Twitch of the Death Nerve

Our dear friend Erica Schultz is back on the show — coincidentally right around Mother’s Day — to talk about her book, The Sweetest Taboo: An Unapologetic Guide To Child Kills In Film  (which you can still buy through that link if you haven’t ordered it yet, though get on it because it’s selling like hot cakes). We talk about how the book came to be, what it was like...

What force on earth could compel us to the suburbs of New Jersey and Staten Island to watch movies? Learn more by following us on Patreon  to unlock this full episode and instantly access our entire back catalogue of bonus episodes, video essays, written essays, and several of Samm’s ongoing solo podcasts. Support Twitch of the Death Nerve and help us keep the show ad free and on the airwaves fore...

We’ve gotten a lot of requests to do an episode on the great Stalked By My Doctor series, starring the absolute king Eric Roberts, and we finally delivered. Lifetime Channel thriller enthusiast Rob Weychert joined Charles and Samm to talk about this wild trend in made for TV movies and we honestly had the best time. We discuss everything from historical origins for this subgenre, how these f...

The latest Death Nerve is here, and it’s a real throwback! Acting as a spiritual successor to our Texas Psychorama episode from a couple years back, Death Nerve founding member and true dyed in the wool freakshow Jon Dzwonar is back with a fiendish 6 movie marathon! Unfortunately, Samm got stuck in the hospital visiting her catatonic friend Patrick, so she’s sitting this one out. Don’t worry...

In this episode, Samm gives an impassioned argument for why you should watch as many Kenji Misumi movies as possible and Charles dons a tinfoil hat to explore the connection between the death drive and ’00s disaster movies. What the hell does that mean? Learn more by following us on Patreon  to unlock this full episode and instantly access our entire back catalogue of bonus episodes, video e...

How am I supposed to relate to a character who has CGI blood coursing through their veins? Find out the answer to this question for the ages by following us  on Patreon  to unlock this full episode and instantly access our entire back catalogue of bonus episodes, video essays, written essays, and several of Samm’s ongoing solo podcasts. Support Twitch of the Death Nerve and help us keep the show a...

Dune has been one of Samm’s favorite books since childhood and Charles has become similarly obsessed (maybe even more so), so it was inevitable that we were going to do cover it at some point, because… the spice must flow. For this episode — which covers everything from Herbert’s first few books to David Lynch’s adaptation and the two Villeneuve films — we knew...

From the inception of Twitch of the Death Nerve, an episode on Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) seemed inevitable. It’s a film that has had an incredible influence on Samm’s life, plus we got to see it on 35mm recently at a sold out screening in NYC. Luckily we found the perfect guest, Annie Rose Malamet, who shares Samm’s deep love of and admirat...

Follow us  on Patreon  to unlock this full episode and instantly access our entire back catalogue of bonus episodes, video essays, written essays, and several of Samm’s ongoing solo podcasts. Support Twitch of the Death Nerve and help us keep the show ad free and on the airwaves forever!

For this episode, we’re diving in to the Hong Kong New Wave through the work of underrated auteur Patrick Tam. Dear Death Nerve friend Bobby Rodriguez joins to help break down the history of political turmoil in Hong Kong in the ’60s as it relates to the birth of the New Wave. We talk about its origins in television, how the Hong Kong New Wave is different from other arthouse movements...

Follow us  on Patreon to unlock this full episode and instantly access our entire back catalogue of bonus episodes, video essays, written essays, and several of Samm’s ongoing solo podcasts. Support Twitch of the Death Nerve and help us keep the show ad free and on the airwaves forever!

Happy New Year! Charles and Samm had a lot of fun talking through their respective favorite films of the year: this includes both their top 10 films watched for the first time, but a few runners up and a run through of some Letterboxd stats like top actors and top directors. As a result this episode is all over the place in terms of geography, genre, and decade (though we frequently return to Japa...

Follow us  on Patreon to unlock this full episode and instantly access our entire back catalogue of bonus episodes, video essays, written essays, and several of Samm’s ongoing solo podcasts. Support Twitch of the Death Nerve and help us keep the show ad free and on the airwaves forever! And have a happy holidays!!!

Follow us  on Patreon  to unlock this full episode and instantly access our entire back catalogue of bonus episodes, video essays, written essays, and several of Samm’s ongoing solo podcasts. Support Twitch of the Death Nerve and help us keep the show ad free and on the airwaves forever!

We’ve been wanting to do a Death Nerve Q&A episode for awhile and we got so many great questions from social media, the Patreon , and our Discord. We got to talk about everything from rape revenge movies to dream blu-ray releases, favorite books, under-seen films of the 1940s, Stalked By My Doctor , why Samm dislikes New Hollywood, Stalked By My Doctor , and so much more. If you don&#821...

That’s another Halloween season and another Exhumed Films 24-hour Horrorthon in the books. This year’s Horrorthon was particularly delightful, because so many of our friends and listeners were in attendance. Harry, Dan, and Jesse from Exhumed Films had a packed lineup this year and we break it down, film by film, in the latest Death Nerve episode. Charles and I both got COVID at Horror...

This Halloween, Charles and Samm dive into one of the best cozy horror subgenres — the slasher film. This episode breezes through 10 of our favorite underrated slasher movies, with some probably predictable choices and others that are more niche. We also talk about what exactly constitutes the slasher genre and how it intersects with and differs from other subgenres like the serial killer th...

Follow us on Patreon to unlock this full episode and instantly access our entire back catalogue of bonus episodes, video essays, written essays, and several of Samm’s ongoing solo podcasts. Support Twitch of the Death Nerve and help us keep the show ad free and on the airwaves forever!

The latest Twitch of the Death Nerve episode celebrates one of America’s greatest heroes — hardcore icon Jamie Gillis. Charles and Samm are joined by gentleman pervert Shawn Porter to discuss Jamie’s incredible career, the Golden Age of Porn, Radley Metzger, Water Power, Gerard Damiano, woods porn, quaaludes, kink, and so much more. Shawn runs the incredible body modification arc...

Every year in early summer for over a decade now, Exhumed Films holds their annual 35mm exploitation movie marathon, Exfest. We covered this event on the show last year and we’re back to talk about 12+ hours of exploitation cinema. To discuss this year’s marathon, which was held on June 10th at the Colonial Theater in Phoenixville, PA, Charles and Samm were joined by Ian Galloway, owne...

Our latest episode is about shot-on-video (SOV) horror, as well as all things regional and very, very low budget. Divisive, underground, and often mind-melting, SOV horror movies exist in a world unto themselves and outside the bounds of good taste. Joining us to discuss a slew of no-budget oddities are Philly-based filmmakers Michael DiFrancesco and Brewce Longo. Mike D recently joined us on our...

Usually these Patreon-only bonus Happy Hour episodes exist behind a paywall, but we decided to unlock this one to the general public because it’s just so much dang “fun.” Charles Smith III, who was the guest on our previous episode covering the ongoing WGA strike, hangs back for the Happy Hour to drink some cheap whiskey and discuss the tribulations of independent filmmaking, his work as a produce...

For this episode, Charles and Samm are joined by our friend Charles Smith III, a local producer, director, film teacher, and proud union member. We discuss the ongoing writers strike, why it’s so important, what the core demands are, and larger issues related to strikes and class war within the entertainment industry. We briefly talk about a few films centered on strikes, because of course I...

We’re baaaack with a really fun, somewhat raucous conversation with Jesse Nelson and Brian Izzi from Cauldron Films . Charles and Samm gush about their recent fancy pants edition of The City of the Living Dead , and chat with them about some of their other great releases like Contraband and American Rickshaw , what it’s like to run a boutique blu-ray label, genie movies, Italians in Fl...

For the latest Twitch of the Death Nerve, Charles and Samm were joined by one of the best people on the planet, Michael DiFrancesco, to talk about one of the best subgenres on the planet, sword and sorcery movies. We set out on an epic journey from the origins of the subgenre in Greek myth, pulp literature, and Italian sword and sandal films, through to a discussion of our favorite ’80s swor...