Split Your Head

Warning: Contains discussions of graphic sexuality and sexual violence. This episode features a lengthy discussion with Weird Alice, a Toronto-based drag queen, filmmaker, and film programmer! Alice will be presenting 3 highly salacious flicks at the Paradise: Wakefield Poole's Bijou (Aug 2), Showgirls (Aug 8), and Castration Movie Pt 1(Aug 31). We dove into her wild experiences programming some o...

WARNING: CONTAINS PROVOCATIVE DISCUSSIONS ON SENSITIVE SUBJECTS, SUCH AS VIOLENCE, RELIGION, POLITICS, AND SEXUALITY.This episode features the return of Daniel Valient from White Gardenia along with frequent collaborator Celeste Henry, aka Blucifer. Both artists operate in the extreme horror underground, with White Gardenia gaining notoriety for their unsimulated acts of self-harm. However, they'r...

This episode features an interview with Ryan Verrill from The Disc-Connected! Well, less an interview and more just a friendly chat between two dudes with similar experiences and passions. Before arriving at some exciting news about upcoming blu-ray releases that Ryan helped to produce, we somehow end up talking about hardcore punk, house shows, politics, and I'm sure lots of other stuff we were e...

This episode features the return of So-Cal Splatter King, Stephen Grischuk! Grischuk is the head honcho of Box Creep films, churning out some of the wackiest lo-fi genre flicks, including his most recent banger: Battle Jacket. Inspired by his love for metal but containing a surprising amount of heavy themes, Grischuk and I had a pretty fascinating chat delving into all of the BTS lore and touching...

This episode features a thorough chat with Brandon Lim, Toronto-based programmer of Black Belt Cinema at the Revue, as well as musician, writer, and designer. Brandon takes us through the Black Belt origin story, from projecting films on a parking lot wall to packing the Revue every month with these fascinating cult gems. We also have a pretty healthy chat about Toronto rep cinemas in general, so...

This episode features a provocative discussion of the underrated Japanese director, Shinji Sōmai. I've got excellent film writer Jerry McGlothlin on to discuss his works and recurring themes. Starting off with his recently restored Typhoon Club, I was drawn to Sōmai's unique and meditative take on the harsh coming-of-age film. Turns out that's a constant mode for him, with other films like P.P. Ri...

This episode features a long-time friend of the pod, Canadian filmmaker Anthony Leroy. Along with his company, Elytra Collective, Leroy has been popping out some of the zaniest and most ambitious SOV horror/comedy shorts I've ever laid my eyes on. After his most recent film, "BUM", scraped my brain with its hilarious antics and surprisingly kaleidoscopic stylization (Tsukamoto anyone?), I just had...

WARNING: This episode contains discussions of disturbing and controversial subject matter, including violence and sexual content. This episode I'm joined by Jeroen Bijil, the host of Horrible Reviews! Jeroen's fascinating YouTube channel has been dishing out prolific videos covering so many types of films, but his bread and butter is DISTURBING MOVIES. He's gained a massive following diving into s...

WARNING: This episode contains discussions of disturbing and controversial subject matter, including violence and sexual assault. This episode I've got SOV filmmaker Susana Kapostasy on to talk about her most recent film, The Emasculator, as well as her previous work, Night of the Zodiac & Metal Maniac. Susana is a one-of-a-kind true artist, brimming with knowledge of exploitation cinema, maki...

And we're back! For the first episode of Season 3, Louise Weard has returned to talk about her expansive harsh indie drama, Castration Movie Part 1 & 2. Like Mike Leigh or RW Fassbinder strained through a DIY Dogme95 sensibility multiplied by queer punk rock urgency, Part 1 was 4+ hours of nuanced character studies that resonated in the most unflinching way. Louise is just about to film Part 2...

Make way for the final episode of Season 2! This time I had quite a sprawling chat about British horror with Dr. Ethan Lyon, whose PhD in Film Studies and British heritage gave us a hefty dose of things to talk about. As selected by Ethan, we cover "The Dark Eyes of London" (1939), "Horrors of the Black Museum" (1959), "The Plague of the Zombies" (1966), "Apaches" (1977), and "Hellraiser" (1987)....

This episode features an interview with David Stepanavicius from Atræ Bilis. Their latest album, “Aumicide” (20 Buck Spin), is a dazzling journey through the cerebral heights of "Spiritually Dissonant Death Metal". When David isn’t shredding riffs, he’s also slinging bootleg horror tees with his new venture, Fulci Rots. David and I chat about the state of death metal, writing with psychedelics, an...

This episode features an interview with Samm Deighan, a writer, film historian, podcaster, and special features content producer for Vinegar Syndrome. Samm's latest book, "Revolutions in 35mm", is a fascinating collection of essays from various writers all focusing on political violence and resistance in cinema. We chat about this passion project of hers, spending time specifically on the Japanese...

This episode features a friendly discussion on one of the most prolific and singular directors to ever come out of Japan: THEE SHINYA TSUKAMOTO! You may know and love him for his cyber-punk masterpiece, TETSUO: THE IRON MAN, but I've got my pal Jeremiah Rosario, a Florida-based filmmaker, to chat about 3 lesser known films by Tsukamoto: Gemini (1999), Haze (2005), and Nightmare Detective (2006). L...

This episode features a chat with Kelly Gredner, a fellow podcaster and writer who's been a strong presence in the horror community with The Spinsters of Horror and Our Bloody Obsession (RIP). She's now embarking on her own series, Kelly's Taboo Terrors, where she'll be exploring controversial and transgressive films all with taboo themes. Naturally, I had to have Kelly on to pick her brain about...

This sequel drenched episode contains a doozy of a chat with Seth Troyer, a filmmaker, musician, and fellow podcaster based out of Ohio. You may know him from co-hosting Unwatchables, but he’s recently dropped a hilarious experimental short film called “Vertigo 2” that is so meta and bonkers I couldn’t wait to chat with him about it once my head stopped spinning. We dive into all of the problems a...

WARNING: This episode contains discussions of disturbing and controversial subject matter, including violence and sexual assault. Dakota Noot is an LA based visual artist who has recently become completely enthralled in the world of Pinku Eigas. These Japanese erotic/exploitation films are incredibly unique, disturbing, and in turn fascinating, so Dakota takes me through his deep dive into the gen...

WARNING: This episode contains discussions of disturbing and controversial subject matter, including violence and sexual assault. This episode features a discussion of the underrated Japanese writer/director Takashi Ishii with returning guest Fred Barrett. Fred came on last season to discuss Hisayasu Sato after writing a phenomenal piece on Pink Films for the Big Ship. When I asked Fred to come ba...

WARNING: This episode contains disturbing and graphic subject matter. If you're at all squeamish, please keep that in mind. This episode features a lovely chat with Cory DeAn Cowley, the "Lady of Decay", a super talented actor, director, and FX artist whose most recent film "Trypophobic Possession" shocked me to my core with its intense body-horror textural hellscapes. Cory, however, is anything b...

Guy is back and this time he's joined by his podcasting co-host, Dave Jackson! Guy and Dave are two wild underground horror filmmakers that now both reside in Japan where they conduct their highly addictive podcast, Show Me Something Wrong. In this series, they explore films that they deem "wrong" - ya know, films that are provocative, baffling, controversial, or just completely WTF. Thanks to the...

This episode features Amy Hensarling and Jetta Weinstein, two podcasting/film-writing buds who both made appearances on the first season. Once I heard the inaugural episode of Amy's new series, She Said/She Said, where Jetta came on to dissect a couple films, I just knew I needed both of them on to discuss a couple horror flicks. Jetta picked William Friedkin's "Bug" (2006") and Antonia Bird's "Ra...

WARNING: This episode contains some very disturbing and controversial subject matter. If you're at all squeamish or easily offended, please keep that in mind before listening. This episode features one of the most intense and provocative discussions thus far as I interviewed Jonathan Doe along with Daniel Valient from the collective White Gardenia. Both artists operate within the extreme horror un...

This episode features an incredibly inspiring chat with Montreal-based filmmaker Terry Chiu, whose latest feature film Open Doom Crescendo is one of the wildest, weirdest, and most epic movies I've ever seen! ODC is really an "Experience" so singular and bursting with creativity that you'd expect Terry to be swimming in avant-garde art. Instead, Chiu is a devoted fan of the Insidious films and lov...

This episode features a chat with Finlay Blake, the singer of Last Retch, a death metal band from Hamilton, ON who have just released a brand new EP called Ergotism on CDN Records. Finlay is one scary dude on stage, but the complete opposite of that when he's not making a warpath of guttural destruction with his gnarly vocals. We talk about the Salem witch trial influences of the new EP, all the u...

This episode I got to interview Zarrar Kahn whose debut feature, In Flames, has been unleashed in North American theatres as of April 12th. Kahn's film is a doozy of patriarchal oppression, supernatural malevolence, and seething angst, all set in Karachi, Pakistan where two women struggle with the loss of the family patriarch. It's a super impressive debut and gave us plenty to talk about, like wr...