Shoot The Hostage

After an entire season of Video Game Movies, it’s safe to assume that Sarah is ready to move on to her choice for season 13. But before we allow her to do that, we’ve got the season 12 wrap show to consider. In the usual wrap show tradition, we speak about the low points, the high points (yes, there are some) and what it is about video game adaptations that make it so hard to make a good one. It’s...

Welcome to the final battle of Dan’s season of video game movies, where we tackle the quintessential 90s movie adaptation of Midway’s hyper-violent fighting game, Mortal Kombat (1995). We’re closing out the season in style – or perhaps lack thereof – with the second appearance of director Paul W.S. Anderson ( see our episode covering Resident Evil at the beginning of the season). Dan admits this c...

After discussing Lara Croft to death last episode, this time we felt the Need for Speed as we start the engines on our episode covering this largely forgotten car movie. We shifted gears this week to Need for Speed (2014) which is a video game adaptation focused on illegal street racing and other related and non-related crimes. We spend a chunk of time analysing some of the strange casting choices...

Welcome back to Shoot the Hostage for the 6th level of our video game movies season! This week, Dan and Sarah step into Croft Manor, ready to spill the pixelated beans on 2001’s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Beware of potential spoilers for the film and the first two Tomb Raider games. Directed by Simon West, we ask why this computer game adaptation failed to capture the mood of the 1996 game, having m...

We’re back for another episode in our season of video game movies and this week we’re Grid-locked in to talk about Tron: Legacy (2010). First-time feature director Joseph Kosinski was handed a massive budget and a cult classic to make sequel to. Did he succeed? Or was it user error? We talk about the uncanny valley of Jeff Bridges’ de-aged face and attempt to understand why Flynn went full cult le...

Welcome back to Shoot the Hostage, it’s the 4th episode in our season exploring the world of video game movies, and this week, Dan and Sarah are vaulting their way through the absolute mess that is Eli Roth’s 2024 Borderlands adaptation! No holding back on this one. As a fan of the Borderlands game franchise, Sarah hoped for great things from this computer game adaptation, but it left her bitterly...

We’re back for the 3rd instalment of the season, diving into the often cursed realm of video game movies. This week, we’re dissecting the very recent movie adaptation of the cult classic interactive horror game, Until Dawn (2025). Will this adaptation keep you awake Until Dawn, or will you be begging for bedtime? The film, directed by David F. Sandberg (Lights Out, Annabelle Creation, Shazam) take...

This week on Shoot the Hostage we’re returning to the pixelated trenches of video-game movies with Warcraft (2016). Expect our usual attempt into film analysis, swearing and enough spoilers to fill a dungeon raid – so make sure you’ve seen the film before you click that listen button. We’re plunging into the world of Azeroth, scrutinising director Duncan Jones’s vision and whether this computer ga...

Get ready to reside in pure evil as Dan and Sarah kick off Season 12 of Shoot the Hostage with a deep dive into the 2002 action horror film, Resident Evil! After our last season got us all hooked on movies about drugs, we're booting up a brand new theme: video game movies! And who better to start with than the master of computer game adaptations, director Paul W.S. Anderson? Join us as we explore...

We are one week away from the new season but before we charge up the controllers and order a six-pack of energy drinks in preparation for Video Game Movies season, it's time for our traditional bonus review of a new movie. We settled in to watch Ari Aster's latest weirdo beardo offering, Eddington. No spoilers!  We are back next Monday September 8th for season 12 which is all about Video Game movi...

After eight weeks of cinematic exploration into the world of "drugs movies" for Season 11, Dan and Sarah are back to share some of our favourite moments from the season! Sarah's season of drugs films has certainly been a 'journey', and not always the warm, fuzzy, hot chocolate kind. From the 'quintessential drugs movie' vibes of Trainspotting and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the notoriously...

Welcome to the Shoot the Hostage Season Eleven Wrap Show! After diving deep into the hazy world of “drugs movies” for eight episodes, Dan and Sarah are here to unpack all the highs (and occasional lows) of the season. From the gritty depths of heroin addiction to Climax-ing with LSD-infused sangria, this season was quite the trip! Sarah, who bravely curated this journey into films featuring addict...

This week on Shoot the Hostage, Sarah and Dan are taking a hit out of the little brown bottle as they dive headfirst into the quintessential drug-induced fever dream that is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998). Join us as we navigate the most paranoid movie known to man, based on Hunter S. Thompson’s unreadably long-titled 1971 book. We’ll explore why Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Raoul Duke might...

For our seventh, and decidedly not warm and fuzzy episode in the season, Sarah’s crafty programming has us plunging into Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream (2000)! Expect praise for Ellen Burstyn’s Oscar-nominated performance as Sara Goldfarb which had crew weeping on set. We unpack the performances of Jared Leto, alongside Jennifer Connelly, as their grand aspirations turn into a spiral of de...

All aboard the Pineapple Express! This week on Shoot the Hostage, Sarah and Dan are blazing a trail through the sticky green jungle of films about drugs as they unpack the 2008 stoner comedy, Pineapple Express. Join us atop the podcast pineapple as we dive into the surprisingly long history of stoner comedies, from 1932’s Jewel Robbery to the anti-marijuana propaganda of Reefer Madness and how the...

Welcome back to another episode, where this week, Sarah and Dan explore Brokedown Palace (1999). Join us as we break down the film’s shortcomings and unexpected moments. We delve into the representation of Thailand and the justice system depicted in the movie along with the undertones of American exceptionalism We discuss the cast, including Claire Danes (My So-Called Life and Romeo and Juliet), K...

This week on Shoot the Hostage, Sarah’s taking it all the way back to grim-town as we confront Gaspar Noé’s Climax (2018). We’ve arrived at the fourth film in Sarah’s season dedicated to movies about drugs. She explains why Climax took the fourth spot instead of the final one, which you would think, given the title, would be the natural placement. We also draw connections between Climax's disorien...

Are you ready to GO all-in? This week on Shoot the Hostage our drugs season takes a detour intro the fast-paced, vibrant world of Doug Liman’s 1999 cult hit, Go – our third foray into the wild world of cinematic substances. This film boasts arguably the most aggressively late 90s cast ever, functioning as a true ensemble piece even if some weren't A-listers at the time. We get into the raw talent...

No need for a temporal displacement event on your end, because Shoot the Hostage is bringing one to you! As the second stop on our season of films about drugs, Sarah and Dan delve into the minds of Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson and their uniquely divisive independent film, Synchronic (2019) Starring Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan as two paramedics in a New Orleans, Synchronic introduces a made...

Get ready to Choose Life (and a podcast!), because Season 11 is officially here, and we're kicking off our brand-new theme of 'Drugs' movies with a true behemoth of 90s films: Danny Boyle's iconic Trainspotting (1996). Join us as we unpack why Trainspotting has captivated audiences for decades, despite its characters being, well, mostly "assholes". We dive deep into the film's gritty depiction of...

Before we return next week with our new season, it's time for our bonus show picked from the archives of our Patreon feed. This time we talk the MCU and Thunderbolts . We are back next Monday June 23rd for season 11! Would you like to see the full lineup for season 11? The only place you can see it is on  Patreon  but you don't need to be a paying member. Sign up for a  free membership and get acc...

We're back for one last look at last season in our end of season "best of" clips show. Join us as we revisit some of our favourite moments of our season of films that were considered box-office flops  Make sure to mark June 23rd in your calendar as that is when we return for season 11! Would you like to see the full lineup for season 11? The only place you can see it is on Patreon  but you don't n...

Join us for one last round of flops discussion as we embark on our traditional end of season wrap show. The full episode is available over on Patreon on our £3.00 a month tier.  We're sad that our flops season has come to an end but what a journey it was. From terrible films to objectively brilliant movies and everything in between.  As this was our 10th season, this time we decided to cover 10 mo...

Calling all questionable mushroom-based life-forms. This week on Shoot the Hostage, Dan and Sarah are hitting the reset button on reality and plummeting into the bonkers world of the Super Mario Bros. (1993). As we reach the final level of our "Flops" season, we're asking the essential questions about this infamous film adapted from a computer game: Was it doomed from the start? How did this becom...

In the penultimate episode of the season, we're diving headfirst into the dark fantasy movie that defined 80s childhoods (for some of us, Dan included, maybe?) but was a complete box-office flop: Labyrinth (1986). Settle in for spoilers, swearing, and probably a tangent or two about where babies go when Jareth steals them. Was it just a logistical nightmare with all those puppets, animals, and bab...