Unwatchables with Marc & Seth

Takashi Miike has made over a hundred feature films, but for our super-sized Halloween episode we’re tackling his two most notorious: 1999’s stealth extreme horror film Audition , and 2001’s ultra-violent yakuza thriller Ichi the Killer . To help us out, we welcome back one of our favorite guests, Kay (aka govnaim), who previously brought their expertise to our discussion of Salò . Topics include...

Big thanks to Paul Keelan from Cinematic Underdogs for joining us for this wide-ranging discussion about two art films whose explicit— and often un-simulated— sexual content caused some to cry obscenity: Nagisa Ōshima’s 1976 erotic true crime story In the Realm of the Senses , and Tsai Ming-liang’s 2005 surrealist romance The Wayward Cloud . We discuss their wildly different yet similarly frank ap...

We’re thrilled to welcome professional critic Mike D’Angelo—aka “The Man Who Viewed Too Much,” staple of The AvClub, The Dissolve, Las Vegas Weekly, and now Alternate Ending , among others (as well as a thriving Patreon )— to Unwatchables. Mike personally witnessed hundreds of people flee the Cannes premiere of 2002’s Irreversible , and to this day considers it the most painful to watch of all gre...

Unwatchables welcomes artist Jared Gonzalez to help us discuss Ralph Bakshi, whose profane, controversial animated films helped pave the way for everything from The Simpsons to South Park to Adult Swim. First up is 1972’s Fritz The Cat , the first X-rated feature-length cartoon; followed by 1975’s incendiary racial satire Coonskin (aka Street Fight ). Topics include how Bakshi almost singlehandedl...

Who’s more preoccupied with the Unwatchable than Todd Solondz, one of the leading misanthropes of the 90’s indie scene? Seth and Marc try to parse out whether his dark, button-pushing comedies have anything meaningful to say about sexual dysfunction and human cruelty… or if the joke’s really on us. First up is 1998’s infamously disturbing (and almost unreleaseable) Happiness , followed by 2004’s e...

This week’s Unwatchables tackles perhaps the most controversial film by one of our most controversial directors, the master of body horror David Cronenberg. Helping us out is Andrew Swafford— one of the founders of Cinematary and its long-running weekly podcast— as we discuss 1996’s ode to car-wreck fetishists Crash . We dive into J.G Ballard’s original novel, whether the film merits a queer readi...

Unwatchables is thrilled to welcome Chris Gillotte, aka Letterboxd’s Ziglet_mir , for our “Horrors of War” episode. Both of this week’s films filter the atrocities of World War II through the traumatized eyes of a child: 1985’s nightmarish Soviet classic Come and See , and the 2019 adaptation of Jerzy Kosiński’s scandalous The Painted Bird . We discuss the films’ opposed stylistic approaches, the...

This week’s Unwatchables is all about “The New French Extremity,” a wave of brutal horror films whose focus on bodily harm led directly to the torture porn era of America horror. (Depending on whether you like Hostel or Saw, you can give them either credit or blame.) Our aptly-named guest Zach Butcher joins us to discuss the only example to hit U.S. theaters, followed by the most notorious of the...

Special guest Sinead Lynch joins us from Ireland to lend her expertise and cultural perspective to a discussion of some of the bleakest depictions of nuclear holocaust ever committed to film - 1984's harrowing, docu-realistic nightmare Threads and 1986's gut-wrenching animated heartbreaker When the Wind Blows . You can hear Sinead's podcast "Crackpot Theories" at https://open.spotify.com/show/0Wv0...

Unwatchables is taking a couple weeks off for summer break, so to close out the final week of Pride month, we're unlocking a recent Patreon-exclusive bonus episode where Marc and Seth discuss their favorite LGBT films. If you're interested in hearing more episodes like this one, consider supporting the podcast by subscribing on Patreon . Unwatchables is hosted by Marc Dottavio and Seth Troyer, pro...

Unwatchables is excited to welcome Jetta, otherwise known as Letterboxd’s “theironcupcake,” to this week’s episode! Our guest brings her considerable expertise to discuss the “Golden Age of Porn,” that bygone span of the 1970’s where theatrically released hardcore films enjoyed commercial and even critical success. We start with 1973’s The Devil in Miss Jones , Gerard Damiano’s follow-up to Deep T...

This week’s Unwatchables is proof that neither animation nor talking animals mean you’re not about to have your soul shredded. Animation expert Aaron Reese joins us to discuss two very adult cartoons where all dogs (and cats) really do go to heaven: Martin Rosen’s bleak heartbreaker The Plague Dogs, and Michael Schaack’s graphic feline noir Felidae. Aaron helps guide us through the animation techn...

For our first non-arthouse horror episode, who better than Rob Zombie to drag us into the grindhouse muck? There’s nothing “elevated” about the musician-turned-filmmaker’s sadistic, blood-drenched aesthetic, including his two cult endurance tests: 2005’s grisly horror Western The Devil’s Rejects , and 2009’s singularly brutal Halloween II . We discuss Zombie’s very specific obsessions, how hard it...

You may know John Waters as the goofy, pencil-moustached TV personality, or from his mainstream successes like Hairspray or Cry-Baby. But his unlikely career started with some of the most transgressive and outright repulsive cult films of the 1970s, including one of the most Unwatchable© films we’ve yet tackled. Waters superfan Robin Guiler joins us for an appropriately rowdy episode about the fir...

It’s Darren Aronofsky week on Unwatchables, featuring two very different gauntlets of suffering from opposite ends of his career: 2000’s grueling drug cautionary tale Requiem For A Dream and 2017’s gloriously bonkers (and receiver of the coveted “F” Cinemascore) mother! . Special guest and author James Jackson takes a break from work on an actual high-profile film production to discuss his Aronofs...

On this week’s “Experimental Edition” of Unwatchables we welcome Tim Peyton, the manager/director of Rubicon Cinema in Akron, OH, to help us dive into some of the most alienating corners of avant-garde filmmaking. First up is Stan Brakhage’s 1965 experimental touchstone Dog Star Man , followed by E. Elias Merhige’s 1989 gruesome horror curiosity Begotten . We discuss how non-narrative films challe...

This week’s Unwatchables tackles our most difficult subject matter yet. The Birth of a Nation is the most vilely racist “great film” ever to reinvent the medium, and its shadow looms large over American history. We did extensive research for this deep dive into the historical context, including the film’s hideous ideology, its unprecedented success and stunning technical innovations, and how figur...

We're joined by special guest Amy Hensarling as we dive into two films by arthouse directors dipping their toes into horror for the first, and probably last time: Andrzej Żuławski's bugshit 1981 gorefest Possession and Claire Denis' 2001 cannibal sex thriller Trouble Every Day . In the war between artful pretentiousness and stomach-churning carnage, which one wins? Or do we all lose? Unwatchables...

In the wake of comments he made on last week's episode, Marc received a number of credible threats on his life from pro- Clifford extremists. Out of an abundance of caution, he called in from a payphone in an undisclosed location this week to discuss two films by the renowned but controversial filmmaker Michael Haneke, a specialist in the Unwatchable. Those films are 1997's home invasion thriller...

Hey, it's episode 7 - you deserve a break! These movies may be guilty of crimes against cinema, but there's no torture or depravity in this episode (unless you count Martin Short's psychological torture of Charles Grodin). Our friend Boaz joined us to talk about two films from 1994 - Rob Reiner's Elijah Wood-starring career-killer North and the bizarre, darkly funny Martin Short vehicle Clifford -...

It's the Unwatchables Easter special and another doubleheader! Marc and Seth don their altar robes and rosary beads for William Friedkin's 1973 horror blockbuster The Exorcist and Mel Gibson's 2004 New Testament drama/snuff film The Passion of the Christ. If you're looking for salvation, you've come to the wrong place. Unwatchables is hosted by Marc Dottavio and Seth Troyer, produced by Tony Scarp...

For our fifth episode, we sat down with our good friend and fellow Unwatcher Chris Mosby to discuss Stanley Kubrick's cult-classic dystopian psycho-drama A Clockwork Orange and the Anthony Burgess novel from which it was adapted. We talk through the experience of revisiting this landmark film from our young adulthoods with the weary eyes of regular adulthood. Does Kubrick hold onto his knack for r...

Marc and Seth sit through two films by photographer, filmmaker, and provocateur Larry Clark - 1995's Kids and 2002's Ken Park. Are Clark's films unflinching documents of youthful hedonism or sensationalist scaremongering? And how does the weird old pervert behind the camera affect how we feel about it all? Listen to find out. Unwatchables is hosted by Marc Dottavio and Seth Troyer, is produced by...

Get out your forks and bibs folks, we're talkin' Salò! Friend of the show Govnaim joins us as we dig into Pasolini's infamous foray into the upper echelons of the Unwatchables cannon. Bon appétit! Unwatchables is hosted by Marc Dottavio and Seth Troyer, produced by Tony Scarpitti, featuring artwork by Micah Kraus. You can support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/unwatchables to get access...

Marc and Seth reflect on the finer points of Tom Green's 2001 gross-out comedy Freddy Got Fingered, such as its fascination with horse anatomy, its appreciation for the elephant reproductive system, and its abiding respect for the miracle of childbirth (Also, is it actually an avant-garde masterpiece?). Due to unforeseen circumstances, Seth had to record this episode from the bottom of a well. Ple...