Wake Up Heavy

WUH's first Special Guest is a fellow I've known for 25 years, give or take, and is the "movie buddy" I've referred to in a number of episodes. In this episode we talk about one of his Recollections of Horror: Joe Dante's 1981 self-referential werewolf flick The Howling . The Howling is not a movie I watched a lot back in the Eighties but have grown to appreciate much more of late. Listen as we co...

It's been awhile... Since I did a listy-list episode that is. So here ya go, more modern horror flicks I like which proves I'm not just a nostalgia baby stuck in horror's heyday. Heck, right now might just be horror's heyday so jump on the bandwagon and check out these frightening films! What's on the list, you so impertinently ask? Listen to the dang episode says me. And then listen to this one t...

Here's another instance of my stupidity: I saw the very intriguing video box image for Eyes of Fire probably 50 million times back in my teens and never took a chance on renting it. Dumb, Mark, just plain dumb! This is one fascinating oddity that has never really gotten its chance to shine. The film didn't get very positive reviews when it came out, died at the box office, and wasn't given a VHS r...

Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural (1974), directed by Richard Blackburn and starring Cheryl Smith and Leslie Gilb. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970), directed by Jaromil Jires and starring Jaroslava Schallerová. Quite by happenstance I watched both of these films recently and was struck by their similarities. Two young girls, Lila Lee in the American South and Valerie in Czechoslovak...

Back when I first tried my hand at a Patreon subscription the goal was to offer "exclusive content." It lasted for four episodes. Then I closed the account (which I eventually brought back in a different form). Here are the first two of those episodes. -- Barton Fink (1991) Wherein I talk about MY favorite Coen Bros. movie in a roundabout way. More stream-of-conscious musing than film talk, this e...

Back when I first tried my hand at a Patreon subscription the goal was to offer "exclusive content." It lasted for four episodes. Then I closed the account (which I eventually brought back in a different form). Here are the first two of those episodes. -- Images (1972) This was a new discovery for me last year, and I immediately fell in love with it. Robert Altman's entry into the "hysterical woma...

Almost three months after the end of Season One Wake Up Heavy is back with our Season Two opener on Martin Scorsese's gritty-seventies-existential-nihilistic masterpiece Taxi Driver . WUH welcomes back Mike White from The Projection Booth podcast for another stimulating discussion. http://www.projectionboothpodcast.com/ Powerful in its cinematic style and controversial in its depiction of violence...

What's in the cellar, Rynn? Where is your father? What does Frank Hallett want? What's the big deal about those jelly jars? Have a listen and get answers to (some of) these questions! Another quick episode to lead into the season two premiere on Taxi Driver , TLGWLDTL was one of five movies starring Jodie Foster that was made or released in 1976. I caught this one on TV as a young'n and it struck...

Why didn't I rent this? Apparently I'm a dingus. "It's The Evil Dead for kids!"--Mark Begley. 'Nuff said.

Taking a break from horror to talk about this little movie from 1984 that I'd never heard of until a few months ago. I wanted to discuss this film as a lead-up to the season two premiere on Taxi Driver since both feature protagonists that seek vengeance to regain power under wholly different circumstances. Karen Young plays Kathleen Sullivan, a teacher from Boston working at a high school in Texas...

Philip Ridley's "prairie gothic" The Reflecting Skin was released in 1990 to much acclaim and derision, and then quietly disappeared. Young Seth Dove traverses the nightmare of childhood among the wheat fields of 1950s Idaho, mostly left to his own devices by his chronically sad father and hysterical mother. He and his friends terrorize a widow they are convinced is a vampire, run afoul of delinqu...

After a stay in a mental institution, Jessica, along with her husband and their friend, moves from Manhattan to Connecticut in hopes that her fragile mental state will improve. They encounter a mysterious stranger squatting in their new home, strange, hostile men covered in bandages, and a mute girl, all of whom may be the victims of a century old vampire. Will Jessica escape alive and with her sa...

Women in Horror Month 2019 concludes at WUH with an episode on Jocelin Donahue and Alex Essoe and their starring roles in two of my favorite modern horror movies: The House of the Devil (2009) and Starry Eyes (2014).

Mia Farrow, though not necessarily labeled a genre actress, has been in some of my favorite horror films. In Episode Three of the #WomenInHorrorMonth series I discuss four (well five) of Ms. Farrow's horror films: Rosemary's Baby (1968), Secret Ceremony (1968), See No Evil (1971), The Haunting of Julia (1977), and (ever so briefly) The Omen (2006). Please check out The Projection Booth's episode o...

The second episode of the Women in Horror Month special series is on Karyn Kusama's tense horror/thriller The Invitation . This movie triggers my social anxieties, contains my favorite horror sub-genre, and has a killer cast.

The first episode of the Women in Horror Month special series is The Slumber Party Massacre . Written by Rita Mae Brown as a parody of the slasher genre but filmed straight by Amy Holden Jones, what emerged was a slightly off-kilter horror flick that might just make you question what it is you like about these films. [EPISODE CORRECTION: Brinke Stevens was in TSPM not Michelle Bauer.]

It's Women in Horror Month and I wanted to do my part to promote films directed by women and centered around women. This is the preview episode, and my plan is to put out a short episode every week in February, with the goal of compiling them all at the end.

This slightly sleazy, giallo-esque proto-slasher gained notoriety for starring Little Brooke Shields. But it was the anti-Catholic sentiment and shocking violence that got it condemned. Director Alfred Sole borrows from Hitchcock, throws in some Don't Look Now and tops it all off with a creepy masked killer. Enjoy! [EPISODE CORRECTION: Jason Patric and Joshua John Miller are half-brothers, not ste...

Well here it is, the season finale of Wake Up Heavy . David Lynch's 1977 seminal masterpiece Eraserhead is not only my favorite horror film it is unequivocally my single favorite film of all time. Lynch has called it, "A dream of dark and troubling things," and there is no more apt description than that. A wholly personal film, Eraserhead is a confusing conundrum of confluences that proves impossi...

It's a last minute pseudo-year-end wrap up. Keeping things confusing by offering this up before the season finale episode 'cuz that's how I roll. Plus, it's stuff I was going to include in that EP anyway, but thought it better to pull it out to knock down the run time and get this stuff out there before year's end. Included herein are thank yous, podcast suggestions, ratings & reviews*, Patreo...

It's that time of year! You know the time, when we watch Bob Clark's Holiday Classic for 24 hours. No, not THAT Holiday Classic, THIS classic! That's right, Clark's Black Christmas , the proto-slasher that, according to many, inspired John Carpenter's Halloween , and laid the bloody groundwork for one of the most popular horror sub-genres. I explore the similarities and differences between the two...

Hot take on a current movie I really dug. Trying to dig up the article about watching movies alone, will post when/if I find it. CHEDDAR GOBLIN RULES!! And so do The Carpenters.

Ah, Ed Gein, that perpetual paradigm of perversion spawned myriad torrid tales of terror, including, but not limited to, Psycho , The Texas Chain Saw Massacre , and Silence of the Lambs . His horrific happenings may have been presented in their truest and most disturbing form in this wicked number from 1974 helmed by Alan Ormsby, starring Roberts Blossom, and produced in part by Bob Clark. I think...

From the screenwriting power duo who brought you Howard the Duck , it's the 1973 (or is it 1971? or maybe 1974?? or...) oddball Messiah of Evil (or Second Coming ? or Revenge of the Screaming Dead ? or Return of the Living Dead ?? or the sublime Dead People ???). Any way you slice it this is one kooky flick. If little 13-year-old Mark had laid his eyeballs on this one he might have grown up to be...

Philipe Mora's films are quite varied, but they all share a certain bizarre quality. The Beast Within is no exception. I remember the box art for this one so distinctly but never took the plunge. I wish I had because it's a very unique horror film from one of the busiest years for the genre. Plus, those bladder effects!