Half Price Horror

It's the 200th episode of Half Price Horror, and naturally there's only one movie big enough, important enough, and profound enough to qualify for such a momentous occasion! But instead we covered 'Satan's Cheerleaders', so jump in for a discussion of 70s exploitation movies, schlock producer Greydon Clark, and more old Hollywood stars than you can shake a stick at!

Time to take another trip back to the 70s and find out what's going on in the world of intrepid reporter Carl Kolchak--and it looks wild back there, with insta-grow ape men, witchcraft in the fashion industry, and... is that a young Robert Zemeckis? Face it, true believers, this one has everything!

"Welcome to Potters Bluff". It's an odd thing to say to someone right before you kill them, but then again Potters Bluff is no ordinary town. It's a town with a horrible secret at its heart... and Sheriff Dan Gillis is going to wish he'd never discovered it. But we can find out together, in another episode of Half Price Horror!

The Kolchak train rolls on, with energy devouring bear gods, shapeshifters from Hindu legend, and androids looking for books on tape to complete their programming! Time to continue our look at this 70s cult classic with "The Energy Eater", "Horror in the Heights", and "Mister R.I.N.G."!

In the wake of 'Land of the Dead' and its somewhat disappointing box office performance, Romero had nowhere to go but back to the beginning. So he went small-scale, with a mockumentary based on the first days of the zombie apocalypse filled with raw footage taken by an amateur camera crew... and how successful was he? Give a listen and find out!

Spanish moss, Satanic politicians, and messy cultural appropriation--this one's got it all, as we take a look at three more episodes of 'Kolchak: The Night Stalker'. This time out, it's "The Devil's Platform", "Bad Medicine", and "The Spanish Moss Murders", each of which gives our intrepid reporter another chance to clash with editor Tony Vincenzo and learn more about the secret world of the supernatural that co-exists uneasily with our own.

Two thousand, zero zero, party over, oops, out of time, so Godzilla started the Y2K fun early in December of 1999! The big guy dukes it out with aliens attempting to drain the entire Internet of data so they can learn how to build the perfect body for themselves, and unsurprisingly it ends in a big fight in the middle of downtown Tokyo! Join HPH for a fun discussion of the most Hollywood of Japanese monster movies.

Do you love vampires? Werewolves? Sinister spectral doppelgangers and spontaneous human combustion? Then join Half Price Horror for an exploration of a classic 70s TV series that embraces the paranormal, the New Age, and all those classic monsters we adore so much!

Paul Verhoeven's 'Hollow Man' hit at the exact transition between the post-Cold War euphoria of Bill Clinton and the nasty hangover that was the Bush years, when we were just beginning to realize how difficult it was going to be to pry misogyny loose from the hands of entitled white dudes. But is this film a critique of sexist men, or a depiction of them? Let's dive in and find out!(TW: sexual assault and rape, animal death, animal experimentation)

The 70s were a gestational era for cult fiction, the incubator that gave birth to every kind of fascination from UFOs to Jack the Ripper to voodoo. So it's not surprising that a series like "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" would come around, and it's not surprising that it would become a foundational text for Chris Carter, JJ Abrams, and everyone in between. But what were the original episodes like? Join HPH for the first in a series on the series and find out!

"Shark attack". Is there any phrase more thrilling to the horror fan's spirit? There's a never-ending bonanza of shark movies out there, but this one is notorious for its use of real sharks and the real-life Australian incident that inspired it. So join HPH for a deep dive--no pun intended--into crafty no-budget thriller 'The Reef'!(Not to be confused with 'The Ref'. Denis Leary does not appear in this movie.)

When audiences found out they were going to get a movie about aliens from Jordan Peele, a lot of people jumped to a lot of conclusions about what they were going to get--but nobody imagined a heady, action-horror-Western that serves as a meditation on the exploitative nature of Hollywood and a joyous celebration of the power of cinema. Join HPH as we do our level best to dig into all the messages of Peele's most ambitious work, and join the celebration, too!

It's time to finish our tour of the Conjuring Universe, as we return to Valak the demonic nun and her sworn enemies Frenchie and Irene! Get ready for Wan and Safran's version of 'The DaVinci Code', with a lost relic and an ancient mystery and a third act surprise demon goat, as we put this franchise to bed once and for all.

It may not get as much discussion as it did seventy years ago when it first premiered, but 'Les Diaboliques' (or as it was known in America, 'Diabolique') is one of the most profoundly influential thrillers in cinematic history. So let's dig in for a discussion of the plot twist you've probably seen a dozen times the way it was done originally, by Hitchcock's French rival Henri-Georges Clouzot, and discuss a classic tale of the perfect crime gone wrong.

It's the final installment of the main Conjuring franchise (for now) and a case that tests the very limits... of Peter Safran and James Wan's ability to spin the Warrens' nonsense into a supernatural horror story. Can they take the tale of a guy who got drunk and committed manslaughter into a courtroom drama about demonic possession? Or will they have to cut away before the judge gets a single line? Find out in this installment of Half Price Horror!

What do you get when you take the gothic, queer romance sensibilities of Anne Rice and filter them through hit-making director Tony Scott and arthouse actors like Susan Sarandon, Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie? You get a unique vampire movie that blends beauty and horror in equal measures, with bold and experimental stylistic choices, and you get a whole episode of HPH discussing it! Let's dive in.

We're in the home stretch now for the Conjuring Universe, with just one film from each franchise left to go! But it turns out Annabelle the haunted doll doesn't want to be put away for good—so let's see whether the third time's the charm for this spinoff franchise with 2019's “Annabelle Comes Home”!

When Steven Kostanski announced a follow-up to 'Psycho Goreman' that promised more of that same weird, day-glo 90s aesthetic combined with the outrageous prank-filled attitude of the 80s "little monster" subgenre, it was almost a foregone conclusion that his film was going to wind up on this podcast as soon as possible. And that's today! So lucky you, you get to hear about all the shotgun traps, dials of doom, and gun colleges in 2024's future cult classic 'Frankie Freako'!

What do you get when you take an authentic Mexican folk legend and give it a thick coat of whitewash? You get the latest "unofficial" Conjuring spin-off, complete with lots of jumpscares, plenty of tracking shots, and all the cultural appropriation you could ever want and then some! Join HPH for a deep dive into everything that makes this film so problematic.

Mario Bava is a legend, an icon both as a director and as a special effects artist, but he didn't work in science fiction very often. So when he did, is it any real surprise that he made a movie that put its stamp on everything from 'Alien' to 'Event Horizon'? Join HPH for a deep dive into his cult classic, the low-budget but immensely clever movie 'Planet of the Vampires'! (We'll even explain why it has that title.)

And nun too soon, we arrive at a movie that is second to nun! If nun of you have seen it before, then you'll be familiar with nun of the scares and nun of the surprises - but is there even a single part of this latest Conjuring spin-off that's any good? I'm not going to say there's absolutely nun, but let's take a look and find out where they could have made a few improvements.

Why 'Terror of Mechagodzilla'? Why not 'Terror of Mechagodzilla'? It's the last film in the Showa era, the last film made by Ishiro Honda, it's got one of Godzilla's most iconic foes, and all Godzilla is good Godzilla. So let's dig in and see how kaiju were living in the Me Decade!

Sadly, there's no warm and comforting narration to explain how this toy is made - but there are orphans in danger, killer scarecrows, and yet another movie about the origins of Annabelle the haunted doll! Let's dig into it together and see how the next installment in the Conjuring Universe fares.

Long before 'The Crying Game' and 'Interview With the Vampire', Neil Jordan made a splash with a dark, sumptuous retelling of Little Red Riding Hood based on Angela Carter's feminist interpretation of the text. It's been a cult classic ever since... but what is it saying about werewolves, and what is it saying about people for that matter? Time to dig in and find out!

Almost buried in the footnotes to the Conjuring Universe is this little non-supernatural spin-off of a spin-off that retells the Manson killings, albeit with a lot of historical liberties and a cameo appearance from one of the characters in 2014's 'Annabelle'. Is it worth digging this deep into the strata of intellectual property exploitation to find that last little nugget of Conjuring content? Listen and find out!

Radioactive kids hug their parents to death with lethal microwaves that blast from their gothy black fingernails. That's all you need to know, really. Or possibly there's just no point in knowing anything at all.

Hoo boy. If you thought I was rough on James Wan's 2013 hit 'The Conjuring', you're probably not going to love this episode as I look at the even less true "true story" of the Warrens and their involvement with the Enfield poltergeist. But if you're someone who's thoroughly sick of Ed and Lorraine, this might be just the tonic you need.

It's deja vu all over again, as Half Price Horror returns to Amityville for another look at the "true story" of the Lutz family and their haunted house. But this time we've got Ryan Reynolds, shirtless and jacked, delivering campy one-liners to an audience of CGI specters. Is it an improvement on the original? Let's find out!

Horror fans all know that Annabelle the doll is really just a Raggedy Anne that Hollywood zhushed up a little with some creepy Victorian aesthetic. But does that mean that a movie about her can't be good? Does that mean a film spun off from 'The Conjuring' is just going to be a collection of generic supernatural tropes mushed up and spoon-fed to an audience it assumes to be undiscerning and devoid of judgment? Does it mean that they won't even bother researching the setting because they're scared of showing vapid twentysomethings anything outside of their limited knowledge of the world? ...let's take a look and see.

Time to spend another Halloween with Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, as she brings us a quirky conspiracy thriller classic from the 1970s! People are turning into homicidal maniacs as their hair falls out, ticking time bombs ready to explode into violent rage. It's all connected to something called "Blue Sunshine"... and if Jerry Zipkin can't uncover its secret, he'll go to prison for a murder he didn't commit.

Not going to lie here--what you think of 'The Conjuring' depends greatly on what you think of the real-life Ed and Lorraine Warren, and I'm afraid I came to the party way too late to have a positive opinion of them. So let's talk about why it's important to do your research, not take the word of a pair of sketchy grifters, and why that might make 2013's 'The Conjuring' a less than ideal film.

There's never been a more appropriate time to describe an episode as a "deep dive", as HPH takes a look at Neil Marshall's masterpiece of unbearable rising tension, 2005's claustrophobic horror film 'The Descent'!

It's another Spooky Season, and you know what that means - we're playing all the hits of horror here at HPH! And when it comes to classic and influential horror movies, they don't come much bigger than the tale of Marion Crane, on the run from the law with $40,000 in stolen money and stopping in for a night at the Bates Motel. Enjoy!

It's not quite Spooky Season yet, but we're starting with the big classics early as we dive into one of the foundational texts of science fiction horror. So let's suit up with the United Federation of Planets--excuse me, just the United Planets--and follow our intrepid starship captain as he checks in on a lost colony and finds lost technology from an advanced alien race... and monsters. Monsters from the Id.

The original '28 Days Later' was shot during 9/11, but its concepts and themes had been finalized before that moment of historic upheaval. So what does it look like when the demise of Britain at the hands of rage monsters becomes a conscious, intentionally political film? What do we see when we look at zombies through the eyes of a post-Iraq filmmaker? '28 Weeks Later' has the answers... and we're about to take a deep dive into the film to discuss them.

Start spreading the news, folks, because just like Jason in 1989, the Gremlins are headed to the Big Apple and they want everyone—simply everyone, from Christopher Lee to Leonard Maltin to Hulk Hogan—to join them! So come along, and we'll talk about the movie so gloriously anarchic it inspired its very own Key and Peele sketch!

London is deserted, a plague has stricken Great Britain, and the streets are filled with chaos and danger. Is it 1963's classic Doctor Who story 'The Dalek Invasion of Earth'? Probably not, but it is time to take a look at a movie that might have been improved with a Dalek or two with 2002's '28 Days Later'!

It's been a while since we've talked about 'Shaun of the Dead', Edgar Wright's ferociously inventive debut feature, and even longer since we've discussed 1973's folk horror classic 'The Wicker Man'. But they're both relevant here, as Wright and his collaborator Simon Pegg come together for a loving mashup of folk horror and action comedy in the 2007 masterpiece 'Hot Fuzz', and we're going to take a look at it together!

Time for deja vu all over again, as we jump ahead a year from 'The Night Stalker' to its very similar sequel, 'The Night Strangler'. Will Kolchak clash with the police? Will he argue with his editor some more? Is there a supernatural angle to the murders? Listen and find out!

French filmmaker Jean Rollin is a controversial figure in cult cinema, known for his surreal and vivid imagery as well as his strange, almost dreamlike stories. Let's dive into his body of work with one of his early forays into erotic horror and vampire movies, the 1971 'Shiver of the Vampires' (also known as 'Strange Things Happen at Night') and see what makes him so loved and hated all at the same time!

Time to tackle an undeservedly forgotten classic, a 1972 made-for-television movie about a cynical reporter in Sin City who stumbles on the evidence of crimes no rationalist can explain away. There's a real, live vampire in Las Vegas... and maybe Carl Kolchak is the only one who can stop it.

It's time for your horror host to celebrate another birthday with another birthday-themed horror movie, and why not go straight to the sequel of the one he did last year? It's a bit repetitive, sure, but that's kind of appropriate in this case because Tree's also stuck in a bit of a rut. In fact, she's right back to repeating her birthday all over again... but this time, something's different. Let's find out what it is together!

"Christmas in July" concludes, but not before a little stop in Halloween Town to pick up some goodies for Spooky Season. But is Jack Skellington really the good guy of this story, or is he the Elon Musk of Christmas? Let's take a deep dive and find out!

Christmas in July continues, as we jump into the most authentically holiday-themed horror movie of the genre! But given that director Michael Dougherty's last movie 'Trick 'r' Treat' made a fetish out of honoring traditions without question, is 'Krampus' going to be any different? Listen and find out!

Gremlins had a cultural footprint far beyond its box office success--indeed, it's one of the films that indelibly defines the 1980s. But what does this movie have to say about Reagan's America and the cultural conception of small-town life? How do the grEMliNs inVAde the veRy naRRAtiVe stRUCTure of the fiLM itsELf to coNVeY a sENse of anARKie &&&&& Sorry about that. The Gremlins have been kicked out of this description. Please enjoy the episODDDDDDD

Time to begin 'Christmas in July', as we take a look at one of the earliest examples of holiday horror and a major influence on the slasher genre. There's a killer stalking campus over Winter Break, and nobody knows their identity... but they're getting troubling phone calls from someone referencing "Billy". And people are disappearing.

Every so often a movie comes along that traumatizes an entire generation. The 70s had 'The Exorcist' and 'Jaws', the 80s had pretty much the entire Indiana Jones trilogy, the 90s had the velociraptors from 'Jurassic Park'... and if you were the right age in 2002, you will always remember Samara Morgan and the seven days you spent in taut, tense fear after watching 'The Ring'. So let's unburden that collective trauma by going over the film together, shall we?

Before 'The Conjuring', before 'Insidious', before 'The Ring' and 'Poltergeist' and a host of films about the supernatural, George C Scott starred in a mournful, elegant film about a grieving father confronted by a vengeful ghost. And what vengeance does it want? Come along with Half Price Horror and find out!

Mick Garris is well known as one of Stephen King's go-to directors for adaptations of his work. But some of those adaptations are more famous than others, and this is definitely one of the lesser-known King films. And why might that be? Well, let's take a look and find out!

What do you get when you combine Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Carol Kane, Adam Driver, Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Chloe Sevigny, the RZA, Danny Glover, Austin Butler, Selena Gomez, Steve Buscemi, Rosie Perez, Caleb Landry Jones, Larry Fessenden, Sturgill Simpson, and a whole horde of marauding, flesh-eating zombies? You get a dry, deadpan, uniquely Jarmuschian horror-comedy, 2019's 'The Dead Don't Die', and Half Price Horror has a LOT to say about it.

Back when I was six years old, my parents went to the new-fangled "video stores" that were just becoming popular in the early 80s and rented one of their favorite silly, cheesy sci-fi horror movies to play in their new "VCR" for their kids. I'd been scared by films before, but this was the first time I watched a horror movie and it changed me forever. So join me for my 150th episode, gentle listeners, as I discuss the impact of my first scary movie... 1958's 'The Blob'.