Caliber 9 From Outer Space

It's business up front and party at the back this week - as long as the business up front is Silly-Beggars and the party involves hogs, testosterone and a psychotic Lance Henrickson making alarming threats. We're joined this week by film-maker Ted Bennett ( Reel Terror ) to conduct a frequently irreverent discussion on bizarre Jackie Chan vehicle City Hunter (1993), directed by Wong Jing, followed...

Justin Kerswell from The Hysteria Lives and The Hysteria Continues pops in to discuss Patrick (1978), directed by Richard Franklin, followed by its notorious and wholly unexpected Italian rip-off, Patrick Still Lives (1980), directed by Mario Landi. Toxic masculinity, screaming cat-fights, Holly Hockeysticks cheer in the face of psychic assault and full body impalement: these movies have similar t...

What the bloody hell is going on?!?! Curses flying thick and fast all over the place. Adam drops by to talk A Chinese Ghost Story (1987), directed by Tony Ching, and Kadaicha (1988), directed by James Bogle. Dark magic and people getting engulfed by giant tongues (or is that just the biggest eel I've ever seen in my life?) Also, Tom Cruise's messiah complex, Sonny Chiba's cowboy yakuza, Australia'...

We love a mismatched double feature, and this is a doozy. Charlie Adlard is back to discuss a couple of films that couldn't be more different. We reflect on Dario Argento's masterpiece of phantasmagoric horror, Suspiria (1977), followed by Gerry Anderson's own childlike dream of mecha joy: Thunderbirds Are GO (1966), directed by David Lane. One thing these films have in common? Plot is entirely se...

Computer game adaptations: perhaps the least respected form of film-making around. And let's face it, the ratio of good films to bad films is pretty darn low. This week, we team up with the guys from the Grandad and Mr Tech gaming podcast to have a close look at two much maligned entries in this subgenre: Street Fighter (1994), directed by Steven E. de Souza, and Mortal Kombat (1995), directed by...

Just which cop is the biggest bastard? Lieutenant Crow or Inspector Cliff? Bryce joins us to discuss a couple of tales of cops gone off the rails. First up: Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects (1989), directed by J. Lee Thompson, and Mafia Junction a.k.a. Super Bitch (1973), directed by Massimo Dallamano. We will be announcing a Spoiler Territory section for both films, so if you haven't seen them before...

This week, we are trapped inside and beset by unnameable horrors in a dark corner of the Great White North. Sammy from the Gentlemen's Guide to Midnite Cinema pops in to discuss Pontypool (2008), directed by Bruce McDonald, followed by the notorious SOV act of lunacy, Things (1989), directed (if that's what you can call it?) by Andrew Jordan. As well as pondering the profound cultural influence of...

It's another director spotlight this week, as Al stops by to discuss a couple of Riccardo Freda joints. Freda was a diverse journeyman of the Italian film industry who produced most of his output before the heyday of Italsploitation, but his late career tilts at giallo and horror were... unusual, to put it mildly. We dive deep into his Dublin-set giallo, The Iguana With the Tongue of Fire (1971),...

This week we are talking about one of the great directors of the New Hollywood era, George Roy Hill. Sakana joins us once again to celebrate the work of this master storyteller: we will check out his divisive box office failure, The Great Waldo Pepper (1975), and his raucous, subversive sports comedy Slap Shot (1977). Death defying air stunts, stunted pretty boys, and ultraviolence on the ice rink...

War is hell. Vive le revolution! Conflict is on the menu this week as Nick Langdon drops by to discuss The Battle of Algiers (1966), directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, and Battle of the Commandos (1969), directed by Umberto Lenzi. A legendary treatise on how to both wage a guerilla resistance and combat one, plus an object lesson in how NOT to conduct a commando mission - even if you are Jack Palance w...

It's a week for tough cops who chafe under the soft libertarian justice system of modern democracy, dammit! And no cop is tougher than Maurizio Merli. Unless it's Charles Bronson, obviously. Bryce swings by to shoot the breeze and a whole heap of scumbag criminals, as we discuss 10 to Midnight (1983), directed by J. Lee Thompson, followed by Rome, Armed to the Teeth (1976), directed by Umberto Len...

We are very late to the wake, but better late than never. Earlier this year, in close succession, we lost a couple of legends of film: Gene Hackman and Wings Hauser. In this bonus episode, Rob and Joe talk about the contrasting careers of these two great talents: one of them widely celebrated, the other probably underappreciated. Then we have a close look at the only film collaboration between the...

I dunno, man - I think this mutually-agreed arrangement is a little undercooked. Mike White drops by again to discuss Raw Deal (1948), directed by Anthony Mann, and then, you guessed it, Raw Deal (1986), directed by John Irvin. Listen as we gasp in wonder at Mann's sumptuous shadowy cinematography and Arnie's enormous pectorals. What do these films have in common other than their names? Probably n...

The horror genre exists to probe our latent fears, and the so-called "Duality of Man" has been a huge theme across so much film and literature. This week, writer and video artist Graham Williamson joins us to discuss a couple of interesting meditations on transformation and duality: Ginger Snaps (2000) directed by John Fawcett and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne (1981), directed by...

Forget the threat of AI to our livelihoods... what about the murderous CYBORGS that countless B-movies have taught us are coming to get us any moment now?! This week, Al (the person, not the AI) joins us to check out Steel and Lace (1991), directed by Ernest D. Farino, and American Cyborg: Steel Warrior (1994), directed by Boaz Davidson. We will be announcing a Spoiler Territory section for both f...

Half ape. Half reptile. Half we don't know what. Dr Ethan Lyon is not a horror from the murkey deeps but he is a huge fan of the films of Matt Farley and the folks from Motern Media, and he joins us this week to discuss two microbudget gems: Don't Let the Riverbeast Get You! (2012) and Magic Spot (2022), both directed by Charles Roxburgh. We don't think we spoil either of these films in the dissus...

By gar, it's a good old fashioned Letterboxd Collab! Dr Ethan Lyon and Sakana join forces to help us deliver a little shot of bonus episode classic western joy, as we share our thoughts on Anthony Mann's Winchester '73 (1950). Jimmy Stewart in dark and vengeful mode, Shelley Winters as comely young blonde, Stephen McNally being dastardly, Dan Duryea sliming up the screen (bless his cotton socks) a...

This one hurt. This week we lost one of Hollywood's great mercurial talents, Val Kilmer. In this bonus episode, Rob and Joe talk about the man, the enigma, sometimes the spanner in the works that was Val Kilmer. Then they deep dive into one of his lesser celebrated later films, David Mamet's Spartan (2004). We do have a Spoiler Territory section for Spartan , so you can skip ahead to the 55:10 mar...

We're still fixated on HEISTS, people!!! Nick Langdon pops in to discuss Charley Varrick (1973), directed by Don Siegel, and then Hudson Hawk (1991), directed by Michael Lehmann. Walter Matthau gets dark and grisly under Siegel's immaculate directorial hand (even if he didn't get the movie at all, apparently) and Joel Silver lets Bruce Willis' ego off the leash completely (with the result that ver...

Marek Turner stops by to tell tales of Gigi the Loser, as we pair another classic Italian giallo with one of the great classics of film noir. We check out Rififi (1955), directed by Jules Dassin, and The Cat O' Nine Tails (1971), directed by Dario Argento. We will be announcing a Spoiler Territory section for both films, so if you haven't seen them before you listen, you can nevertheless avoid spo...

Jonathan Owen joins us this week as we venture into Eastern Europe to lift the lid on the greatest cinema you've probably never heard of. Together we Czech out (see what I did there? And sorry about that) Marketa Lazarova (1967), directed by František Vláčil, and I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen (1970), directed by Oldřich Lipský. Sublime dark-age psychedelic freak-out paired with ridiculous comedy of...

Samm Deighan is back to chat with us about one of our favourite niche subgenres: the Two-Mortal-Enemies-From-The-Past-Get-Frozen-In-Ice-And-Reanimated-In-The-Future-So-They-Can-Chase-Each-Other-Around-And-Smash-Stuff-to-Bits movie. We check out Demolition Man (1993), directed by Marco Brambilla, and The Iceman Cometh (1989), directed by Clarence Fok. We won't be announcing a Spoiler Territory sect...

It's 8 o'clock in the F#%KING MORNING and we are joined by full grown sandgroper, Adam Trainer to dig up a couple of unsung antipodean gems. We discuss Fortress (1985), directed by Arch Nicholson, and then Fortress (1992 - no relation), directed by Stuart Gordon. Deep kindertrauma in the bush and dystopian prisonbreak glory - this week's episode is a psychedelic trip down some very obscure Austral...

Sammy joins us this week to check out a couple of films which (a) feature Michael Caine in less-than-flattering roles and (b) may have been regretted by their directors in later years. We discuss Blame It On Rio (1984), directed by Stanley Donen, and then On Deadly Ground (1994), directed by Steven Seagal. This week's episode is brought to you by the letter P - for Problematic . Yikes!!! It's not...

The Walking Dead's Charlie Adlard joins us this week to talk comic books, kaiju and the iconic art of Saul Bass. Together we check out Bass' sole feature as a director, Phase IV (1974), followed by Destroy All Monsters (1968), directed by Ishiro Honda. It's not really possible to spoil Destroy All Monsters but we will call out Spoiler Territory for Phase IV . If you want to skip ahead from that po...