The Horror of Nachos and Hamantaschen

Are you a 50 year old man with a t-shirt stating, “Wolfman’s Got Nards”? Hey 50 year old guy, did you know that’s actually a quote from the 1987 Fred Dekker film “Monster Squad”? Wait, you didn’t? So you just decided it would be a good idea to wear a shirt out in public referencing the reproductive parts of a Werewolf for all the world to see? Well buddy, have I got a podcast for you! It’s this one.

Firstly, we’re doing some Fred Dekker films, so ya gotta start with 1986’s “Night of the Creeps”. More pressing however, JR would like you to know that he does know other Tom Atkins films, like “Maniac Cop”, and “Creepshow”, and “The Fog”, and “Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo”. You haven’t even listened to the episode yet and he’s already told me to warn you that he’s not a guy who forgets Tom Atkins movies.

What’s better than reviewing one movie? REVIEWING THREE MOVIES.The Last Video Store (2023) (Not to be confused with The Last Picture Show)Bodycam (2025)Hokum (2026)Let no one say that we aren’t reviewing three movies this week.

Man, 2025’s “Beast of War” is an odd one. Is it a Australian WWII movie? Sure. Is it a killer shark movie? Definitely. But is it more a shrieking banshee shark picking off soldiers in a liminal hellscape that also features samurai swords? That’s certainly the closest.

The gentlemen are back to sweep you off your feet with a tale of mystery, sensuality, and of course romance, with Stanley Kubrick’s penultimate 1999 film “Eyes Wide Shut”. Give in to aural pleasure and listen, but don’t forget your mask, or the password to the house. And of course pay no attention to those two men in the toy store…

NOT DEAD YET. And in the meantime while we work on our various thingies, please enjoy a discussion of the following; The Night of the Eagle (1962), All you Need is Death (2023), Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988), Heart Eyes (2025), Primate (2025), The Genocides (1965), and 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026). BACK SOON.

The year ends. The boys ramble under the influence of eggnog. They briefly touch on 2023’s “Brooklyn 45”, which is roughly 45.45% as funny as “Brooklyn 99”. Gonna be honest with you, if you’re looking for hard facts, not a lot of that here. If you’re looking for para-social relationships though, well, that’s most of this episode. HAPPY NEW YEAR.

30 days of night? More like 30 days of BITE, AMIRITE??? This high concept 2007 vampire film was based on the equally high concept 2003 comic series, which was in turn was based on an earlier unproduced high concept movie script. That’s Hollywood baby! Also, to clear things up, JR was thinking of WHITNEY Huston and Derek was thinking of ANGELA Basset. Thank you for coming to our TED Talk.

Thanksgiving is past. Christmas is future. Alien: Earth, Day of the Beast, Predator: Badlands, Dog Soldiers, Arcadian, Flux Gourmet, Keeper, “Where are you going, where have you been”, The Running Man. Roundups are always.

When we say not every horror movie deserves to be talked about for a whole episode, we really mean MOST horror movies don’t deserve a full episode. Some, like V/H/S/Halloween, HIM, Longlegs, Frankenstein, Night of the Reaper, The Long Walk, IT: Welcome to Derry, and Habit, deserve about 7.6 minutes a piece. And that’s a roundup episode for you.

If you’ve come here for thoughts on the 2022 Andy Mitton film ‘The Harbinger’, you are in luck. If you’ve come to hear two guys in their 40’s who never actually looked at the word “Harbinger” and think it’s ok to pronounce it as “HarBRINGer” or “HarBINger” rather than “HarBUNger”, you are also in luck. If you’ve come because you accidentally watched the 2022 Will Klipstine film “The Harbinger”, we sympathize, but we’re talking about Andy Mitton film, because, as we all know, there’s no quittin’ on Mitton.

When you’re banging through usually pretty meh movie after movie for a podcast, coming across a 77 minute film is a welcome respite. Even better is when that 77 minute film is actually a good movie, like 2018’s ‘The Witch in the Window’, the film that JR has been praising for the past 300+ episodes. Give it a watch, give us a listen, because, as we all know, there’s no quittin’ on Mitton.

Did you know the furthest you can be from a road in New Hampshire is 4.4 miles? Nobody tell that to the cosmic entity in 2010’s ‘YellowBrickRoad’, the first in our series of Andy Mitton related films. That’s right, the thing JR has been talking about for the past 9 years is finally happening, because, as we all know, there’s no quittin’ on Mitton.

You can shout in three different ways: by letting it all out, by kicking your heels up, or by watching 1978’s ‘The Shout’. We’ve been hearing about this one for years, but like so many movies these days it’s a real pain in the ass to find a decent copy, so we settled for a pretty meh quality stream. The lack of movie availability in this foul year of our lord 2025 makes me so mad that I want to… complain loudly.

Finally, a movie about how great the Post Office USED to be! Have you ever gone to the Post Office and found that there is only one person working, and there are 38 people in line in front of you, and all of them have a dozen random packages that need a variety of tapes and weights and forms that are inevitably wrong? 2024’s ‘Dead Mail’ is better than that, but how much better will vary on your love of low budget 70’s films, but at least you won’t be waiting in line for an hour.

MORE MOVIES WATCHED AFTER BEING DRAWN AT RANDOM! DANGEROUS ANIMALS! DARK HARVEST! THE RULE OF JENNY PENN! LOVELY DARK AND DEEP! MONSTER ISLAND! MAYBE A SECRET MYSTERY FILM! RETROSPECTION ON PREVIOUSLY WATCH MOVIES! EGREGIOUS USE OF CAPS LOCK!

The boys are live from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and surprise surprise, instead of having meaningful conversation to grow their friendship, all they do is watch more movies. They watch Tumbbad (2018), History of the Occult (2020), Weapons (2025), Equinox (1970), and Chompy & the Girls (2021). This is peak male friendship in 2025.

Rambutan is a medium-sized tropical tree in the family Sapindaceae, and also refers to the edible fruit produced by this tree. A native to Southeast Asia, it is closely related to several other edible tropical fruits, including the lychee, longan, pulasan, and quenepa. Also, maybe an alien will shove one down your throat to possess or make an evil copy of you? That, plus a lonely lady, is 2023’s “No One Will Save You” in a nutshell. Rambutan shell.

Director Lucky McKee’s best film (to anyone with taste) is obviously 2011’s “The Woman”, but nine years before that he directed a movie about another woman. Yessir, May’s her name (as well as the name of the film) and watching creepy dolls and making friends from human body parts is her game. If you want Zooey Deschanel’s character in “New Girl” to be less whimsical and more of an addled creep, this is for you.

Wipe that grin off your face, part 2 of Ray Russell’s “Sardonicus” is here, and it’s taking a turn for the grim. A turn, if you will, like a smile dropping into a frown. We promise it’s better than the mouth prosthetics in the 1961 “Sardonicus” film at least, even if it does lack the “punishment pole” gimmick. William Castle was nuts y’all.

Long before Parker Finn made creepy smiling a thing, there was Ray Russell’s 1961 story ‘Sardonicus’. You may have seen images of a dude with a really bad prosthetic mouth from the film adaptation ‘Mr. Sardonicus’, but the story does a much better version of this because you only see images from reading IN YOUR MIND. Also, “Mr.” Sardonicus was my father, please call me Marek.

2011’s “Fright Night” is, of course, a remake of the 1964 classic Spanish film “Noche de Miedo” starring Carlos Larrañaga, Rafael Guerrero, and Aurora Bautista. Not only that, it’s one of the rare remake exceptions where a good movie is remade into a movie that is equally good. Is that even legal? Oh damn, are we going to get disappeared to a foreign prison now? Never forget us listeners….

We all know the GOOD horror movie remakes; The Thing, The Fly, The Blob, etc, but what about the remakes that are a little more underappreciated? Everyone now is foolishly remaking good movies into meh/garbage films, but what about taking a solidly meh movie to begin with and giving it a loving touchup? Wes Craven’s 1977 ‘The Hills Have Eyes” is a bland version of the Sawney Bean legend, but what if that was jazzed up a bit into, say, a 2006 retelling focusing on the dangers of nuclear testing in the American Southwest? Well say what if no longer, because that’s what we’re covering today.

When watching ‘Candyman’, have you ever thought, “You know, this ain’t bad, but mon dieu, not French enough for my liking!” The 2020 film ‘Kandisha’ doesn’t exactly have you covered, but it doesn’t exactly not have you covered either. Rib cage full of bees, legs of a goat or camel, same difference when it comes to supernatural entities you summon by saying their name multiple times in a mirror. Don’t even get me started on Bloody Mary. Also, some timely Predator talk, and JR gives advice on what not to do in an interview.

Did you like ‘The Substance’ but didn’t feel like it had enough SA/Revenge? Well luckily for you, director Coralie Fargeat made another movie in 2017 about just that! Sure, it’s only titled “Revenge”, but that’s a much smarter choice marketing-wise. Also a smart marketing choice, casting the most callipygian leads for all the ass men and women out there.

Are you looking for a movie about dark web child snuff films that you can show your Meemaw? Assuming she hasn’t already watched it, we recommend the 2023 Quebecois feature “Les Chambres Rouges”, or “Red Rooms” if you don’t speak French. Remember how we’re doing a whole French language horror thing? The theme continues un petit peu.

Mon dieu! The boys are diving into un peu de cinéma français with 2024’s MadS. Don’t let the misleading description fool you, this is every zombie movie you’ve seen, but with a bit of a stylistic twist, and we’re not talking just the “S” in the title being capitalized. Don’t worry, there are a lot fewer Mads Mikkelsen jokes than you would expect.

Nine years and 324 episodes later, author Ian Rogers returns to the podcast! We predicted back then that he’d be going places, and as his tales of wide book releases and consulting on Sam Raimi adaptations of them suggest, he is on his way to the moon. How do YOU get Sam Raimi to adapt something of yours? Lend Ian your ear and maybe you’ll find out…

The boys return, only kind of forgetting how podcasts work as JR’s babysitter clangs away for 20 minutes, but after that it’s all chiller, no filler. And the reviews, oh the reviews! We got Beau is Afraid, The Leopard Man, Nosferatu, The Wolf Man, Wolf Man, The Seventh Victim, Companion, Horror’s Greatest, and a little Dan Simmons duo of Song of Kali and Summer of Night. Seems like they also forgot to make a short episode as well…

Merry Christmas everyone, and as such here is our annual Christmas themed episode covering, er… the 2024 holiday classic “Oddity”. Alright, you got us, this is just something we wanted to watch because of the golem thing, nothing Christmas related, although if we are to believe this is a golem we could get a little of that Jewish mysticism in there. Do you love the scripts of Giallo films but dislike the colors and other distinctive nonsense of one? This here is a present for you then.

If you watched the opening of the first X-Files movie and said, "I need me more of that cave man horror!", 2022's 'Out of Darkness' is not that. What is it? Well, certainly not a film anyone who knew how to market a cave man based drama was involved in. Derek spouts some Neanderthal conspiracy nonsense, and JR seems to think people in movies are real. Another classic episode.

In our most provocatively titled film since “Butt Boy”, 2024’s “Daddy’s Head” is sure to get you on a list if you google it too much. “Daddy’s Face” would technically be more accurate, especially since you wouldn’t want to confuse this with some sort of “Head of the Family” or “Re-Animator” animated head scenario. What’s the scenario instead? Aliens? Grief? YOU DECIDE!

For a series that uses so many forward slashes in its titles that it tanks its SEO, 2024’s “V/H/S/Beyond” is somewhat of an outlier for the 7th film in a franchise. Sure, it still has multiple shorts involving bros dropping the f-bomb constantly, but it does seem to be trying to get BEYOND that. Does it succeed? Better give this a listen because no way are you going to put all the forward slashes in the right place to find it to watch. A third one “/” between the “S” and the “B”??? GTFO.

In this time of political strife candidates in their 70’s are one thing, but septuagenarian sexual monster bad boy serial killers are quite another. In 2008’s ‘Embodiment of Evil’, Coffin Joe gets released from jail 40 years after the last film to find that the world might not be quite the place for an old man with gross monster finger nails. Has Joe still got the rizz, or is rizz not compatible with the continuation of blood? You’ll find out, if you dare…

OctJOEber continues with Joe up to his ol’ hijinks in 1967’s “This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse”, moving him from Universal Monster territory to Hammer Horror territory. If you wondered what José Mojica Marins would do with a bigger budget and longer running time, wonder no longer. Torture dungeons, secret laboratories, hunchbacked assistants, scantily clad ladies, even more tarantulas, this ain’t your daddies Coffin Joe!

OctJOEber begins with our introduction to that rapscallion Coffin Joe in 1964's 'At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul'. It's like a forgotten Universal Monster film, but with more beatings and Nietzschian philosophy. Start growing out your fingernails and get ready to continue your bloodline.

Take off yer 10-gallons and fill them with a bunch of paper scraps with horror movies written on them, ‘cause the boys done did a live roundup! Not RECORDED live mind you, but they did sit in the same room and watch 2024’s ‘Abigail’, 1987’s ‘StageFright’, and 2022’s ‘Influencer’, so that’s kind of the same thing, right? Right? Also, NYC got Derek sick, so please take pity on him in this one.

If listening about an event that you did not attend is your bag, ho boy, do we have an episode for you! The gang discuss their experiences at Necronomicon 2024, plus talk a little Cuckoo and Alien: Romulus. New listeners, maybe start on another episode as this has more noodling around than your Nona making pasta.

You might think that 2023’s ‘Loop Track’ is time travel related with a name like that. You stupid fool, you’ve just given away that you’re some kind of sci-fi nerd and are not correctly associating the titular term with hiking. How embarrassing for you. I recommend you listed to this episode immediately and learn how wrong you are, and also about the perils of hiking in New Zealand, something you have obviously never done. Shame. Shame. SHAME.

Get outta here Harryhausen, there’s a new stop motioneer here, namely director Robert Morgan with his 2023 film ‘Stopmotion’. Forget about the California Raisins, Wallace & Gromit, and Yukon Cornelius, those are for last millennium’s children. Kids these days like their stop motion like their chicken nuggets, gross and meaty, and this has meat for days. But is just having meaty puppets enough to make a film good, or does it also need things like believable characters and non-played out tropes?

Are you a lover of antiquated tedious methods of art making AND stories that are sold as being ghost filled but aren’t? Boom, check out ‘The Mezzotint” by M.R. James, an author renowned for his ghost stories that don’t actually feature ghosts. How do you get to be 'the ghost story guy’ without writing about ghosts you ask? LISTEN AND FIND OUT.

Are you ready for our hottest and sweatiest episode yet with plenty of banging? You better be, because we are covering Karl Edward Wagner’s “Where the Summer Ends”, and also the place next to JR’s is under construction or something and there’s a bit of hammering in the background for parts of the show. Listen along for the tale of THE VINE THAT ATE THE SOUTH.

A lot of people come to me and ask, “Where evil lurks?” or, “Why evil lurks?” or even, “How evil lurks?” Sometimes I even get a, “Who evil lurks?” Obviously the only correct question is, “When evil lurks?”, to which the answer is the 2023 Argentine film ‘Cuando Acecha la Maldad’. As for “What evil lurks?”, well, you’ll have to listen to find out.

Are you an Evil Dead fan but think its biggest downside is not being Japanese enough? Good thing ‘Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell', a.k.a. 'The Japanese Evil Dead' exists. And you can watch it right now! And then listen to the boys talk about it! And then listen as they go off about ‘Late Night with the Devil’ for half the episode!

You may not realize it in 2024, but there was once a time when people hadn’t heard of Stephen King, and I’m not talking about the billions of years just prior to his birth. When he was an up-and-coming author he used to be hungry and wrote with an edge, something easily forgotten in the intervening 40+ years of writing. The boys discuss Night Shift and Skeleton Crew to examine the writings of this curious young man before he became America’s spooky uncle.

New year, new roundup. Fall of the House of Usher, Suitable Flesh, Godzilla Minus One, Godzilla x Kong, Monarch, Destroy All Neighbors, Late Night With The Devil, Immaculate, Vivarium, The Menu, Alan Wake, Control, Alan Wake 2. SIX MONTHS OF THINGS REVIEWED.

After a long hiatus the boys are back, and have on their their their their their boogie shoes for the 2023 loosely-based-on-a-Stephen-King-story ‘The Boogeyman’. Is Mike Flanagan’s ‘Absentia’ too extreme for you? Here’s the training wheels version of that to show your impressionable, Stranger Things loving teens. At least they changed the monster from the story to no longer moonlight as a therapist, because really, how is this thing going to be able to pull off a degree plus the hours of supervised post-master's work in the mental health counseling field? WE’RE CALLING YOU OUT STEPHEN KING.

Was Dean Koontz inspired to write 1989’s ‘Midnight’ based on ‘The Island of Doctor Moreau’? Does getting a goat testicle transplant increase vitality? Does Doctor Moreau deliver as good a dialogue on pleasure and pain as Pinhead? Does an Ox wave its tail when happy? Does Derek know any Green Day songs? All these questions, and more, in our coverage of the middle part of The Island of Doctor Moreau. No answers though.

Moreauvember continues with the gang’s review of the first third of H.G. Wells’ ‘The Island of Doctor Moreau’. Everyone focuses on the plight of the Beast Folk, but nobody dives into the sad life of Montgomery, who just wants to tell the sad story about how he got roped into this whole animal transformation business and nobody wants to hear it. Don’t worry though, we do.

Fun fact: In the space of four years H.G. Wells wrote ‘The Time Machine’, ‘The Invisible Man’, ‘The Island of Doctor Moreau’, and ‘The War of the Worlds’. Is there a greater four year grand slam than that? Tune in, Moreauvember begins now. Don’t forget your beast folk.