Quiet Little Horrors

It's a new year and a new season, and we're starting things off with a dark, dread-filled, mustachioed bang: Robert Eggers's 2024 Nosferatu . We discuss filmmaking from another era, storytelling from another era, and the feminine urge for death. Also: cats! Who survive!

2024 is coming to a close and that means it's time to take stock. We share our picks for our favorite episodes, our favorite films we saw this past year, and what we're looking forward to seeing next year. Happy New Year, friends!

In 18th-century Austria, women be depressed. For pretty good reasons. We discuss the recent film, The Devil's Bath , and cover what it feels like to be trapped in an oppressive society, both sides of subtlety, and why maybe sometimes people should talk things out before resorting to murder (sometimes).

Bunny Lake is missing ... or did she never exist ? You know women, always making up imaginary children to claim have been kidnapped. We discuss Otto Preminger's 1965 psychological whodunnit, Bunny Lake Is Missing , including the differences between the film and its source novel, and society's hysterical assumptions about women without children, or women with children via unconventional ways.

To follow up our discussion with Toby Poser and John Adams, we take a closer look at their recent feature, also starring daughter Zelda Adams, Hellbender , and talk about folktales, monstrous mother-daughter relationships, and coming to terms with who you are.

A little something different this time: we sit down with filmmakers Toby Poser and John Adams to discuss their homegrown horror films and what it's like working on a film as a family. Enjoy!

We go on an existential romp through loneliness, isolation, and serial killings, with a dash of bizarre sailor-themed nightclub musical. 1970's The Strangler is a French giallo of deep weirdness and opportunity for discussion—which is what we do around here, so this one is a good one.

We hate the title, but we love the movie. And we love Liz Taylor, who gives a striking performance as an odd, difficult woman hell-bent on self-destruction in 1974's Indentikit . Also Andy Warhol shows up for a bit, because why not.

While we don't often cover new releases so close to their release dates, we anticipated that Longlegs was a good opportunity for an exception. This episode, we bookend our earlier episode on director Oz Perkins's debut feature with a discussion on his latest. Covered topics include the legacy of Anthony Perkins, the mythic potential of horror film, creeping dread, existential terror, unsettling si...

It's Oz Perkins season here at the podcast. In anticipation of Longlegs, we went back to his debut The Blackcoat's Daughter —a film we've mentioned before, because it's about 200% our thing, but this is the first time we've discussed it in depth. Devils, psychosis, and another installment in our favorite ongoing thematic series, "teenage girls are terrifying."

Since we got on the topic of demonically possessed faux documentary, what else could we do next but talk about Ghostwatch and its timeless capacity for inspiring abject horror and lasting mental trauma. Have fun!

Once more into the breach of found footage, although this time with a self-aware twist, in Late Night with the Devil . We discuss the evolving genre, doing a lot with a little, and the haunted brillance of David Dastmalchian.

The last in our mini series of episodes about doppelganger films is one about a little known Roger Moore gem:  The Man Who Haunted Himself , from 1970. The swinging sixties are never over if you've got a reckless, hard-living double of yourself running around town causing trouble. We discuss the tension of determining what is reality and what's in one's head, how much we enjoy a solid psychologica...

We're still on a tear about doubles, so this time we talk about one of the most direct, recent horror films on the subject: Jordan Peele's Us , from 2019. We discuss real-world parallels, social antiheroines, unsettling endings, and, of course, The Twilight Zone .

Quick note: Our apologies for the delay with this episode—Jen was moving and has been even more scattered than usual. We're working our way through a series of episodes about films featuring doppelgangers and doubles, and for this one we reach back to classic Hollywood: Hitchcock's Vertigo . We discuss the meta machinery of making the "perfect" woman, how women end up participating in the same mac...

And we're back! We took a brief break and have returned with a long stretch of movies on a favorite theme: doppelgangers. We begin with 2010's Black Swan and discuss how it holds up over a decade after its release—especially these days, when the psychological horror film landscape is crowded with more unhinged women than you can shake a stick at, if that's your sort of thing.

You know what's really scary? Songwriter's block. And also maybe ghosts. But also maybe not? The Strings is one of the quietest and most subtle films we've covered, almost entirely about interiority, isolation, and the prices people pay for creation. But also maybe ghosts? Who can say.

This month we're delving into sound and music and all of their meta cinematic potential, beginning with the extremely meta Berberian Sound Studio . We discuss the practical art of sound effects, the tremendous performance of Toby Jones, and how one of our favorite movie endings is the dissolution of reality (we're very normal, that's why we have this podcast).

We go deep into the Irish wilderness for a found footage folk horror romp full of cults, secrets, and annoying young people with 2016's Crone Wood .

We go back to our roots with this overlooked gem of classic British folk horror, Robin Redbreast . Contains some progressive perspectives current society seems to have retreated from and enduring the life lesson that you should never sleep with boring men, however pretty they are.

We get experimental with one of our favorites from the past year, Enys Men , and discuss the wide range of folk horror, the deadening repetition of women's lives, and being unstuck in time and space. You know, a nice, normal start to 2024.

Happy New Year! With 2023 in the books, we take a look back at our favorite films from the past year, new and old, and what we're looking forward to in 2024.

Now that we've discussed the original Black Christmas, there's nothing else to do this year but take a look at the two remakes: one from 2006 and one from 2019. They both have a hard time living up to the first, they each have a charming weirdness worth watching.

Merry Christmas! Don't answer your phone! Or trust your weirdly controlling boyfriend! But do drink and insult people à la Margo Kidder as Barb. Let's talk about the original Black Christmas .

We extend our discussion about silent horror films with one of the most interesting cinematic takes on the topic: 2000's Shadow of the Vampire . Come for Willem Dafoe as the somewhat comical undead, stay for the subtext about what horrific sacrifices humans should make for the sake of art.