The Fear of God: A Horror Movie Podcast

We close a loop from last year this week by covering the concluding chapter in Ti West's provocative horror trilogy that started with X and Pearl: MAXXXINE. We invite back friend of the show JR Forasteros to help us unpack our decisively uneven feelings about a trilogy which started strong, proceeded to get even better, and then possibly completely fumbled the ending. Also featuring a Patron-only...

Keeping an accidental trend of looking back at some of the most unconventional horror films of 2024, we offer you a conversation about Tilman Singer's CUCKOO. We're joined this week by two friends from Van Ryder Games, AJ Porfirio and Julie Ahern, to discuss this strange and occasionally befuddling examination of exploration of fractured relationships and twisted scientific exploitation. While opi...

Easily one of the most unconventional films of last year was the French throwback to folk horror tales of the 1970s: THE VOURDALAK. Set in the 18th century, it follows a Marquis who becomes displaced after being robbed and finds his way to the shelter of a strange family. To say too much more would be to rob this unique, surprising, and disarmingly potent film of its fun -- and its terror. It feat...

For the Christian, and the formerly so; for the hopeful and the heartbroken; for the grieving and the teeth-gritted; for the beloved and the bedraggled; for the pissed off and the prayerful... Submitted humbly is a conversation between Nathan Rouse and Dr. David Gushee -- Christian ethicist, professor, pastor, and friend. It examines the sensibilities of the last few months, the efforts that were...

Let us begin by saying thank you to our listeners. This week we published our 400th episode! We can hardly believe it. From nearly 9 years ago when the idea of discussions about faith and fear was little more than a fun thought experiment, to sitting now at 400 episodes (and more than that when we count bonuses and interviews), we're so grateful for the little community we've grown together. So, t...

Last year was an eclectic assortment of styles, subgenres, and themes in the horror genre but perhaps one of the most stylistically unconventional was a film called IN A VIOLENT NATURE. On its narrative surface, In a Violent Nature is a pretty standard slasher. But the very big distinction is that nearly all of the film is shown from the vantage point of the steadily-stalking killer as he encroach...

We continue our look back at some of the most compelling horror films of 2024 with an unconventional enigma. RED ROOMS took the festival circuit by storm with its haunting, unnerving examination of obsession, technology, and commodified violence. It tells the story of the trial of Ludovic Chevalier, on trial for the hideous murders of three teenage girls, whose deaths were filmed and sold on the d...

We continue our look back at some of the most interesting horror films of 2024 by examining a haunting, dread-soaked thriller from Oz Perkins, LONGLEGS. Starring Maika Monroe and Nicolas Cage (in a completely unhinged performance), Longlegs tells the story of an FBI agent in the mid-90s investigating a series of murders that all appear to be connected to someone who wasn't even there when they hap...

We continue our look-back at some of the most interesting horror films of 2024 with a conversation about Heretic. Heretic has a fantastic premise, featuring Hugh Grant as a charismatic but unsettling man who invites two young Mormon missionary ladies (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) into his home for a conversation about religion. The ladies quickly realize that their situation is more perilous an...

We continue our slate of episodes looking back at the films of 2024 by covering two films at once! SPEAK NO EVIL was a Dutch horror nightmare written and directed by Christian Tafdrup that shook audiences with its bold, horrific narrative in 2022. Last year, James Watkins adapted an American remake starring James McAvoy and Mackenzie Davis that drastically changed the final third of the story and...

Welcome to 2025 everyone! We are kicking things off with a couple of big announcements, a few special guests, and an over-sized episode about one of the most fascinating horror films of the last few years: Coralie Fargeat's THE SUBSTANCE. Starring Demi Moore in possibly a career-best performance, The Substance is about an aging fitness starlet who takes an experimental drug to create a younger, "b...

We have something special for you while we're on our top of year break. Friend of the show and bestselling author Grady Hendrix is releasing a new book this week (available as of 1/14) called Witchcraft for Wayward Girls. It's set in the 1970s and follows a series of young teens who are expectant mothers and get sent to a maternity home to await their deliveries. While there, they soon stumble upo...

We've come to the conclusion of another year. And as we do, we also conclude our mini-series covering the three distinct versions of Nosferatu. First, we covered the original silent F. W. Murnau film from 1922, then the Werner Herzog directed remake from 1979. This week, we dive into visionary director Robert Eggers' take on the gothic horror tale. Atmospheric and saturated with ominous shadows, E...

Hello friends and FoGgers, we want to wish you a very special Merry Christmas with a unique release this week that we hope you'll enjoy. Several years ago, I (Reed) wrote a handful of short stories for Christmas. One of them involved a shepherd and his young boy sitting and talking on a quiet hillside one uneventful, starlit night. Because of its dialogue-heavy structure, I asked my son if he woul...

It's that time of year again folks! We're keeping up with a recently minted tradition of covering a different version of Charles Dickens' immortal classic A Christmas Carol by discussing the wonderful adaptation by none other than The Muppets. THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL is not only full of all the laughter, whimsy, and heartfelt sentiment that have come to be synonymous with the Muppet gang, but i...

Continuing our trio of episodes this week about the films which adapt Dracula in a very specific but different kind of way. F. W. Murnau's 1922 silent film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror was remade in 1979 by now legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog into a contemplative, grim, and lush presentation he called NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE. Distinguishing itself in many ways from its predecessor while still k...

As we prepare for the end of the year -- and for the imminent release of Robert Eggers' Nosferatu -- we're doing a mini-series run through the previous versions of this story. We start by going way back to the silent era of filmmaking with NOSFERATU: A SYMPHONY OF HORROR from 1922. In all practical measures, F. W. Murnau's film is an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula with names and key details c...

Before we draw our slate of 2024 episodes to a close, we wanted to highlight a creepy, atmospheric chiller from Damien McCarthy called ODDITY. Intimate in scope but provocative in its implications, Oddity takes some familiar elements and configures them in decisively unconventional ways. It's a revenge thriller, it's a murder mystery, it's a ghost story, it's a haunted house tale, it's a witchy-go...

When we covered our series on Frankenstein-inspired horror films earlier this year, we capped it off by looking at The Curse of Frankenstein, the foray into classic horror from Hammer Studios. This week, although deferred a bit from our Dracula series, we're doing the same thing with a conversation about HORROR OF DRACULA. This was notable for being the first time the legendary Christopher Lee wit...

After taking a slight detour last week, we're back to close off our Spooky Season (AHHH!) franchise run of the Alien film series with an epilogue looking back at some of our key takeaways, favorite moments, and finally solidifying the Kills Hall of Fame for Xenomorphs. Kick back, relax, and enjoy our wrap up of all things face-huggy and chest-bursty. We hope you enjoy! 7:57 - Key Takeaways from th...

Due to some scheduling adjustments and coinciding with some proximal current events, we bring to you a very different episode this week. Each week, we explore what scares us in order to find what saves us. This week, we're digging a little deeper on the last part of that motto. Whether you are burnt out, stressed, worried, anxious, fearful, saddened, burdened, confused, lonely, or all of the above...

We have finally arrived at the primary reason we chose to march through the Alien franchise this spooky season (AHHHHH). As we've made our way through #halloweylanyutani, we've had the 2024 release of the latest installment in our minds. So now, after all the facehugging, chestbursting, and j-j-j-j-jaw-dropping conversations, we have finally arrived at ALIEN: ROMULUS. We sit down with two old frie...

This week we feature our second Redux episode in the Alien Franchise run for Spooky Season (AHHHHH) #Halloweylanyutani. Redux episodes feature films we've covered on the show before but with fresh takes, new voices, and lots of renewed perspectives. This time around we're joined by friends of the show Vera Goudie and Matt Ruff to unpack the often frustrating specifics of ALIEN: COVENANT. Following...

We continue our Spooky Season (AHHHH) run through the iconic Alien franchise (#Halloweylanyutani) with the film that saw the return of Ridley Scott to the film series that he had originally launched. PROMETHEUS initially played things a bit light on whether or not it actually was an Alien film, choosing instead to go for philosophical and existential ideas exploring our origins and our purposes wi...

We have a fun October Surprise for you this morning. We invited now-frequent guest and friend of the show Dr. David Gushee to discuss with us his newly released book, THE MORAL TEACHINGS OF JESUS: Radical Instruction in the Will of God. The book focuses on 40 unique moral teachings of Jesus from throughout the gospels and can be read as intermittent devotions, as a scholarly text, as a community o...