Saturday Night Freak Show

Michaela thinks  Jaws  would have been better with paws, and to prove it she offers up  Man's Best Friend  (1993)! Intrepid reporter Ally Sheedy frees Max, a Tibetan Mastiff, from an experimental medical facility and slowly learns, to her horror, that the genetically-engineered mutt is an unstoppable, blood-thirsty killer. Meanwhile, dogged scientist Lance Henriksen does his be...

Holly takes us back to a simpler time, when a giant crocodile ate a small Maine town called  Lake Placid  (1999). National treasure Betty White feeds cows to the beast, which eventually starts eating the locals, which doesn't set well with the local sheriff, who calls in DNR specialist Bill Pullman, paleontologist Bridget Fonda, and crocodile-worshiping freak Oliver Platt to de...

Sean gets under the hood of  Robocop 2  (1990), which sees our favorite cyborg police officer go up against both a corrupt corporation and the minions of a cult leader/drug peddler/terrorist before becoming literally transformed into the P.C. police and then regaining his senses to lead what's left of Detroit's law enforcement against a technological terror known as RoboCop Two. Listen a...

Colin brings on the monster apocalypse by opening the doors to Waxwork (1988). Six friends spend the night at a ghoulish wax museum where each fall through portals into scenes from monster movies from the past, facing werewolves, Dracula and the mummy, as a diabolical warlock plots to bring the creatures back to life and destroy the world. Listen as we long for the halcyon days of Vestron Video, V...

Michaela comes to find out there's truth in the phrase "sometimes, dead is better" as we watch the remake of  Pet Sematary  (2019). Stephen King's classic novel gets resurrected, this time with stars Jason Clarke, John Lithgow, and Amy Seimetz. Listen to our overlong therapy session (masquerading as a podcast) and talk about Wendigos, kids in animal masks and undead cows, all on this wee...

Sean wonders if  The Rage: Carrie 2  (1999) is the most '90's movie that ever '90'd. A sort-of-sequel to Stephen King's troubled teenager story, The Rage features an angsty teenage protagonist who begins to manifest telekinetic powers while being tormented by the jocks on the football team. Listen as we learn more about Sean's love of sequels, discuss "artistic" filmmaking, and find out...

Holly squares off against the Red menace with her dope karate skills with No Retreat, No Surrender (1986) which finds perennial Freak Show favorite Jean-Claude Van Damme as the villainous Ivan Kraschinsky, a Russian enforcer for the New York Mafia, tasked with defeating an American kid who's been trained in the martial arts by the ghost of none other than Bruce Lee himself. Listen as we talk about...

Colin stirs the wrath of a horribly scarred, killer summer camp caretaker with  The Burning  (1981), a splatter flick from the genre's Golden Age that features gore and grue by legendary makeup FX man Tom Savini. A guy named Cropsey gets burned alive in a prank gone wrong and returns to camp five years later to murder every teenager alive, including Jason Alexander, Fisher Stevens and Ho...

Michaela dives deep into the bowels of the Earth on a caving expedition that uncovers mutant monster people in  The Descent  (2005), the second film from Dog Soldiers director Neil Marshal. Listen as we experience claustrophobia, nyctophobia, androphobia, discuss evolutionary biology, and the improbability of the hero neck snap, all that and more on this week's thrilling episod...

Holly wades through exploding hookers, severed limbs, and mad science with  Frankenhooker  (1990)! When his girlfriend is killed in a freak remote-controlled lawmower accident, Jeffrey Franken will stop at nothing to resurrect his lost love, even if it means sewing her head on the body parts of dead New York City hookers. Things go wrong when the resurrected ho-bag returns to her old Tim...

Colin dusts off the crucifix and holy water to deal with Dracula's soul brother,  Blacula  (1972). African prince Mamuwalde visits Dracula's castle and is cursed with vampirism. He later awakens in 70's L.A. and uses his supernatural charm to woo the reincarnation of his long lost love while leaving a trail of bloodless bodies in his wake. Listen as we chart the intersection of the moder...

Michaela thinks Spielberg could have a strong legal case against  Mac and Me  (1988), which follows an adorable, wart covered, pucker-faced creature from another world stranded on earth. He's taken in by a young boy and spends the movie getting into mischief while trying to get home to his alien family. Listen as our jaws gape at improbable physics, dangerous paraplegic st...

Holly charts the fall of a Hollywood icon with  Malone  (1987), which finds fading superstar Burt Reynolds playing a modern day Shane, here an ex-CIA hitman, who winds up intervening in a battle between a sinister corporate developer and the inhabitants of a small mountain town. Listen as we dive deep into the lore, the loves, and the life of the legendary Burt on this epic episode! Host...

Sean wants you to be his  Valenine  (2001), even if that means he has to dress up like Cupid and kill you to death! A masked murderer stalks a group of five girls who each turned down the advances of an awkward kid in 6th grade. Has he held a killer grudge against them for 13 years? Listen as we discover hot tub phobias, improbable ninjitsu serial killers, and improbable endings; all thi...

We try to outrun the zombie apocalypse aboard the  Train to Busan  (2016), the last of our listener choice picks for the year. As a zombie outbreak threatens South Korea, a father and his young daughter join other survivors on a bullet train from Seoul to Busan, where they must overcome the terrors on board, both human and non. Listen as we discover Korean action heroes, punchable bad gu...

Abracadabra! We experience all sorts of split personalities when we watch  Magic  (1978), the creepy ventriloquist dummy movie starring Anthony Hopkins as a stage magician whose grip on reality begins to slip when pressures in his life begin to mount up. Listen as we talk about creepy puppets, Jeff Dunham, the best method to dispose of a body, and more on this week's exciting episode! Ho...

Where's Wario? We may have plugged up the toilet and are in need of a coupla plumbers after watching  Super Mario Bros  (1993), the big-budget adaptation of the popular Nintendo game. Brothers Mario and Luigi are whisked into another dimension full of dino-people, ruled over by the evil King Koopa. Their mission: rescue Princess Daisy and a gemstone that could destroy the world. Listen a...

Can a movie drive its viewers insane? That's the warning label we're putting on  Detention  (2011), the first listener pick of the month! A slasher, UFO's, time traveling bears, and alien vegetable people disguised as Canadians collide in a high school obsessed with 90's pop culture nostalgia in an ADHD movie that defies rational thought and may have you reaching for the Ritalin. Listen...

Gather 'round as we sum up the best and worst movies we saw in 2018 with our annual Best and Worst episode. Listen as we go around the table and attempt to distill a year in film down to our choices for the 5 best movies and the 1 we think was the worst. Will your favorite make the cut? Thanks for listening and we hope you enjoy! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Colin celebrates the New Year with a murder in each of America's four time zones with  New Year's Evil  (1980)! An L.A. radio personality receives threatening phone calls during her televised New Year's Eve bash from a psychopathic killer on a schedule to murder someone each hour, with her as the final target. Listen as we dissect the tropes of the American Slasher Film, early 80's New W...

Michalea chains herself to a tree to avoid going on a  Bad Moon  (1996) rampage! Thor is a German Shepherd who becomes agitated when werewolf Uncle Ted (Michael Pare) moves his trailer into his sister's picturesque Canadian Pine backyard. Listen as we talk about the movies of writer-director Eric Red, name five favorite movie werewolves, and talk wholesome family sex-and-gore movies, all...

Holly suggests that if you spend as much time daydreaming of Chuck Norris as Jonathan Brandis does in  Sidekicks  (1992), you may have a mental health problem! The Chuckster plays himself in a series of vignettes designed to play as a child's fantasy of adventure along side his favorite screen hero, while in real life the kid learns martial arts to take on school bullies and learn to rel...

Sean tries to find the killswitch for the Killbots of the 80's cult classic  Chopping Mall  (1986). A group of mall workers stay after-hours to have sex in a furniture store and end up getting locked in with the mall's state-of-the art security system, a trio of killer robots. Listen as we avoid the pitfalls of buying used mattresses, talk about 80's movie robot design, the career of sch...

Colin takes a trip back to the rain-slicked, neon streets of Hollywood Boulevard in the 1980's with  Angel  (1984), about a high school honor student by day who moonlights as a hooker by night. She's being stalked by a psycho who preys on streetwalkers while a virtuous cop and a colorful gang of misfits look out for her. Listen as we find out the correct way to eat a raw egg and bathe in...

Michalea asks "Whatcha gonna do when the Hulkster runs wild on you?" and gets in the ring with Hulk Hogan in  No Holds Barred  (1989). Hogan, fittingly, plays a wrestler named "Rip" who is lured into the fight of his life in rules-free Battle of the Tough Guys tournament organized by an oily cable TV executive. Can better believe it, brother! Find out the meaning of life, the universe an...