“The Infected” from Danny Boyle’s post-apocalyptic horror film 28 Days Later aren’t technically zombies, but the movie is definitely operating within the confines of that sub-genre. In fact, its popularity helped lead to such a strong resurgence of interest in zombie-related media that we’re still seeing the effects of it two decades later. Topics include: tracing the film’s origins back to a screenwriter that was playing too many video games, remembering a point in time where zombies weren’t as...
Sep 08, 2021•2 hr 46 min•Transcript available on Metacast Basic Instinct was a box office hit in the spring of 1992, but its success was matched by the level of controversy it generated. At the center of it all was a star-making performance by Sharon Stone, who gave us one of cinema’s most iconic femme fatales and one of the most famous scenes in movie history. On this episode, we’re opening up a case file on Catherine Tramell and investigating the heyday of the erotic thriller. Topics include: why Michael Douglas originally wanted them to cast someone...
Aug 25, 2021•2 hr 41 min•Transcript available on Metacast Steven Spielberg's 1975 adaptation of Jaws is arguably one of the greatest films ever made. That feat is even more impressive when you take into consideration the multitude of problems this production was plagued with. On this episode, we're investigating the legendary story of an up-and-coming director who began shooting a movie with no script, no cast, and no shark... and wound up with a bona fide classic that helped give birth to the blockbuster. Topics include: Peter Benchley's novel and the...
Aug 11, 2021•2 hr 45 min•Transcript available on Metacast The horror genre was experiencing an interesting transition in the late 90s/early aughts. The resurgence of teen slashers that had been kicked off by Scream was fizzling out and in its place were films that placed more of an emphasis on supernatural scares. It was during this time that the production company Dark Castle Entertainment was formed with the goal of producing glossier remakes of classic William Castle horror movies from the 50s and 60s. For their inaugural outing, they chose House on...
Jul 28, 2021•1 hr 23 min•Transcript available on Metacast It just wouldn't be summer without a trip to Crystal Lake to see what our old pal Jason's been up to. On this episode, we're continuing our investigation into the Friday the 13th franchise and taking a look at one if its most seminal entries. Topics include: the much different premise they almost went with and how it might have set this series off down a very different path, why the decision to shoot this one in 3D resulted in an extremely complicated production, conflicting stories about who de...
Jul 14, 2021•2 hr 32 min•Transcript available on Metacast When The Babadook was released back in 2014, there was a lot of hype about how terrifying it was. Heading into it with those expectations may have colored our initial impressions of it. Now that some time has passed, we're going back to see if we can give this one a more objective analysis. Topics include: Jennifer Kent's unlikely path to becoming a director, how her short film Monster set the stage for all of this, the incredible performances she gets out of her two lead actors, using genre to ...
Jun 30, 2021•1 hr 26 min•Transcript available on Metacast For a lot of us, The Conjuring almost seemed to come out of nowhere in the summer of 2013. It stood out amidst the usual slew of sequels & remakes and its success not only cemented James Wan as a modern master or horror, it also helped breathe new life into the genre. Of course, The Conjuring is now a major franchise itself with numerous sequels and spin-offs in its orbit. In some ways, those have diluted our impressions of the series as a whole. So we wanted to go back to the source and investi...
Jun 16, 2021•2 hr 32 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's time for a summer vacation, so we're packing up the RV and heading to the town of Nilbog for an investigation into the best worst movie ever made - Troll 2 ! Topics include: how each of us discovered this film, its devoted cult following and how that led to the documentary Best Worst Movie , the language barrier between the actors and the filmmakers, why sincerity is an essential ingredient for any "good" bad movie, the real reason there are no trolls in Troll 2 , your answers to Ultimate M...
Jun 02, 2021•2 hr 40 min•Transcript available on Metacast Nothing is quite what it seems in Spider-Man: Far From Home , including Peter Parker's enigmatic new ally Mysterio. On this episode, we're pulling back the curtain on his heroic facade and examining this film's dual identity as both an epilogue to the dour events of Avengers: Endgame and a more lighthearted high school romp. Topics include: Mysterio's comic book origins and how he was updated for his live-action debut, Jake Gyllenhaal's previous connection to the Spider-Man franchise, why the mo...
May 19, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast The level of fandom surrounding Boba Fett always seemed a little disproportionate to what he actually does on screen. The costume certainly makes an impression, but the way The Empire Strikes Back seemed to be building him up made his unceremonious sendoff in Return of the Jedi feel so perplexing and anticlimactic. For decades, the only place to turn for more substantial Boba Fett stories was the Star Wars Expanded Universe - a series of novels, comics, and other tie-in merchandise that helped f...
May 05, 2021•2 hr 43 min•Transcript available on Metacast There was probably no one more surprised by the success of Stephen King's novel Carrie than King himself. He'd only made it a few pages into his original manuscript before throwing it into the trash. Even after his wife dug it out and urged him to push forward, he was convinced he was writing something that there was no audience for. But Carrie was a breakout hit and one of its fans was director Brian DePalma. His 1976 film adaptation is now regarded as a classic in the horror genre (and one of ...
Apr 21, 2021•2 hr 36 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the early aughts, writer Ed Brubaker introduced Captain America readers to a formidable new adversary: - The Winter Soldier. The revelation that this twisted mirror image of Cap was actually his former kid sidekick Bucky Barnes dropped jaws and shook the foundations of the Marvel Universe. On this episode, we're exploring how the MCU adapted this storyline for the big screen in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and how those events rippled out into Captain America: Civil War . Other topics ...
Apr 07, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're re-opening our case file on the Springwood Slasher to investigate what might be the fan favorite entry in this franchise - A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. Although the second film had been poorly received by fans and critics, its box office earnings proved that there was still enough interest in this property to warrant another installment. And who better to provide the necessary course correction the studio was looking for than the man who had created all of this in the first...
Mar 24, 2021•2 hr 30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Andrew Lloyd Weber's Cats was the first blockbuster musical and although critics were dismissive of its emphasis on spectacle over story, audiences lapped it up. The same cannot be said for the 2019 feature film adaptation. The movie took the internet by storm and led to a treasure trove of tweets and memes, but dodgy CGI aside - what exactly went wrong here? How did something so reliably successful in one medium utterly crash and burn in another? When dealing with source material that was so no...
Mar 10, 2021•2 hr 33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kristen, Mike, and Chris open a case file on Adrian Griffin and investigate Blumhouse's remake of The Invisible Man . Topics include: the collapse of Universal's "Dark Universe" and how the failure of The Mummy paved the way for this reimagining of the classic H.G. Wells story, the "simpler=better" approach to the special effects, the decision to shift the focus from the title character to one of his victims, how effectively the opening scene essentially teaches you to watch the rest of the movi...
Feb 24, 2021•1 hr 20 min•Transcript available on Metacast The 1990 film adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Witches remains a cult classic for those of us that grew up with it and a big part of that is definitely Angelica Huston's terrifying performance as The Grand High Witch. The film doesn't just traumatize its young viewers, though - it also empowers them. It's a world where even the most evil of forces can be conquered by the smallest of creatures. Not everyone was a fan, however, and Dahl himself wound up being one of its biggest detractors. He was so...
Feb 10, 2021•2 hr 32 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 2002, Gore Verbinski's The Ring had American audiences terrified of their VHS tapes - but Japanese audiences had been relishing in this terror since the original 1998 release of Ringu . While both films featured a psychokinetic girl climbing out of a well and into our living rooms, they each took a different approach to exploring that premise. Topics include: the reluctant horror novelist that spawned the series, Sadako and Samara's abuse at the hands of their parents, the remake's viral mark...
Jan 27, 2021•1 hr 25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Gregory Peck headlined the 1962 film Cape Fear , but it was Robert Mitchum's portrayal of serial rapist Max Cady that scandalized audiences. In 1991, director Martin Scorsese's remake would push those boundaries even further thanks to Robert De Niro's more violent, more explicit, and more carnal interpretation of Cady. Topics include: the novel that inspired the story, Cady's relationship to Bowden prior to the film, alternate casting choices, the Spielberg version of the remake that we'll never...
Jan 13, 2021•2 hr 34 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode, we're investigating two very different interpretations of Dr. Seuss' ultimate holiday meanie - The Grinch. Join us as we compare and contrast the classic 1966 TV special How The Grinch Stole Christmas with the 2000 live-action feature film adaptation. Topics include: Seuss' original inspiration for the character, his reluctance to sign off on screen adaptations, why the Grinch is green, how two different directors stretched this short children's tale to the required length, the ...
Dec 16, 2020•1 hr 17 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode, we're investigating three different versions of one of The Twilight Zone 's most famous stories - Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. We take a closer look at the classic episode from the original series, the concluding segment of 1983's Twilight Zone: The Movie , and the unique spin the 2019 revival puts on the premise with Nightmare at 30,000 Feet . Topics include: the short story by Richard Matheson that the original episode was based on, why its most obvious shortcoming might be becau...
Dec 02, 2020•1 hr 22 min•Transcript available on Metacast With Thanksgiving right around the corner for those of us here in the States, it felt like the right time to revisit one of the most famous family dinners in cinematic history. Pull up a chair and dig in as we open up a case file on Leatherface from 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre . Topics include: the unimaginable circumstances this low-budget film was assembled under, the controversy it caused upon its release, how it’s able to trick you into thinking you saw something so much more graphic...
Nov 18, 2020•1 hr 26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Oh what a day! What a lovely day! We’re taking a look at Mad Max: Fury Road and opening a case file on one of our favorite modern antiheroes: Imperator Furiosa. Topics include: the setbacks previous iterations of this film faced during its two decade journey to the big screen, why the finished version may have benefited from those delays, behind the scenes tension between cast and crew, what the film can teach us about world building and visual storytelling, how it compares to previous Mad Max f...
Nov 04, 2020•1 hr 21 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's that time of year again. We're returning to Haddonfield and picking up right where the original Halloween left off to continue our investigation into Michael Myers. By the filmmakers own admission, Halloween II is a movie that was made for financial reasons, not creative ones. John Carpenter had such a difficult time coming up with a suitable story, that he resorted to chugging a six-pack of beer every night as he banged out the script. His lack of investment resulted in a somewhat plodding...
Oct 21, 2020•2 hr 33 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're back for a new round of investigations and to kick things off, we're opening up a case file on John Doe from Se7en. The premise of a serial killer whose crimes are patterned after the seven deadly sins is so simple and so good that it's a little surprising it didn't already exist before 1995, but that wasn't the only trail director David Fincher blazed with this incendiary thriller. Se7en 's grimy, neo-noir aesthetic inspired a slew of knock-offs, but most of those imitators focused exclus...
Oct 07, 2020•2 hr 31 min•Transcript available on Metacast Alex Garland's debut thriller Ex Machina may be slight in budget, but its ambition is massive. Although we're centering our investigation around the character of Ava, it's just a jumping off point to sort through the film's complicated web of relationships and the themes Garland is exploring. Topics include: the numerous examples of "show don't tell" storytelling, how they transform this simple premise into such an effective pressure cooker, the way all three main characters are manipulating one...
Jul 01, 2020•1 hr 17 min•Transcript available on Metacast Despite the success of the first A Nightmare on Elm Street , New Line Cinema didn't walk away with a very big piece of the proverbial pie. They did, however, hold sole ownership over something that was potentially a lot more valuable - a franchisable character. They rushed A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge into production and decided to jettison the original writer/director, lead actress, and established rules of the previous film. And somehow, that's only scratching the surface of w...
Jun 17, 2020•2 hr 39 min•Transcript available on Metacast When the filmmakers behind Species needed a creature that had to be as sexy as it was scary, H.R. Giger's name understandably shot to the top of their list. His Academy Award-winning work on Alien was exactly the aesthetic they were chasing. As the project evolved, however, Giger realized that there was perhaps too much reverence for (and adherence to) his previous efforts. Species is a mixed bag of largely unrealized potential, but it's not without its merits. On this episode, we investigate th...
Jun 03, 2020•2 hr 31 min•Transcript available on Metacast For all of its accomplishments, Phase I of the MCU was somewhat marred by what numerous critics referred to as "The Marvel Villain Problem" - and depending on who you ask, Red Skull was either the answer to that complaint or the epitome of it. So we're opening up a case file on one of Captain America's greatest foes to see if this character can help us understand whether or not The First Avenger ultimately succeeds because of its pulpy charm and throwback approach to serialized storytelling... o...
May 20, 2020•2 hr 36 min•Transcript available on Metacast The evolution of Little Shop of Horrors is not dissimilar from that of the killer plant at the center of it. It began life as a strange, little oddity - a quick, low-budget film that was shot in a couple of days by legendary B-movie producer Roger Corman. From those inauspicious beginnings, it transformed into a bigger and bolder off-Broadway musical. The success of that show paved the way for this more lavish feature film production, which firmly entrenched these characters (and songs) into pop...
Apr 22, 2020•1 hr 23 min•Transcript available on Metacast Godzilla meets The Blair Witch Project . That high-concept premise for Cloverfield was pretty straightforward, but the execution of it was anything but. These days, it's probably remembered as much for the elaborate and immersive ARG campaign as the film itself. It arguably stands as one of the most effective examples of J.J. Abrams' infamous "mystery box" marketing, but it might also represent the point where a backlash to that approach started to emerge. From its top secret development to the ...
Apr 08, 2020•2 hr 37 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
