Horroretc Podcast

In case you were worrying about the collapse of Hollywood over the risk of gigantic tentpole film failures, we are here to offer up a happy alternative - the micro-budget genre movie. We share a pair of recent watches with budgets that clocked in under $10,000 which we found to be utterly effective which prompted a chat over the viability of the low to no budget genre film. With a member of the crew who is intimately familiar with the subject absent, we approached the topic from the perspective of the film viewer rather than film maker and what we are willing to allow and overlook in exchange for the value of originality in ideas and effectiveness of mood. After a quick rundown on the unique considerations and challenges of the no-budget film maker, we ended up running down a random list of the inauspicious first outings of Hollywood's most famous directors. With the occasional examples tossed out along the way we made our way to the main purpose of the episode - a discussion of The Battery (2012) and Resolution (2012). These were both suggestions from the facebook group that ended up inspiring a show dedicated to the independent filmakers and their hidden gems that overcome so many limitations (and we completely forgot to include Shane Caruth's $7,000 Primer... damn). As always we welcome your comments: horroretc@gmail.com Voicemail (206) 337-5324 Check out our Poltergeist episode at www.bandcamp.horroretc.com WWW.HORRORETC.COM

If you want old fashioned From The Hip style discussion, then you are in the right place dear listener. When we sat down and fired up the mic, we certainly weren't expecting to go to all the places we ended up which made for a fun, loose episode. Things kick off with a chat about the pros and cons of the Netflix recommendations algorithm, some (very) brief comments on season 1 of The Wire and the Dexter premiere, Bullet to the Head and the modern Stallone / Schwarzenegger resurgence and CGI blood squibs. We consider the need to return to the boat for another at-sea episode after watching The Reef, revisit a pair of previously discussed films Atrocious and Session 9, and share a quick overview of Cloud Atlas. In the course of discussing the uber-ambitious independent film, Anthony gets clued in on the adjusted gender status of a Wachowski brother and Ted bemoans three hour running times. The main course consisted of a runthrough of a pair of anthology films. VHS2 offered more of the same, found footage anthology shorts, with the exception of a particular segment Safe Haven which thoroughly impresses. And finally, we get to the ABC`s of Death. It was not our intention to run through each of the 26 segments but that`s what ended up happening. The net result was a lot of consideration over the value of the undertaking, the expectations a viewer should have, the restrictions and opportunities that a 5 minute short offer, and name checking several interesting directors involved. Final tally: 8 keepers out of 26 (that`s a great average in baseball). Note - after the fact, we sorted out the letter T competition segment so yes, Anthony was correct about what he had seen. Things close out with commentary on World War Z from John in Ireland preceded by a lengthy preamble reply to address the points raised. Please keep the calls coming and send in your Book Club reviews and recommendations. As always we welcome your comments: horroretc@gmail.com Voicemail (206) 337-5324 Check out our Poltergeist episode at www.bandcamp.horroretc.com WWW.HORRORETC.COM

Welcome to another exciting feedback episode! Thanks to our listeners who choose to participate in the conversation we have a wide variety of discussion topics to banter about in addition to our usual nonsense. We kick things off with a brief recap of some recent watches including Mud, 247 Degrees, Piranha 3DD and The Wire (catching up to the hugely hyped HBO legacy show). With the formalities out of the way, we get to hearing and chatting about many subjects including public domain horror, disaster movies, brothers Grimm, amateur filmmaking with RC copters, the proper pronunciation of Jeffrey Combs, the limited resolutions of haunted house films, and much more. There are loads of mini-reviews as well such as Byzantium, Hell, Ganja & Hess, 5150 Elmsway and many more. Finally, we announce this year's campaign for book club submissions. This has become an annual tradition and stands as one of favourite shows to do. We are calling out to the horroretc community for reviews and recommendations - let's make Book Club 6 our best one yet. Thanks to all for joining in the discussion and sharing your thoughts and comments, keep those calls coming. As always we welcome your comments: horroretc@gmail.com Voicemail (206) 337-5324 Check out our Poltergeist episode at www.bandcamp.horroretc.com WWW.HORRORETC.COM

"Power is Power" The HBO original series Game of Thrones exploded in popularity in its third season culminating in one of the most shocking television moments in recent history. Now that the dust has settled somewhat and we have all prepared for the long hiatus until the second half of George RR Martin's Storm of Swords is adapted to secreen, we take a look back at the season that was. The format is loose, picking characters at random and discussing the path they followed. It was a year that introduced many new faces and story threads for audiences to keep straight however the players in the Game were as intriguing as ever. There was evolution (if not triumphs) for many of the characters we knew - the Lannisters offered some of the best wordplay in a season that demonstrated the power of dialogue, however nothing came close to old Lady Olenna. Jamie undertook a massive characters arc, Theon Greyjoy learned the meaning of pain, Sam took out a zombie, The Hound and Arya may have earned their own spin-off, and Rob Stark....oh Rob Stark. So as our disclaimers say at the outset, no future spoilers and minimal book comparisons. We tried to keep the conversation focused strictly on the 10 episode we saw. For those who are not following the series, we are planning an additional episode very soon to keep things inclusive. As always we welcome your comments: horroretc@gmail.com Voicemail (206) 337-5324 Check out our Poltergeist episode at www.bandcamp.horroretc.com WWW.HORRORETC.COM

Grab your popcorn and have a seat with us for our theatrical release episode: four new box office films spanning horror, fantasy, sci-fi, action and comedy. It's an old-school format show where we spend some time getting caught up on our comings and goings over the past few weeks including a discussion about Roku and the wonders of streaming media alternatives. The first title up is of course the highly anticipated Man of Steel which led to unexpected positions between your hosts. Anthony's negative reactions countered by Ted's support? What kind of upside world is this? Did Zack Snyder offer what fans have been yearning for with Superman in his patented visual style or does he just end up pissing all over a cherished mythology? Next we have a take on the controversial World War Z. Another devisive movie that has been held up to potentially unacheivable source material. It was a different approach from Max Brooks book but does it work on its own? In the truest horror outing of the week we discuss The Purge with its enormously high concept idea. Does it exceed its suspension of disbelief requirements and deliver a cracking home invasion story? Finally, we caught the apocalypse comedy This Is The End. Hilarious with some good scares or juvenile nonsense? Man of Steel spoilers from 27:17 to 44:10 All these questions are answered in a fun open forum chat session as we get back into the podcasting groove. Special thanks to everyone who checked out the premium Poltergeist episode, we are enormously grateful for the support! As always we welcome your comments: horroretc@gmail.com Voicemail (206) 337-5324 Check out our Poltergeist episode at www.bandcamp.horroretc.com WWW.HORRORETC.COM

"THE UNEXPECTED VISITOR............." May the force be with you? It's a very unexpected episode of the Horror Etc Podcast this week, with a very unexpected (but welcome) guest! Anthony is on the road again this week, this time traveling to Niagara Falls (Ontario) to attend that city's second annual Comic-Con. Tony's travel and booth buddy is none other than the Almighty himself - Jesus Maggot (aka Zombie Jesus, star of the popular Maggot Films series)... but that's not where things get odd - no sir! Originally intended as our typical "onthe road to a convention" type show, the weekend took a different direction when Fangoria Magazine invited Anthony to step-in and host a panel with Darth Vader himself - the only and only Dave Prowse! The entire panel was captured and presented here, for your enjoyment. Mr. Prowse is a gentleman and a lovely man who has had an incredible career in athletics and entertainment, and his panel proves that he is so much more than just the man in the helmet. It's a barrel of fun, LIVE from Niagara Falls Comic-Con... just don't get too close to the falls in that barrel. As always we welcome your comments: horroretc@gmail.com Voicemail (206) 337-5324 Check out our Poltergeist episode at www.bandcamp.horroretc.com WWW.HORRORETC.COM

Now don't go anywhere. That's the theme this week as we take a look at single location films. We have professed an appreciation for genre films that tell their story with a small roster of characters and more specifically in a limited number of locations. The restrictions imposed on directors and screenwriters by minimal settings tend to force an elevation of ingenuity to involve the audience and convey tension. These same restrictions require a strong story to keep the viewer engaged and demand performances that will sustain that story. Our approach to this very broad subject (with hundreds of examples spanning all genres of film), was to revisit a listing of titles we have previously discussed while mixing in some new selections including: Phone Booth (2002), The Hole (2001), Exam (2009), The Killing Room (2009), Hard Candy (2005), Deranged (2005), Treed Murray (2001) and many more. (Spoilers for The Killing Room 1:28:23 to 1:31:56) We tried to offer up a diverse variety of examples while discussing just what makes the concept so appealing whether it is driven by personal peril of the characters or a study of human interaction. Rounding things out we share our excitement over the recent Friday the 13th news and hear John in Ireland's take on The Purge. As always we welcome your comments: horroretc@gmail.com Voicemail (206) 337-5324 Check out our Poltergeist episode at www.bandcamp.horroretc.com WWW.HORRORETC.COM

Time to tackle a fresh list of movies, television shows and online original programming in a What We've Been Watching episode. With Anthony on the road, Ted and Doug sit down to discuss an eclectic assortment of hits and misses kicking off with Doug's impressions of The Lords of Salem. We progress to a combination of Eli Roth related productions with Aftershock (2012), a US-Chile co-production and Hemlock Grove, the werewolf themed original Netflix series. On the heels of William Friedkin's impressive Killer Joe we go back to check out his 2006 two-people in a room mind-bender Bug. Ted shares his reservations about a recent blind-watch Black Rock (2012) and discuss the nature of equal opportunity sexism in film. We have an original take on the zombie genre with the short UK series In The Flesh, the interesting but ultimately unsuccessful series pilot for Zombieland (an Amazon original program?), a pair of documentaries: The Invisible War (2012) and Tabloid (2010), and round things out with another indie zombie flick Dead Season (2012). All this, Joe Dante, Don Coscerelli, the Soska twins and a fun schlock corner featuring the horror trope of removing cell phones from the equation in genre film, make for a nice round up of another general discussion show. As always we welcome your comments: horroretc@gmail.com Voicemail (206) 337-5324 Check out our Poltergeist episode at www.bandcamp.horroretc.com WWW.HORRORETC.COM

We're picking up the Bill on this week of the Horror Etc podcast - Bill Bossert, that is! Anthony's on a weekend getaway to Connecticut to visit with the film-producer, longtime Horroretc listener, and good friend. The result is a couple of major geeks doing what geeks do best: chatting horror (Lords of Salem, the new documentary My Amityville Horror), Trek (we gauge Bill's thoughts on the new Star Trek film, Into Darkness, and also get his review on the Shatner's World stage show plus his meet and greet with the Shat himself! We talk a little Kaiju (Godzilla baby!!), eat good old-fashioned deep-dish American pizza, and also catch up on some of the exciting projects this dangerous duo have been up to. It's a visit with an old friend, and we hope you'll join in for the reunion... grab a slice! As always we welcome your comments: horroretc@gmail.com Voicemail (206) 337-5324 Check out our Poltergeist episode at www.bandcamp.horroretc.com WWW.HORRORETC.COM

It seemed like a good idea at the time. We thought it would be fun to call back to our first episode to celebrate #300 by discussing the filmography of Rob Zombie. Unfortunately, Zombie is one of Ted's buttons and it ended up leading to a lot of heated commentary. Since 2003, Rob Zombie has become one of the genre's most polarizing figures. He has formed a dedicated fanbase who appreciate his visual asthetic, unapologetic approach to visceral violence, and unique unstructured storytelling. He has also attracted criticism for many of those same elements of his filmaking, accused of self indulgence and style over substance. We certainly didn't bring the subject to conclusion as to which side of the fence people should be on, but we did manage to have a general chat about his works to date including the abstract, 'pure cinema' entry into the devil-cult subgenre The Lords of Salem. An apology from Ted: yes, I came off as a ranting, red-faced troll with a touch of obnoxious (particularly in the lengthy Halloween, H2 diatribe). That said it was not my agenda, it just seems to happen when discussing Zombie and Shyamalan in particular and simply ask listeners to have patience with me this week. We tried to hack the running time of the episode down substantially to make it tolerable but still... Also, this episode has an unusually extreme level of foul language compared to normal - fair warning. At least it is offset by Anthony with statements like "compromise your state of conscientious sobriety" and "orgasm of gratuitous violence" to help balance things out. We also share our thoughts on Star Trek Into Darkness at the end of the show (spoiler talk from 58:04 to 1:09:54). Finally, we send out our most sincere thanks to everyone who has chosen to listen to the podcast, participate and support us through 300 episodes. While we didn't make a big thing out of it, we still acknowledge it is a milestone we would not have reached without all of you! As always we welcome your comments: horroretc@gmail.com Voicemail (206) 337-5324 Check out our Poltergeist episode at www.bandcamp.horroretc.com WWW.HORRORETC.COM

Welcome to a classic From The Hip format show, its been a hectic few weeks with a lot to get caught up on. We begin with Tony sharing an update on the progress of his latest film project and explanation of our comings and goings which has caused the delay in getting a new episode up. Our wandering watch list conversation began with thoughts on Iron Man 3. A spectacle following in the massive wake of The Avengers really deserves some attention (and Ted tries hard to keep the nitpicks in check). Spoiler talk for IM3 from 11:42 to 14:25 Things progress with Maniac (2013) which was a pleasant surprise that rose above a filmmaking technique that could have been rejected as gimmick. We get pretty grim talking about some truly disturbing real life horror and its fictionalized account - Philosophy of a Knife (2008) which recreates the atrocities committed by Unit 731 over its 4 hour (!) running time. To try conveying the nature of this real life nightmare from the darkest corners of world war 2, we discuss the documentary Unit 731 - Nightmare in Manchuria. A difficult subject but must be seen. We bounce around a couple of small indie releases as well including It's In The Blood (2012), an odd creature feature (minus the creatures) starring Lance Henriksen, and Mulberry Street (2006) which takes the core premise of a 28 Days Later style infection horror but delivers blood-thirsty rat-people instead of zombies... oh yes, rat-people. All this and a re-watch of Signs (2002) too. We announce our first premium episode at the end of the show: please check it out at www.horroretc.bandcamp.com We have always tried to offer something in exchange for those who support the show and our concept was for this special release to be in keeping with that philosophy. As always we welcome your comments: horroretc@gmail.com Voicemail (206) 337-5324 WWW.HORRORETC.COM

Going Down? We dug way down into the subgenre of horror aboard an elevator. This little niche corner of storytelling is a great match for horror because of the tension and stakes at play in a confined space with potential antagonists and claustrophobia in the mix, however... this was not an entirely successful experiment. We pulled a selection of titles at random in the hopes of discovering a hidden goldmine of a theme. The results are here for you to make of them what you will: Devil (2010) - 5 people stuck in an elevator, 1 of them is the Devil Elevator (2011) - social commentary, corporate greed, and a bomb Blackout (2008) - which of the 3 trapped characters is a killer? The Shaft (2001) - bio-technology results in a sentient, killer elevator A mixed bag to be sure, but between the reminiscing of highlight scenes from movies featuring the elevator, to fun facts on the social dynamic at play in that magic box, to a look at the real-life horror story of a man trapped for 41 hours, we think there is fun to be had. Things wrap up with a discussion on Elijah Wood's stab at remaking Maniac, as well as a brief rundown of Tom Cruise's mind bending sci-fi action flick Oblivion. As always we welcome your comments: horroretc@gmail.com Voicemail (206) 337-5324 WWW.HORRORETC.COM

Welcome to our second listener-specific feedback episode. This time out we are blessed with luck of the Irish, our very own John in Ireland who has been a regular contributor to the voicemail line and forum. Always insightful, John called in to discuss a collection of topics in recent months which we have compiled together with Anthony and Ted's responses to deliver a guest hosted episode of the podcast. Subjects include: commentary on the state of the Hellraiser franchise with a recommendation for the audio reading of Hellbound Heart by Barker himself, thoughts on the recent second attempt at Dredd on the big screen and how it captured the essence of what the character is meant to be, a full review of a 2012 Irish horror film Stitches, a discussion of the state of found footage as a genre and the inherent flaws it creates in storytelling, thoughts on The Shining and its related documentary Room 237, and a cutting summary of the state of The Walking Dead and the apparent lack of care by AMC to shape the narrative of its story. We hope you enjoy the great collection of subjects and interesting insights from a favourite member of the horroretc community, and feel free to get your contributions in to have your voice heard and be a part of the show. In honour of John's homeland we close with a Gaelic greeting: "Go n-ithe an cat thú is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat" (loosely translated - "may the cat eat you, and may the cat be eaten by the devil"... hmmm maybe our Gaelic needs some work). As always we welcome your comments: horroretc@gmail.com Voicemail (206) 337-5324 WWW.HORRORETC.COM

Once again we devote this week's episode to catching up. Anthony is back from the Shock Stock horror convention and fills us in on the guest roster, listener interactions and everything else from a fun weekend on the show floor. In true from the hip fashion we chat about all sorts of random topics beginning with the proliferation of genre series in various television forms (network, netflix and amazon original programming), and get a peek at Dexter season 8. We discuss some interesting trailers and get into a lengthy watch list of truly varied material: Children of Men (2006), The Mummy and The Mummy Returns (yikes), Dark Skies (2013), Taken 2 (yes, Ted bit the bullet), Jurassic Park 3D (why call it Imax when it's not Imax?), and the mind-bending indie time travel film Primer (2004). So we may be a bit light on horror content this week but heavy on the conversational banter, so feel free to join in. We have a few topics brewing up and another milestone around the corner, stay tuned and tell a friend to help spread the word. As always we welcome your comments: horroretc@gmail.com Voicemail (206) 337-5324 WWW.HORRORETC.COM

It's been a long and winding road to finally reach a Jack Ketchum spotlight episode but here we are. The history of the podcast has tracked our exposure to Ketchum's adaptations with varying reactions and the question is do we recommend his work? Well, the answer is a qualified yes in that one must be psychologically prepared for the journey he takes the reader / viewer on. Whether you are a fan of Ketchum or not, it can't be denied he is capable of generating a response from even the most hardened genre fan. As we have previously discussed several of his film adaptations in the past already, our approach was to discuss the remaining films Red (2008) and Offspring (2009), additional novels including Off Season and Cover, and provide the segments from our prior episodes where we discussed The Girl next Door, The Lost and The Woman. Clips sound like a bad thing but they amount to only a quarter of the episode and provide a glimpse into the past (going all the way back to episode #24). For those who wish to skip around: The Girl Next Door 58:28 to 1:17:23 The Lost 1:17:23 to 1:27:23 The Woman 1:27:23 to 1:36:05 Our last segment features a few more comments on Evil Dead 2013 and The Walking Dead, as well as a pair of recent UK horror comedy outings: Inbred (2011), where the title pretty much sums things up, and Sightseers (2012), Ben Wheatley's quirky but wicked follow up to Kill List. The Ketchum experience may have been a bumpy ride but he is a genre voice which puts us to the test with smartly developed and real characters often reduced to humanity's most primitive and deplorable self. As always we welcome your comments: horroretc@gmail.com Voicemail (206) 337-5324 WWW.HORRORETC.COM