Rogues Gallery

In 2002, Gore Verbinski's The Ring had American audiences terrified of their VHS tapes - but Japanese audiences had been relishing in this terror since the original 1998 release of Ringu . While both films featured a psychokinetic girl climbing out of a well and into our living rooms, they each took a different approach to exploring that premise. Topics include: the reluctant horror novelist that...

Gregory Peck headlined the 1962 film Cape Fear , but it was Robert Mitchum's portrayal of serial rapist Max Cady that scandalized audiences. In 1991, director Martin Scorsese's remake would push those boundaries even further thanks to Robert De Niro's more violent, more explicit, and more carnal interpretation of Cady. Topics include: the novel that inspired the story, Cady's relationship to Bowde...

On this episode, we're investigating two very different interpretations of Dr. Seuss' ultimate holiday meanie - The Grinch. Join us as we compare and contrast the classic 1966 TV special How The Grinch Stole Christmas with the 2000 live-action feature film adaptation. Topics include: Seuss' original inspiration for the character, his reluctance to sign off on screen adaptations, why the Grinch is...

On this episode, we're investigating three different versions of one of The Twilight Zone 's most famous stories - Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. We take a closer look at the classic episode from the original series, the concluding segment of 1983's Twilight Zone: The Movie , and the unique spin the 2019 revival puts on the premise with Nightmare at 30,000 Feet . Topics include: the short story by Rich...

With Thanksgiving right around the corner for those of us here in the States, it felt like the right time to revisit one of the most famous family dinners in cinematic history. Pull up a chair and dig in as we open up a case file on Leatherface from 1974's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre . Topics include: the unimaginable circumstances this low-budget film was assembled under, the controversy it caus...

Oh what a day! What a lovely day! We're taking a look at Mad Max: Fury Road and opening a case file on one of our favorite modern antiheroes: Imperator Furiosa. Topics include: the setbacks previous iterations of this film faced during its two decade journey to the big screen, why the finished version may have benefited from those delays, behind the scenes tension between cast and crew, what the f...

It's that time of year again. We're returning to Haddonfield and picking up right where the original Halloween left off to continue our investigation into Michael Myers. By the filmmakers own admission, Halloween II is a movie that was made for financial reasons, not creative ones. John Carpenter had such a difficult time coming up with a suitable story, that he resorted to chugging a six-pack of...

We're back for a new round of investigations and to kick things off, we're opening up a case file on John Doe from Se7en.   The premise of a serial killer whose crimes are patterned after the seven deadly sins is so simple and so good that it's a little surprising it didn't already exist before 1995, but that wasn't the only trail director David Fincher blazed with this incendiary thriller. Se7en...

Alex Garland's debut thriller Ex Machina may be slight in budget, but its ambition is massive. Although we're centering our investigation around the character of Ava, it's just a jumping off point to sort through the film's complicated web of relationships and the themes Garland is exploring. Topics include: the numerous examples of "show don't tell" storytelling, how they transform this simple pr...

Despite the success of the first A Nightmare on Elm Street , New Line Cinema didn't walk away with a very big piece of the proverbial pie. They did, however, hold sole ownership over something that was potentially a lot more valuable - a franchisable character.   They rushed A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge into production and decided to jettison the original writer/director, lead act...

When the filmmakers behind Species needed a creature that had to be as sexy as it was scary, H.R. Giger's name understandably shot to the top of their list. His Academy Award-winning work on Alien was exactly the aesthetic they were chasing. As the project evolved, however, Giger realized that there was perhaps too much reverence for (and adherence to) his previous efforts. Species is a mixed bag...

For all of its accomplishments, Phase I of the MCU was somewhat marred by what numerous critics referred to as "The Marvel Villain Problem" - and depending on who you ask, Red Skull was either the answer to that complaint or the epitome of it. So we're opening up a case file on one of Captain America's greatest foes to see if this character can help us understand whether or not The First Avenger u...

The evolution of Little Shop of Horrors is not dissimilar from that of the killer plant at the center of it. It began life as a strange, little oddity - a quick, low-budget film that was shot in a couple of days by legendary B-movie producer Roger Corman. From those inauspicious beginnings, it transformed into a bigger and bolder off-Broadway musical. The success of that show paved the way for thi...

Godzilla meets The Blair Witch Project . That high-concept premise for Cloverfield was pretty straightforward, but the execution of it was anything but. These days, it's probably remembered as much for the elaborate and immersive ARG campaign as the film itself. It arguably stands as one of the most effective examples of J.J. Abrams' infamous "mystery box" marketing, but it might also represent th...

Like many of you, we're all practicing self-isolation for a couple of weeks and that made recording a regular episode a bit of a challenge. So instead, we're making the best of a less than ideal situation and doing our first mailbag episode instead. We asked our listeners to submit their questions via social media and they provided us with some amazing topics to cover. So we go over the story of h...

We didn't expect to be heading back to Crystal Lake so soon, but we took a look at the calendar and couldn't resist. Plus, watching Part 2 in such close proximity to the original wound up being really beneficial when it came to comparing and contrasting them. The evolution of the Friday the 13th series is a fascinating one and although this represents an important step in its development, this ent...

We're back! And to celebrate our return, we're shaking things up with an investigation into our first antihero - Blade. It's a deep dive on the Daywalker's comic book origins, how he was updated for the first film, the highs and lows of the sequels, other paths not taken, and where it all goes from here now that Marvel has reacquired the rights to the character. Other topics include: the state of...

No hockey mask. No machete. No Jason (at least not the way we're used to seeing him). Despite the fact that it kicked off one of the most popular horror franchises of all-time, the most notable thing about the original Friday the 13th is how little it has in common with the glut of sequels that followed it. The filmmakers have never been shy about the fact that this was quickly cobbled together to...

On this episode, we're checking into The Overlook Hotel and investigating all of the different interpretations of The Shining and its sequel, Doctor Sleep . We cover all of it - Stephen King's original novel, Stanley Kubrick's wildly divergent film adaptation, the more faithful (and somewhat maligned) 1997 miniseries, and the incredible hat trick that Doctor Sleep director Mike Flanagan pulled off...

With Annie's arrival on the second season of Castle Rock , it wound up being a great time to revisit Stephen King's novel Misery and Rob Reiner's 1990 film adaptation. Topics include: the real life rogue who may have indirectly influenced King's book, how that came back to haunt him many years later, key differences between the novel and the movie, what creators actually owe their fans, and much m...

This week we're opening a case file on one of the greatest criminal minds of our time. But... is he? Gene Hackman's take on Lex Luthor in Superman: The Movie is markedly different from the way he'd been depicted in the comics up to that point, but also a far cry from how the character would continue to evolve. Topics include: this iteration's inferiority complex and how Hackman's refusal to shave...

The Shape. The Bogeyman. Michael Myers. Whatever you want to call him, he's the reason for the season and on this episode we're investigating John Carpenter's 1978 classic Halloween . From the production's inauspicious beginnings to the film's now-legendary status, we track the incredible journey of a ragtag group of filmmakers who set out to make a low budget horror flick and wound up changing th...

Slasher movies were certainly de rigueur in the early 80s, but when writer/director Wes Craven created A Nightmare on Elm Street , he had more on his mind than simply churning out another Halloween ripoff. This wasn't just a paradigm shift in the established formula for this sub-genre, it also birthed one of the most iconic horror villains of all-time. On this episode, we're focusing exclusively o...

When you're dealing with a franchise as beloved as Back to the Future , there aren't many unexplored avenues left to cover. There is, however, an unsung hero of this series who often gets overshadowed. So on this episode, we're shining a much-deserved spotlight on actor Thomas F. Wilson and putting together a case file on his most iconic role... Biff Tannen. Join us as we investigate the deceptive...

On this episode, we're comparing and contrasting three very different iterations of one of Star Trek 's most iconic villains - Khaaaaan! Although Space Seed is certainly a beloved episode of the original series, it was really the feature film The Wrath of Khan that established this character as one of the franchise's most formidable (and memorable) foes. Since then, there have been numerous attemp...