D.T. Robbins from Rejection Letters joins Mallory in an attempt to convince Dmitry that Scream is a good movie. There's not much more to be said. They discuss their favorite scary movies, what is the actual definition of a horror film, and many weird things after that but Scream is the focus. They go off topic only to discuss California, YouTube, Mallory's fear of clowns, and Dmitry's lost Henry Portrait Of A Serial Killer T-Shirt.

For those who somehow don't know what Scream is about:

A year after her mother's death, Sidney Prescott and her friends started experiencing some strange phone calls. They later learned the calls were coming from a crazed serial killer, in a Ghostface mask and a large black robe, looking for revenge. His phone calls usually consist of many questions, the main one being: What's your favorite scary movie? The film turns into a bloodbath where the masked killer haunts the town and stalks Sidney Prescott. Her boyfriend Billy Loomis becomes the main suspect along with Sidney's father. Local Tabloid News Reporter Gail Weathers and Woodsbroro's Deputy Dwight "Dewey" Riley investigate and try to figure out who the killer is and if it's the same person who killed Sid's mom the year before. 

In today’s episode, Dmitry and Mallory discuss Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is about a serial killer named Henry who is released from prison following his mother's murder. He supplements his job as an exterminator with a series of indiscriminate and violent murders. Fellow jailbird and drug dealer Otis becomes a willing accomplice in Henry's bloody killings. But as the depravity escalates and Henry forms a bond with Otis' sister, Becky, things start to get out of hand. The film is based on the true-life story of serial killer Henry Lee Lucas.

It stars Michael Rooker and was directed by John McNaughton.

The score from the movie was composed by Robert McNaughton (no relation to John): https://open.spotify.com/album/4EegoXBetCgpAz8z1szQWQ?si=c2XzAQacR-647PQVDIYWKQ

Dmitry wrote an article for Chicago Reader about John McNaughton a few years ago: https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/roselands-transformation-captured-in-1970-student-film/

In this episode, Dmitry and Mallory discuss the movie Run. It takes them almost 30 minutes to get around to actually talking about the film and the episode ends as awkwardly as the film does. 

Run is a 2020 American psychological thriller film starring Sarah Paulson as a twisted mother with dark secrets. It's a Hulu original that gives off similar vibes that other streaming service films do which springs them into a conversation on how social media plays a major effect in hyping these movies. Mallory finds that Sarah Paulson made it worth watching and Dmitry watched it because Mallory asked him to. In the film, Sarah Paulson's character is a mother who has totally controlled her daughter since birth, but now as a teenager, her daughter starts to explore her mother's secrets. There's not much more to it. 

In this episode, Dmitry and Mallory discuss the french horror movie, Raw.

Raw is about a strict vegetarian Justine who encounters a decadent, merciless, and dangerously seductive world during her first week at veterinary school. Desperate to fit in, she strays from her principles and eats raw meat for the first time. The young woman soon experiences terrible and unexpected consequences as her true self begins to emerge.

The movie gets bloody. It gets disgusting. It gets Raw.

In this episode, Dmitry and Mallory get into their usual tangents and eventually The Thing and then back to their usual tangents. They discuss this 80's cult classic while also discussing book covers, blurbs, new horror films, and Chicago in general.

The Thing

The Thing is a 1982 John Carpenter cult classic. In it we follow a group of American research scientists in Antarctica that are disturbed at their base camp by a helicopter shooting at a sled dog. When they take in the dog, it brutally attacks both human beings and canines in the camp and they discover that the beast can assume the shape of its victims. A resourceful helicopter pilot and the camp doctor lead the camp crew in a desperate, gory battle against the vicious creature before it picks them all off, one by one.

In this episode, Dmitry and Mallory discuss the classic movie, the Thing. Of course, they go off on several tangents but always come back to the plot of the movie.

The Thing:

In remote Antarctica, a group of American research scientists are disturbed at their base camp by a helicopter shooting at a sled dog. When they take in the dog, it brutally attacks both human beings and canines in the camp and they discover that the beast can assume the shape of its victims. A resourceful helicopter pilot and the camp doctor lead the camp crew in a desperate, gory battle against the vicious creature before it picks them all off, one by one.

In this episode, Dmitry and I discuss the 1992 version of Candyman with the new 2021 version. We get into gentrification, white savior films, and what really drives urban legends. As per usual, we also go into a weird amount of tangents but somehow manage to stay most focused on the films.

As Chicagoans, these movies meant a lot more to us. Both films are centered around the housing project, Cabrini-Green. the 1992 film is centered around a white female grad student, named Helen, writing a thesis on urban legends. She stumbles upon the story of Candyman and things go literally off the hook from there. She visits the projects and begins to understand the racially charged story behind Candyman. In this process, she slowly summons him herself and finds out the real terror a white person can bring down on a black community in crisis. Gaslit and possessed, she eventually gives into Candyman but not without rescuing a baby from him. A baby that everyone believed that she stole and intended to kill.

Flash forward to the 2021 film. This slasher film is less about the wild kills and more of a commentary on the dangers of gentrification. We see that the projects have been demolished and cheap condos have taken their place. Artists and yuppies have taken over the neighborhood and the legend of Candyman has been replaced with the legend of Helen and the baby she stole. The story is easily accessed on the internet and all accounts lead to the conclusion that a white woman lost her mind while visiting the projects and went on a killing spree. An artist named Anthony McCoy hears of this story and believes that it's the perfect subject for his next art project. While doing research, he visits the row homes that still stand and gathers any information that could be useful for his art project. It's only then that he learns how central to the Candyman legend he is...

Let The Right One In is a 2008 Swedish horror movie about a bullied 12-year-old boy who develops a friendship with a strange child who just moved into his building. Initially reserved with each other, they slowly form a close bond, but it soon becomes apparent that she is no ordinary young girl. Eventually, she shares her dark, macabre secret with him, revealing her connection to a string of bloody local murders.

In this episode, Dmitry and Mallory discuss the 1987 horror film, The Hidden. Described as "science-fiction horror," The Hidden follows an FBI agent and a homicide detective as they try to hunt the current human host of an orally exchanged alien life-form. They get into the campiness of the film, Kyle MacLachlan, and a lot of tangents that have nothing to do with horror completely. It's fun. It's unexpected. It's just as weird as the movie. 

In this episode, Dmitry and Mallory discuss the 2014 supernatural horror film, It Follows. They discuss the themes within the film, directors, youth, and morality. They also talk about a lot of unrelated things. But the movie is what they really stick to

It Follows is about a teenage girl named, Jay, who goes on a date with a guy she hardly knows. They have sex, after which he informs her that there is a shape-shifting entity that started following him after he had a one-night stand. Now that they had sex it will follow her. She doesn't believe it first until she begins to see beings slowly following her. Sometimes they're strangers and other times they're people she knows. Jay tells her friends and they soon witness the malevolent intentions of the sinister being as they team up to do everything they can think of to stop it.