Video Store Nightmares

This week, join us as we discuss the 1977 Mexican nunsploitation classic: Alucarda. This has a cult following now but we remember it being an obscure video in the video store as if it was yesterday! Directed by friend and collaborator of Alejandro Jodorowsky: Juan Moctezuma, who brings a sense of surrealism to the proceedings. On this episode: ambivalent time periods, alternative convent fashion, a perfectly harmless goat man, lots of secrets, blood pacts, Satanic possession, flagellation, lightning storm (with blood rain), and not-so-spontaneous combustions.

This week, strap on your adult diapers and join us as we discuss the 1973 psycho-dramatic horror film: the Baby. It's probably safe to say that there is not any other film quite like the Baby and yet it epitomizes a certain kind of 1970s schlock. This one is under-appreciated and under-discussed. On this episode: the finances of welfare-reliance, idiosyncratic hair styles, the joys of feeding other people's children, the perils of social work, the ethics of breastfeeding, cattle prods, crib-incest, live burials, twist endings, and just one skin freak.

This week, join us as we discuss possibly the weirdest shark movie to come out of Italy (or any country for that matter). This oddity is part adventure movie, part Jaws ripoff, part crime drama and part psychic beings of the Bermuda triangle who hypnotize sharks as their guards...or...something like that. The eclectic score by Stelvio Cipriani (Tentacles) features hauntingly beautiful underwater themes unlike anything we've heard before. On this episode: the ethics of love triangles, post-amnesia dating, gangsters and their theme music, the dangers of model planes, sleeping sharks, ugly dolls, mass suicide, underwater lightning, the perils of curtains, shark dismemberments, ancient civilizations, and lots and lots of shootouts. 

This week, join us as we discuss Claudio Fragasso's 1990 giallo - somehow both derivative and remarkably unique - Nightkiller! Yes, the creator of such masterpieces as Troll 2 and Rats: Night of Terror applied his unique perspective (with help from Bruno Mattei) to the Italian slasher world. On this episode: the theatrical pedigree of aerobics, exposition via newscast, exposition via breast massage, exposition via clinical diagnosis, curing amnesia through trauma, Little Red Riding Hood re-enactment, Freddy Krueger costuming, and an adult man molested in the little boys' room!

This week, join us as we discuss the 1979 Joe D'Amato gore-fest: Beyond the Darkness, also known as Buio Omega and Buried Alive. Is this movie scary? Disgusting? Offensive? Repulsive? Maybe all of the above. On this episode: a musical score by Goblin, Italian voodoo practices, a dead baboon, adult breastfeeding, fingernail ripping, a hitchhiker acid bath, burning alive, twin sisters, a taxidermied fiancee and possibly the greatest gore effects of all time!

This week, join us as we discuss Richard and Danny Elfman's first celluloid adventure. This absurdist musical fantasy has something to offend and delight everyone. On this episode: Cab Calloway and Josephine Baker, blackface vs clownface, paper mache sets (and frogs), human chandeliers, armed teachers, Andy Warhol superstar Viva, the limits of chickens as allies, Danny Elfman as Satan and Susan Tyrell as the Queen of the Sixth Dimension!

This week, join us as we discuss John Waters's 1974 trashterpiece! On this episode: meatball sandwiches, cha-cha heels, social transgressions, queerness vs heteronormativity, teen motherhood and the merits of abortion, crime-as-beauty, liquid eyeliner, noodle-prejudices, and giving new meaning to the phrase "go fuck yourself."

This week, join us as we discuss Paul Bartel's 1972 horror-comedy-romance-"psychosexual" film about the residents of a derelict hotel. On this episode: homosexual priests, aquatic blow-up dolls, blood syringes, vagrant-sex photography and transgenderism vs familial abuse.