Blood and Black Rum Podcast - A Cult Film / Horror Podcast

We finish out our first Difficult Films month with Lars von Trier's Antichrist . It's our first time with a von Trier film and the first time seeing this one, and we have to say that we were both left a little hard-pressed to say whether we actually liked the film or not. We talk through all that, including the trollish onscreen mutilation and violence, the very hushed moments of philosophizing, t...

Our third Difficult Film probably comes as no surprise; Requiem for a Dream is often considered a tough film to sit through, especially when you know the spiral of four people's lives is coming. Since neither of us had seen the film, it was certainly an eye-opening experience to check out Darren Aronofsky's breakthrough film about drug addiction and the unintentional chaos it reeks on those involv...

We continue Difficult Films month playing the Funny Games of Michael Haneke. Here we discuss the ominous tension that is built with virtually no music, the offputting dynamic of the movie, the duality of its difficultness, the impact of violence, and a whole lot more! We're also drinking Genesee Brewing Company's Tropical Pineapple Kolsch. Approximate timeline 0:00-12:00 Intro 12:00-21:00 Beer tal...

We're starting Difficult Films off with one that... seems to be a divide between the two hosts! Hereditary is well-known as Ari Aster's gut-punching directorial debut, and we discuss just what makes this film a slow-burn disturbing jaunt into family trauma. This also happens to coincide with Mother's Day, so you know... happy Mother's Day being reminded about the grief you potentially carry for yo...

Finally, we were able to see The Batman thanks to it streaming on HBO Max and we've gotta say, we were pleasantly surprised to be completely enamored with the film. Both of us have strong Batman feelings, but Matt Reeves' film is the best of all worlds. It's gritty, grim, and smart; it compiles many different elements of Batman and Bruce Wayne; and it ends unexpectedly, with the Batman learning so...

What better way to blaspheme the requel of Jesus Christ than to celebrate with Critters 2: The Main Course , a sequel directed by Mick Garris that sees the Crites resuming their attack on a small town, this time on Easter! While neither of us are huge fans of the Critters series, we certainly make it known why this movie falls short of more likely resembles a Leprechaun sequel - we talk the bounty...

We've got some time to kill before our Easter episode so we thought, why not cover An American Werewolf in London ? The movie recently got a new 4K UHD release from Arrow Video and for good reason; it's one of the best contemporary werewolf movies. We talk about John Landis' foray into horror, the transformations, the differences between wolfmen and werewolves, the downer ending, and a whole lot m...

Finally we get to cover Spider-Man: No Way Home , a film we've wanted to do for some time. Now that it's getting its home video release, we get caught up on all the Peter Parker antics including the multiversal traversal that happens in this film. We talk about how much fun it is to get all of the universes together, why Spider-Man works even with its multiple supervillains, the usage of Dr. Stran...

We thought we were done with the Scream franchise back when we did Scream 4 , but we were wrong! We're back to talk about Scream 5 or Scream 2022 or whatever you want to call it, and we have a lot to say! We tackle the new cast, the legacy cast, the richness of Woodsboro, the Ghostface antics, and a whole lot more. Also, we're drinking Weihenstephaner's Vitus weizenbock. Approximate timeline 0:00-...

We finish the Warwick Davis Leprechaun franchise (finally - it feels like we've done an episode almost every year since our start!) with the painful Leprechaun: Back 2 Tha Hood . If you heard our episode on Leprechaun in the Hood , you'll know we were not satisfied with Leprechaun's first trip, so heading back for a second excursion in the hood is another exercise in pain. Honestly, this one is a...

Yikes. We've done the original, we've done the 2000s remake. Now we're back for Netflix's new requel Texas Chainsaw Massacre , which supposedly did so poorly in its test screenings that it did not get a theatrical release. We experience this firsthand with notations about exactly why this movie doesn't work. The excessive wokeness! The aping from Halloween 2018! The unlikable characters! Leatherfa...

Happy Black History Month! To celebrate, we're taking a look at perhaps the most important blaxploitation film in cinematic history with Ivan Dixon. We're happy to discuss the Black movement in the film involving guerilla warfare learned by the CIA, tokenism in the workforce and still at play today, identity politics, Herbie Hancock's score, the voice of Black writers, and a whole lot more. This e...

We've updated our cover image to Bronson, so why not cover a film of his as well? We dive into Murphy's Law , a Cannon release from the mid '80s when Bronson was basically keeping the company afloat with his pictures. Here, we discuss the buddy comedy elements at play with Bronson's co-star Kathleen Wilhoite, get down to the ditty (at the beginning of the episode), and discuss just how generic thi...

We wanted to do a Valentine's Day episode and we picked Happy Death Day 2U misunderstanding that it is not, in fact, set on Valentine's Day but just released around that time. No matter, we make it a Valentine's Day episode anyway by rating the movie on scale of Turkish Angora cats and hearts, as well as discussing our love lives. Oh yeah, we also talk about the been there-done that Happy Death Da...

 While Wes Anderson movies might seem out of our wheelhouse, we have done a few in the past and we truly enjoy his wry aesthetics. We've been meaning to check out The French Dispatch for some time and now that we have, we can't stop talking about it. Despite the meta commentary asking us to stop overanalyzing, we certainly do just that in this episode, breaking down each of the three shorts i...

WE DID IT! We've hit 200 episodes and we thought the perfect way to compile all of our hard work would be to pick a film that summarizes all of the things we've been working on in the past 7 years. So Escape from New York felt like the perfect amalgamation - action, Kurt Russell, neo-western ideas, Lee Van Cleef, Tom Atkins, a celebration of John Carpenter (who also has a birthday very soon!). We...

Back to business with a new episode of the podcast - of course, we're not following a theme anymore so we wanted to cover our first found-footage movie on the show. We're in good hands with 2014's Creep starring Mark Duplass as a deranged guy who stalks our first-person perspective victim. This movie gets around all of the contextual issues found-footage films normally have trouble with, and we di...

Merry Christmas Eve! We close out our Festivus Series for 2021 with one of the most iconic holiday films, 1990's Home Alone ! This John Hughes-written classic has always been one of Ryne's favorites, and we basically just discuss our favorite moments from the movie in one long dialogue about its greatness! You'll hear our favorite lines, traps, and more, and we hope you enjoy our breakdown of why...

We continue our Festivus Series in 2021 with Christmas Evil , a film that Martin really didn't like. But that's okay, because Ryne really digs it, so we get a good discussion going about what works, what doesn't work, and why some people hate it and some people really love it. Christmas Evil is a weird movie, and it takes some appreciation to get past some of the rawer editing and absurdities. How...

This week we're tackling Better Watch Out (not to be confused with our episode on Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 3: Better Watch Out! ) for Festivus! This one's a lot of fun - it takes one part Scream , one part Home Alone , and a bunch of small elements from other horror movies (I'm calling out Black Christmas too) and throws them together for a humorous but also brutal romp that has moments of...

Festivus Series 2021 starts now! We're returning to the lore of Billy and Agnes in our look at Black Christmas (sometimes stylized Black Xmas ) from 2006, a remake of the original film that throws in quite a few odes and tries to give a LOT more backstory. That's not entirely successful, and we talk about why. But we also discuss the holiday festivities, the themes, the cookie-cutter protagonists,...

We finally take on one of the most famous horror Thanksgiving movies: Blood Rage ! We both agree that this is like a lower-budget, Thanksgiving version of Silent Night, Deadly Night , just way less effective. We talk about the randomness of the movie, the feeling that a lot of this was ad libbed, the gory violence, the interminable length, and a whole lot more. We're also drinking Ommegang/Firesto...

Our final episode for 2021's Halloween season is a cheat with the John Carpenter thing; he didn't direct Halloween Kills , but he did contribute the characters and film score. But of course we had to cover this sequel to the 2018's requel, and we take a lot of time to channel our frustrations at this follow-up. We enjoyed 2018's Halloween quite a bit, and while we did have fun with Halloween Kills...

Our final (?) episode in our So Creepy It's Carpenter series is on Carpenter's last (?) directorial film The Ward ! Ryne thought he had seen this before but he was mistaken; so we both experience this psychological thriller for the first time and discuss how middle of the road it truly is. In fact, it's so difficult to talk about because of how aggressively mediocre it is. However, we give it a sh...

We're nearing the end of our Carpenter series, but that doesn't mean we won't go out with a bang! In Village of the Damned , we take a look at the creepy kid flick based off a prior movie that was based off a novel. While we note that this doesn't exactly feel like a Carpenter film, it does a good enough job of getting the eerie and the moralism across. We talk about Christopher Reeve, empathy, an...