Reserved Recommendations

Prompted by last episode, in concert with a conversation about Normality the RPG, and a viewing of Cargo (2017), I talk about an idea cooking in the back of my head about the ways that people who say and do horrible things act like victims.

Produced by Manawatū People's Radio with the support of New Zealand On Air.

In a rare "reversed recommendations" situation, I recommend something for someone else to watch! I talk to Ross Palethorpe (@rossthesedays) about Denis Villenueve's 2013 film "Enemy" - a strange, hostile, deeply yellow movie which I first encountered as an online movie reviewer back when it was relatively new. We really get into it on this one (once Ross gets past cursing me for making him watch "a work movie") because there's a LOT here. Two equally haunted and awful Jake Gyllenhaals encounter one another in a dreadful, poisonous, spider-haunted Toronto, and nothing is exactly what it seems.

CW on this one for discussions of misogyny and general masculine awfulness.

Produced by Manawatū People's Radio with the support of New Zealand On Air.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is a very weird show indeed - a fact that is literally baked into its DNA as an adaptation of a Japanese costumed hero series which (as we'll hear) does not have a consistent plot or cast from series to series. It also has an odd relationship with New Zealand, as it was banned here very early on, and remained banned well into the period where it was actually being made here. To discuss all this and more, I'm joined by artist and author Bijhan Agha - our first ever guest based somewhere other than the broader Anglosphere (she's in Uruguay)!

Find Bijhan at @bijhan.bsky.social, and her art, books, and comics at jamsheedstudios.com.

Produced by Manawatū People's Radio with the support of New Zealand On Air.

This episode I chat to Dr Lewis Tennant (lately the host of Verbal Highs, and also the brains behind the annual NZ Podcasting Summit) about an era of reggae music from the 1990s, exemplified by artists like Sizzla and Capleton. We go deep on the history of the music, its underlying philosophy, and the factors that give this specific era its unique sound.

Produced by Manawatū People's Radio with the support of New Zealand On Air.

"Phenomena" (1985) is a movie that is hard to describe without sounding insane. Jennifer Connelly (aged 14, one year out from breaking through in "Labyrinth") stars as a high school girl with the mysterious ability to commune with insects. When she is sent to an exclusive Swiss boarding school for girls, she becomes embroiled in a series of gruesome murders of students which she must investigate with the aid of an eccentric entomologist played by Donald Pleasance and his assistance chimpanzee. The chimpanzee is significantly more important than you'd expect.

The movie was directed by incredibly prolific Italian director Dario Argento (best known for hallucinatory fever dream giallo like "Suspiria" and "Deep Red") and is significantly more chaotic than his usual style.

Morgan Davie, last heard discussing "Under The Skin" way back in Episode #7, joins the show to talk through this very strange, kind of fascinating movie.

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Nightbreed (1990) is an absolutely fascinating movie. It's Clive Barker flexing his muscles after the massive success of Hellraiser (1988) and really letting loose with an elaborate dark fantasy full of implications about complex mythology and cosmology, a gorgeously-stylised world, and many MANY weird little guys. It's also an incredibly ambitious movie that never quite manages to realise its ambitions, and a tortured project that was compromised and undercut by executive meddling. There's a lot in here that shares DNA with other dark/Gothic fantasy/horror projects of the 90s like The Crow, or the more adult works of Tim Burton - so why are those things cult hits, and this is a cult failure? Shaun Duke of The Skiffy and Fanty Show (https://skiffyandfanty.com) joins the pod to discuss this strange and powerful film!

Produced by Manawatū People's Radio with the support of New Zealand On Air.

What happens when Dan Aykroyd at the absolute peak of his popularity as both a comic powerhouse and a dramatic actor gets a vast budget, and more or less total creative control to make a movie? He makes "Nothing But Trouble" - an ambitious, star-studded, and (to be charitable) tonally-confused horror comedy which flopped at the box office and is more or less universally panned to this day. A pair of yuppies played by Chevy Chase and Demi Moore fall foul of a deranged 106 year old judge (played by Aykroyd himself under some impressively vile prosthetics and makeup) and hi-jinks ensue. Returning guest Bitter Karella is one of this movie's few defenders, and joins the show to talk us through what the hell is going on here.

Find most things Bitter Karella at www.midnightpals.com, and her new book "Moonflow" at www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/bitter-karella/moonflow/9780316581936 (or wherever you get books on the internet!)

Produced by Manawatū People's Radio with the support of New Zealand On Air.

David Cronenberg's 1986 movie "The Fly" is among his best-regarded, and is an absolute classic in the canon of gnarly, gloopy, practical-effects mostly-80s body horror movies. It's also an oddly poetic tragedy about watching someone you love succumb to something awful and inevitable, and a character study that follows a sympathetic oddball's transformation into an absolute monstrosity. Erin MClean, local Palmerston North actor, director, and general creative-person-about-town joins the show to discuss all of this and we have a lot of fun getting deeply in the weeds.

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Scottish author Iain Banks is probably best known (under the name Iain M. Banks) for his iconic Culture novels, which had a titanic impact on far-future "space-operatic" science fiction. His debut novel, 1984's "The Wasp Factory" is significantly less well-known. It is an INCREDIBLY divisive book which, love it or hate it (early editions published four full pages of both rabidly positive *and* negative reviews), will leave a massive impact on any reader. Ross Palethorpe rejoins the podcast to talk about this Gothic nightmare fairytale of a book.

CW for (not especially detailed) discussion of murder, animal abuse, child abuse and neglect.

Produced by Manawatū People's Radio with the support of New Zealand On Air.

I ruminate on useful ways to think about one's enemies' motives, prompted by considering the obscure horror movie "Jugface" (2013) in contrast with other depictions of fictional "death cults".

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