Holly waits for the Blood Moon to bring the return of the "Dark Stranger" from the ocean's depths with Messiah of Evil (1973), in which a woman goes searching for her missing artist father in a seemingly abandoned seaside town where residents await the fulfilment of a centuries old curse. Listen as we revisit the first film from the Howard the Duck…

Sean creates ripples through time and fractures his mind with the time-travel mind-bender The Butterfly Effect (2004), in which childhood friends experience a catalog of traumas that one of them tries to fix as an adult when he discovers his power to warp time by uncovering repressed memories. Listen as we rate the Misery Index as "High" on this on…

Colin gets caught in the middle of warring factions of angels battling it out on Earth in The Prophecy (1995), with Christopher Walken having the time of his life as the archangel Gabriel, searching for "the darkest soul" to lead his army against heaven. Listen as we wonder what an angel smells like, suck souls out of corpses, experience apocalypti…

Michaela downloads the latest in high tech CD-ROM interactive horror, Brainscan (1994), in which Edward Furlong gets immersed into a virtual murder simulator emceed by a big-hair Freddy Krueger wannabe named The Trickster. Listen as we discover our mail demon's secret Hollywood history, normalize mutual window peeping flirtations, and realize (with…

Holly stares into the sun at close range and gets space madness in Sunshine (2007), Danny Boyle and Alex Garland's follow up to 28 Days Later and The Beach, which fires a crew of scientists toward the dying sun in hopes of rekindling it with a nuclear device. Listen as we find dozens of new space travel related anxieties, reduce humans to dust, wor…

Sean's head explodes fighting the good fight against the evil telepaths of Scanners (1981), David Cronenberg's first real hit about a mind reader sent on a covert mission to infiltrate a group of other ESPers and kill their leader. Listen as we link our nervous systems, polish our holes, eat Hot Pogo Dogs, apologize for our "O" faces, and more on t…

Colin studies up on the occult to do battle with the Goat of Mendes in The Devil Rides Out (1968), in which Christopher Lee and friends discover Satanism is being practiced by a wealthy cabal of astronomy geeks and their best pal is in danger of losing his soul! Listen as we attend summonings, conjurings, woodland revels, step into protective circl…

Michaela warns that if you create a sexy feminine creature in your lab you should not have sex with it with Splice (2009), a movie that stars Adrian Brody and Sarah Polley as scientists in Cronenbergland who do exactly that. Listen as we talk about tongue flowers, sex in the proximity of children, mommy issues, and science run amok on this week's e…

Holly chucks grenades and ten-thousand bullets at Reb Brown but nothing can touch him cuz he's a Strike Commando (1987), a Rambo clone from the Italian Ed Wood, Bruno Mattei. Former TV Captain America Brown sets out to avenge his teammates on the corrupt general who abandoned them. Listen as we talk childhood electrocution, violent innocence, and t…

Sean gets his heart broken with a pickaxe with My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009). Ten years after an initial killing spree, a demented miner returns to pick up where he left off. The bloodbath coincides with the return of the town pariah (Supernatural's Jensen Ackles), who's come back to sell the mine and rekindle a romance with his former sweetheart, …

Colin's got to get to the Witches Sabbath in City of the Dead (aka Horror Hotel, 1960), in which an intrepid college student goes to a spooky coastal village where a witch was burned in the 17th Century, and discovers witchcraft may still be afoot in the 20th. Listen as we discuss 60s shapewear, accidental summonings, and possessed digital devices …

And the most requested movie of Listener Choice month is: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), in which an alien lifeform threatens to replace humanity by birthing clones from giant seed pods. Listen as we discuss wearing "backhand gloves", how to ruin a hypnotist's charades, and wonder 'if you kill a pod person can they grow another one?', on th…

You voted for it, so we watched Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991), a Hong Kong adaptation of a Japanese Manga that might be one of the goriest movies ever made. A super-strong man is sent to a maximum security prison and discovers its a cover for a heroin operation, and punches, kicks, pulverizes and dismembers a couple of dozen bad guys. Listen a…

We're back live and in person as Listener Choice month continues with Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006), a mockumentary that provides self-analysis of the slasher film. In a world where Jason, Freddy, and Michael exist, a camera crew follows an up and coming serial killer as he chooses his 'survivor girl' and prepares for a homecomi…

The listeners have spoken! The first of four listener choices we're watching this month is Witchery (1988), also known as La Casa 4 in Italy, a team up of David Hasselhoff and Linda Blair as visitors to a Massachusetts island resort that's haunted by a witch and a centuries old curse. Listen as we take jets of blood to the face, witness selfless de…

It's that time of year again where we venture out of the dank, dark basement for our annual love and hate fest as we rank the Best and Worst Movies of 2023. We say "movies", but pleas for decency fell on Sean's deaf ears and he went and picked a Netflix stand up comedy special. The rest of us stuck to the mission at hand and each deliver our favori…

Michaela tries to survive 30 Days of Night (2007) in an Alaskan town where the sun doesn't rise for a month and vampires show up. Josh Hartnett is the small town sheriff trying to keep people alive in an attic without food, or pee or poop buckets, while vampires send their Renfield to collect all the cell phones and cut the power. Listen as we take…

Holly spends Christmas in the Netherlands to find out the horrifying origins of St. Nicholas with Saint (aka Sint aka Saint Nick, 2010), as Dutch madman Dick Maas envisions Father Christmas as a murderous zombie who visits Amsterdam every 32 years as part of an evil curse. Listen as we uncover the legend of Black Peter, strange college mating ritua…

Sean finds out the hard way that bringing a loved one back from the dead via Frankensteinian science can create a Deadly Friend (1986). A genius highschooler does just that after his pretty neighbor is killed by an abusive parent, creating a rampaging killing machine. Listen as we smash heads with basketballs, wake up screaming from Wes Craven nigh…

Colin tries to piece together clues that will identify The Prowler (1981), a film that delivers rivers of blood courtesy of makeup wizard Tom Savini. College students are stalked by a killer after reinstituting a graduation dance that had ceased after a WWII-era murder. Listen as we revel in graphic impalements, slicings, piercings, and maimings an…

Michaela hunts the Devil in a futuristic flooded London alongside Rutger Hauer in Split Second (1992), although, in a twist, the Devil pretty much looks like Venom (or the Alien). A tough, over the edge cop is partnered with a buttoned up dweeb to follow clues that suggest an occult serial killer is at large in a dystopian futureworld. Listen as we…

Holly trades guns for swords to settle her scores the old fashioned way in Bunraku (2010), a virtual world-set mashup of Kung Fu and Spaghetti Western genres, sending two warriors, a cowboy drifter and a samurai, into battle against a despotic warlord and his army disposable henchmen. Listen as we witness fights on trapezes, trampolines, four-level…

Sean tries to evade a horny demon in It Follows (2014), the horror flick whose villain is an ambulatory STD. Maika Monroe figures this out quick after becoming targeted by an shapeshifting, lumbering menace while her friends coalesce to brainstorm a way to break the curse. Listen as we brainstorm our own safety radius, attempt to discern how the en…

Colin revisits the childhood terrors of Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981), in which mob justice claims the life of an innocent, mentally challenged man and then the killers die one by one, seemingly pursued by a supernatural scarecrow. Listen as we talk about 1970s TV horror movies, killer scarecrow movies, authoritarian postmen, kindertrauma, and…

Michaela looks for Halloween vibes (and blood wings) in Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings (1994), the direct-to-video sequel that finds the Demon of Vengeance summoned to life by thrill-seeking teens and seeking revenge for the killing of a feral boy in the 1950's. We don't see how those two things connect either. Listen as we witness elder abuse, feral …

Holly finds herself beset by monsters and demons after visiting the Mausoleum (1983). Playboy Bunny Bobbi Breese falls victim to a family curse and gets possessed by a succubus that intends to kill all the menfolk in town; her stalwart hubby (former child evangelist Marjoe Gortner) tries to save her soul. Listen heads explode, chests rip open, gard…

Sean finds himself as the anointed one of a cabal of Satanists with Hack-O-Lantern (1988), in which a devil-worshipping uncle tries to arrange a ceremony to reveal his nephew's unholy power. Meanwhile, a devil-masked slasher makes mincemeat of the supporting cast. Listen as we pay tribute to Freak Show fav Gregory Scott Cummins while surviving pira…

Colin demands fried chicken and gasoline from Rob Zombie's debut feature of extreme kaleidoscopic horror, House of 1000 Corpses (2003). Four travelers, documenting weird roadside attractions, fall prey a family of killer weirdoes including Captain Spaulding, Baby, and Otis. Listen as we explore the entire cinematic ouevre of the hellbilly rocker, t…

Michaela interfaces with David Cronenberg's eXistenZ (1999) in the most awkward way the human body possibly can, to examine the director's take on video games, warped reality, and religious fanaticism as a video game designer is hunted through virtual reality by assassins determined to destroy her and her latest creation. Listen as we jack into our…

Holly watches The Watcher (2000), about a charming serial killer, played by Keanu Reeves, who tries to convince that the cop chasing him (James Spader) that they were made for each other by giving him something to do. Listen as we learn the fine art of forging signatures, jam out to Rob Zombie, and realize the smartphone is the Great Equalizer on t…

Sean goes hunting for the Bigfoot that fell from the sky 100 years ago in Demonwarp (1988), an all-over-the-map schlockfest that features George Kennedy and 80s scream queen Michelle Bauer, zombies, aliens, satanic rituals, neck snapping, pole skewering, head-ripping, and boobs. Listen as we reveal bear trap anxieties, man-in-the-wall anxieties, an…

Colin vows to protect the family jewels from Killer Fish (1979), an Italian-made combo of the disaster and "when animals attack" genres of the 70s that finds a crew of diamond thieves trying to recover their stolen goods from a piranha-filled lake at a Brazilian resort. Listen as we find Jon Voight's inspiration for his Anaconda performance, find o…

Michaela witnesses some Disturbing Behavior (1998) among high school teens and employs some Stepford Wives-level remedies! New kids move to a new school and notice something off with the in-crowd: aside from them being snobby boors, they may also be hormonal homicidal maniacs! Listen as we relive our high school nightmares, decipher bizarre made-up…

Holly draws up the anchor and sets sail with Dead Calm (1989), a Hitchcockian suspense thriller from Australia which sees a ride-or-die couple's self-therapy cruise interrupted by a psychotic interloper. Things don't go as expected in this tale of high seas mayhem. Listen as we go on a Lars Von Trier tangent, hear about Sean's swamp witch grandma, …

Sean powers up his special attack skill to take on Street Fighter (1994), a live-action adaptation of the Capcom video game that pits the freedom fighters of the Allied Nations, headed by the Saturday Night Freak Show Wall of Fame reigning champion Jean Claude Van Damme, against the evil General Bison (Raoul Julia in his final screen role). Listen …

Colin learns that when vampires rule the earth, even the dead will scream in Leif Jonker's Darkness (1993), a micro-budget splatter flick filmed in the wilds of Kansas. A lone survivor of a vampire attack makes it his mission to hunt down the big bad who killed his family; meanwhile, a van full of kids returns from a rock concert to find the world …

Michaela finds that guilt gives her a case of Insomnia (2002), a thriller about a police detective (Al Pacino) assigned to catch a killer in a remote Alaskan town where the sun never sets, and finds himself involved in a cat and mouse relationship with the suspect (Robin Williams) after he's caught in a morally compromised position. Listen as we ha…

Sean undergoes an unauthorized surgical procedure to receive an Upgrade (2018) that give an experimental artificial intelligence control over his body and turns him into a karate chopping badass! Saw and Insidious writer Leigh Wannell graduates to directing with this sci-fi hybrid of RoboCop and The Crow as Logan Marshall-Green hunts down the stree…

As the last free soul on the planet Earth, Colin puts pedal to the metal and hits the Vanishing Point (1971), a movie that follows the exploits of an enigmatic driver named Kowalski and his 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T on a multi-state police chase while a psychic DJ named Super Soul guides him from afar. Listen as we eulogize the Challenger in its fi…

Michaela heads to the Bahamas for a slaycation getaway with I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998). One year after her friends were killed by a hook-wielding fisherman, college freshman Julie James and her friends head out on an island adventure only to find the nightmare never ends! Listen as we talk about the convoluted mechanics of revenge…

Holly discovers that not all aliens come from space in DeepStar Six (1989), one of several competing terror-from-the-deep flicks that hit multiplexes the same year. This one's directed by Friday the 13th's Sean S. Cunningham and finds Navy researchers on the ocean floor terrorized by a giant crustacean. Listen as we dive into deepsea truckers, cold…

Just when Sean thought it was safe to go back in the water, Jaws 2 (1978) swam up and took a bite! The original blockbuster gets a sequel that pits Amity Police Chief Brody against obstinate bureaucrats, hormonal teens, and another great white shark that stalks and attacks its victims with all the shock and awe of a backwoods slasher. Listen as we …

Colin thinks like a sociopathic serial killer in order to catch one in Manhunter (1986), the very 80s adaptation of Thomas Harris' "Red Dragon," pitting empathetic FBI agent Will Graham against The Tooth Fairy, a psycho who kills entire families in pursuit of twisted wish fulfilment. Listen as we compare and contrast Michael Mann's vision against m…

Michaela wants to discover the secret of the ooze that makes dreams come true on Fantasy Island (2020), Blumhouse's horror-ish remake of the beloved TV show, that finds several vacationers running from living manifestations of their past sins on a magical tropical island. Listen as we exclaim "The plane! The plane!" as guests of the mysterious Mr. …

Holly opens up a can of whoop ass by bringing Steven Seagal to the Freak Show with Hard to Kill (1990), in which the human shaped automaton plays a cop who awakens from a 7 year coma and embarks on a rip roaring rampage of revenge, slapping all the guys who murdered his wife, really hard. Listen as watch the mysterious action hero bend elbows backw…

Sean leads us into the haunted woods of Burkitsville, Maryland with Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000), a meta-sequel to The Blair Witch Project that seems to suggest madness and murder are the outcomes of obsessive horror movie fandom. But that won't stop your intrepid quartet of Freak Show podcasters from plowing ahead onto haunted boat tours,…

Colin wants to discover The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971), along with a lot of other men — one of whom might be a black gloved razor wielding maniac! Giallo queen Edwige Fenech is the titular socialite, whose extramarital proclivities place her life in jeopardy. Listen as we studiously avoid becoming targets of vengeful screenwriters, enjoy wis…

Michaela takes the weed whacker along on her nightmare vacation atop The Ruins (2008), which deposits tourists upon an ancient Mayan temple that holds a deadly secret. Listen as we talk about risky vacation behavior, hot rock leg amputation, creeping vines and internal organs, flesh invasion, carnivorous vegetation, and more on this week's exciting…

Holly plays The Most Dangerous Game and finds Jean-Claude Van Damme very hard to kill in Hard Target (1993), the first American movie by Hong Kong action pioneer John Woo. When a merchant seaman with some very special skills helps a young woman track down her missing father in New Orleans, they become the targets of human safari. Listen as we marve…

Sean says time is on his side, and that's why we spent 2 hours and 4 minutes watching Denzel Washington pursue a body-hopping demon in Fallen (1998). Bizarro murders committed after a serial killer is put to death puzzle Philadelphia police, and one dogged detective finds himself the target of the Satanic trickster. Listen as we talk demon entrapme…