The Gen X Files

Join your ol' Stepdads as we explore one of the most underrated subgenres: horror comedies. You'll die laughing as we recap Student Bodies, House, April Fool's Day, and The 'Burbs! We'll also discuss some spooky movies we watched this month (including an insane film from 1983), TV shows we've been watching, and video games we've been playing.

Is The 'Burbs a Halloween movie? We think so! Join us as explore the movie, The 'Burbs, with Tom Hanks. A microscopic look at the mundanity of the suburbs and how easy it is to imagine your neighbors are up to no good, even if they actually are. Directed by Joe Dante, with Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher, Rick Ducommun, and Corey Feldman.

No show this week. April Fool's! Today, we're covering a subversive dark comedy that may or may not be horror: April Fool's Day from 1986. Starring Thomas F. Wilson, Deborah Foreman, and Griffin O'Neal, it's a twisty-turny, what's-happening-next, slasher film.

Join us as we cover one of the forgotten horror movies of the 80s: House! The 1985 movie stars William Katt, George Wendt, Richard Moll, and Kay Lenz, with a story by Fred Dekker, screenplay by Ethan Wiley, and directed by Steve Miner, who directed Friday the 13th Part II! It's a great haunted house tale with some amazing practical effects.

What do horse head bookends, a gangly super bendy Gumby-like dude, and heavy breathing have in common? They're all parts of Student Bodies, the the first horror spoof movie, in the nature of Friday the 13th and Airplane!. Released in 1981 and written and directed by Mickey Rose, childhood friend of Woody Allen, it does a good send-up of the young slasher genre.

Join your ol' Stepdads as we discuss the new movies, TV, and video games that have been entertaining us this month, including Alien Earth on FX, Brightburn on Peacock, Haunted Hotel on Netflix, and Gotham Knights, No Man's Sky, and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. We also have a very special guest to discuss Tron, Tron Legacy and Tron Ares!

This week, we cover one of the most ill-advised, weirdest adaptations of any kind: Super Mario Bros.! Released in 1993, this movie was a travesty of an adaptation of the NES Super Mario Bros games. Based on Super Mario World, having been recently released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the movie barely resembles the bright, colorful world that everyone knew with the original Super Mar...

Join us as explore a sadly underrated gem, The Last Starfighter. It's every video game kid's dream: get so good at a video game that an alien comes down and asks you to save the universe. It also featured a ton of early CGI sequences. Directed by Nick Castle, starring Lance Guest, Dan O'Herlihy, Catherine Mary Stewart, and Robert Preston.

We dive head first into CompuKids month with our first entry: the original Tron from 1982! Starring Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner, and Cindy Morgan. Written and directed by Steve Lisberger. Find out the history of Tron before Tron Ares hits the theaters.

We wrap up our When Animals Attack month and welcome in a special guest. We also discuss the movies we've seen (we went to the theater!), TV shows we've been watching, and games we've been playing.

NO, NOT THE BEES!!!! Sorry, wrong movie. But the sentiment stands. The '70s were fraught with Killer Bee Phobia and The Swarm was the movie that ended it all. And the disaster genre. At least for a while. All orchestrated by Irwin Allen, master of The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. The Swarm is a good indicator of how one needs to grow and change with society. Starring Michael Ca...

Today, we explore a world of runaway spiders, mostly tarantulas, that are killing everyone in sight! It's the super-weird Kingdom of the Spiders, starring William Shatner, Tiffany Bolling, Woody Strode, Altovise Davis, and Marcy Lafferty.

How do you make cute little bunnies terrifying? You don't. Or at least, the makers of Night of the Lepus never figured it out. But hey, they're huge and in slow motion and completely adorable. It's the eco-horror movie that couldn't: Night of the Lepus. Starring Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh, Rory Calhoun, and DeForest Kelley.

For our first entry into When Animals Attack, we're featuring Frogs, a movie that doesn't have giant frogs nor frogs actually killing anyone. It's a great eco-horror film from 1972 starring Ray Milland, Sam Elliot (almost unrecognizable without his mustache), and Joan Van Ark.

Join your ol' Stepdads this week as we discuss kids in trouble, what movies we've been watching, TV shows we're excited to see, and what video games are worth playing.

For our third entry into Kids in Trouble, we're covering one of the best indie movies of the '80s: River's Edge. An amazing study on death, apathy, and friendship, this movie is a phenomenal look into what it is to be a kid and have to grow up, quickly. Written by Neal Jimenez, directed by Tim Hunter, with incredible performances from Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye, Roxana Zal...

This week, we explore some Bad Boys, including Sean Penn, Esai Morales, Eric Gurry, Alan Ruck, and Clancy Brown, with help from Ally Sheedy, Reni Santoni, Jim Moody, and John Zenda. It's the Hollywood version of bored high school kids and the consequences of their actions. It's gritty and tough and filled with good lookin' Hollywood actors, directed by Rick Rosenthal, with a screenplay...

Join us as we start our Kids in Trouble month with Over the Edge, the 1979 masterpiece about a subdivision that didn't remember that kids made up 25% of their population, leading to a ton of kids in trouble. Written by Charles Haas and Tim Hunter, directed by Jonathan Kaplan, and starring Michael Kramer, Matt Dillon and Vincent Spano, along with a bunch of unknown actors. It's one of the b...

Join your ol' stepdads as we discuss how close we actually were to June Doom, along with the awful, not bad, and disappointing movies from this month. We chat a little about movies, a lot of really good TV (Netflix is killing it), and if video game subscriptions are worth it.

Join us as we dive into one of the most disappointing movies ever made: Nothing but Trouble. With Chevy Chase phoning it in (again), Demi Moore seeming completely out of her depth, John Candy (successfully) playing two completely different twins, and Dan Aykroyd playing two characters (both in heavy makeup!), directing, writing on set, and producing, Nothing but Trouble is a hot mess. Add in reall...

Join us as we cover the greatest movie about a talking horse giving a loser stock tips: Hot to Trot! Surprisingly, this movie is way way better than we were expecting (which isn't saying much). It was the only starring vehicle for Bobcat Goldthwait, but also stars Dabney Coleman, Virginia Madsen, and John Candy!

Welcome to June Doom IV, our annual tradition of covering disaster movies. This month, we're covering movies that were literal disasters! First up is Under the Rainbow, the best example of creative artists making every wrong choice. It's an absolute mess of a movie that suffers from the worst cinema sin: it's boring as hell. Listen to the podcast so that you don't have to watch it! Starring Chevy...

Crack open that High Life and join us as we discuss the brilliance of Monty Python, The Last of Us season 2, Mickey 17, and if video game DLCs are worth it.

For their final film outing, the Pythons went back to their roots: a sketch show that's loosely connected, but now with a bigger budget and no censors to tell them their material is too risky. The Meaning of Life is the perfect endcap to an incredible 14-year run for Monty Python. Written and Starring John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, and Michael Palin.

With the show behind them and plenty of time to focus on writing, the Pythons put together their most ambitious film yet: the story of the guy who lived next to Jesus. It's Monty Python's Life of Brian! The movie that was banned in a number of countries, yet is still considered to be one of the funniest films of all-time. Written by Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idl...