Puppet Masters / Castle Freaks

Director, writer and horror bon vivant Avery Coffey is back to discuss THE HORRIBLE DR. BONES, the last of our movies from the Alchemy/Big City Pictures sublabel! We get into the history of voodoo as depicted in movies, talk about Full Moon's failed attempt to launch a hip-hop label, and the best depictions of zombies in recent years.  Hosted by Jarrod Hornbeck and Steve Guntli  Theme song by Kyle...

This week we're excited to sit down with someone who is doing something genuinely unique in the world of indie horror. Toby Poser is a member of The Adams Family, a filmmaking collective... that also happens to be Toby's family! Together, Toby, her husband John Adams, and her daughters Zelda and Lulu Adams have directed several films, including recent festival hits like HELLBENDER, THE DEEPER YOU...

The freak is, once again, off the leash, this time for a 2020 remake of Stuart Gordon's famously nasty 1995 original! This time around, the castle is in Albania, the Freak is a lady, and the Elder Gods of Lovecraftian lore have a much bigger part to play. We're excited to be joined by Bloody Disgusting's Zena Dixon, aka the Real Queen of Horror, to share our thoughts on this interesting, and disgu...

We're thrilled to be joined by multihyphenate force Gigi Saul Guerrero for an episode on Alejandro Jodorowski's masterwork SANTA SANGRE! This surrealist gem was too shocking for filmgoing audiences in 1989, but has developed a devoted cult of followers. We dig into the rich history of it's creator and the deeper themes underneath this challenging work. Hosted by Jarrod Hornbeck and Steve Guntli  T...

Filmmaker Jenn Wexler (LAST TEMPTATION OF BECKY, THE RANGER) joins us this week to check out an underground classic: the 1971 queer erotic arthouse vampire flick DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS! Starring French screen icon Delphine Seyrig as the immortal Elisabeth Bathory, this vibe-y, sapphic gem is light on plot but heavy on mood, and features some incredible lighting and camera work.  Hosted by Jarrod Ho...

Surprise! We're giving you a whole extra episode this week, because when you have the chance to record with the great Dan McCoy of The Flop House podcast, you take it! This week's episode is all about a teeny tiny regional horror film from the makers of JIGSAW: VENGEANCE OF THE DEAD, in which a disaffected teen starts receiving messages from ghosts to burn evildoers in a small Wisconsin town.  Hos...

We're closing the book on both the TRANCERS series and the golden age of Full Moon this week with a look at TRANCERS: THE WHOLE DETHLY AFFAIR, a conviently mashed-together new release combining TRANCERS 4: JACK OF SWORDS and TRANCERS 5: SUDDEN DETH. We're thrilled to be joined this week by Canadian filmmaker, special effects artist, and Full Moon obsessive Steven Kostanski (Psycho Goreman, Frankie...

Our new expanded format continues to reap rewards, as this week we're gifted the opportunity to talk about some horror heavy hitters. This week is all about TWO EVIL EYES, an anthology film that brings together the talents of American genre legend George A. Romero and Italian bad boy Dario Argento. These two adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe stories features performances from legends like Harvey Keit...

This week we're covering our classiest picture to date: the austere and scary haunted house drama THE CHANGELING from 1980! And who better to talk about an iconic haunted house than our guest, two-time Bram Stoker-winning author Robert Ottone, whose new book, AMITYVILLE AWAKENS, releases this October! We chat about the career of Oscar-winning star George C. Scott, and about the enduring appeal of...

The Ghoulies are going to college, and I'm sorry to report: they're majoring in mischief. This week is all about the iconically-titled GHOULIES III: GHOULIES GO TO COLLEGE, the non-Empire third chapter of the foundational tiny terror series. We're joined this week once again by the amazing Stuart Wellington, part of the Flop House podcast crew, to keep a chronicle of all the pranks, yanks, and toi...

We're travelling back to 1980 for the oddly sedate sci-fi thriller THE DAY TIME ENDED, a movie with just enough weirdness, and just enough dead air, to make for an excellent episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000." And as luck would have it, we're joined this week by the man who actually wrote said episode of MST3: the great Elliott Kalan, host of the Flop House podcast, former head writer of "T...

This week, we take a moment to just catch up and have a casual chat about whatever. We provide updates on some new Full Moon news, chat about some of our unexpected favorite properties, and test Jarrod's recall of our past episodes.  Hosted by Jarrod Hornbeck and Steve Guntli  Theme song by Kyle Hornbeck  Logo by Doug McCambridge  Email: puppetmasterscastlefreaks@gmail.com Instagram/Threads: @pupp...

This week, we're embarking on an exciting new direction for our show! Now, in addition to movies Charles Band directly produced or directed through Empire and Full Moon, we'll be folding in movies that appear on the Full Moon streaming service! This opens us up to a wide new range of oddities and classics. Which category does 1977's zombie-Nazis-at-sea movie SHOCK WAVES fall into? You'll have to l...

By the Codes of Kang, we declare the JOSH KIRBY... TIME WARRIOR saga continues this week! We're looking at the next two chapters of the kid-friendly Moonbeam serial: TRAPPED ON TOYWORLD and EGGS FROM 70 MILLION BC. The former finds our hero stranded on a deeply unsettling toy-themed world, while the latter explores the backstory of some of the series' important supporting characters... and also ha...

The hysteria concludes this week as we cover the remaining entries in Full Moon's best-selling movie ever, PREHYSTERIA! We're covering parts two and three of the tiny dino epic, as our cute, scaly buddies team up with a spoiled rich kid and a Scotland-obsessed little girl to wreak havoc and mend hearts. Author Lowell Greenblatt is back to chime in on this seminal Moonbeam series, and obviously the...

Author Meg Ripley joins us for this excursion into Area 51, and more importantly, into the psyche of one Mr. William Shatner. We're talking about GROOM LAKE, a completely forgotten 2002 passion project (vanity project?) written and directed by Shatner. We dig into the wild history of this film, which turned out to be one of the most challenging and expensive of Full Moon's early-aughts output, as...

For this special episode, we sat down with filmmaker Sarah Appleton to discuss her upcoming documentary, FULL MOON RISING: THE CHARLES BAND STORY! Get the inside scoop on how this project came to fruition, plus plenty of on-set insights from the director herself!  Hosted by Jarrod Hornbeck and Steve Guntli  Theme song by Kyle Hornbeck  Logo by Doug McCambridge  Email: puppetmasterscastlefreaks@gma...

Kraa! This week, we're saying goodbye to the Monster Island sublabel with the gleefully goofy romp KRAA! THE SEA MONSTER. And there's no one better to watch it with than Macabre Daily's delightful Sean O'Connor, returning to the show to discuss his love of kaiju, the acting debut of Alison Lohman, and the secret POWER RANGERS knockoff hidden in Full Moon's canon.  Hosted by Jarrod Hornbeck and Ste...

Giant monsters attack! We're talking about Full Moon's incredibly short-lived kaiju sublabel Monster Island this week with the 1996 giant monster movie ZARKORR! THE INVADER! We're thrilled to be joined by comic book creator Zander Cannon, author of the incredible KAIJUMAX, who lends his expertise on the subgenre and helps us determine if Full Moon should have stayed in the giant monster business o...

We're joining up with Gorman Bechard and Carmine Capobianco one last time to talk about the sci-fi sex comedy GALACTIC GIGOLO! The creators of PSYCHOS IN LOVE and CEMETERY HIGH bring their trademark low-brow charm to this story of an alien vegetable who journeys to Earth in a quest to score with as many human women as possible. We're joined by author Nick Cato, who knew Bechard and Capobianco and...

It's the return of two of our favorite vulgar auteurs as we cover Tim Kincaid's THE OCCULTIST and Gorman Bechard's CEMETERY HIGH! Filmmaker Jed Shepherd (HOST) returns to talk about these two microbudget flicks, which have incredibly different approaches to their sleazy material, and with incredibly different outcomes.  Hosted by Jarrod Hornbeck and Steve Guntli  Theme song by Kyle Hornbeck  Logo...

This week we're covering 2006's PETRIFIED, or, as it should have been titled, SPACE MUMMY VS. NYMPHO ACADEMY! That's right, that milquetoast title is hiding one of the weirdest concepts we've encountered so far. Luckily, we're joined by someone uniquely qualified to cover both the mental health and evil mummy sides of this coin: Brian Finnerty, a contributing writer to Macabre Daily and a certifie...

Filmmaker and author Jason Paul Collum returns to the show for a special tribute to all things scream queen! We're discussing Jason's 2011 documentary SCREAMING IN HIGH HEELS, which looks at the late-80's B-movie horror phenomenon from the viewpoint of three of it's stalwarts: Brinke Stevens, Michelle Bauer, and Linnea Quigley!  Hosted by Jarrod Hornbeck and Steve Guntli  Theme song by Kyle Hornbe...

Killjoy is back and this time, he's going to hell... or is trying to, anyway. But first he needs to plead his case before a demonic jury to determine if he's evil enough. That's the conceit for the surprisingly clever KILLJOY GOES TO HELL, the fourth in Full Moon's flagship killer clown franchise. We're joined this week by the director and star of the upcoming metal horror film GOATSWORD, Ryan Twy...

Horror streamer and content creator queerdem0n is back this week as we cover the last of David DeCoteau's insane 2-year, 11-movie run, TOTEM! Six strangers arrive in a secluded mansion for reasons they can't explain and face off against some evil stone imps... or something.  Hosted by Jarrod Hornbeck and Steve Guntli  Theme song by Kyle Hornbeck  Logo by Doug McCambridge  Email: puppetmasterscastl...