Watching Out Loud

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to talk about the complicated relationship to masculinity and community with Martin Scorsese’s 1990 blockbuster, GoodFellas . And here it is! Our first fan-requested film, we dive into what makes GoodFellas a “man” film and discuss whether or not that is a bad thing or what it even means in the first place. Socials: @watchingoutloud

What we need is some divine intervention, and that’s exactly what Maxxxine delivers. This week we’re wrapping up the Ti West X trilogy with our star, Maxine, finally getting what she deserves: the Hollywood spotlight. This film takes all those slasher horror tropes and repackages them for a final girl that is anything but a victim. She’s the fucking movie star of our dreams 🤩 Socials: @watchingou...

We don’t care what anyone says, Pearl IS a star! The prequel to X , this second film in the Ti West’s trilogy gives horror a technicolor makeover. Another ode to film and a girl’s longing for love and acceptance through stardom, this film changes the discussion around female sexuality in the horror genre. If a girl can’t have love and sex, then can we really blame her for becoming murderous? Who’s...

We’re following up The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with the first of Ti West’s scream queen trilogy, X (2022). Starring Mia Goth and paying homage to TCM and the 1970s slasher flick, we look at how the X rating and the rise of pornography coincides with the value of women’s looks as society wonders what could be more horrifying than a woman that has aged, gasp! Socials: @watchingoutloud

Season 2 is here, kittens! We’re yapping about Tobe Hooper’s film that revolutionized the horror genre forever: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre . This season, we’re Leatherface apologists as we discuss a disillusioned America the dying working class. What fun! Socials: @watchingoutloud

Happy holidays, watchers! In this bonus episode while we're on hiatus, listen to us relive the absolute nightmare that is the 1998 holiday flop, Jack Frost . Even Michael Keaton slipping into his Beetlejuice voice can't save this movie from a good roast. See you in 2025!

The season 1 finale! We're wrapping up our first Halloween Special series with Final Girl Sidney Prescott and the Scream franchise. She's the Final Girl that transgresses all the tropes and brings the horror heroine into the 21st century. We couldn't miss the opportunity to gab about Nev Campbell and crush on Skeet Ulrich (probably too much) as we navigate Wes Craven's meta-horror in its ultimate...

Welcome to prime time, bitch!! This week we’re talking about final girl Nancy Thompson and perhaps the most successful horror franchise, A Nightmare on Elm Street . In the first film of this franchise, teenage Nancy chases after the monster herself. Throughout all of her films, she is outsmarting Freddy Krueger at every turn, ultimately killing the killer every chance she gets. It is also in this...

Get a load of this episode, you bitch! In the second installment of our Season 1 Halloween Special, we are talking about the final girl that faces the horrors of outer space: Ellen Ripley. In the Alien franchise, Ripley as a final girl doubles as one of the first women action heroes. We discuss the ways the final girl navigates the sci-fi sub-genre of this horror franchise, and the parallels we se...

In the first installment of our Season 1 Halloween Special, we are looking at the franchise that introduced the canonical horror icon: the Final Girl! Laurie Strode is the founding mother of the Final Girl trope, as the term is coined by film critic Carol Clover in the 1992 book Men, Women, and Chainsaws. Your hosts are going to tell you all about what makes a girl a Final Girl and how Laurie Stro...

Holy shit! Look who's been beat with the **cutie-pie stick! Is that you, watcher?? This week we're taking a cruise down the I-5 with Reese Witherspoon in this 90s white trash reimagining of Little Red Riding Hood. The 1996 film Freeway seems too silly to be taken seriously, but we look at all the ways this campy over-the-top film tackles real world issues of women born with the odds stacke...

These soggy bottom girls are going on an adventure through the Coen Brothers' epic 2000 film, O Brother, Where Art Though? We talk about the way the Coen Brothers adapted one of the oldest texts in world history into a tour de force of their staple comedic style while providing a unique depiction of Depression era America. In this episode, each one of us is a Dapper Dan Man! Instagram & Ti...

Let's turn to the right and take a look at the Coen Brothers' first screwball comedy, Raising Arizona (1987). The first of its kind to portray the seemingly simple lives of struggling men and immovable women, the Coen Brothers use their particular brand of humor to showcase the follies of everyday life and the absurd circumstances that form their heroes. We take a look at the 1980s politic...

Not the bees!!!!! This week we're warming ourselves up with the roast of Nicolas Cage in the 2006 remake of the horror-flick The Wicker Man . This film gets roasted like it's a detective trapped in a giant man made of wicker that is set on fire in a harvest ritual that may actually be a ploy to just make that man shut up already! Instagram & Tiktok: @watchingoutloudpod Letterboxd: @WOL...

This one is a heartbreaking, devastating bop for your hosts. We're covering the 2003 film Monster and discussing the traumatic upbringing that turned Aileen Wuornos into the "monster" known as the first woman serial killer. This one's heavy, but we'll be back to your regularly scheduled buffoonery next time! Instagram & TikTok: @watchingoutloudpod Email: watchingoutloudpo...

Relax, we're just getting into that roughhousing frat boy stuff this week! For the last installment of episodes recorded from a cabin in the woods, your girls rewatched the first episode of Ryan Murphy's 2022 Netflix miniseries Monster: the Jeffrey Dahmer Story . Using our handy Wikipedia skills and an article about the portrayal of victims, we reflect on our own interests in true crime an...

What if Frankenstein's monster made his own monster? What if that monster was a girl? That's what we're figuring out in this week's episode! We're discussing Emily (Emma) Stone's 2023 Academy Award winning performance in Poor Things . We ask the tough questions, like was all that sex necessary and why do we love Mark Ruffalo's Duncan so much even though he's so terr...

It’s alive!!! This week we’re talking about the original Frankenstein film and comparing it to the novel by the iconique Mary Shelley. This episode is equal parts history lesson and delusional musings, so put down your pitchforks, sit down, and listen! Instagram & TikTok: @watchingoutloudpod Email: watchingoutloudpod@gmail.com Sources: Gould, Stephen Jay. “The monster’s human nature.” Natural...

Witness me!!! This week, we're smearing black oil over our eyes and spraying chrome onto our mouths as we discuss the 2015 post-apocalyptic milk-fest, Mad Max: Fury Road. We fawn over Furiosa and insist maybe Tom Hardy should have just shown up to set on time, all while examining the gendered oppression of this post-apocalyptic society. Instagram & TikTok: @watchingoutloudpod Email: watchingoutlou...

Calling all the ghoulies out there! This week we're talking all things zombies with the 1968 student-film-turned-canon-horror, Night of the Living Dead . We discuss the origins and development of the zombie, and we even provide our own survival tactics for how to survive a zombie apocalypse. Hint: we don't survive! Instagram & TikTok: @watchingoutloudpod Email: watchingoutloudpod@gmail...

The crackers are crackering in this one! We discuss multimedia representations of the black experience and what critic Grace Heneks calls "white fright" in Jordan Peele's 2017 tour de force, Get Out . Calling upon classic horror tropes, Peele reshapes the horror genre and we can't stop talking about it! Instagram & TikTok: @watchingoutloudpod Email: watchingoutloudpod@gmail.c...

Let's take a one-way trip to the Grand Canyon with this one! We're discussing the buddy-road-film/love story that is Ridley Scott's 1991 Thelma & Louise, starring the iconique Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon. Buckle up and give your best girly friends a big smooch! This is our first episode recorded in a cabin in the woods, sponsored by the handsomest stray cat, Dirt Bag! Instagram...

Better late than never, and this one's for the girlies! But what episode isn't?? This week we discuss Sofia Coppola's feature directorial debut,  The Virgin Suicides , in which she depicts the beauty and devastation of girlhood. This one is sweet and special. Instagram & TikTok:  @watchingoutloudpod Email:  watchingoutloudpod@gmail.com Sources: Eugenides, Jeffrey.  The Virgin Suici...

Do you feel haunted by the ever impending doom of death?? So do your hosts! And we’re talking about it this week as we analyze David Robert Mitchell’s 2014 horror, It Follows. Instagram & TikTok: @watchingoutloudpod Email: watchingoutloudpod@gmail.com Sources: https://itfollows.fandom.com/wiki/Jamie_Height https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Follows   https://henridecorinth.wordpress.com/2015/03/...

Protect your bath tubs! We're talking about that little freak Barry Keoghan and the internet sensation that is Emerald Fennel's 2023 Saltburn . Listen to us roast British culture and examine all the icky voyeurism that goes into this classist tale. Instagram & TikTok: @watchingoutloudpod Sources: Greven, David. “Misfortune and men’s eyes: voyeurism, sorrow, and the homosocial in three...