Saturday Night Freak Show

Sean traps us in a flooded Florida nightmare with Crawl (2019), as a competitive swimmer goes to check on her estranged father during a Category 5 hurricane, only to find the basement filling with water and hungry alligators! Listen as we talk about: realistic pain response, sand sharks, visiting Florida and living in terror, and suspension of disbelief, all on this week's exciting episode! Ho...

Colin spent his whole life avoiding Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) because he believed what they told him - that it was one of the worst movies ever made. Linda Blair returns as Regan MacNeil, recovering just fine from her exorcism until a whackadoodle shrink (Louise Fletcher) gets the idea to poke around in her dreams via a telepathy machine, while screen legend Richard Burton stars as a Catholi...

Michaela likes her European travelogue with a side of slaughter and finds Amsterdamned (1988), a movie which finds a grizzled police detective hunting for the slasher-in-a-wet-suit who prowls Amsterdam's canals for victims, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. Listen as we complete our hat trick of films from gonzo director Dick Maas, marvel at the cultural enthusiasm on display, and have though...

Holly sets the temperature to sizzling with Body Heat (1981), a sweaty throwback to 40s-era film noir made with 80s-era permissive on-screen sexuality with Kathleen Turner (in her film debut) starring as a smoldering femme fatale ensnaring sleazy lawyer William Hurt in a plot to murder her husband. Listen as we find out what sexual activity is illegal in Florida, learn about female terror at male...

Sean spends spends a Nightmare Weekend (1986) making sense of a flick that combines hot coeds and a killer computer and ends in blood and guts! A telekinetic computer system makes drooling zombies out of visitors who've been invited to a scientist's home for a softcore sex romp. Pet Sematary's Dale Midkiff, NYPD Blue/Babylon 5's Andrea Thompson, and a hand puppet named George, star. Listen as we p...

Colin gets zapped back to the Old West on a motocross bike in Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swan (1982), a movie co-concocted, produced, and scored by original Monkee Michael Nesmith. Fred Ward stars as our hero, who wanders into a time travel experiment while racing the Baja 1000, and finds himself fending off gunslinging cowboys when he's transported back to 1875. Listen as we critique pistol...

Michaela resurrects a memory-holed Halle Berry-Bruce Willis erotic thriller called Perfect Stranger (2007), about a disgraced reporter seeking to get close to a philandering murder suspect, a powerful NYC advertising executive, while her friend-zoned cyberhacker buddy snoops around for evidence. Listen as we uncover chatroom melodrama, unravel twisted plot machinations, and try to determine if Bru...

Holly goes to war with Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime as Commando (1985), the quippiest, explodiest, gunniest of all the 80s "one man army" actioners, with Big Arnie punching bad guys through plate glass windows, dropping them off cliffsides, scalping them with circular saw blades, and impaling them with steam pipes as he hunts down the men who abducted his daughter. Listen as we learn who Win...

Sean screams, you scream, we all scream for the Ice Cream Man (1995), with Clint Howard playing the adult version of a boy who witnessed the mob execution of his favorite ice cream man; after escaping(?) from an asylum, he assumes the duties but adds his own extra special ingredients for naughty boys and girls. Listen as we try to suss out what was the original intention of a porn filmmaker's atte...

Colin spends the night is a creepy Irish hotel despite warnings of a witch locked in the honemoon suite, calling it Hokum (2026). The latest film from scare-master Damian McCarthy casts Adam Scott as a boorish novelist who begins investigating the strange goings on after a mysterious disappearance. Listen as we discuss frightmares, jackasses, children's programming, goat's milk and psychedelic mus...

Michaela is out of gas and stranded at the Last Stop in Yuma County (2023), taking refuge in a twisty, Tarantino-esque character thriller about a group of people (and two on-the-lam bank robbers) waiting uncomfortably at a roadside diner for a refueling truck to appear. Listen as we recast Richard Brake as a romantic lead, reverse-engineer first time director Francis Gallupi's No Country for Old M...

Holly takes a film school detour to examine Gus Van Sant's experimental "remake" of Psycho (1998), a shot-for-shot, line-for-line remake of Alfred Hitchcock's horror masterpiece. Is it the ultimate work of homage or wholesale cinematic theft? Listen as we debate the wisdom of peephole masturbation, how to improve on perfection, the folly of unchecked hubris, and more on this week's exciting episod...

Sean comes up with a plan to save virginal high school students from a virgin-killing slasher in Cherry Falls (2000), a bizarre slasher-comedy that stars Brittany Murphy as a student at a school where the sexually inexperienced teens are falling victim to a rampaging killer. Listen as we try to make twisted sense of absurdist deadpan comedy, unhealthy father-daughter relationships, cross-dressing...

Colin wants to see if he has a death wish at 120 decibels with Stunt Rock (1978), in which Aussie stuntman Grant Page stars as himself, crossing the ocean to Hollywood and teaming up with the magic-themed hard rockers Sorcery to enliven their pyrotechnic show and romancing a pretty journalist who's along for the ride. Listen as we throw up the horns and rock out while trying to sus out what motiva...

Michaela packs her bags and heads off on A Perfect Getaway (2009) to Hawaii's paradise island of Kaua'i while there's a newlywed killer on the loose and meets up with an American Jedi who's really hard to kill. Milla Jovovich and Steve Zahn are the hapless vacationing travelers, while Timothy Olyphant and Kylee Sanchez are the weirdo free spirits they meet up with who may be a pair of spree killer...

Holly hits the high seas with a Navy SEAL-turned cook who is all that stands between us and nuclear armageddon in Under Siege (1992), a starring vehicle for Steven Seagal which surrounds him with an A+ supporting cast and the biggest budget of his career. Listen as realize that Erika Elaniak's big moment is only 4 seconds long, witness multiple iterations of slaphand stabby-stabby, and watch Tommy...

Sean blasts us into pure '80s cheese with Megaforce (1982)! Barry Bostwick stars as Ace Hunter, leader of the high-tech, elite strike team with tricked-out motorcycles, flying vehicles, and enough one-liners to level a small country. When a ruthless dictator threatens peace, these mercenaries ride in with explosions, mullets, and maximum patriotic absurdity. Listen as we sound off on rocket bikes,...

Colin pits a wolf man against a vampire woman in Night of the Werewolf (1981), the ninth of thirteen films starring "the Spanish Lon Chaney," Paul Naschy, as the lycanthropy-cursed Polish nobleman, Waldemar Daninsky. This time, an evil witch resurrects his ancient nemesis, the vampire Countess Elizabeth Bathory, leading to a fang-vs-claw showdown. Listen as we dig into naked bloodletting, introduc...

Michaela celebrates our 700th episode with warring ninjas and becomes the Ninja Terminator (1985)! Three parts of a magical golden ninja statue are stolen by a trio of ninja warriors. One becomes a mob boss and tries to steal back the other two, resulting in kick-punching mayhem that punches holes in screenplay logic. Cut and paste master Godfrey Ho directs. Listen as we defy the odds to decipher...

Holly hopes to wrestle the power of Grayskull from Skeletor in Masters of the Universe (1987, re-watch), with Dolph Lundgren as the live action version of Mattel's He-Man action figure, teaming up with Courtney Cox to save the Earth from Frank Langella's deliciously hammy villain in this Cannon Films classic. Listen as we get nostalgic for after-school cartoons, toy collecting, mullets, magic and...

Sean takes us underground with Mimic (1997), Guillermo del Toro's first English language feature about a miracle bug fix for Manhattan's roach problem that evolves into something far worse, and a team of scientists find themselves hunted by creatures that have learned to walk on two legs. Listen as New York City filth, mutant cockroach pustules, and extraneous characters get under our skin on this...

Colin wonders what you get if you spell Alucarda (1977) backwards, but instead of what he expects, gets a Mexican satanic panic movie instead! The new girl at a strange convent falls under the spell of the troubled title character who unleashes a torrent of non-stop screaming, woodland orgies, and bloody terror. Listen as we delve into heavy metal chapels, discover the origin of the merkin, and ad...

Michaela steps into the ring with the "the Ben-Hur of karate movies," The Quest (1996), writer-director-star Jean-Claude Van Damme's ambitiously expensive passion project, that finds him on a globetrotting odyssey from the streets of 1925 New York to the hidden temples of Tibet to compete in a legendary, secret tournament. Listen as we pack our bags, log frequent flyer miles via pirate ship, eleph...

Holly’s boarding a Red Eye (2005) with a charming stranger… and it quickly turns into a nightmare at 30,000 feet. Rachel McAdams stars as a young woman who meets the smooth-talking Cillian Murphy at the airport — only to discover he’s a cold-blooded assassin who needs her help pulling off a high-profile hit. Listen as the crew discusses where Red Eye fits in Wes Craven’s legendary filmography, sha...

Sean discovers a beer-swillin', apple chompin' vampire has moved in next door in Fright Night (2011), a remake of the beloved 80s horror classic which casts the late Anton Yelchin as the hapless teen whose mom and girlfriend fall under the spell of Colin Farrell's bloodsucker, with former Doctor Who David Tennant as a Chris Angel-style Vegas occult expert brought in to assist with all the vampire-...