The Suspense is Killing Us

Put down that joystick! What if I told you there was a kind of video game that you can play without having to do anything at all? All of the character depth and story coherence of a video game, but all you have to do is sit there and stare at it? It's called a "movie" and we're talking about three of them! HITMAN (2007, Xavier Gens) MAX PAYNE (2008, John Moore) UNCHARTED (2022, Ruben Fleischer)

You may have heard of the wild (wild) west before, and you've probably heard of ladies before. But what about ladies IN the wild (wild) west? It's an idea just crazy enough to work one out of three times! BAD GIRLS (1994, Jonathan Kaplan) THE QUICK AND THE DEAD (1995, Sam Raimi) BANDIDAS (2006, Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg)

Super Vehicles: one of the best micro-genres out there. You take some kind of conveyance, be it a boat or a blimp or what have you, and you super it up! Not much to it, that's why exactly 2/3 of all Super Vehicle movies are great, just like the three below. BLUE THUNDER (1983, John Badham) CYCLONE (1987, Fred Olen Ray) STEALTH (2005, Rob Cohen)

What happens when the cliche-ridden dream factory of Hollywood clashes with the hard bitten realities of genuine cops and/or pilots? We find out, with three Hollywood movies that accurately demonstrate the difference between true life and make-believe! THE HARD WAY (1991, John Badham) INTO THE SUN (1992, Fritz Kiersch) HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE (2003, Ron Shelton)

Brat Pack luminary Molly Ringwald made a string of thrillers in the mid to late 90's, playing the villain, the victim, and some lady who works in an office. Was she able to replicate her teen idol success of the 80's? The answer may or may not surprise you! MALICIOUS (1995, Ian Corson) OFFICE KILLER (1997, Cindy Sherman) REQUIEM FOR MURDER (1999, Douglas Jackson)

Before he was Frank Drebin, before he had a special set of skills, before he was Schindler, tall Irish actor Liam Neeson already had a decade plus in the biz. The men he played were always tall, but not always Irish, and that's where the trouble began. NEXT OF KIN (1989, John Irvin) UNDER SUSPICION (1991, Simon Moore) RUBY CAIRO aka DECEPTION (1992, Graeme Clifford)

We figured now was probably the perfect time to do an episode about nuclear annihilation! We're talking about three very different movies involving The Bomb, all of which seem to agree that it would be pretty bad if one went off. WAR GAMES (1983, John Badham) MIRACLE MILE (1988, Steve De Jarnatt) THE SUM OF ALL FEARS (2002, Phil Alden Robinson)

Years before he became a household name with Jurassic Park and ER, sci-fi author Michael Crichton was toiling away in obscurity—directing big Hollywood movies with major stars. It was a tough career period, but he eventually managed to push through it and write State of Play. COMA (1978) THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY (1978) LOOKER (1981)

We begin at the beginning in our first of probably hundreds of episodes about notorious action/schlock production company PM Entertainment—a movie from each of the first three years. We came to find out that even schlock-meisters have a learning curve! L.A. HEAT (1989, Joseph Merhi) AMERICAN BORN (1990, Raymond Martino) THE ART OF DYING (1991, Wings Hauser)

We watched three whole movies about gamified virtual worlds, none of which are as fun as playing an actual video game. Classic noob behavior. GAMER (2009, Neveldine/Taylor) ASSASSIN’S CREED (2016, Justin Kurzel) SERENITY (2019, Steven Knight)

Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies, we're talking shark movies this time! Three shark thrillers of varying depths, from general deepness to very little deepness, and then rounding it out with a very specific depth! DEEP BLUE SEA (1999, Renny Harlin THE SHALLOWS (2016, Jaume Collet-Serra) 47 METERS DOWN (2017, Johannes Roberts)

It's kind of surprising how many movies there are with the premise "Stuck in a house with a wild animal." And considering that all three of these are pretty good, it's kind of surprising that there aren't even more of them. PROPER EDITED VERSION! LINK (1986, Richard Franklin) BURNING BRIGHT (2010, Carlos Brooks) CRAWL (2019, Alexandre Aja)

We ransacked the "Holiday Crime" section at Scarecrow Video and came up with three gritty, violent and most of all JOLLY thrillers for this most wonderful time of the year. Merry Christmas, dirtbag! RIOT (1996, Joseph Merhi) NAKED CITY: A KILLER CHRISTMAS (1998, Peter Bogdanovich) 'R XMAS (2001, Abel Ferrara)

Christmas is famously a depressing holiday for some folks. The main reason for this, we think, is because it's the time of year when people get trapped in ice-cold confined spaces by psychos and/or pure human incompetence. P2 (2007, Franck Khalfoun) FROZEN (2010, Adam Green) ATM (2012, David Brooks)

Time to talk about some vigilantSHEs for a change! Three ladies pushed too far, who decide to arm themselves, learn krav maga and stick it to the men. It's in Revelations, people! THE BRAVE ONE (2007, Neil Jordan) A VIGILANTE (2018, Sarah Daggar-Nickson) PEPPERMINT (2018, Pierre Morel)

Several people may have heard of the first Relentless film, which raked in nearly 7 million dollars in box office receipts in the late 80's. But did you know that not long after that first movie, they made two more of them? Actually, they made three more but we love you too much to subject you to that amount of Relentlessness. RELENTLESS (1989, William Lustig) DEAD ON: RELENTLESS 2 (1992, Michael...

You must join us for this Spooky Season episode about two good Body Snatchers films and one bad one. You have no choice. Life will be better if you listen. There will be no more wars, no more hatred. No more love. But we can promise you this: plenty of goo! INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978, Philip Kaufman) BODY SNATCHERS (1993, Abel Ferrara) INVASION (2007, Oliver Hirschbiegel)

October is here: the leaves are changing, the shadows grow longer, the moon is full 100% of the time. What better reason to discuss three thrillers showcasing the ferocity of canis lupus—the common household wolf for those not versed in Latin! WOLFEN (1981, Michael Wadleigh) WOLF (1994, Mike Nichols) THE WOLFMAN (2010, Joe Johnston)

So it's come to this: Emalie, Matt and Travis dutifully answer YOUR questions about movies, food, dogs, but mostly movies. Intriguing, no?

You can call Pamela Anderson an icon, you can call her a sex symbol, you can call her someone with pretty bad taste in men and/or music. But don't—and this is very important—call her 'babe.' In case that's something you were thinking about doing. SNAPDRAGON (1993, Worth Keeter) RAW JUSTICE (1994, David A Prior) BARB WIRE (1996, David Hogan)

The year was 1986, and the Brat Pack—a group of hot young actors that folks associated with each other—was on top of the world. Then these three movies were released, and that was basically the the end of that. BLUE CITY (1986, Michelle Manning) OUT OF BOUNDS (1986, Dick Tuggle) WISDOM (1986, Emilio Estevez)

We watched three movies about the scariest types of buildings: tall ones! Yes, what's scarier than a skyscraper, floor after floor of potential for terror. And the only way out? A really cool wirework stunt fall! For the love of God, just TAKE THE STAIRS! BLACKOUT (1978, Eddy Matalon) DE LIFT (1983, Dick Maas) SKYSCRAPER (1996, Raymond Martino)

No new episode this week, so you know it's time for...ugh, "Classic SIKU." In this case we're putting our classic patreon ep FIVE DEPALMAS PART 1 up on the free feed! We read a whole book for this one! And it's from 2021, so that'll probably make it a pretty weird listen! CARRIE (1976) CASUALTIES OF WAR (1989) ARE SNAKES NECESSARY? (A novel! 2018)

It's off to the deep wilderness for three nail-biters featuring killer wolves and bears! But—and you're not gonna believe this—it turns out the ultimate wild animal might just be...man? Well, in one of these it's definitely the wolves, but they're probably a metaphor for man. SHOOT TO KILL (1988, Roger Spottiswoode) THE EDGE (1997, Lee Tamahori) THE GREY (2011, Joe Carnahan)

We're following the progression of notable movie actor George Clooney, from his humble, tic-filled beginnings, to the much less fussy "classic" period. He is hot in all the phases, of course. THE PEACEMAKER (1997, Mimi Leder) MICHAEL CLAYTON (2007, Tony Gilroy) THE AMERICAN (2010, Anton Corbijn)