--And Now The Podcast Starts!

Apart from Howard (he says hello), the gang's all here as Stella, Kirsty and Ian join Dan to discuss how far the horror genre might stretch to include action, disaster and sci-fi films, with specific reference to The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Jaws (1975) and Aliens (1986).  Beware: spoilers for The Poseidon Adventure - please note the timecodes below if you wish to avoid.   00.00.00 Intro and new...

Ian, Stella and Kirsty do their best without Dan's guidance (he's away on holiday, the slacker) and dig into 'Dashcam', Rob Savage's eagerly anticipated follow-up to 'Host', with a spoiler-free and spoiler-full discussions, plus an interview with 'Dashcam' screenwriter Gemma Hurley and its producer Jed Shepherd. PODCAST TIMELINE 1'52 Trailer followed by spoiler-free discussion 22'00 Interview with...

It's time to talk Tolkien, and specifically the more horrific elements of the Middle Earth canon.  Peter Jackson's 2001 film instalment The Fellowship of the Ring (featuring the ever-forbidding Christopher Lee, of course) has long given Ian, Stella and Dan the collywobbles, but Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated version is also memorably nightmarish.  Joining them to enthuse about these films is the bri...

AKA: 'Another Hannibal Love-In'... We return to the world of Hannibal, Bryan Fuller's majestic TV remix of the works of Thomas Harris.  As with our Season One discussion last year, Kirsty and Dan are joined by very special guests Dr Lori Hitchcock Morimoto of the University of Virginia and Dr Rebecca Williams of the University of South Wales for an in depth aca-Fannibal chat, and then by Stella (o...

The date this episode drops, 28th April 2022, would've been the 100th birthday of Nigel Kneale, the great pioneer of SF/horror TV and film, who died in 2006.  Here, in an extract from our forthcoming episode on Kneale's film version of Quatermass and the Pit (1967), renowned horror author Simon Clark tells Dan the story of how he found the script books of Kneale's 1950s Quatermass serials in a sec...

It's April Fool's Day, so perhaps it's appropriate to admit our own foolishness in failing to put out our March episode actually in the month of March.  Here it is instead, and you'll get a proper April episode in due course... David Edwards, former film critic of the Daily Mirror and old mate of Ian's, is a great fan of and expert on George A Romero's unique 1977 vampire movie, Martin.  He joins...

Now that the major episodes of the podcast have moved to a monthly schedule, we'll be dropping occasional mini episodes in between, including reviews of new movies.  Here is the first, as Kirsty and Dan sink their teeth into director Joe Badon's surreal dark comedy, Sister Tempest.   Relevant links: Order Sister Tempest on Blu-Ray Rent Sister Tempest to stream on Vimeo   Also - if you want to help...

It's 100 years since the premiere of FW Murnau's Nosferatu - Eine Symphonie des Grauens (A Symphony of Horror).  Although not quite the first screen adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, it's the one by which all others are measured - a masterpiece of German Expressionist cinema that marks the beginning of modern screen horror. For years Kirsty has been passing on her love of this classi...

Dan spent quite a while thinking up the title for this episode... Yes, having graduated from high school (or 'left secondary school' as we tend to say in this part of the UK) just as Wes Craven's seminal slasher comedy Scream (1996) first hit UK cinemas, Stella and Dan are franchise fans and wouldn't dare miss the latest in-no-way-confusingly-titled instalment, Scream (2022).  Kirsty thought it lo...

Kirsty, Dan and Ian discuss 2019's Doctor Sleep and whether it was a good idea to make a direct sequel to Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980). Also, Merry Christmas!   00.00.00 Intro 00.09.25 Doctor Sleep and The Shining (non-spoilers) 00.40.49 Doctor Sleep (spoilers)   Recommendations Doctor Sleep (in both theatrical and Director's Cut versions) is currently streaming via Amazon Prime The Lost B...

Kirsty and Dan ponder the horror films they've decided never to go near, and the reasons behind their choice.  Elsewhere, Howard returns - for the first time over Zoom - to delve into the Bag of Death.   00.00.41 Intro with Dan 00.04.55 The Bag of Death with Howard 00.25.46 The Question of Horror with Kirsty 01.24.28 Recommendations with Dan   Recommendations and Relevant Links Val Lewton's Cat Pe...

Ian, Kirsty and Dan discover as one the highly influential 1979 thriller, When A Stranger Calls.  Elsewhere, Dan rhapsodises about Shudder (where this film can actually be found... it's on Amazon Prime , too).   00.00.00 Intro 00.06.33 When A Stranger Calls spoiler-free discussion 00.16.39 When a Stranger Calls trailer (which contains a spoiler) and spoiler discussion 01.16.22 Recommendations   Do...

2002's Dog Soldiers is a fave for Stella, a 'like' for Kirsty and Dan, and frankly a source of personal angst for Ian.  The foursome all get together to chew the fat on it (and somehow never mention that director Neil Marshall went on to be a key force behind our perennial love, TV's Hannibal).  Elsewhere, Howard phones in for another pick from the Bag of Death. Oh, and (sinister pause...) Happy H...

After being introduced to the show via Stella's American TV horror two-parter last year, Dan is now a huge fan of Guillermo del Toro, Chuck Hogan and Carlton Cuse's FX series The Strain (2014-17).  In this episode, Stella joins Dan for a spoilery chat about the whole series.  Elsewhere, a pre-recorded Howard is present to pluck another random gem from The Bag of Death.   00.00.42 Intro and news 00...

FINALLY it's here, only three years after being recorded!  Join Howard, Dan and Spider-Dan (known on this recording as Dan B), in the pub with Ian Winterton (in chronologically his first appearance on this podcast) to discuss their first impressions, in both spoiler-free and spoilery fashion, of David Gordon Green's 2018 Halloween film - just in time for the release of his eagerly-awaited sequel,...

This weekend (14-17 October) it's the virtual version of Grimmfest, giving all of us lounge-lizards who missed the live festival the opportunity to catch many of its filmic highlights from the comfort of our homes.  In this mini-episode, Dan talks to Aaron Bartuska, debut director and co-writer, about his found footage/slasher/character study hybrid For Roger, which has its UK premiere as part of...

The date this episode drops (7th October 2021) is the first day of Grimmfest, Manchester's festival of fantastic film, returning as a live event for the first time since 2019.  And here is the second of our preview episodes, in which you can learn some details about two of the films screening there - Tarumama and Slapface.  Dan and Stella are here to introduce the interviews. 00.16.20 The first in...

We're back!  Or at least... some of us are.  Dan and Ian will be your company for the first episode of the second series of --And Now The Podcast Starts!  But fear not, Kirsty, Stella and Howard will all be returning in future episodes, accompanied by a number of great guests.   And Grimmfest is back!  Yes, it's time again for the North of England's premiere festival of fantastic films, which, fol...

Kirsty, Stella, Ian and Dan gather for the last time this series, to cast their minds back over the podcast so far and discuss whatever comes to mind.  Meanwhile, Howard (who has now recovered from his COVID-19 jab) phones in for another delve into the Bag of Death. The show will now go on a short hiatus.  We'll be returning around June to discuss, once again, the best and worst of horror with the...

It's time to wrap up the first series of --And Now The Podcast Starts! with a general chat between Kirsty, Stella, Ian and Dan as they reflect on producing 60-odd episodes of horror discussions during a global pandemic, pick out some favourite moments, and add in some bits they meant to say about earlier topics.  More in this style next week, and then we're taking three months off. Please note: th...

A return to 2018 (oh, those carefree, carefree days) this episode, as we release the second-to-last of our series of Halloween franchise reviews recorded in that year, with our look at Rob Zombie's sequel to his own remake.  Usual suspects Dan and Howard are joined by regular Halloween guests Spider-Dan (who at the time of recording was only just starting his own illustrious podcast) and actor, wr...

Dan used to love post-apocalypse horror, especially the BBC's 'humanity-destroying plague' classic, Survivors (1975-77).  But he hasn't re-watched it since COVID-19 hit, as he feared it would be too much like real life; for the same reason he hasn't seen Steven Soderbergh's eerily prophetic film Contagion (2011), which has had a new lease of life on streaming since lockdown.  Stella and Ian join h...

The brilliant drama/documentary podcast The Battersea Poltergeist has just completed its eight-part run on BBC Radio 4 (although a bonus ninth episode is due to be released in a couple of weeks), and it's also available on BBC Sounds and all the podcatchers.  Kirsty and Ian have been raving about it for weeks, and finally Stella and Dan are caught up and just as enthused about its brilliant mix of...

NBC's Hannibal (2013-15) brought to the small screen, and re-imagined, the world of FBI profiler Will Graham and his colleague/nemesis, cannibalistic psychiatrist Dr Hannibal Lecter, after their introduction in Thomas Harris' novel Red Dragon (1981) and its subsequent sequels and film adaptations.  Kirsty and (to a lesser extent) Dan have been talking about devoting episodes to it since the beginn...

Stephen Volk wrote Ghostwatch, the 1992 TV play which rated so highly on Kirsty, Stella and Dan's list of Movies That Scared Us The Most last year.  And Ghostwatch is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Stephen's diverse array of horror output in a variety of media, including prose fiction: his new collection of stories featuring a teaming of the legendary literary detectives C Auguste Du...