Caliber 9 From Outer Space

We're going back to the 1960's, this time to Swinging London and the Carnaby Street scene. It's not so much groovy, man, as smashing, luv! Justin Kerswell joins us to discuss a couple of near forgotten emanations of this peculiarly British reaction to the spirit of the age. We start off with Smashing Time (1967), directed by Desmond Davis and follow that up with Haunted House of Horror (1969), dir...

We're chock full of punk energy this week! RP Fox joins us as we check out Hard Core Logo (1996) directed by Bruce McDonald, and Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979) directed by Allan Arkush. A tragicomic road trip across western Canada with thrashing guitars, personal demons, toxic masculinity and lots of gobbing, followed by an absurdist slice of Greaseploitation from the house of Corman, but with a...

We take a sharp U-turn into Utah for a very unique cult double feature this week. Jose and Mike from the Watch Skip + podcast drop in to check out Beaver Trilogy (2001), directed by Trent Harris and infamous "bad movie", Troll 2 (1990), directed by Claudio Fragasso. From a moving work of post-modern film art to a bizarre exercise in weird acting and incomprehensible plot, we have plenty to talk ab...

We revisit the dream of the freakadelic 60's this week with a couple of films which both celebrate and mourn the spirit of the age. Mark Evans of Sonic Coins + Icons joins us to discuss Easy Rider (1969), directed by Dennis Hopper and The Trip (1967), directed by Roger Corman. Bikes, weed, LSD, hippies and rednecks abound. Tune in, turn on, and drop out. We don't think you can really spoil The Tri...

It's time for us to go back to Friday the 13th for another mismatched double feature program from the franchise. Al joins us once again, this time on a trip from the sublime to the ridiculous as we start with Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986), directed by Tom McLaughlin. This was generally considered a return to form for the franchise and has since been lauded as an exercise in metahorro...

Days of future past - in the total utopia of 2026, we can now look back and laugh fondly at the dystopic cyberpunk visions of the 1990's... OR CAN WE??? Nick Langdon drops in this week to check out a pair of high-tech / low life visions from the mid-90s, when William Gibson's words weighed heavy on the sci-fi genre. We start with Strange Days (1995) directed by Kathryn Bigelow, and follow it up wi...

Classic film noir meets sleazy Italian exploitation this week as Sakana and Dr Ethan drop by to check out The Glass Key (1942), directed by Stuart Heisler, and the magnificently named Strip Nude For Your Killer (1975), directed by Andrea Bianchi. We dive deep into the lives and travails of The Glass Key's wonderful cast (including Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake and Brian Donlevy) and the its striking si...

Happy New Year, folks! The party's heating up at our place: Luigi Pistilli is still looking a little moody, but Steve James is benchpressing Geoffrey Keen (much to his chagrin), Henry Silva and Lance Henriksen are grinning evilly at each other, and Andrea Bianchi is getting a bit gropey (I think Charles Bronson has noticed and he's about to do something violent). So we figured we'd duck out of the...

Peace on Earth. Can it be??? No, apparently not. Angst and dread continue to reign supreme as we enter the death throes of 2025, so let's just embrace it and have a very happy Crisis-mas! We've stuffed the stocking fit to bursting in this year's special Christmas episode. We welcome back Sammy from the Gentlemen's Guide to Midnite Cinema, and habitual Caliber 9'er, Bryce Hamilton (who never says n...

It's absolute chaos here this week, as Ted Bennett stands in for Joe and we welcome Heather Drain back to talk about some truly insane 1980's cult comedies. First up, little-known John Cusack and Tim Robbins vehicle, Tapeheads (1988), directed by Bill Fishman and then, hold on to your coffee cups and look out for holes in the wall, because we collectively lose our shit while discussing Jackie Kong...

Although James Bond is one of the most beloved film franchises in cinema history, quite a lot of the films remain rather unloved. So we're going to give those ones a closer look, starting this week with the two films that, according to Letterboxd, are the least watched entries in the official EON canon. Nick Langdon pops in and checks out For Your Eyes Only (1981), directed by John Glen, and also...

Bloody vengeance and boobs galore on the show this week. I know that could describe most weeks round here, but this time we really mean vengeance, and we've never had more boobs. Ted Bennett has come over to Casa Calibro with two fun Hong Kong genre films to watch and discuss: Taxi Hunter (1993), directed by Herman Yau and Robotrix (1991), directed by Jamie Luk. Strap in and make sure your dress i...

A gore-spattered double feature for the ages! We've just decided to let loose this week and tick off surely two of the greatest cult horror films in history. Andy Hunt drops by to check out Evil Dead 2 (1987), directed by Sam Raimi, and follow it up with one of the ultimate hold-my-beer moments, Peter Jackson's Braindead (a.k.a. Dead Alive ) (1992). It's not really possible to spoil these films an...

The past is gone. The future is not yet here. There is only ever this moment. We're all about lists this week, as James T Williams drops in to discuss Kill List (2011), directed by Ben Wheatley and Hit List (1989), directed by William Lustig. We dive deep into the exciting statement on horrific cinema psychedelia that was Wheatley's debut feature, and contrast it with Lustig's far more conventiona...

It's our 100th episode! We have a bumper edition this week to celebrate with a somewhat eclectic triple feature (as is our wont). Mike White and Sammy join us to discuss Sisters (1972), directed by Brian De Palma, The Brother from Another Planet (1984), directed by John Sayles, and Twins of Evil (1971), directed by John Hough. A sadly still very relevant critique of intolerance and division in the...

Time for another jaunt over to Eastern Europe and the unique and wonderful cinema that only those guys seem capable of making. Once again, we have the privilege of welcoming Jonathan Owen onto the show to discuss Juraj Herz's Czech New Wave masterpiece, The Cremator (1969), and the truly bizarre slice of Yugoslav comic lunacy Visitors From The Galaxy (1981), directed by Dušan Vukotić. A tour throu...

West Beach, Connecticut is terrorised by a relentless onslaught of jangly doo wop and strangely choreographed gang fights. And THEN the fishmen turn up and things get even worse! Film-makers Diq Diamond and Amy Jennings stop by to discuss The Horror of Party Beach (1964) directed by Del Tenney. They also tell us all about their new film, Plankenstein: A Killer Surf Movie which releases globally th...

Creepy Spooky Month culminates in the best day of the year - Happy Halloween, everyone! Loaded up with an inadvisable quantity of coke bottle gummis from a gruelling bout of trick or treating, Dr Ethan Lyon swings by to discuss a classic and entirely Halloween-appropriate double feature: Bride of Frankenstein (1935), directed by James Whale, and The Brides of Dracula (1960), directed by Terence Fi...

We all have our demons. Some of us more than others. This week we delve into two very different kinds of horror as Samm Deighan drops in to check out Demons (aka Shura ) (1971) directed by Toshio Matsumoto, followed by Demons (1985) directed by Lamberto Bava. Samurai on the verge of psychotic breakdown and a West Berlin cinema full of badly dubbed weirdos take turns being overrun with demons both...

The blood runs free as Justin Kerswell joins Joe, Rob and Bryce for our latest instalment of Creepy Spooky Month ! Obnoxious expats, killer hippies (or are they angels?), and Dennis Hopper being a scumbag all feature in obscure genre art-piece, Bloodbath (a.k.a. The Sky is Falling) (1975), directed by Silvio Narizzano. And then we buckle in for a truly demented bit of late-cycle Italian horror, Se...

We're doing a crossover episode with Grandad and Mr Tech for this instalment in Creepy Spooky Month! Horror is very much the name of the game(-to-film-adaptation) this week. Together, we dive deep into Silent Hill (2006), directed by Christophe Gans, followed by Sweet Home (1989), directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Be ready for some computer game talk too, as we discuss the relative merits of the games...

Creepy Spooky Month continues with a double shot of two very different demons. Sammy stops by to discuss Jacques Tourneur's classic MR James adaptation, Night of the Demon (1957), and also its namesake, the infamous video nasty Night of the Demon (1980), directed by Jim West. A cerebral meditation upon the English Eerie with a big-ass honest-to-God demon paired with a psychotronic gorefest about B...

The days are cooling down, the leaves are changing colour, and the nights are drawing in. It must be Creepy Spooky Month! Al joins us for the first of a series of episodes all devoted to horror this October - and what better way to kick it all off than by presenting the second instalment of our deep dive into the beloved Friday the 13th movie franchise? This time, we discuss Friday the 13th Part 2...

Fear and loathing on the sun-baked tarmac of the Australian Outback and the... not so sun-baked tarmac of downtown Birmingham. Ted Bennett pops in and he and Rob dive full throttle into Richard Franklin's Hitchcockian Ozploitation classic, Roadgames (1981), before going on to scratch their heads over British horror-comedy curio I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle (1990), directed by Dirk Campbell. There...

To mark International Forbidden Desires Week (inaugural, and declared by us), Bryce drops in to discuss two films that feel worlds apart, even if they're both obsessed with love taboos. We check out Luis Buñuel's classically kinky Belle De Jour (1967), and Jean-Marie Pallardy's rather less celebrated Franco-Turksploitation riot, White Fire (1984). Sadomasochism and.. siblings. It's quite a heady m...