Morally Offensive

This week, Bill and Stephanie drag Atlanta filmmaker Nicole Kemper into the delivery room to talk David Cronenberg’s The Brood (1979), a horror movie which doubles as the world’s worst sex-ed film. We’re talking cinematic birth control, belly-buttonless mutant murder children, slutty vintage men's bathrobes, and why men are absolutely terrified of the female body. Diversions include Oliver Reed's...

Mae West struts into the spotlight in I’m No Angel (1933), the pre-Code sensation that saved Paramount and scandalized the censors. Co-hosts Bill and Jess welcome Sara Shea of Shea Cinema to talk about Mae’s wit, sexuality, and the double entendres that made Catholic watchdogs sweat. Along the way we meet Joseph Breen and Will Hays, the moral gatekeepers who tried to rein her in, and discover how...

Bill and Cisco take a deep dive into The Pope’s Exorcist, the horror film where Russell Crowe channels his inner Super Mario Bro, and chews scenery as Father Gabriele Amorth, the wacky, self-proclaimed "Chief Exorcist" of the Vatican (he wasn't). We unpack the real Amorth’s history and his outrageous claims about what opens the door to demonic possession,- from Harry Potter books to yoga classes,...

The wounds of Christ. A chain-smoking atheist. Gabriel Byrne as a brooding Vatican investigator in designer black. Welcome back to Hot Priest Summer. This week on Morally Offensive , we’re going full incense-and-industrial as we revisit Stigmata; the aggressively 1999 Catholic horror film where Patricia Arquette becomes an accidental mystic and Gabriel Byrne has his faith (and sex drive) tested. I...

Dogma looms large in the canon of Morally Offensive films, casting a long shadow over many millennial Catholics. For those of us who were teens when it premiered, Dogma felt like the ultimate “anti Catholic” movie we were warned about, crafted by ”satanic” filmmakers from Hollywood (never mind that Smith is from New Jersey). Written and directed by Kevin Smith, it sparked national outrage and beca...

On this episode of Morally Offensive, Cisco takes a break, so Bill is joined by frequent guest and film presenter Stephanie Sack along with television producer and writer Ken Melvoin-Berg to dive headfirst into The Devils (1971), Ken Russell’s blasphemous, banned, and still shocking masterpiece. Based on Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun, this true story of sex, power, witch hunts, and moral pa...

This week, we were slightly concerned that we would not have our Freddy Got Fingered Episode done in time, so we prepared a backup episode to buy us time to wrap it up. As it turned out, we were able to complete both, so our listeners get a double dose of Catholic guilt this week. In an early episode covering Barbara Stanwyck's iconic performance in Baby Face, we still thought our average show len...

On this episode of Morally Offensive, Bill and Cisco dive headfirst into Freddy Got Fingered (2001), Tom Green’s aggressively unhinged film that might be the worst comedy of the 2000s, or a misunderstood absurdist masterpiece, according to some. Filled with horse semen, broken bones, and a wildly uncomfortable false molestation subplot, it was a critical disaster. Yet, it somehow features Rip Torn...

This week on Morally Offensive, Bill and Cisco are joined by Matt Harding of Severin Films to unpack Blood for Dracula, the 1974 cult horror film that’s part vampire flick, part Catholic fever dream, and weirdly anti-communist. Directed by Paul Morrissey (a devout Catholic and outspoken conservative) and presented by Andy Warhol, the film follows Count Dracula as he travels to Italy in search of a...

On this episode of Morally Offensive, Bill and Cisco revisit the Y2K-era horror classic Final Destination (2000), the film that made audiences afraid to fly and introduced death as the ultimate slasher. Released just a year before 9/11 and a few years after the TWA Flight 800 disaster, its opening plane crash and creeping paranoia feel strangely prophetic in hindsight. The episode dives into horro...

It’s all been building up to this. The Last Temptation of Christ is one of the most, if not the most, controversial films of the 1980s—and of Martin Scorsese’s career. Willem Dafoe plays Jesus, but this isn’t your grandmother’s technicolor epic Messiah. This Jesus wrestles with violence, lust, and self-doubt. Naturally, the film enraged many Christians. There were boycotts, bans, death threats aga...

Easter falls on 4/20 this year, so the guys decided to push their Last Temptation of Christ episode back a couple of weeks, to make room for two other culturally important, long-haired dudes, who also fought against "the man". "Cheech and Chong's Last Movie" comes out on Easter this year, which falls on April 20th, appropriately, so we decided to go back to the beginning, by reviewing 1978's "Up i...

This was a rough one. Ben Affleck plays an autistic accountant, whose neurodivergent mind allows him to be a genius with numbers, and even better with a gun. Let's just say the guys had...takes on this movie. With The Accountant 2 coming to theatres on April 25th, it felt like the perfect time to revisit this film, and to ask "does this film actually warrant a sequel"? Bill and Cisco talk about au...

Time to go deep deep down the Italian genre cinema rabbit hole, as the guys dig into Bill's birthday pick - a Mario Bava comic book adaptation and cult classic, which inspired everyone from Roman Coppola to the Beastie Boys. Diabolik is the world's greatest super-spy, and one of Italy's most famous comic book heroes. The guys talk Ennio Morricone, PVC vs. Leather bondage wear, Italian vs. English...

What made Kiss Me, Stupid (1964), a comedy starring Dean Martin and directed by Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot), so scandalous that it became the first U.S. film since Elia Kazan’s Baby Doll (1956) to receive a "Condemned" rating from the Legion of Decency? In 1964, both Kiss Me, Stupid and The Pawnbroker shocked the Catholic censors and the Hays Office, pushing the MPAA to rethink Hollywood’s ent...

Missed Valentine’s Day? No worries—we’re bringing you a heartshaped box of classic horror, featuring, as Kendrick Lamar would say, "A Minerrrrrrrrrrr!" 🔪⛏️ This week, Bill and Cisco talk Damien Leone's statements in the wake of Terrifier 3, as well as the controversy surrounding the Superbowl half-time show, in relation to censorship and pearl-clutching of the past. Plus, we go behind the scenes...

"Immorality may be fun, but it isn't fun enough to take the place of one hundred percent virtue and three square meals a day." What was it about Design for Living—the film by Ernst Lubitsch, Ben Hecht, and Noël Coward—that sent critics and the Catholic Legion of Decency into an uproar? This pre-Code classic tackled themes of polyamory, infidelity, and sexuality with a wit and sophistication that b...

Habemus Papam! We weren’t initially planning to cover Conclave, but since launching our podcast in late October, the film has sparked intense debate. Despite not receiving a "Morally Offensive" rating, Conclave has faced significant criticism from Catholic Bishops and prominent right-wing figures including Ben Shapiro and Megyn Kelly, who claim the movie is anti-Catholic. On the other hand, Concla...

Charlize Theron's action-packed cold war passion project, Atomic Blonde, was not well received by audiences when it dropped in late Summer of 2017. Some dismissed the film as a "female John Wick" knockoff, or criticized it for it's confusing, labyrinthine plot. 8 years later, the guys re-examine this singular, unique entry into the Action genre, and look at how it's reputation has grown since it's...

What do MaXXXine, Pearl, Promising Young Woman, and Midsommar have in common with a 1933 pre-code melodrama starring Barbara Stanwyck? They all fall under the banner of the "Good for Her" film. Barbara Stanwyck stars in this pre-code film that sent the Catholic "Legion of Decency" into a rage, and which gave them the firepower they needed, to force the hand of the studio moguls to self-censor thei...

"The death ship has a new captain!" To celebrate the release of Robert Eggers' remake of Nosferatu, the guys decided to cover the original classic, in a slight deviation from the Catholic Legion of Decency "condemned" list. The film was released in the US in 1929, seven years after it's Berlin premiere, but it was still too early to be OFFICIALLY condemned by the American Catholic ratings system....

It's Christmas time in NYC, and three friends are about to embark on their very last annual Christmas rager together. Joseph Gordon Levitt is an orphan, stuck in a dead-end job with no real career prospects and no romantic partner. Seth Rogan is coming to terms with his fears over being a father, and Anthony Mackie is a pro athlete, so obsessed with fame, that he's willing to risk his family, frie...

"Why Are Men?" It's the question Bill and Cisco find themselves asking, after viewing 2010's comedy about time travel and friendship, Hot Tub Time Machine, starring John Cusack, Craig Robinson, and Daily Show alum Rob Corddry. The guys talk male friendship, the 2024 election, toxic masculinity, the butterfly effect, and the difficulties of maintaining solid friendships, as one enters middle-age. D...

It shouldn't be surprising that an episode about William Friedkin's The Exorcist would be plagued with technical problems (if you believe in that kind of thing) but the episode is finally live! Cisco makes Bill watch a film that he has put off seeing for years, due to a deep-seated fear of the devil and the demonic. Bill gives his first reactions, and the guys get into the post-Exorcist panic over...

For the pilot episode, Bill and Cisco discuss their respective Catholic upbringings, discuss censorship and the Hayes Code, and introduce the Legion of Decency and USCCB film ratings systems, before doing a deep dive into Richard Donner's The Omen.