must.

Topics covered: The Lost Boys 1987 | Joel Schumacher | Kiefer Sutherland | Corey Haim | Corey Feldman | Jason Patric | Jami Gertz | Dianne Wiest | Alex Winter | best vampire movies | best 80s horror films | 80s cult classics | vampire movie history | Two Coreys | Santa Cruz California filming | Echo and the Bunnymen People Are Strange | Tim Cappello sax scene | best 80s soundtracks | horror comedy films | vampire mythology | Buffy the Vampire Slayer influence | What We Do in the Shadows reference | 80s nostalgia | best horror films ever made | Joel Schumacher filmography | movie review podcast | film analysis | teen horror films | cult classic horror | best movie villains 80s | sleep all day party all night | most rewatchable 80s movies

Subscribe, rate, and leave us a review — and settle it: is Kiefer Sutherland's David the greatest vampire villain in movie history? And be honest — did the noodles-into-worms scene get you?

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What's your favorite scary movie? This week we're heading to Woodsboro for Scream (1996) — Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson's genre-shattering, self-aware, wickedly clever slasher masterpiece that didn't just revive a dying genre, it completely reinvented it and changed the course of horror cinema forever.

Directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson, the film follows high school student Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), who on the anniversary of her mother's murder becomes the target of a masked killer known as Ghostface. The cast around her is extraordinary — Courteney Cox as the ruthlessly ambitious reporter Gale Weathers, David Arquette as the lovable and hapless Deputy Dewey, Matthew Lillard delivering a performance of unhinged comic genius, Rose McGowan, Skeet Ulrich, and Jamie Kennedy as Randy the horror movie obsessive who essentially narrates the film's rules directly to the audience — and to the killer. And that opening. Drew Barrymore. The phone call. Eleven minutes. Possibly the greatest horror movie opening sequence ever made.

We're digging into everything: how Williamson wrote the script while house-sitting and watching a documentary about the Gainesville Ripper, producing a screenplay that became the subject of an intense bidding war from multiple studios before Miramax snapped it up, why the film was nearly directed by Robert Rodriguez, Danny Boyle, or Quentin Tarantino before Craven was brought on board, how the script's original title was Scary Movie before Harvey Weinstein changed it late in production, and the genius of Craven's cameo as Fred the janitor — dressed in Freddy Krueger's exact outfit as a direct homage to his own most famous creation. We're also talking about what makes Scream so much more than a slasher film — its genuine wit, its love for and simultaneous deconstruction of the genre it's operating in, and the way it made horror movie rules part of the actual plot in a way no film had done before.

We're asking the big questions too: is Scream the greatest slasher film ever made? Is the opening scene the single greatest horror movie cold open in history? And how does the original compare to the sequels and the recent relaunch?

Whether you're a horror devotee, a Wes Craven fanatic, a slasher movie enthusiast, a 90s pop culture obsessive, a Neve Campbell fan, a meta-horror nerd, or just someone who wants to spend an hour celebrating one of the most perfectly constructed genre films ever made — this episode is unmissable.

Topics covered: Scream 1996 | Wes Craven | Kevin Williamson | Neve Campbell | Drew Barrymore | Courteney Cox | David Arquette | Matthew Lillard | Rose McGowan | Skeet Ulrich | Jamie Kennedy | Ghostface | best horror movies ever made | best slasher films | best horror movie openings | Drew Barrymore opening scene | horror movie rules | meta horror | self-aware horror | 90s horror films | horror film history | slasher film revival | best 90s movies | Woodsboro | Sidney Prescott | Scary Movie original title | Kevin Williamson screenplay | horror movie podcast | film analysis | Scream franchise ranked | Scream vs Halloween | best horror film soundtracks | Ghostface voice | Roger L. Jackson | Wes Craven filmography | best horror villains

Subscribe, rate, and leave us a review — and tell us: is the Drew Barrymore opening the greatest cold open in horror history? And what's YOUR favorite scary movie?

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@RegularorMenthol

Contact us: [email protected]

Hello. I served with your son. This week we're unlocking the front door and letting in The Guest (2014) — Adam Wingard's neon-soaked, synth-drenched, John Carpenter-worshipping action thriller that is simultaneously one of the most purely entertaining genre films of the decade and one of the most quietly devastating post-9/11 meditations on what America does to its soldiers. Also, Dan Stevens is absolutely terrifying and magnetic and you will not be able to take your eyes off him for a single second.

Written by Simon Barrett and directed by Adam Wingard, the film follows David (Dan Stevens), a US soldier who shows up unannounced on the doorstep of the Peterson family — a grieving military household that lost their son Caleb in Afghanistan — claiming to be Caleb's best friend delivering a final message. The family welcomes him in. He is charming, helpful, and devastatingly handsome. And then people start dying. Maika Monroe plays Anna, the teenage daughter who starts putting the pieces together, with Lance Reddick, Leland Orser, and Sheila Kelley rounding out the family, and a Halloween-season small-town New Mexico setting providing the perfect backdrop for everything to spectacularly, violently unravel.

We're going all in on everything: Dan Stevens' jaw-dropping physical and psychological transformation from Downton Abbey heartthrob into something genuinely dangerous and almost supernaturally charming — Wingard said Stevens was "the only serious contender" for the role and that he "spent hours in the gym" to physically become David — Steve Moore's legendary synth score that is one of the greatest genre soundtracks of the 21st century, Wingard and Barrett's loving but sharp homage to the John Carpenter thriller tradition, Maika Monroe's performance that launched one of the best careers in contemporary genre film, and the film's brilliantly escalating third act that ends in a burning Halloween haunted house with everything on fire. Critics compared it to the work of early John Carpenter and James Cameron at their lean, mean indie best.

We're also asking the big questions: is The Guest the most underrated genre film of the 2010s? Is Dan Stevens' David one of the great movie monsters of the decade? And why does a film this good, this stylish, and this entertaining still fly so far under the radar?

Whether you're a genre thriller fanatic, a Dan Stevens devotee, a Maika Monroe fan, a synth score obsessive, a John Carpenter worshipper, an Adam Wingard completist, or just someone who loves a lean, perfectly calibrated thriller that knows exactly what it is and delivers on every single promise — this episode is essential.

Topics covered: The Guest 2014 | Adam Wingard | Dan Stevens | Maika Monroe | Simon Barrett | Lance Reddick | best thriller films 2010s | best synth soundtracks | Steve Moore score | John Carpenter influence | underrated thrillers | best hidden gem films | cult thriller films | Dan Stevens post Downton Abbey | Dan Stevens transformation | military thriller | Halloween themed films | genre filmmaking | You're Next Adam Wingard | best action thrillers | best performances 2010s | Maika Monroe early career | New Mexico films | best cult films | movie review podcast | film analysis | stranger comes to town films | most underrated films of the decade | best movie soundtracks | B-movie elevated | 80s throwback films

Subscribe, rate, and leave us a review — and tell us: would you have let David stay? Be honest. We know the answer.

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Contact us: [email protected]