Saturday Night Freak Show

Michaela befriends a drunken, depressed superhero and tries to help him find his true calling with Hancock (2008), Will Smith's attempt to create an original superhero franchise just as the Marvel machine was getting started. Jason Bateman is a PR guy trying to rehab the hero's soiled image, and Charlize Theron is his wife, who harbors a big secret. Listen as we talk Hancock v Homelander, abrupt t...

Holly pulls the dirt over her grave herself to make sure she's Dead & Buried (1981) after a visit to the seaside town of Potter's Bluff, where recently dead folks seem to have a strange habit of sticking around, stymying the investigations of a well intentioned but in-over-his-head small town sheriff. Listen as we debate black magic rituals, laud the outstanding fx work of Stan Winston, and mo...

Sean survives the Night of the Comet (1984) with a pair of machine gun packing badass Valley Girls after the aforementioned celestial phenomena wipes out all life on earth, save for a few flesh hungry zombies. Listen as we debate the film's cult classic status, the necessity of a shopping montage in a zombie film, and willingly hire ourselves out as script doctors for explosion sequences in this w...

Colin shotguns 100 giant rats who fed on H.G. Wells' The Food of the Gods (1976). From the 70s cycle of ecological horror movies comes this entry from veteran monstersploitation producer Bert I. Gordon, pitting former child evangelist Marjoe Gortner against giant rats, roosters, wasps, and maggots. Listen as we mourn the rodent actors who were sacrificed for our entertainment on this week's exciti...

Michaela wonders how long it would take a man to have sex with his domestic housebot if it looked like Megan Fox in Subservience (2024). During his wife's extended hospital stay, awaiting a heart transplant, a blue collar dad buys a seductive fembot to "help out around the house", if you know what we mean. Listen as we wriggle under technological anxiety, wield dubious erasure commands, and hope f...

Holly returns to an age undreamed of, of loincloths, bare bosoms, swords and sorcery with Deathstalker (1983), a Roger Corman produced Conan the Barbarian ripoff with a musclebound hero out to save a princess and reclaim three magical objects from an evil sorcerer. Listen as we discuss barbarian mating rituals, sock puppet monsters, escort side quests, and literal pig-headed antagonists on this we...

Sean leaves the main road in the Nevada desert and discovers The Hills Have Eyes (1977), Wes Craven's shocking follow up to Last House on the Left , which locks an American nuclear family in life-or-death combat with an inbred clan of cannibals, inspired by the legend of Sawney Bean. Listen as we talk 70's roughness, parakeet juiceboxes, and name the movie Death Wishbone for its revenge plot invol...

Colin questions the sanity of sociopathic amateur filmmaker Neil Breen with Twisted Pair (2018), a nearly incomprehensible howler that has the meme-worthy director-writer-producer casting himself as a messianic figure, imbued with alien superpowers, who must save the world, and maybe his twin brother, from "programmable virtual reality." Or something. Listen as we question what constitutes a movie...

Michaela gets trapped with both insufferable theater artistes and an owl-headed mental patient on the loose with Stagefright (1987), an Italian made attempt at an American-style slasher flick. Listen as we make sure the cat survives, grade the body count splatter effects, imagine a use for a prop 'bang flag' gun, make damn sure we "shoot him right between the eyes," and more on this weekend's exci...

Holly digs up the fossil of a pagan snake god and finds herself drawn to The Lair of the White Worm (1988), provocateur director Ken Russell's comic, psychedelic slice of English folk horror, based on a novel by Bram (Dracula) Stoker. Listen as we find Paddington pair Hugh Grant and Peter Capaldi in their first on-screen teamup, cast suspicion on English food, find Kate McKinnon's on-screen twin,...

Sean gets trapped in an elevator with the Devil (2010), a twisty supernatural thriller dreamed up by M. Night Shyamalan but directed by the guys who did The Poughkeepsie Tapes and Quarantine. Which one of the five people is the Devil in disguise? Will the dedicated cop be able to figure it out and rescue them on time? Listen as we talk about the touchtone television show The O.C. and debate theolo...

Colin tries to figure out who's killing Milan's hottest fashion models in Nothing Underneath (1985), where the Italian giallo meets 80s MTV glitz. A Yellowstone park ranger with a psychic connection to his model twin sister flies to Italy to solve her disappearance. Listen as eat sauceless spaghetti at an Italian Wendy's, play Russian roulette, and learn how to spot a killer on this week's excitin...

Although struck color blind by psychological trauma, Michaela gets all hot and bothered by The Color of Night (1994), our late entry into the 90s "erotic thriller" genre. A psychiatrist is murdered, and his psychologist buddy (Bruce Willis) tries to figure out which one of his group therapy patients did it, while becoming involved in a torrid affair with a mysterious femme fatale. Listen as we exp...

Holly unleashes The Fury (1978), director Brian De Palma's follow up to Carrie, which features two telekinetic teenagers for the price of one. Golden Age star Kirk Douglas is in a spy movie, trying to rescue his abducted psychic son, while Amy Irving is a girl with a psychic connection to him. Listen as we crack wise about throbbing veins, forgetting location of the Playboy Mansion in Chicago, and...

Sean finds that the worst giant blood-sucking bugs come from space with Mosquito (1994), in which oversized insects swarm a Michigan campground, forcing a scientist, a college couple, a park ranger, and a trio of bank robbers to team up to fight the deadly menace. Listen as we marvel at shoestring practical makeup and creature effects, watch eyeballs and butt cheeks get poked by proboscises, and s...

Colin hits the skeevy underbelly of LA in pursuit of cinema's craziest, scariest, most sadistic psycho pimp with the Vice Squad (1982), with the late, great Wings Hauser at his demented best as Ramrod, who spends the night hunting down the call girl (Season Hubley) who set him up. Listen as we spend time learning about pimp sticks, sugar pimps, toe suckers, and profess a surprising love of sleazy...

Michaela can't determine if the products she dreams of owning are because she wants them or because they were subliminally implanted by the advertisements in Looker (1981), in which a plastic surgeon investigates the deaths of his beautiful models and uncovers a corporate conspiracy. Listen as we ask for answers to basic questions, witness the greatest fall onto a car roof in movie history, and li...

Holly screams "Oh man! Oh God! Oh man!" after a viewing of Tough Guys Don't Dance (1987), a bonkers, sleazy, drug and sex fueled neo-noir from novelist turned director Norman Mailer. The late, demented Wings Hauser co-stars alongside Ryan O'Neal, who plays an ex-con with two severed heads in his drug stash. Listen as we try to sort out the most convoluted mystery plot since The Maltese Falcon feat...

Sean goes to the 90's high school dance with Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), the original take on the iconic vampire-hunting heroine, long before she became a pop culture icon in the subsequent hit TV series. Listen as we talk about the horror of shared family answering machines, Pee-Wee Herman as a vampire, teen slang, and more on this week's exciting episode! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/priv...

Colin wakes up screaming ' Silent Hill !' (2006) and thus packs up the Freak Show on a field trip to the fog enshrouded town made famous by a creepy series of Japanese video games. Join us as we run into sexy nightmare nurses, run from a giant sword-wielding Pyramid Head, and discuss horror games and their movie adaptations on this week's exciting episode! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy fo...

Michaela wages a scorched earth campaign to protect the hive with The Beekeeper (2024), a Jason Statham action vehicle that finds him playing a retired special operations agent who opens a can of whoopass after his kindly benefactor falls prey to a phishing scam. Listen as we learn myriad facts about bees and beekeeping, unstoppable government agents, the shadow of John Wick, and kickpunch our way...

Holly tries to identify who among us may be the Werewolves Within (2021), an adaptation of a VR video game from Heart Eyes director Josh Rubin. The townsfolk of a snowy mountain community are trapped in a resort and come to suspect one of their number hides a savage secret. Listen as we come to grips with satisfying internet videos, discover Sean is an algorithm terrorist, and discover everyone's...

Sean says "once is not enough!" and takes us back in time to revisit TimeCop (1994) in an attempt to obliterate our original 2015 review! Jean Claude Van Damme is a police officer assigned to patrol the timeline after time travel is invented and stop the nefarious politician who intends to use the technology for his own gain. Oh, and save his wife from a tragic death. Listen as we bend our brains...

Colin suggests we form a secret society to tell a Ghost Story (1981), an adaptation of Peter Straub's novel about a 50 year old secret that binds together a group of elderly men in a snowy small town in New England, played by some of Hollywood's legendary stars, including Fred Astaire and John Houseman. Listen as we pay tribute to makeup artist Dick Smith, talk about sexy ghosts, and tell each oth...

Michaela enters into the Shat-tastic world of Impulse (1974), which finds cinema treasure William Shatner playing a homicidal con man fleecing rich women in Florida. Listen as we witness hot dog abuse, childish finger pointing, a deadly game of hangman, a slow motion chase through a car wash, and more on this week's exciting episode! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.