Scary Thoughts

2019's Child's Play reboot took some heat from die-hard fans, but it's fairly successful as a Black Mirror episode. It replaces the supernatural with the technological, which allows it to address modern anxieties about connected devices and AI. We talk about Shoshana Zuboff's book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, how children play in the YouTube age, and how the 80s action figure boom might have influenced media.

Predator (1987) is a big movie. The actors are big. The guns are big. The campiness is big. Marc had never seen it; Chad is obsessed with it. And that friends, is a recipe for hilarity. We discuss 80s action tropes, masculinity, hockey violence, and whether or not Arnold Schwarzennegger is the greatest human to have ever lived.

This is the first episode of our newest podcast, Self Help for Nihilists. It's a departure from our focus on horror, but fans of the main show, especially those caught in soul-crushing existential despair, should enjoy it. We discuss the problems associated with a nihilist worldview, some of the philosophers that helped shape it, and make some suggestions about books that have helped us navigate this bleak an uncaring universe. Plus jokes!

In this episode, we finally take a look at Stranger Things 3. With some distance from our 4th of July weekend binging, we've found ourselves a lot more critical of the season. Even though we both enjoyed it on first viewing, we bristle like crusty old haters at our old frenemy: nostalgia. We also discuss the film classic Predator and whether or not young actors will be safe from Hollywood predators in the future.

Drag legend and horror director Peaches Christ (Joshua Grannell) joins us for Poltergeist (1982). We talk about the effectiveness of sweetness in horror, the controversy over who directed the film, the franchise's curse, and what makes this PG flick an iconic horror movie. Peaches also gives us some insight into what it takes to create an over-the-top haunted house.

Jim Jarmusch's meta zom-com, The Dead Don't Die (2019), wasn't exactly loved by genre fans. We discuss what we liked, what we didn't, and why watching Game of Thrones and reading Harry Potter might not be the best way to spend your few remaining years on Earth. This episode is saltier than usual, perhaps caused by the ambient dread created by polar fracking.

Zombieland (2009) is one of the more successful zom-coms. It features a great cast and a lot of fun ideas. It's not the most philosophical of films, but we do manage to get into what it means to live life by a set of rules. And more importantly, what our zombie apocalypse outfits would look like.

In this episode we cover all things Naked Lunch: the 1959 book by William S. Burroughs, the 1991 David Cronenberg film, and all the surrounding mythology. If you're into drugs, writing and weirdness, this is the episode for you. We're joined by self-described sophist, Dr. Daniel Coffeen. He's a former professor of rhetoric at UC Berkeley and teacher of critical theory at the SF Art Institute. He's authored Reading the Way of Things: Towards a New technology of Making Sense (Zero Books).

The 2019 documentary Hail Satan? by director Penny Lane is not a horror movie. It's more of a political comedy. But the work of The Temple of Satan and its nefarious relation, The Church of Satan, are of interest to us, and hopefully to you. We cover the film itself, a bit of the conversation around the split with activist Jex Blackmore, and as always, performance art. If you don't have opportunity to see this doc, you can easily follow the episode by watching a few videos about the Temple of Satan on YouTube.

For fans of supernatural comedies, 1984's Ghostbusters is as big a presence as a giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. It has some of the best comedic acting ever recorded. It also has some interesting things to say about the role of government in paranormal small business development. We get into the libertarian slant of the film, whether or not Dr. Peter Venkman is a predator or a playboy, and we also cover a bit of the controversy surrounding the reboot.