The Rants Macabre

It's been a rough week. We liked Eric England's CONTRACTED so we jumped at the opportunity to see its sequel. Despite going in with good intentions Contracted: Phase 2 stunk. Then we cover Inner Demons, and Evidence. All pretty bad, so we're working extra hard on our next episode on Horror in Space.

In our last episode Mindy and I covered the history of Hammer Film Productions and their evolution from B-movie studio to champions of cult horror. We followed Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee’s beginning’s in their groundbreaking roles as Victor Frankenstein & his creature, and Van Helsing & Dracula. In part two of the monsters of Hammer two we’ll be rounding out with 1958’s The Revenge of Frankenstein, 1959’s The Mummy, 1960’s The Brides of Dracula, and finally Oliver Reed’s Curse of the Werewolf from 1961.

Intercut will be moments from a conversation with Mindy’s dad, Mark Learnard—who was a guest on our Universal Monsters installment (which was episode 2), and in our Real Life Horror episode spoke about his background as a probation officer dealing with sex offenders and the darker elements of society.

This week we cover the HAMMER wave of horror movies that reinvigorated the classic monsters. The Curse of Frankenstein, and Horror of Dracula breathed new life into a waning studio, and inspired a new generation of filmmakers. In PART 1, we go into some studio history, and dig on Peter Cushing & Christopher Lee as they join Terence Fisher in remaking classics.

This Lunch Hour Reviews episode we investigate Marjane Satrapi's Voices, Wyrmwood, Dark Summer, and Mindy's macabre walking tour of London. Thanks, The Ghost Bus Tours! Mindy fawns over her new obsession: Adam Wingard's The Guest. Also Scott Snyder's collected graphic novel Wytches is brilliant.

Covering the field of Found Footage Horror we tackle the idea of stories lost and found. With a cross section of the sub-genre we go POV with ghosts to bigfoot with The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, Troll Hunter, Willow Creek, and The Sacrament.

We review the terrific Irish Vampire movie From the Dark by Conor McMahon. Find us on twitter.com/rantsmacabre and Facebook (facebook.com/rantsmacabre).

For this return to the master of horror, we're joined by Spooky Sean (@SpookySeanT) from Miskatonic Musings. Mindy and Sean compare notes on their favorite Stephen King stories, with an emphasis on his greatest villains. Check out Sean's writing and podcasting at spookysean.com and miskatonicmusings.com -they're on iTunes and Stitcher!

To celebrate summer, we cover the best of Summer Camp Horror movies! Also, the worst, because they're mostly bad. We stalk through Sleepaway Camp (1&2), Madman, Friday the 13th (1&2), and The Burning. Happy Summer!

In the second part of our Horror Video Games series Pete, Jaxon, Mindy, and Darren talk about Summer Camp, Alien: Isolation, The Last of Us, State of Decay, The Evil Within and the panic-inducing Don't Shit Your Pants.

In this part one of our Video Games Series Mindy and I are joined by Jaxon Dillon-Fish, and Pete Dali, two lifelong gamers and video game obsessives. We compare notes and talk about Maniac Mansion, Bad Mojo, The 7th Guest, Slender Man, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, The Walking Dead Telltale Series, Dead Rising, Dead Island, and DayZ.