Saturday Night Freak Show

Holly says we can't live on junkfood alone and serves up the classic ghost story The Others (2001), which finds Nicole Kidman and her two children, who suffer from sunlight photosensitivity, living in a post-WWII English mansion where things go bump in the night. Listen as the Freak Show is reunited live in the dank dark basement to talk about scary ghost stories, creaky doors, spooky whispers, twist endings and more on this week's exciting episode! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sean ponders the effect of horror movies on both their fans and their creators in Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994) a meta-movie in which Freddy Krueger is set free from the Nightmare on Elm Street series to plague Heather Langenkamp in the "real world," a fictionalized version of Hollywood in which New Line Cinema president Robert Shaye even gets a role. Listen as we get all nerdy discussing the moral responsibilities of horror filmmakers and the long standing appeal of one of cinema's iconic boogeymen on this week's exciting episode! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Colin fears that scientists will develop a parasite as a combination of aphrodisiac and venereal disease that will turn the world into an endless orgy of Shivers (aka They Came From Within, 1975). Canadian madman David Cronenberg put his stamp on the face of horror cinema forever with his story of a icky sexual revolution taking place at a luxury apartment tower where the aforementioned monsters get loose, turning the residents into sex fiends. Listen as we discuss the cautionary side of sexual freedom, define the term "body horror," and discover what types of movies we watch with the blinds closed on this week's exciting episode! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Michaela discovers that roaming bands of L.A. punks are actually Nomads (1985), immortal supernatural entities that have existed since time immemorial, living unnoticed on the fringes of human society. French anthropologist Pierce Brosnan discovers this too, and attracts their ire in future Predator and Die Hard director John McTiernan's metaphysical thriller. Listen as we pin down the origin of "the A24 style," and try to decipher this arty horror film for you on this week's exciting episode! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Holly brings an immortal bloodsucker roaring back to life in the new millennium with Dracula 2000 (2000), which finds the suave fiend traveling to Louisiana to hunt down a girl with whom he shares a psychic bond, while the still-kickin' Van Helsing and his protégé race to stop him. Listen as we talk about vampire leeches, Biblical secrets, and the Nu-Metal 90's, all on this week's exciting show! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sean finds himself trapped on Earth with a space mallard named Howard the Duck (1986), producer George Lucas' big-budget take on the odd Marvel Comics character. Rocker Lea Thompson explores inter-species love with the wisecracking hero as they work to stop a bunch of evil alien creatures from destroying the world. Listen as we talk about traumatic exposure to duck boobs, inappropriate sexual innuendo in a kids movie, and kickass alien scorpion overlords on this week's exciting episode! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Colin sits ringside for the colossal battle of the swamp monsters alongside Swamp Thing (1982), Wes Craven's adaptation of DC Comic's iconic plant man. When a laboratory incident transforms a scientist into a swamp monster, he finds blossoming love with none other than 80's monster girl Adrienne Barbeau. Listen as we talk helmet hair, bug-eyed rubber monster fights, PG-rated boob shots, and the perils of actors navigating alligator infested swamp water on this week's exciting episode! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Michaela takes to task Frank Oz' comedic reworking of The Stepford Wives (2004), a big budget all-star misfire which turns a chilling 1970's feminist paranoia thriller into a toothless skit show starring Matthew Broderick and Nicole Kidman. Listen as we talk about square dancing gradeschoolers, mandatory fun days, piggy bank robot wives and more on this week's exciting episode! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Holly finds life might be perfect by murdering those who disrupt domestic tranquility along with Serial Mom (1994), director John Waters satirical take on American suburbia and the celebrity culture around serial killers. Kathleen Turner stars as the picture perfect housewife-slash-serial killer. Listen as we talk about Franklin Mint collectibles, having a dog wash your feet, and commit the cardinal sin of not recycling our trash on this week's exciting episode! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sean loves slasher sequels just like Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000), a killer-on-the-loose-at-a-college-campus vintage that finds a group of co-ed film students stalked by a demented whacko in a fencing mask. Listen as we wallow in watered down teen horror, try to make sense of nonsensical plots, and then try to make an impassioned-but-illogical defense of the movie for our final act! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Colin thinks weaponized salt battle trucks should be a no brainer in the fight against Slugs (1988), a gory eco-horror flick from the director of Pieces. When mutant, man-eating slugs ooze up from the earth, a band of working class heroes must unite to stop the slimy suckers before they consume an entire town! Listen as we talk about methane pollution, bloody sex scenes, exploding heads, exploding towns, and more on this week's exciting episode! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Michaela thinks there should be more ski resort-set slasher movies like Iced (1988), which transplants the tried-and-true formula to a snowy mountain cabin where several couples are menaced and murdered by a masked skier, probably as retribution for a long-ago death. Listen as we tell tales of killer Jeffs, hot tub electrocutions, ski pole impalements, icicles as murder weapons, and even more on this week's exciting episode! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Holly joins the hunt for an ugly (but sharply-dressed) alien spree killer in Nightbeast (1982). After crash landing on Earth, the titular creature begins alternately vaporizing and eating the residents of a woodsy small town, leading the sheriff, his female deputy, and the town's man-of-action to track it down. Listen as we marvel at the wonders of backyard filmmaking while enduring cinema's most awkward love scene, while an alien lunatic runs around disembowling and beheading the townsfolk, all on this week's exciting episode! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sean commits the cardinal sin of bringing Nothing But Trouble (1991) to the Freak Show, a movie reviled for being too gross, too weird to exist. But here it is. Writer/director/star Dan Aykroyd reimagines the Texas Chainsaw Massacre as a PG-13 comedy, casting himself as a cantankerous judge who holds Chevy Chase and Demi Moore hostage in his boobytrapped hoarder mansion. Listen as Holly and Michaela curse the day Sean was born and relive trauma involving grey hot dogs and even more on this week's exciting episode! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Colin finds that when you're the son of a secret agent, you're Never Too Young to Die (1986). John Stamos plays an unlikely action hero, a college student pressed into service against his deceased dad's arch enemy, a hermaphrodite terrorist played by KISS' Gene Simmons in drag! Listen as we talk about an aversion to long fingernails, sexual frustration and apples, water hose seduction, and more on this week's exciting episode! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Michaela gets behind the handlebars of a BMX bike and finds it's Rad (1986). Stuntman-turned-director Hal Needham guides a small town group of bike enthusiasts as they compete against world-traveled pros in an arena dubbed the Helltrack. Listen as we talk toy stuntman playsets, terrible paperboys, cakes in the oven, and marvel at the BMX prom on this week's exciting episode! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

You demanded it, so we're watching Killer Workout (aka Aerobicide, 1987), the last of our Listener's Choice picks for 2021! Someone's murdering the customers of Rhonda's Workout with a giant safety pin; it's up to a detective and an undercover private eye to unmask the suspect. Listen as we talk about beautiful gyrating bodies, backyard fights, broken drywall, and the hidden origins of the 80's video aerobics videos on this week's exciting episode! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

You asked for it, so we're blasting Lectroids from Planet 10 along with The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984), a totally bizarro cult item that stars Peter Weller as a scientist, neurosurgeon, martial arts expert and rock star trying to prevent John Lithgow from stealing a device and preventing aliens destroying the planet. Listen as we discover that "wherever you go, there you are" as we try to unscramble one of the world's weirdest movies on this week's exciting episode! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

You demanded it, so we're chasing down body-hopping alien thrill-killers in The Hidden (1987), a genre-bending sci-fi buddy cop movie that pairs Flashdance's Michael Nouri with Twin Peaks' Kyle MacLachlan as a cop and an FBI agent on the trail of a criminal alien slug from another planet! Listen as we talk alien physiology, what it means to be human, and find out we're driving the meat puppet on this week's exciting episode! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We shake the pillars of Heaven and burrow deep into the mystical Chinese underworld of John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China (1986), the first of our Listener's Choice month selections. Join us as we hop aboard the Pork Chop Express with blowhard hero Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) and get into all sorts of martial arts mayhem beneath the streets of San Francisco's Chinatown and listen to Carpenter croon the film's title track on this week's exciting episode! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.