Not Your Final Girl

Time for another break in the back room. For this spoiler-free minisode, we discuss Chloe Okuno's directorial debut Watcher (2022) starring neo scream queen Maika Monroe. Imagine: you've moved to a foreign country for your husband, you don't speak the language, you are completely isolated. But don't worry, your husband isn't abusive! He's just kind of lame and doesn't believe you when you tell him...

Ghouls, it's time for a smoke break in the back room! Join Candace and Ariel as we give our spoiler-free thoughts on David Cronenberg's latest body horror film, Crimes of the Future (2022). This film should be in a theatre near you (because if it came to Bakersfield, CA, chances are you've got access to it), so you can either catch it first or let this minisode whet your appetite for a horny, dyst...

One big old content note right up top: This is an episode about rape revenge! Obviously, that means we’ll be talking frankly about sexual assault, as well as its context and ramifications. Some rough territory, but we had a great time talking about one of the more reviled and misunderstood subgenres of horror. We’re digging into Abel Ferrara’s cult exploitation classic Ms .45 (1981), along with Du...

We’ve been subsumed into the Net, ghouls. But it’s okay; we’ve got friends in here. We’re talking to our friend Amber, host of our fellow horror podcast HornBloodFire about a double feature based on keywords: isolation, Internet, surreal - Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s darkly prescient vision of Internet apocalypse, Pulse (2001), and Isa Mazzei and Daniel Goldhaber’s folkloric tale of camming and doppelgange...

We’re back, and talking to film critic and cosplayer Jessica Scott, who brought us two underrated and under-discussed bangers: John Hancock’s ethereal and unsettling Let’s Scare Jessica To Death (1971), and William Peter Blatty’s chaotic long lost successor to The Exorcist, The Exorcist III (1990 - and yes, The Exorcist II exists, but for our purposes, no it doesn’t). You might wonder what these m...

Enter the metaverse (not that one) with us, ghouls. We had Josh and Mels from Blackheart Collective on to talk about the mechanics and interpersonal dynamics of immersive horror, along with slasher cultural reset The Cabin in the Woods (2011) and haunting ode to internet horror and the ephemeral relationships it engenders, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021). Note: We have good news and bad...

Listeners, we call you all ghouls for a reason, and we’re putting it to the test (again) in this episode. Get ready to consider your cosmic insignificance, the razor-thin divide between humans and livestock, and the intimate cruelties of family because we’re talking to author and film critic Gretchen Felker-Martin about torture porn grandaddy The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) , and its unexpected...

We’re hitting the road in this episode - metaphorically, of course. Please don’t attempt to drive through the state of Texas in real life. No good can come of it. But do listen to us; we’re with Salem Horror Fest founder Kay Lynch, who brought us a double feature that tries to outrun death and chaos on the open road (spoiler: it doesn’t work). We’re talking about nightmarish and erotic coming-of-a...

It’s a very special episode, ghouls. Turns out it was not enough to subject ourselves, our listeners, and cool people in the community to our bullshit, we also needed to upset our horror-averse sisters as well. So today, Candace and Ariel are talking to Sammi and Eliza, our respective younger sisters, about Richard Bates Jr’s blood-soaked and deeply dysfunctional Excision (2012), and Julia Ducourn...

There’s no day like today for contemplating isolation, the futility of human connections, the depraved potential of the human soul, and how we’re all just a bunch of meat bags. Happy Valentine’s from Candace and Ariel; here’s a double feature that really hones in on these themes: George Romero’s mournfully violent Martin (1978), and one of our 2021 favorites with an appropriately emo title, My Hea...

Happy New Year, ghouls! As we amble into 2022, we take the time to reflect on 2021 horror with our pals from Gag Me With a Chainsaw, Corie and Sarah. We talk the good, the bad, the ugly, and have some titles we agree on and some we don't (honestly, that always makes it more fun). Hear us talk our favorites from last year, some mentions of 2020 horror, and what we're looking out for in 2022. Maybe...

Welcome to our final episode of 2021! We’re leaving this year with a bang, ghouls. Candace and Ariel are joined by writer Alison Peirse for our most British double feature ever: Kate Shenton’s independent dark meta horror comedy about the nightmares of filmmaking, Egomaniac (2016), and Prano Bailey-Bond’s fever dream of art, unresolved trauma, and video nasties, Censor (2021). This is one of those...

We know the 90’s are back, and we’re fully embracing it in this episode - you’re welcome! Candace and Ariel are talking to our guest Lauren McKenzie about Friends, the WB, the Clinton scandal, and of course our Kevin Williamson double feature: era-defining meta slasher Scream (1996) and its entertaining but underwhelming follow-up, I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997). Can you The Secret-style m...

We’re officially in The Holidays, ghouls, and it’s time for some dark retellings, some real Grimm brothers shit. Candace and Ariel are talking to filmmaker Ashley George about essential Tim Burton goth feature Sleepy Hollow (1999), as well as the tragically new-to-us Snow White: a Tale of Terror (1997). Themes of this episode include: unusual gore, witchcraft, maiden/mother/crone dynamics, stuff y...

The time is nigh! From the black and white world, Candace and Ariel are hanging out with filmmaker Chelsea Stardust for our annual Vintage Halloween episode, where we discuss some of the most festive pre-1970 horror films. Get ready for this triple feature - spanning three decades, we’ve got atmospheric and suspenseful psychological classic Cat People (1942), followed by Hammer campfest The Curse...

It’s Not Your Final Girl’s inaugural October episode, get ready for the jump scares - just kidding, we won’t do those, but there are some spooky sound effects in the background because our guest was literally in a haunted house. Today, we’re talking to haunter Jourdain Blanco about Haunt (2019) and The Houses October Built (2014), two films whose plots are deceptively similar, but deliver plenty o...

Welcome to the world underneath, ghouls. Don’t panic, Candace and Ariel are here to guide you out of the simulation with the help of author Hailey Piper; we’re talking about John Carpenter’s Reagan-era classic They Live (1988), along with Dark City (1998) , a mind-bending noir we couldn’t believe came out right before The Matrix. In this episode: Lovecraft (barely), monster fucking (of course), ho...

Hey ghouls! Today we've got a special feed drop for you from our incredibly talented pod-friend, Wi-Moto Nyoka of Dusky Projects and the Black Women are Scary podcast. Come for the flash fiction starring Candace and Ariel in which we are horribly murdered, stay for the eclectic conversation about a bunch of other fun topics including the dirt on libraries and what's what with fast food.  "Joi...

Content note: One of the movies we talk about in this episode features sexual assault, both discussed and implied. If you don’t want to hear us talk about that, you can stop listening at about the 52 minute mark to avoid it. We promised you ghouls an update on our backpacking/trail maintenance trip in the Los Padres National Forest back at the beginning of the summer, and here we are with two more...

Greetings, ghouls, and get ready for a little tension and suspense. Candace and Ariel are back from the beach, still relatively young, and are talking to comics and tv writer Pornsak Pichetshote about the horror comics that freaked us out the most, film criticism as a defense mechanism, and of course our double feature. Today we’ve got two variations on the home invasion genre - Green Room (2015),...

Your illustrious hosts are living their best aquatic horror life at the beach this weekend so we're sharing a feed drop from another podcast! Ariel had the privilege of guesting on This Book That Book to geek out about some of her favorite childhood reads, and of course that includes horror! Tune in to hear her talk formative media and youthful pranks gone too far, and we'll be back in a couple we...

Are you tired of heavy-hitting double features by now? We hope not, because this week we’ve got a barn burner of an episode - Candace and Ariel are joined by Mars and Story from Gorefriends Podcast to talk about horror classic Rosemary’s Baby (1968), and its sister-from-another-mister Hereditary (2018). Grab a candle, pull up a chair at the seance table, (maybe put a hold on House of Psychotic Wom...

Hang out in the scary suburbs with us this episode! Pod Mortem co-host Travis Hunter asked us to pick a formative horror movie to go with his, and we ended up with a heavy hitter double feature for the books. First off we’ve got simplicity, style, and one of the greatest final girl/movie monster face-offs of all time in Travis’ kindergarten(!) favorite, John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), followed...

Content note: This episode's movies heavily feature themes of sexual assault, and while they are mostly figurative, we do thoroughly discuss those themes. We're back, and we've got a QUADRUPLE FEATURE for you this time. It's Pride Month, ghouls, and we've been dying to talk about all the queer stuff in the Alien franchise. Come along with us on a journey of gender nonconformity, mommy issues, hype...

Broadcasting live from summer vacation, Ariel and Candace are bringing you a VERY SPECIAL EPISODE this week: a feed drop from one of our fave podcast friends, ScreenVomit ! Your fearless pod hosts decided to take on woods horror for real this past weekend and went on a backpacking trip to do some trail work with the Los Padres Forest Association. We lived to tell the tale, but first we’re going to...