Scary Thoughts

Joe Dante's 1989 film The 'Burbs has been our most requested film to cover since we started this podcast. It's great and so is our guest Nathan Thompson. He's a writer and journalist and hosts the Yoga and meditation podcast Escaping Samsara. We get into the occult, genre films, living in the suburbs, longing for nostalgia and the joy of strong character actors.

Cormac McCarthy's bleak, apocalyptic father-son road trip novel, The Road (2006), won both the Pulitzer Prize and the admiration of Oprah. Daniel Coffeen (Zero Books, Renegade University) rejoins us to discuss if the book deserves all the praise and whether or not the movie gets it right. We talk a bit about Blood Meridian, too, if that's your thing.

Max Brooks nailed it with his 2006 fictional oral history, World War Z. It's a fun book with lots of original ideas, which makes it a blast to talk about; especially since there are so many parallels with our own current COVID-19 lifestyles. We give the movie as much attention as it deserves (not much) and touch on our own survival tactics. Episode bonus: there are scrub jays chirping in the background throughout the show, so if you've been missing nature, this is a good one.

The Wicker Man (1973) is British folk horror at its best. It's got weird townsfolk music, a mysterious and sexy monarch, bizarre occult practices, and nude pagan dance numbers. We're joined by Steven Intermill, the Director of the Buckland Museum of Witchcraft & Magick (Cleveland, OH). We get deep into the well-researched details of the film, the history of Wicca in America, and all kinds of other high weirdness. The sound is a bit dodgy in this episode, but it's a tremendously enjoyable one.

What better time than a pandemic to cover Safe (1995) by Todd Haynes? This illness thriller is on a lot of "best of" lists even though it's rarely talked about now. In this episode we're joined by author K.M. Soehnlein. We cover AIDS activism in the 80-90s, the weirdos of the wellness scene, cults, 80s yuppie decor, Christian Science, and Moore.

The Hunt (2019/20) is surrounded by political drama but is pretty mediocre. Except for our hero Betty Gilpin, who absolutely slays. We spend just about as much time talking about fake martial arts, conspiracy theories and war as we do the actual movie.

Our pandemic podcasting continues with the 2002 fast-zombie film 28 Days Later. We both loved it when it came out, but some elements of the film have aged better than others. The conversation drifts into COVID-19 talk, tactical training for actors, hotels for the homeless, and conspiracy mindsets.

Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994) is his best film and Johnny Depp's best performance. Your inner goth teen might bristle, but everything about it is near perfect. Joshua Grannell (Aka Peaches Christ) joins us again to talk about why the great weirdos of film matter and what it means to be in love with the people who create the strange and unusual.

In the age of COVID-19 there are only two popular subjects: Trump and the Tiger King. We are tired of both. But the memes remain strong. We talk about the saga of these cat-addicted mutants, how well the story works as a doc, and the inevitable reality show dominance of streaming services. Fair warning: this is a rantier than usual episode. And our sound quality is again poor due to Zoom; hopefully we will return to audio excellence one day.

Thanks to COVID-19 caused social distancing, this is the first episode we've recorded remotely. With compromised audio, and fortified immune systems, we talk about life under the virus, answer a lot of listener questions, and make predictions about the future.

Steven Soderbergh's 2011 Contagion is eerily prescient because of the filmmakers dedication to research and realism. The cast, cinematography, and script are excellent. But it's not exactly an uplifting watch, considering the news. We recorded this episode the day before the Bay Area was ordered to shelter in place for COVID-19.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) is debut director Ana Lily Amirpour's stylish Iranian vampire spaghetti western. It's more or less everything we like here at Scary Thoughts: it looks cool, it has a great soundtrack, a mesmerizing cast, and it's about the undead. We talk about why we both loved it, we disagree about Amirpour's follow-up film, and get into why female artists are great, but can't get behind "male feminists of Tinder."

H.P. Lovecraft's work has been largely poorly adapted for film. So we were relatively excited for Richard Stanley's 2019 take on Color Out of Space. He is a legit occult weirdo with a deep love of horror. And Nicolas Cage is basically our Vincent Price. The end result is, well, not all cosmically horrible. We're joined by Jeremy Lassen (Sci-Fi/horror book sales/publishing veteran, Editor-in-Chief of Nightshade Books) for his second appearance on the show. We hit on Susan Sontag's concept of camp, black metal theory, psychedelia in horror, what makes Cage great, Lovecraft's racism, and the recent rise of witchcraft in popular culture.

Our friend Daniel Coffeen (Zero Books, Renegade University) returns to help us appraise Todd Phillips' 2019 Joker. We survey the various controversies surrounding the film while discussing class, resentment (you can use the fancy critical theory/French pronunciation), alienation, and Joaquin Phoenix's dancerly grace and peculiar improvisations. And we make time to celebrate Marc becoming a citizen of the USA.

When the ghostly yarn, A Christmas Carol, came out in 1843, it revived Christmas traditions all over the world. There have been countless versions of the story made since then, and some of them are quite ghoulish. But is it horror? Well, not really. However, it does involve the supernatural and it's critical of the dreary machine of modern industry. So we take a crack at it in our usual manner. This episode features talk of free will, self-improvement, and general holiday cheer.

Elizabeth Gilbert's 2006 memoir, Eat Pray Love, is thoroughly likeable. It also represents a certain kind of 21st century spiritual journey that remains popular in Oprah book club circles, but is viewed with suspicion in today's privilege-obsessed culture. We talk about why we love this book, why it's not premium mediocre, whether or not failing at a relationship means it's a failure, and as always, way too much conversation about violence.

In 1994 The Crow unfurled its celluloid wings and took flight in the imaginations of teenage Goths everywhere. 25 years later, does it still hold up? For the people who love the remarkable comic and are still ride or die for the soundtrack, the answer is a resounding yes. But the film has not aged well. In this episode we cover James O'Barr's personal story, we spend a lot of time talking dark 90s music, and we even have a brief visit from unofficial third co-host Monique to cover women and vengeance. Also, if this episode were an album, the B-side would be our somewhat long discussion of John Wick. Afterall, The Crow is basically John Wick with Juggalo makeup and a goth soundtrack.

2019's Child's Play reboot took some heat from die-hard fans, but it's fairly successful as a Black Mirror episode. It replaces the supernatural with the technological, which allows it to address modern anxieties about connected devices and AI. We talk about Shoshana Zuboff's book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, how children play in the YouTube age, and how the 80s action figure boom might have influenced media.

Predator (1987) is a big movie. The actors are big. The guns are big. The campiness is big. Marc had never seen it; Chad is obsessed with it. And that friends, is a recipe for hilarity. We discuss 80s action tropes, masculinity, hockey violence, and whether or not Arnold Schwarzennegger is the greatest human to have ever lived.

This is the first episode of our newest podcast, Self Help for Nihilists. It's a departure from our focus on horror, but fans of the main show, especially those caught in soul-crushing existential despair, should enjoy it. We discuss the problems associated with a nihilist worldview, some of the philosophers that helped shape it, and make some suggestions about books that have helped us navigate this bleak an uncaring universe. Plus jokes!

In this episode, we finally take a look at Stranger Things 3. With some distance from our 4th of July weekend binging, we've found ourselves a lot more critical of the season. Even though we both enjoyed it on first viewing, we bristle like crusty old haters at our old frenemy: nostalgia. We also discuss the film classic Predator and whether or not young actors will be safe from Hollywood predators in the future.

Drag legend and horror director Peaches Christ (Joshua Grannell) joins us for Poltergeist (1982). We talk about the effectiveness of sweetness in horror, the controversy over who directed the film, the franchise's curse, and what makes this PG flick an iconic horror movie. Peaches also gives us some insight into what it takes to create an over-the-top haunted house.

Jim Jarmusch's meta zom-com, The Dead Don't Die (2019), wasn't exactly loved by genre fans. We discuss what we liked, what we didn't, and why watching Game of Thrones and reading Harry Potter might not be the best way to spend your few remaining years on Earth. This episode is saltier than usual, perhaps caused by the ambient dread created by polar fracking.

Zombieland (2009) is one of the more successful zom-coms. It features a great cast and a lot of fun ideas. It's not the most philosophical of films, but we do manage to get into what it means to live life by a set of rules. And more importantly, what our zombie apocalypse outfits would look like.

In this episode we cover all things Naked Lunch: the 1959 book by William S. Burroughs, the 1991 David Cronenberg film, and all the surrounding mythology. If you're into drugs, writing and weirdness, this is the episode for you. We're joined by self-described sophist, Dr. Daniel Coffeen. He's a former professor of rhetoric at UC Berkeley and teacher of critical theory at the SF Art Institute. He's authored Reading the Way of Things: Towards a New technology of Making Sense (Zero Books).

The 2019 documentary Hail Satan? by director Penny Lane is not a horror movie. It's more of a political comedy. But the work of The Temple of Satan and its nefarious relation, The Church of Satan, are of interest to us, and hopefully to you. We cover the film itself, a bit of the conversation around the split with activist Jex Blackmore, and as always, performance art. If you don't have opportunity to see this doc, you can easily follow the episode by watching a few videos about the Temple of Satan on YouTube.

For fans of supernatural comedies, 1984's Ghostbusters is as big a presence as a giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. It has some of the best comedic acting ever recorded. It also has some interesting things to say about the role of government in paranormal small business development. We get into the libertarian slant of the film, whether or not Dr. Peter Venkman is a predator or a playboy, and we also cover a bit of the controversy surrounding the reboot.

Srđan Spasojević's 2010 Serbian exploitation film joined the ranks of horror's most controversial efforts the moment it came out. It's not for everyone, or really anyone, but criticism of the film tends to be rather pedestrian and reactionary, even among so-called horror fans. We spend almost as much time talking about Maggie Nelson's recent book, The Art of Cruelty; and Chris Burden's art piece Shoot as we do the film, so if you aren't into the ultra-graphic, you can still enjoy this episode.

Suspiria is a beloved classic no one really needed to remake, but if you have to do it, you may as well do it with some style. Lucca Guadagnino's 2018 version is a bold vision that divided horror fans. Dance performer Monique Jenkinson (AKA Fauxnique) joins us again to discuss remakes, contemporary dance, fierce witches, Butoh (the Japanese Dance of Darkness), and other high-art strangeness.

The 2013 horror-meta-comedy This is the End is, on the surface, a great ensemble cast stoner film. But it also traffics in the kind of fart/dick/#nohomo/bro-humor the modern finger-wagging class disapproves of. In this episode, we explore the potential of a new masculinity, whether or not James Franco's cronies are cinema's zeitgeist, and what it means to love juvenile humor.

2003's remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre isn't often lauded for much beyond its presentation of Jessica Biel's assets. So when Andrew Sheets (AKA Meredeath) mentioned it was their favorite horror film back on our Babadook episode, we were perplexed. Were we missing something? Are we now too old to understand what appeals to millenials? Is this simply a flaw in a friend's otherwise impeccable horror taste? We ask these questions and more with Meredeath back as a guest to defend the barbaric tastes of the young.

Erik Davis (Techgnosis, Nomad Codes) joins us for a take on the first season of HBO's True Detective (2014). We cover philosophical pessimism, cosmic horror, police procedurals, serial killers, gnostic notions, and the great state of Louisiana. We barely scratch the surface of what makes this series so thought provoking.

Mandy is way out in front as our favorite film of 2018. But not many people have seen it. It's probably because Nicholas Cage has put out some real stinkers lately and the trailer looks way too much like Ghost Rider. Not to fear! This is Cage turned up to 11 and it works magnificently here. We also discuss homage vs. nostalgia and our two favorite topics: auteurism and violence.

Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow's 1987 film Near Dark is a truly great vampire story. However, it had the misfortune of being released the same week as The Lost Boys. Though it was the superior film in every way that matters, it didn't have the same tween star power or marketing budget, and was mostly forgotten except by hardcore genre fans. In this episode we discuss Westerns, method acting, The South, and once again, how we would live as the undead.

Chad and Marc turn treats into tricks by eating the world's hottest chocolate bar before attempting to discuss: Hallowe'ens past and present, the true gothic of New Orleans, their best Hallowe'en costumes, Peaches Christ's haunted house The Terror Vault, Marc (and Fauxnique's) show 'Girl', and the state of horror in the wake of 43 Scary Thoughts episodes.

You should just go watch Murder Party (2007). It's a fun Halloween movie full of laughs and mayhem. This episode also has its share of laughs and mayhem. We discuss what we like about this film, then head back into a longer discussion about conceptual art (carried over from the previous episode), the ways comedy and horror work together, and whether or not it can be funny to teach a dog the Nazi salute. We also finally talk about our fascination with the Canadian feminist horror podcast, The Faculty of Horror.

To say that Kevin Smith's 2014 film Tusk is polarizing would be overselling it. Most people hated it. Chad is a diehard Smith fan and considers him something of a nerd folk hero, but even he isn't completely #WalrusYES anymore. This conversation covers what makes a good-bad film successful, Kevin Smith's legacy, and the value and legitimacy of performance art.

We had the best intentions of having a straightforward conversation about Steven Soderbergh's 2018 film Unsane. Instead this episode will take you on a strange journey involving Gavin de Becker's book The Gift of Fear, using iPhones to make films, the strange popularity of Jordan Peterson, self-help literature and the concept of premium mediocrity. If you like to hear us go deep and stumble through ideas, this is the episode for you.

2018's Hereditary exploded onto the horror scene with a bold, opaque, artistic trailer. We conversate about whether or not trailers are lies, family horror, and the frequency children are being killed in horror movies now. There's also a little bit about free will and demonic gender theory, you know, for the kids.

Jim Jarmusch's 2013 moody vampire romance Only Lovers Left Alive is all post-rock, ruin porn and untamed hair. Chad and Marc discuss Shakespeare conspiracy theories, urban renewal, how to best wield longevity and, as always, the end of history.

The self-published vampire novelette "Faking It, Phoebe" caught Chad's eye on Amazon, so we invited our friend, author Meg Elison to join us in a conversation about genre fiction, the publishing world, girls in nerdom and vampires vs. goths.

This episode is about Werner Herzog's 1979 undead flick, Nosferatu the Vampyre. It features special guest Alexa Fraser-Herron. She's a San Francisco based independent filmmaker, who was introduced to Herzog's films by her mother at an early age. It's an unusual and interesting film, the conversation is much the same.

This episode, Chad & Marc venture outside the realms of film and fiction to grapple with the very real horrors of social media. Though Lovecraftian in scale and Orwellian in rancor, our hosts take very different positions on whether to slay Zuckerberg's beast or harness its dark energy.

2016's Ouija: Origin of Evil made a boatload of money, but it's terrible. It deals in nostalgia, weak jump scares and has a muddled plot. Why do people keep watching movies like this? Why aren't they better? Will anything change, or is horror continuing to split and become a genre that produces a few auteur gems and a ton franchise style crap? We attempt to answer these questions and more, all without the help of a Ouija board of our own.

Scooby Doo has been on the air since 1969. Those meddling kids have been in a shocking number of series and movies since then. Is this horror? Is it worth watching? We land on a solid 'maybe' for those questions and more. Join us as we explore everything from the laugh-tracked early episodes to the surprisingly smart, and conspiracy riddled, Mystery Incorporated.

The 2015 New Zealand vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows is all about fangs and foppery. In this episode we uncover rare undead lore, our favorite vampires, and explore the eternal question: what does it mean to become old and uncool?

Since Michael Dougherty's Krampus came out in 2015, the pagan hipster Christmas demon has only grown in popularity. We explore the ancient roots of the anti-Santa, discuss Dougherty's extended universe, and make an unavoidable turn down the road of capitalist critiques of holiday favorites. src="https://html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/6069613/height/360/width/450/theme/standard/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/autoplay/no/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/forward/" height="360" width="450" placement="bottom" theme="standard"

This episode is about the most evil genre of music: Black Metal. We are joined by extreme music authority, Andee Connors. He co-owned the notorious Aquarius Records, curates Pandora's unholy Black Metal station and creates infernal music as a member of A Minor Forest and Common Eider, King Eider. We invoke blasphemous critical theory, the abysmal history of youth movements and the odorous politics of several necrotic musical personalities.