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 Cover art for this episode by Crystal Mielcarek!  Find more of her work on Facebook, Instagram, or Smushbox.net

We have a guest from the Hobby Knockout podcast and talk about Evil Dead 2.   This is really the kind of episode that makes doing this so much fun.  

Cheers!

Shonny Constant

1.21.2020

Find Matt talking the tabletop gaming hobby on his podcast Hobby Knockout

Hobby Knockout on Podbean

@HobbyKnockout on Instagram

Podcasts referenced in the episode

Talk Horror 6: Terrifier (2016)

Talk Horror 19: Evil Dead (1981) 

Let us know what you thought of the film, or just join us for any kind of horror chat at one of the links below

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 Cover art for this episode by Crystal Mielcarek!  Find more of her work on Facebook, Instagram, or Smushbox.net

We decided to take a slightly different angle on our first review of the year by looking at a movie that landed on Netflix late in 2019 under both Chzuck's radar and my own.  Usually, we've vetted the film we review ourselves but this time we went in based on the recommendation of our friends over at the Gruesome Magazine Podcast (link below) and were both pleasantly rewarded with a film by a young director and featuring a young lead that have put together a fun film that we both thing deserves to be seen.  We enjoyed it, and we hope you do too! 

Cheers!

Shonny Constant

1.13.2019

Podcasts referenced in the episode

Gruesome Magazine 97 - Review of "Sweetheart" and "Midnight Kiss"

Land Of The Creeps episode 210 - Top 5 Horror Musicals

Talk Horror 35: Friday The 13th Part 2

Talk Horror 18: Cold Skin

Let us know what you thought of the film, or just join us for any kind of horror chat at one of the links below

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@Shonny.Constant

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 Cover art for this episode by Crystal Mielcarek!  Find more of her work on Facebook, Instagram, or Smushbox.net

While there are those who will debate when an official decade or era begins or ends, we here can confidently say that ten Earth years have indeed passed since the beginning of time, and so it will be those last ten years we talk about here.  It's a fun way to look at the genre from outside the boundaries we've set up for our week to week discussions, as well as to tweak those boundaries for the year going forward.  2020 is shaping up to be an exciting year, both in terms of the quantity and suspected quality of releases, as the landscape for entertainment has expanded to such a degree that even we lowly (as the mainstream has traditionally seen us) horror fans have such a harvest to look forward to that we'll need to keep our scythe's sharp and ready at all times.  

There was a time, believe it or not, when our hopes were simply that when October rolled around, we may get one or two new additions to our collections, with some years passing with little fanfare, but that is no longer the case.  The last ten years have seen a steady rise in the popularity of Horror as a genre both from a perspective of major theater releases down through direct to streaming releases and good old fashioned grass roots DIY creations, and the slate for 2020 shows no signs of that trend slowing.   Are you ready?  We're ready!

Cheers!

Shonny Constant

1.6.2020

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 Cover art for this episode by Crystal Mielcarek!  Find more of her work on Facebook, Instagram, or Smushbox.net

Thanks for listening to the show.   Happy Holidays and may 2020 be your year friends!  

Cheers!

Shonny Constant

12/25/2019

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 Cover art for this episode by Crystal Mielcarek!  Find more of her work on Facebook, Instagram, or Smushbox.net

So for a little bit of mortuary talk, I should explain that between recording and releasing an episode, I put in a few hours fine tuning things.  ChZuck and I have been working together on these podcasts for a few years now, and over that time, we've experimented with various approaches to both recording and release, but at present I'm approaching the style of post work I'm doing as best practice.  It's led to more satisfying releases on our end, and hopefully a better listen on yours. 

I say all that as preamble to the statement that I really enjoyed listening to this one during edit.  My impression is that we've gotten pretty good at researching and disseminating good material to go with each episode, which has been a priority, and it's finally starting to get filtered through us in a looser, more natural way, which of course has more charm.  To be honest, I came damn near adding a few very sparse sound effects in post to punctuate certain things that we refer to with some frequency episode to episode, but ultimately held off.  Maybe next week.

We both dug this movie, and as mentioned, had a relatively spirited conversation about it.  Friday the 13th is obviously one of the premiere franchises in our horror world, so not much needs to be said here.  Thanks always as listening, and track us down on social media if you haven't yet and let us know you popped by.  The real fun is in the celebration.  

Cheers!

Shonny Constant

12/13/2019

Previous episodes referenced in the show

12: Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)

15: The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)

21: Friday The 13th (1980)

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 Cover art for this episode by Crystal Mielcarek!  Find more of her work on Facebook, Instagram, or Smushbox.net

There can be little opposition to the facts that George Romero's follow up to Night of the Living Dead was an anxiously awaited film by 1978, and that in the years following it would become a legendary film, not only in that it expanded on the idea of a world infested with the shuffling dead, a world we see visited with frequency in modern media, but also in that the luscious and seemingly endless shots of practical effects from Tom Savini did for horror what Star Wars did for Sci-Fi in defining the art for the next decade and change.  Throughout the VHS days that represent to the end of the analog era, as I discuss from time to time, Dawn of the Dead represented a high bar that few films were able to reach in terms of shocking and impressive practical magic that truly felt like it was REAL in the context of the film that viewers were visiting.  For that, it's a classic that's embedded in the history of genre cinema in inextricable ways that should not be overlooked by the casual viewer.

That said, in 2019 the long run time and quirky, uneven tone can feel quaint or off-putting, drawing comparisons to the now fifteen year old remake of the film that was successful in replacing the Hitchcockian suspense in the fabric of the orignal with pulse pounding thrills that keeps viewers on the edge of their seats for fear that some growling corpse may charge into the room, while also hitting the emotional marks and comedic beats in an arguable more successful way.

Love it or not, the movie is one worthy of consideration, and we hope we were able to do it some justice here.  I had fun talking about it, and hopefully in some tiny way, we're able to help to contribute to it's legacy in horror history going forward for just a little longer.  

Cheers!

Shonny Constant

12/9/2019

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 Cover art for this episode by Crystal Mielcarek!  Find more of her work on Facebook, Instagram, or Smushbox.net

Similar to The Town That Dreaded Sundown from 1976, Motel Hell (1980) is a movie that tries to include such an odd mix of comedy and horror with a sleazoid lowbrow spin in a way that falls short so bafflingly in enough major ways that the resulting film makes for a peculiar stew that a few seem to love while some find difficulty in swallowing it.

This week's conversation attempts to unpack some of that, examining what's working and what isn't in Motel Hell, while I try to work out a decent operational dialog for films of this nature.  We're split on this one, and I trust our audience will be as well, but I'll be damned if we don't try our hardest to state a case for looking at the movie in a specific way for potential best results. 

Is Motel Hell one you've seen before?  We'd love to hear your thoughts on the movie, and your thoughts on lowbrow horror and satire in general.  I have it on good authority this isn't the last time we'll be sinking our teeth into the flank of weird and potentially groanworthy cinema, because I'm the one who picks the offerings and well...meat's meat, a man's gotta eat!

Cheers!

Shonny Constant

12/2/2019

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 Cover art for this episode by Crystal Mielcarek!  Find more of her work on Facebook, Instagram, or Smushbox.net

In 1990, when the book American Psycho by author Bret Eastin Ellis was struggling to find a release against waves of protest from several socio-political blocs in the United States, I was just entering high school, and while I'd love to say I was on the front line of some political movement, I was not.  By the films release in 2000, the immediacy of communication via the emerging internet had somewhat blunted the ability of a work of fiction to garner the same type of pushback, but that didn't mean that society had completely forgotten their collective rejection of the material, making this one of the last films (along with Rob Zombie's first pair of films) that I recall having the sort of resistance that was common in terms of releasing movies in the 20th century, with it's unique set of valves and gatekeepers that had traditionally worked to maintain some control over what people were exposed to or allowed to think.  

Now, nearly 20 years from the release of the film, and having seen American Psycho receive new life in the form of a meme culture movement as well as a musical stage production, it seems that American Psycho may have indeed been rightfully analyzed closely for it's socio-political resonance, even if the initial decisions to attempt to squelch it entirely have fallen by the wayside of history.  Indeed, one might suggest that the resistance itself amplified it's signal to a degree that it's become a cultural touchstone when simply ignoring it may have led it down the path of most art, to be forgotten in time but that's a different speculation entirely.

Cheers!

Shonny Constant

11/23/2019

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 Cover art for this episode by Crystal Mielcarek!  Find more of her work on Facebook, Instagram, or Smushbox.net

Mandy is a film that I knew from my first viewing was a movie I liked.  I thought I liked it a lot, but I wasn't quite sure.  Eventually, after some time had passed and the palate could be cleansed, I watched it again and found myself entranced by it.  This was not an experience of liking a movie a lot, but rather loving it, seeing it as a masterpiece.  Still though, we didn't choose to cover it because it's such a damn challenging film.  It challenges you patience, it challenges your sense of film logic, it challenges your very senses, but to me, and Chzuck as it turns out, the experience with the film is similar for an appreciative viewer as it is for Mandy's protagonist Red, it's a series of challenges that are necessary in order to truly hone us all for the inevitable aftermath of the journey.

At it's heart, Mandy is a fairy tale, a classic heroes arc with recognizable story beats intrinsic to classic tales of Western valor, for whatever that means, but it's got a rhythm unique to the writer/director Panos Cosmotos, and a rhythm unique to someone like Nicolas Cage.  Make NO mistake, if you think you want to see a drug fueled Nic wielding a home made battle axe and lighting cigarettes off the flaming corpses of his fallen demonic foes, this film unquestionably represents Peak Cage, but in a way that is both so beautifully elegant as well as downright seedy as to make it a film that should live on for as long as the medium itself does.

Buy the ticket and take the ride, maaan.  And remember...Everything's better with cheddar!

Cheers!

Shonny Constant

11/15/2019

Check out the trailer for this episode's feature Mandy

As mentioned in the episode, here's the link for the Cheddar Goblin commercial

Feel free to hit us up on one of the links below to let us know what you think of Mandy, Talk Horror, or just to share your list of the greatest chainsaw moments in genre history!

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 Cover art for this episode by Crystal Mielcarek!  Find more of her work on Facebook, Instagram, or Smushbox.net