Hellbent for Horror

Music and Horror are kindred spirits.  And many of us love it when music and horror meet in the shadows of our imaginations.  Join my guests, the hosts of the excellent DISCOVER THE HORROR PODCAST as we look at how we were attracted to the dark side of music, our influences, and how many different ways music express that darkness. This is a joint podcast with my good friends from Discover the Horr...

Just when you thought all the festivities were over... There's one more gift under the horror tree for you! Keeping the old British tradition going, I've been reading ghost stories for Christmas over the last few years. Because Christmas and horror go together like cookies and milk and Santa! So, here are two stories for 2021! Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Blessed Yule to all of you! I hope you...

Passion makes us do crazy things. For many lifelong horror fans, the love of the genre is so intense that being a spectator is no longer enough. These fans are compelled to have their creative voices heard. Some paint, others start podcasts, or they write articles and books. And then there are the really crazy ones who decide they want to make their own full-length horror movies! In this episode,...

Skinwalkers! Psychic Vampires! Desert Gods! Cat People! Pagan Sex Beasts! Sentient Forests! Witchcraft! Ancient lands that Feed on humans! Mountain and Snow Goddesses!  The Weird Fiction of the 19th and 20th Centuries paved the way for modern horror and science fiction, and one of the greatest voices was Algernon Blackwood , whose work inspired none other than H.P. Lovecraft. Join my guest, Scarle...

For some of us, going a little crazy is just the time when life starts getting fun. Madness? Mania? Fanaticism? Call it what you like. I call it passion, and I am drawn to people who need to create something out of their mad love. The creation might seem crazy to the average person, but to those it speaks to, it is a beautiful gift. My guest is Jay Michaels, independent stage and film producer, di...

The woods are nature at its most feral. The deep, dark forest is the original home of the boogeyman , long before there were dark closets and basements and that space under your bed . The Folk Horror subgenre has gained a new audience as more young filmmakers exploit the fine line between the natural and the supernatural ...and openly ask if there's a line at all.  In honor of Kier-La Janisse's fa...

Summer isn't over yet! And neither is my discussion of the passion of fandom and how it makes us do crazy things for what we love! In this episode, I talk with Joe Gaudin and Matt Masters, the owners of the Skyline Drive-in in Shelbyville, Indiana about how they took a dying drive-in and turned it into a movie-lovers paradise! They specialize in a two-day Dusk-To-Dawn Show of horror movies, and go...

This is the "official" 100th episode of Hellbent for Horror!  In this episode, I want to discuss PASSION, the driving force behind creativity, and the mad devotion to movies, art, and pop culture we call fandom.  Fandom can make us seem crazy, but that mad passion can change lives, and I discuss the amazing story of the resurrection of The Mahoning Drive-In and the way their passion for movies enc...

Bela Lugosi got it right all those years ago when he said that it was women who truly love horror. My guests, The Spinsters of Horror , prove it with every episode of I Spit on Your Podcast , one of the sharpest, passionate, and fun shows around. Join us in a deep-dive geek conversation as we discuss dozens of topics including horror in pop culture, heavy metal, folk horror, taboo terrors, paganis...

Deserts are the natural world at its most  supernatural. They are dangerous and merciless reminders that everything, including civilization, is temporary. Deserts remind us that we are one worldwide crisis away from entropy. A perfect location for horror movies! Join me as I discuss desert horror movies, the way they speak to our social anxieties, and I recount my own drive through the Mojave Dese...

Just when you thought all the celebration is over, H4H finds one last present hidden under the sofa! The Annual (although late) Christmas Ghost Story! Actually, it's more like it got kicked under the sofa by the amazing amount of chaos that this past year brought.  This year we are offering you William Hope Hodgson's THE DERELICT to chill your bones!  It's a creepy story about the unknown dangers...

Halloween is NEVER over!   H4H decided to keep the bone dance going for a few more days to raise our spirits!   We survived the weirdness of H a l l o w e e n 2 0 2 0 and now we're in the final stretches of the Year the Wouldn't Die.   H4H is doing a Horror Double Feature with two podcasts of extended conversations with horror enthusiasts and creators!   Part Two is a stream-of-consciousness conve...

Halloween is a state of mind. We survived the weirdness of  Halloween 2020 and now we're in the final stretches of the Year the Wouldn't Die. I think we all deserve a little more Halloween this year, so H4H is doing a  Horror Double Feature with two podcasts of extended conversations with horror enthusiasts and creators! Part One is a fly-on-the-wall conversation between Jon Kitley (Kitley's Krypt...

In the world of genre and fandom, the universal currency is passion . Fans of different genres normally would not mix, but there are areas of overlap, LIKE a GENRE VENN DIAGRAM . Join me and H4H producer, Lisa Gorski , as we discuss the overlap between two of the most passionate fandoms, HORROR AND SCIENCE FICTION . (shock: Lisa is NOT a horror fan!)  #horror #scifi #lovecraftcountry #sayhorror #a...

2020 is the 100-year anniversary of 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' , the German Expressionism film that created the visual and thematic template for the modern horror movie. And I think it is very fitting that three films up for Best Picture at the Academy Awards this year were horror films in disguise. Join me as I show how three very different films carry the Caligari DNA and continue to expand t...

Welcome to Part Two of my post-mortem on 2010-2019, the Decade of Dread! Was 2010 to 2019 an embarrassment of riches, or just an embarrassment? The honest answer is…BOTH. This is my deep dive into "the State of Horror" as we move towards a new decade and brace ourselves as we walk into the maelstrom that is 2020. In Part Two, I investigate the dark side of the geek and horror culture throughout th...

It's a month into 2020 and the "terrible teens" are due for a post-mortem! There were huge changes in the world of entertainment in the years 2010 to 2019 and the horror genre was right in the middle of it all. The advent of streaming services and the popularizing of "binge-watching" changed the way we watched horror and the amount of new and old films and television shows were available to us. Th...

Hello, my friends! Happy Holidays! I hope you got what you wanted for Christmas and Hanukkah! And...here's one last present that I was hiding behind the sofa! Last year I did a traditional Christmas ghost story reading . This is a tradition that harkens back to Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and has been kept alive by the BBC throughout the decades. I 've decided I want to make this an annual...

'Horror Film Director Found Slain, Buried Under Floor', screamed the August 1995 headline in The Los Angeles Times. From the 60s to the 80s, producer/director Al Adamson made cheap, crazy and effective exploitation films, like SATAN'S SADISTS and DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN for the drive-in market. But the whole truth behind Al Adamson's strange life and gruesome death reveals perhaps the most bizarr...

Great horror stories, like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein , have universal appeal and artists can reinterpret them to reflect the anxieties of every generation.   And on Friday, September 13th, legendary Independent Horror Auteur Larry Fessenden releases Depraved , his newest vision of the Frankenstein story.   Since 1985, Larry Fessenden has been creating his own fiercely independent, critically-acc...

Welcome to PART ONE of a podcast double-feature with the I Know Dino Podcast !   Dragons! The xenomorph from Alien ! The shark from Jaws ! These monsters are descendants of real creatures that walked the earth- the  dinosaur. Horror movies have used the dinosaur as a source for monsters since the silent era because they are a source of endless fascination and terror.  But, do the dinosaurs deserve...

  The 6th Annual Etheria Film Night will be held on Saturday, June 29th at the legendary Egyptian Theatre, and H4H is celebrating with a series of interviews with the filmmakers!   Etheria Film Night is the world's most prestigious showcase of new short genre (horror, science-fiction, fantasy, action, comedy, and thriller) films directed by women. This interview is with director Sarah K. Reimers  ...

Horror is an emotion first and a setting later. It's the only genre that is directly named after an emotion, and that gives horror a universal appeal. It also makes each person's experience and interpretation personal. We close out June, Pride Month , with a celebration of the contributions the LGBTQ community has brought to the horror genre since the creation of the Gothic novel. My guest is Wayl...

The 6th Annual Etheria Film Night will be held on Saturday, June 29th at the legendary Egyptian Theatre, and H4H is celebrating with a series of interviews with the filmmakers!   Etheria Film Night is the world's most prestigious showcase of new short genre (horror, science-fiction, fantasy, action, comedy, and thriller) films directed by women. This interview is with writer/director Chelsea Lupki...

  The 6th Annual Etheria Film Night will be held on Saturday, June 29th at the legendary Egyptian Theatre, and H4H is celebrating with a series of interviews with the filmmakers! Etheria Film Night is the world's most prestigious showcase of new short genre (horror, science-fiction, fantasy, action, comedy, and thriller) films directed by women. This interview is with writer/director/special effec...