Kill It With Fire - Cult Movies and Cult-ure

Do your homework in the dark, and put spoons in your microwave! In this episode, Peter, Ants, and Paul talk about Allan Moyle’s cult 1990 film Pump up the Volume, which stars Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis. Topics discussed include late night shock jocks, revisiting old favourites later in adulthood, writer-director Allan Moyle’s career and the origins of the film in Moyle’s unpublished nove...

Coming to a basement near you! In this episode, Ady, Peter, and Paul discuss underseen Genevieve Jolliffe’s 1998 film Urban Ghost Story, starring Jason Connery, Heather Ann Foster, and Billy Boyd. Topics discussed include ghost stories with present-day settings (including Play for Today’s Vampires and Govan Ghost Story, and of course the BBC’s Ghostwatch), the differences between British and Ameri...

Bookmaker or bookkeeper? What's the difference? Fuggedaboudit! Nikki, Peter, and Paul take a look at Bob Giraldi's underseen 2000 film Dinner Rush, which stars Danny Aiello, Kirk Acevedo, Sandra Bernhard, Edoardo Ballerini, and John Corbett. In this episode, topics discussed include mob movies, director Bob Giraldi's career as a filmmaker-restaurateur, food in films (with a sidebar discussion of t...

It’s the principal, man Peter and Paul take a look at Christopher Cain’s 1987 movie The Principal, starring James Belushi, Louis Gossett Jr, and Rae Dawn Chong. Topics discussed include the intersection of the American high school picture and the vigilante film, depictions of race and ethnicity in these films, the connection between this film and Damian Lee’s Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe (199...

Craven some robotic hijinx In this instalment of the Kill It With Fire – Cult Movies and Cult-ure podcast, Ady and Paul take a look at Wes Craven's oft-neglected 1986 film Deadly Friend. Topics discussed in this episode include: the origins of the film in Diana Henstell's novel, Friend; the positioning of the film in Craven's career; the film's blending of family-friendly hijinx with graphic horro...

Tanks for listening In this instalment of the Kill It With Fire – Cult Movies and Cult-ure podcast, Ady, Peter and Paul discuss Kevin Reynold’s 1988 war film The Beast of War, aka The Beast, based on the play Nanawatai by William Mastrosimone Topics discussed in this episode include: the films of Kevin Reynolds; the work of playwright William Mastrosimone, and his research in writing the play ‘Nan...

Crom!... and Jelly-Baby Monsters   This instalment of the Kill It With Fire – Cult Movies and Cult-ure podcast takes a look at Richard Fleischer’s 1984 sequel to Conan the Barbarian, Conan the Destroyer.   Topics discussed in this episode include: 1980s sword and sorcery films; the film’s problematic production; the cuts made to the film; magic versus might; Lovecraftian influences; Robert E Howar...

A podcast so good that we went back in time to record it again… and again… and again!   This instalment of the Kill It With Fire – Cult Movies and Cult-ure podcast focuses on Shane Carruth’s minimalist 2004 science-fiction film Primer.   Topics discussed in this episode include: time travel in cinema; the use of language in the film; Carruth’s approach to narrative; ‘selling’ SF concepts such as t...

Subtitle: The 2020s will make the 2010s look like the 1990s… or something   This instalment of the Kill It With Fire – Cult Movies and Cult-ure podcasts takes a look at Franco Amurri’s 1990s road movie/comedy Flashback, starring Dennis Hopper, Keifer Sutherland and Carol Kane.   Topics discussed in this episode include: the road movie and mismatched ‘buddy’ film; 1980s/1990s representations of 60s...

Subtitle: These podcasts are made for talkin’ For this episode, we must offer our profuse thanks to Delusion’s director, Carl Colpaert; the film’s director of photography, Geza Sinkovics; and the film’s editor, Mark Allan Kaplan, for answering our questions about this motion picture. Topics discussed in this episode include: the work of the film’s personnel; the production of Delusion, and its abs...

Subtitle: Champlain for my real friends and true pain for Champlain In this fourth episode of Kill It With Fire, Ady, Marc and Paul take a look at Oliver Stone's 1988 film Talk Radio, based on the play by monolinguist Eric Bogosian (and starring Bogosian in the lead role as radio 'shock jock' Barry Champlain. Topics discussed include: Oliver Stone's work as a director; the origins of the film in E...

Subtitle: Midwestern Noir, Sam Raimi and Screen Violence In this third episode of Kill It With Fire, Ady, Peter and Paul discuss Sam Raimi's 1998 neo-noir film A Simple Plan, based on Scott Smith's 1990 novel of the same title. Topics covered include: Sam Raimi's career; Midwestern Noir; Noir and the Gothic; screen violence; comparisons with Fargo and the overlap between the Coen Brothers' work an...

Subtitle: Neo-noir, existentialism and Jim Thompson adaptations. In this second episode of Kill It With Fire, Ady, Peter and Paul discuss James Foley's 1990 neo-noir film After Dark, My Sweet. Topics covered include: 1980s/1990s neo-noir; the hardboiled crime fiction of Jim Thompson; existentialism in crime fiction; big screen adaptations of Jim Thompson's work; the production of the film; and the...

In this inaugural episode of Kill It With Fire, we discuss Larry Cohen's 1982 monster movie Q - The Winged Serpent, starring Michael Moriarty, Candy Clark, David Carradine and Richard Roundtree. Kill It With Fire is a podcast focused on discussion of cult movies and cult-ure. We are a group of likeminded creative professionals and academics.