Filthy Horrors

Darla supported the board game version of Masque of the Red Death (based on the Edgar Allan Poe story, illustrated by Gris Grimly, and published by IDW) on Kickstarter. So now she, Jessica, Michael, and special guest Chandra Reyer are playing it to determine who will be the most popular noble left in the castle after the blood-spattered specter comes to visit.

Darla, Jess, and Michael watched all the Halloween movies, including Season of the Witch, the Rob Zombie remakes, and this year's Halloween Kills. Big spoilers for everything, including Halloween Kills.

Darla, Jess, and Michael watched a bunch of werewolf movies and now they want to talk about which is better: Wolfen or The Howling? Who's irritated by An American Werewolf in London and who rejects The Company of Wolves? And what does puberty have to do with any of this? 

Darla, Jess, and Michael have been fully vaccinated and reconvene at last to catch up on how they did during the pandemic and what horror movies, books, and shows they were into over the last year-and-a-half.

Would you like to play a game? Darla, Jessica, and Michael did and chose Fantasy Flight Games' Letters from Whitechapel. One player takes the role of Jack the Ripper as the other players' detectives attempt to catch him over a series of four nights.  We also talked about other horror-related and -adjacent things we've been watching and reading: Harper's Island (2009 TV series) A Christmas Carol (2019 TV mini-series) Doctor Sleep (book and film) Dracula (2020 TV mini-series) Mindhunter (2017 TV series) Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) Marvel Comics Tomb of Dracula series Sweetheart (2019) Underwater (2020) The Turning (2020) And some things we've been looking forward to: The Lodge (2019) Run (2020) The Invisible Man (2020) The New Mutants (2020)

Happy Halloween! Which means of course that Darla, Jess, and Michael are talking about everyone's favorite spooky holiday. After a history lesson, we holler about why Halloween is important, childhood memories, how we celebrate today, and the best (and worst) candy to find in your plastic Jack O'Lantern bucket. We also talk about a Halloween field trip and a bunch of other spooky stuff including: Flatliners (2017) Hammer House of Horror TV series (1980) Nomads (1986) Dracul by Dacre Stoker and JD Barker Disney Frankenstein, starring Donald Duckby Bruno Enna, Fabio Celoni, and Luca Merli It Chapter Two (2019) It (1990) The Little Stranger (2018) Halloween (2018) The Dark (2018)

Darla, Jess, and Michael get Dracula-ed out discussing Bram Stoker's novel and the many movie, TV, comics, novel, and board game adaptations and spin offs that it's inspired. Here's a list of things we talk about on the episode. Halloween (2018) Little Jackie Lantern by Tom Waltz and Jessica Hickman Oedipus the King by Sophocles Vathek by William Beckford Spirit of Halloween store Zombieland: Double Tap (2019) Blood Quantum (2019) Depraved (2019) The Isle (2018) The Lighthouse (2019) Dracula by Bram Stoker Dracula (1931) Nosferatu (1922) Spanish language Drácula (1931) Hammer’s Horror of Dracula (1958) Count Dracula (1970) starring Christopher Lee and Herbert Lom Dracula (1974) starring Jack Palance Count Dracula (1977) starring Louis Jourdan Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) starring Klaus Kinski Dracula (1979) starring Frank Langella Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) starring Gary Oldman Dracula (2006) starring Marc Warren Dracula 3D (2012) aka Argento's Dracula  Dracula Untold (2014) Dracula 2000 Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) and other Universal sequels Billy the Kid Versus Dracula (1966) Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995) Love at First Bite (1979) Van Helsing (2004) Blade: Trinity (2004) The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill  Penny Dreadful (2014) (TV Series) The Munsters (1964) (TV Series) Dracula (2013) (TV Series) Mad Monster Party? (1967) The Electric Company (1971) (TV Series) Blacula (1972) Monster Squad (1976) (TV Series) Drak Pack (1980) (TV Series) Bram Stoker's Dracula comic by Fernando Fernandez  Bram Stoker's Dracula movie adaptation comic by Roy Thomas and Mike Mignola All-Action Classics: Dracula comic by Michael Mucci and Ben Caldwell The Tomb of Dracula comics drawn by Gene Colan Dracula: A Symphony in Moonlight & Nightmares by Jon J Muth  Dracula (Kindle in Motion Edition) illustrated by JH Williams III The Sherlockian by Graham Moore Bram Stoker And The Man Who Was Dracula by Barbara Belford  Dracul by Dacre Stoker and JD Barker Dracula the Un-dead by Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt Anno Dracula by Kim Newman Fury of Dracula board game Horrified Universal Monsters board game

Darla, Jess, and Michael embrace the dark side of some of their favorite fairy tales: "Sleeping Beauty," "Little Red Riding Hood," and "The White Snake." And if you're not familiar with "The White Snake," don't worry. We'll read it to you! Also up for discussion: Alien: Covenant (2017) Would You Rather (2012) Jaws (1975) Crawl (2019) What the Folklore podcast Mythos podcast And things we're looking forward to: It Chapter Two and Ready or Not

Darla's not feeling well, but there are donuts and there is coffee, so Jessica and Michael have an informal chat about... well, about a lot of stuff. They begin and end with Horror, but there are lots of other rooms to explore in this old, dark house and some of them are filled with Magnum PI and Star Trek.  Topics Covered: Evil Dead (2013) The Golem (2018) The Wind (2018) Making comics and attending conventions Disney+ and CBS All Access Magnum PI and ‘80s TV Star Trek Editors and the creative process Godzilla movies Ghost Stories (2017) The Beast of Wolfe’s Bay by Erik Evensen  Marrying Mr. Darcy card game Rachel Rising by Terry Moore Revival by Tim Seeley and Mike Norton Hack/Slash by Tim Seeley and Emily Stone  Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child The Necromancer; or, The Tale of the Black Forest by Ludwig Flammenberg The Ring (2002) score by Hans Zimmer Ambient music on YouTube

Darla, Jess, and Michael begin this episode in a haunted cemetery, an appropriate place to talk about one of our favorite writers, Edgar Allan Poe. After some talk about other horror we've been into the last month and a discussion of our own funerals, we dig specifically into "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Masque of the Red Death," and "The Raven." With side-trips to other Poe stories as well as our favorite adaptations of his work.  Please Note: It was windy at the cemetery and the sound overwhelms the discussion a few times during that section of the episode. We cleaned it up as best we could, but if it's bothersome, you might want to skip ahead to about 20 minutes into the show. At that point we've moved inside and the audio is clear for the remainder of the episode. 

Darla, Jess, and Michael completely lose their credibility when they play Trivial Pursuit: Horror Movie Edition. Play along and see if you can answer the questions before they can. (You can.)

Darla, Jess, and Michael eat at a haunted restaurant then talk about three of their favorite ghost movies: Poltergeist (1982), The Orphanage (2007), and The Woman in Black (2012).

Darla, Jess, and Michael get flustered about Frankenstein. Or maybe that's just Kenneth Branagh's abs. At any rate, they cover the Mary Shelley biopic starring Elle Fanning, the novel itself, and more movie adaptations than you can shake a pitchfork (or a torch) at.

Darla Ecklund, Jessica Hickman, and Michael May are fiends - I mean, friends - who live in the Twin Cities of Minnesota and love horror. In this introductory episode, they talk about how horror got its claws into them and reveal their favorite horror movies, books, comics, and TV shows.