Saturday Night Freak Show

Colin's only got 7 days to live after watching a cursed Japanese videotape in Ringu (aka Ring, 1998), a movie that created a worldwide interest in J-horror, inspired a wave of imitators and remakes, and made audiences afraid of VHS tapes and young girls with long hair. Listen as we present the oral history of Japanese horror movies, suffer technological anxiety, develop ESP and more on this week's...

Michaela sets up cameras all over the house and digs out the VHS tapes to document Paranormal Activity 3 (2011), the entry in the long-running horror series that attempts to explain just why said spooks are haunting sisters Katie and Kristi in the first place. Listen as Sean's belief in ghosts is tested, Michaela tells horrifying babysitting tales, and ghosts get married, all on this week's exciti...

Holly wakes up with guns stapled to her hands and has to kill Harry Potter before he kills her, and wades in Guns Akimbo (2020). Daniel Radcliffe plays an Internet troll who is unwillingly recruited into a real-life deathmatch against Samara Weaving, for the entertainment of an online audience. Listen as we compare Radcliffe to Nic Cage, confuse Weaving for Margot Robbie, and get traumatized by a...

Sean says a bigger spider doesn't necessarily mean a scarier spider with Eight Legged Freaks (2002), a comedic throwback giant monster movie which sees David Arquette and Kari Wurher teaming up to save their small town after toxic waste creates giant jumping spiders! Listen as we wonder who would visit a spider farm, decide where we're going in the event of a giant spider apocalypse, and fail to m...

Colin takes in a showing of the latest fashion in murder with Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill (1980). Angie Dickinson stars as a bored, sexually frustrated housewife; Michael Caine is her psychiatrist; Nancy Allen is a high priced call girl. To say more would spoil the twisty turns of what's been dubbed De Palma's American giallo. Listen as we talk black gloved killers, homage vs plagiarism, prim...

Michaela's got a strange idea of entertainment and digs up Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986), a pre-Scream postmodern, self-aware entry in the long running slasher series that pits former victim Tommy Jarvis against the reanimated hockey masked killer. Listen as we talk all things Friday the 13th, including sorting out the series' timeline, the addition of comedy and Alice Cooper, and be...

Holly says size does matter when you're talking about the first American version of Godzilla (1998), director Roland (Independence Day) Emmerich's big-budget distortion of Japan's famous movie monster. Listen as we talk about the 50+ year history of the Big-G, various attempts to bring him stateside, memorable marketing tie-ins, kettles of fish, and the ill conceived casting of Matthew Broderick o...

Sean makes the case for the touchstone movie of 00's horror being House of Wax (2005), aka the movie where you will See Paris Die. An in-name-only remake of the 1953 Vincent Price 3-D classic borrows the plot of Tourist Trap and sees a group of 20-somethings finding themselves trapped in a spooky tourist attraction with a sinister secret. Listen as we discuss stunt casting, melting architecture, c...

Colin loses limbs in pursuit of a rampaging 18-foot maneater terrorizing a national park in Grizzly (1976), the first out-of-the gate "animal attacks" films to capitalize on the success of Jaws. A stalwart team of heroes, Christopher George, Andrew Prine and Richard Jaeckel team up to hunt down the giant bear who's making mincemeat out of campers, hunters, kids and forest rangers. Listen as we tal...

Michaela saddles up and rides West with a laser wrist gauntlet for a mashup of Cowboys and Aliens (2011), a surprisingly serious take on the subject that pairs a James Bond (Daniel Craig) with Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford). A Western is interrupted by an alien abduction of the townspeople of Absolution, NM, and a posse is formed, The Searchers -style, to go bring 'em back alive. Listen as we talk...

Holly brings her license to kill to bear upon what as widely considered the goofiest James Bond entry, Moonraker (1979), the long-running series' (financially successful) attempt to capitalize on the Star Wars excitement of the late 1970s. And that means, yes, Bond leads a laser battle in space. Listen as we talk steel-toohed giant assassins, double-taking pigeons, python wrestling, gondola shenan...

Sean puts a team together to track down a sexy alien nymphomaniac with Species (1995). Nasty aliens give humankind their DNA; foolish humans combine it with ours to create Sil, a gorgeous blonde vixen with only one desire: mate and reproduce, to create progeny which will destroy the entire human race! Listen as lament the absence of sex in modern movies, marvel at the dark genius of H.R. Giger, an...

Colin brings Conan the Barbarian (1982) to the Freak Show, sees them become the most listened to show in the universe, and hears the lamentation of other podcasters! Come with us as we visit the Hyborean age of Robert E. Howard's iconic character, trace the origins of sword and sorcery, and discuss the proper food to cook for orgies and other large parties on this week's exciting episode! Hosted o...

Michaela ditches the zero to get with the hero with Cool as Ice (1991), a starring vehicle for rapper Vanilla Ice, who plays an alien who falls to Earth and tries to mate with an teenage equestrian trainer, but becomes involved in a kidnapping plot. Ok, we're kidding. Listen as we witness bizarre romantic rituals involving ice cubes, motorcycle riding montages, the use of construction projects as...

Holly finds that terror doesn't stop at the page in I, Madman (1989), a movie in which a pretty bookworm finds herself stalked by the deranged antagonist of a pulp horror novel in real life. Listen as we confront the horror of hoarder houses, film noir lighting, stop motion monsters, and fashion faux pas involving berets on this week's exciting episode! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for m...

Sean talks to birds, tigers, bears and ferrets and calls himself The Beastmaster (1982), Phantasm director Don Coscarelli's insanely popular sword and sorcery epic about a warrior born with the ability to communicate with animals, who vows revenge on those who burned down his village. Listen as we become suspect of George R.R. Martin, encounter fleshbats, talk about Dungeons and Dragons, and futur...

Colin watches as a movie loses its grip on reality and become an over the top Cannon Films extravaganza, Death Wish 3 (1985) in which architect-turned-vigilante Paul Kersey returns to New York and incites war between a gang of punks and the geriatric residents of a seedy tenement building. Listen as we throw bazookas, pipe guns, booby traps, explosions, girlfriend murder, reverse mohawks and more...

Michaela unloads 10,000 bullets in defense of Shoot 'Em Up (2007), a movie with a title that promises exactly what you get, as a robotic Clive Owen plays a purveyor of hot lead trying to protect a lactating prostitute and a baby from an army of gunsmiths led by Paul Giamati. Listen as we encounter Clive Owen worship, slippery black leather trenchcoats, gunkata, Bugs Bunny, and not one person menti...

Holly says we can't live on junkfood alone and serves up the classic ghost story The Others (2001), which finds Nicole Kidman and her two children, who suffer from sunlight photosensitivity, living in a post-WWII English mansion where things go bump in the night. Listen as the Freak Show is reunited live in the dank dark basement to talk about scary ghost stories, creaky doors, spooky whispers, tw...

Sean ponders the effect of horror movies on both their fans and their creators in Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994) a meta-movie in which Freddy Krueger is set free from the Nightmare on Elm Street series to plague Heather Langenkamp in the "real world," a fictionalized version of Hollywood in which New Line Cinema president Robert Shaye even gets a role. Listen as we get all nerdy discussing the...

Colin fears that scientists will develop a parasite as a combination of aphrodisiac and venereal disease that will turn the world into an endless orgy of Shivers (aka They Came From Within, 1975). Canadian madman David Cronenberg put his stamp on the face of horror cinema forever with his story of a icky sexual revolution taking place at a luxury apartment tower where the aforementioned monsters g...

Michaela discovers that roaming bands of L.A. punks are actually Nomads (1985), immortal supernatural entities that have existed since time immemorial, living unnoticed on the fringes of human society. French anthropologist Pierce Brosnan discovers this too, and attracts their ire in future Predator and Die Hard director John McTiernan's metaphysical thriller. Listen as we pin down the origin of "...

Holly brings an immortal bloodsucker roaring back to life in the new millennium with Dracula 2000 (2000), which finds the suave fiend traveling to Louisiana to hunt down a girl with whom he shares a psychic bond, while the still-kickin' Van Helsing and his protégé race to stop him. Listen as we talk about vampire leeches, Biblical secrets, and the Nu-Metal 90's, all on this week's exciting show! H...

Sean finds himself trapped on Earth with a space mallard named Howard the Duck (1986), producer George Lucas' big-budget take on the odd Marvel Comics character. Rocker Lea Thompson explores inter-species love with the wisecracking hero as they work to stop a bunch of evil alien creatures from destroying the world. Listen as we talk about traumatic exposure to duck boobs, inappropriate sexual innu...

Colin sits ringside for the colossal battle of the swamp monsters alongside Swamp Thing (1982), Wes Craven's adaptation of DC Comic's iconic plant man. When a laboratory incident transforms a scientist into a swamp monster, he finds blossoming love with none other than 80's monster girl Adrienne Barbeau. Listen as we talk helmet hair, bug-eyed rubber monster fights, PG-rated boob shots, and the pe...