Tracks Of The Damned

So you saw Night of the Living Dead when you were 8, you brag to all your high school buddies about how your parents let you watch Martyrs, but trust me you aren't ready for this. Gnarly onscreen violence is one thing, but violent architecture? There's only one classic horror film that can make art deco scary: The Black Cat.   Lugosi and Karloff together, now you know you in trouble. Ain't nothin...

Well it took us several weeks but we're finally here. We've had decapitations and double impalements and 3D yo-yos and now we've reached the thrilling conclusion of the Friday the 13th series and, with it, our commentary tracks. (Wait, they made HOW many more after this? Oh geez.) Yes, on this episode of Tracks of the Damned, the horror film commentary track podcast, we take a look at the least ac...

Look there's nothing wrong with an overgrown octopus pulling down the Golden Gate Bridge, there's nothing wrong with adorable giant bunnies gobbling up the townsfolk, but what if you got something more? What if you saw a killer animal movie that really got under your skin?   An early 70's AIP cheapie directed by someone mostly known for TV work seems like an unlikely candidate, but sometimes life...

Once, twice, three times a dopey slasher series but how are you gonna get the kids coming back to pay to see the same movie they already paid to twice before? The real answer is "Twice? Wait til you realize we can do this 8 more times!" but it's 1982, they don't know what they're sitting on yet. Instead they find a solution fitting their respect for the franchise: stick a bunch of goofy 3D gimmick...

It's an age-old question. Why do we keep pushing on that bruise, tonguing that sore, why do we watch movies we know we hate, movies we know hate us? We don't know, but there are few more mainstream horror films more hateful than Rob Zombie's Halloween. Yes, kids, it's time to gaze into the abyss. Patrick may not like Rob Zombie's divisive 2007 remake of the Carpenter classic, but that hasn't stopp...

It's slower than we'd like but the days are finally getting warmer, the clouds are beginning to part and that first lonesome call of the loon cracking across the valley indicates the summer must soon be here. Time for camp! Yes Tracks of the Damned, the horror film commentary track podcast, is returning with this bonus episode recorded in 2019 that goes deep into the heart of New Jersey to Camp Cr...

Tracks of the Damned is back? We must truly be living in the end of days. Oh. Right. Well regardless, if we're all gonna be stuck in front of our TVs for the next two months than we might as well watch some movies together. So the plan right now is to go back into the crypt and dig up some old unreleased episodes and other archival material to release on a weekly basis. And to start off, a real do...

Hey all, Jim here. I wish I could explain what you're about to hear, but I really can't. But Patrick is recovering in the hospital after 40% of his body was eaten away by insects, so all I can do is direct you to this sound file, which captures his final moments before he succumbed to a demonic force. So listen, but listen with caution, lest the same happen to you... TRACKLIST 1. Skeletons in the...

I've spent the past 2 weeks making this special Halloween mix for you all to enjoy. Novelty songs, soundtrack cuts, horrorcore, horror-punk, horror surf, trailers, and other assorted bits and bobs. A creeptastic spooktacular! 1. Dark Dark Dark from "Spooky Scary Stories", read by Robert Dryden (1973) 2. Spooks! by Louis Armstrong and Gordon Jenkins (1954) 3a. The Graveyard Shift by Nature Sounds D...

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, so why does the past seem like such a nightmare? In the world of pre-Vatican Patterson, NJ the Catholic communities are trapped, shamed, guilty, frustrated, and unhappy. And that's before a maniac in a mask starts burying butcher knives into the tops of people's feet. Alice, Sweet Alice is one of the greatest slashers of all-time and unforgivably...

Hey folks, Jim here. We are gathered here today to mourn the loss of Patrick's computer, now in a deep coma. I have used my skills as a part-time fortune teller and medium to contact it in The Great Beyond and can confirm that it may be quite some time before it returns, if it ever does. So we must announce that Tracks of the Damned is on an indefinite hiatus until this matter can be resolved. How...

You will not be saved by iTunes. You will not be saved by Stitcher Radio. In fact, YOU WILL NOT BE SAVED.    You take Carpenter's filmography and put it in a giant 1,500 lb blender, mix with some green goo, and hit puree. The result? Prince of Darkness (1987), a supernatural quantum physics siege film that has as many high minded science fiction ideas as it does characters. But can a director who'...

But is that deer head you have hanging above the couch in your den really secure? Just how good are your cars brakes anyway? Did you know that 11 out of 10 people who use a ladder start a Rube Goldberg chain of events that ends with a bowling ball smashing someone's head? Yep, it's a big dangerous world out there and in 2000 New Line Pictures saw all the dough Scream and it's derivatives were raki...

So we all know the stories. Spielberg was a wunderkind. He snuck onto the Universal lot as an 8 year-old with nothing more than a turtleneck, viewfinder and a suitcase full of candy bars and was immediately hired to design the Creature From the Black Lagoon and do re-writes on Magnificent Obsession. But the truth is that even The Beard started somewhere and anyone who's seen his episodes of Night...

Look, I get it. You're a major studio, you see a movie like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre make a boatload of money, you look at a movie like Friday the 13th make a trainload of money, you think "Well, if we could get the director of THAT to make a version THIS, we could make a planeload of money!"   Here's your wake-up call. Tobe Hooper is only ever gonna do what Tobe Hooper wants to do. He doesn't...

What is behind that door? It's maybe the key question at the root of all horror. What is behind that door, what is in that shadow, what was that noise? It's a fact that RKO producer Val Lewton exploited better than anyone and one that Robert Wise, who was mentored by Lewton, used as the backbone of his 1963 psychological ghost story classic The Haunting. For the season 2 premiere of Tracks of the...

His tomb disturbed by raging teenagers, Patrick returns from the cold embrace of death to issue this warning: Bonus episodes are here, if you want them.   So here's the deal. Season 2 will begin as planned July 7th , with one episode a week, 20 episodes total. All free of charge, at your leisure.   HOWEVER.   Patrick's already started recording Season 2. There will be 5 or 6 episodes already compl...

Hey folks, Patrick here. With Season 2 of Tracks of the Damned on the way, I figured it'd be a good idea to give people an update on the podcast, why Season 1 was abruptly cut short, and why, now more than ever, it's important to record commentary tracks for A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2. Or whatever.   Also, check out a new song by Genki Genki Panic, whose new album, Litanies of Surf,  is avai...

In 2016 the streets of Chicago are full of celebrations but in 1963 the streets of Miami were full of blood. Anyone can walk into a nudist camp and point a Bolex at some breasts, but it took a mad professor ( Herschell Gordon Lewis ) and his carny friend (David F. Friedman) to think of ripping a sheep's tongue out of a Swedish model's face in screaming color. Enter Blood Feast.   On the latest epi...

New decade, new cast, new blood, new rules? Well wait, let's pump our brakes a sec here, what are the rules of remakes? What do the remakes of The Fog and A Nightmare on Elm Street share, other than the fact that they both suck?    So maybe the whole "someone's trying to remake the events of the original" angle is a bit clumsy, and maybe there's no actual reason for this movie to exist. But the Fi...

Scream once, Scream twice, Scream as loud as you can, but you've got an episode about Scream 3 (2000) in your red right hand. Reviled by many, defended by a few, Scream 3 was the death knell for the new slasher boom. With an assist from Tessa Racked of Consistent Panda Bear Shape , Patrick dives into a movie that dares to ask: are two Gale Weatherses better than one?   If one of those Gales is Par...

Oh Jesus Christ, will the internet never leave Scream 2 alone? First there was a script leak before they even started filming. Then an extra brought a camcorder into the opening scene and filmed the whole thing. Then another script leak that made them change the ending. And now, the final indignity, some moron named Patrick Ripoll is gonna release a commentary track and jabber on over the whole th...

What's your favorite scary movie? Ok, well what's your favorite scary movie that was originally titled "Scary Movie" but then changed to "Scream" because the Weinsteins thought that first name was box office poison?   Scream (1996) has many die-hard fans and many die-hard detractors, but it's impact on the horror landscape of the late 90's is undeniable and it's status as a slasher movie touchston...

Who is that on the subway muttering to himself? The shell-shocked vet or the man with the tail or the faces you can't make out. Is it just me or is that bag twitching? Who said that? Who are these people at this party, why can't I breathe and who is my girlfriend dancing with and why can't I breathe and where lurks the Vibroman? Natural questions if you're the main character of Jacob's Ladder (199...

Grab your best blow-up doll and get ready to puke your guts out. You can learn all the horror movies rules, grab a crucifix, holy water, and silver bullets, but none of it will help you. An undying hanged priest don't care about your logic. An undying hanged priest just wants you to suffer. Lucio Fulci really knew how to reach out and squeeze the audience's brain, and there's few films that prove...