Watch out for that piano! And the well! And the light fixture! And the... clock? This week, we're joined by the one and only Dawn Luebbe (co-director, Greener Grass, Wayfair's "Welcome to the Wayborhood") to discuss Nobuhiko Ôbayashi's mindbending horror cult comedy House. Will we make it out alive? Only Auntie's cat Blanche knows for sure. Intro, Debate Society, To Sir With Love (spoiler-free): 00:00-27:40 Honor Roll and Detention (spoiler-heavy): 27:41-58:48 Superlatives (spoiler-heavier): 58:49-1:15:41 Director Nobuhiko Ôbayashi Screenplay Chiho Katsura, base ..read more

We're back from Spring Break, discussing James Whale's 1935 classic featuring Boris Karloff, Elsa Lanchester, Colin Clive, Valerie Hobson, and Ernest Thesiger. Our guests are the authors of the new book Peggy Webling and the Story Behind Frankenstein: The Making of a Hollywood Monster, about the woman who wrote the stage play from which Universal's Frankenstein (1931) was adapted. Also: a new superlative honoring one of our favorite actors, the inimitable Béatrice Dalle. Intro, Debate Society, To Sir With Love (spoiler-free): 00:00-27:40 Honor Roll and Detention (spoiler-heavy): 27:41-56:04 S ..read more

When music journalist Myles Clarkson visits ailing piano virtuoso Duncan Ely at his palatial California home, ostensibly to interview the man, Duncan notices something distinct about Myles:  his hands – they’re beautiful, the bone structure perfect for a concert pianist.  Myles, it turns out, is a Juilliard-trained musician whose career tanked after receiving some bad reviews.  Taking an interest in Myles, Duncan introduces him to his artist daughter Roxanne. Soon Myles has entered the pianist’s inner circle, much to the chagrin of Myles’ wife, Paula, who feels more than a tinge ..read more

Behold – the late, great Edward Lionheart, a Shakespearean actor whose performances in Julius Caesar, Troilus and Cressida, Othello, Cymbeline, and others left him the laughingstock of London theatre critics, is dead.  And yet somehow, someone is knocking off said critics one at a time in truly Shakespearean fashion… albeit with slight alterations to the text.  Shylock may have wanted his pound his flesh – this killer takes the heart.  Joan of Arc might have burned at the stake – this killer fries his victims in a hair salon.  Peregrine Devlin, head of the London Critics Ci ..read more

World War II.  Somewhere in Germany.  Accompanied by a cameraman shooting propaganda for Mother Russia, a ragtag platoon fighting the Nazis receives a distress signal from fellow soldiers and heads off to investigate.  They approach a church where no Russians can be found, but the church is inhabited by creatures who appear to be constructed from weapons, parts of machines and vehicles, but still have blood flowing through their veins.  The creatures seem like part of the Nazi war machine, but then, one can’t be sure in the fog of war.  Soon, cut off from the outside w ..read more

Following a double mastectomy, and hoping to recover in peace, actress Veronica Ghent travels to what she believes will be a solitary retreat in the Scottish Highlands.  She’s accompanied by a young nurse, Desi, who through sheer will and a good heart is able to put up with Veronica’s brusque, standoffish nature.  There are other forces at work:  the land on which their cabin sits was the burial ground of thousands of alleged witches, whose ashes have fertilized the soil and created ground rich with supernatural power.  When her dreams are haunted by visions of witches bein ..read more

Jennifer Check and Anita “Needy” Lesnicky are best friends living in the town of Devil’s Kettle, best known for its waterfall and high school football team.  When Jennifer suggests she and Needy step out to see a band, Low Shoulder, at the local roadhouse, Melody Lane, Needy’s reluctant.  She’s rather spend the night with Chip, her boyfriend.  But Jennifer's nothing if not persuasive. Upon arriving at Melody Lane, it’s clear the band is a bunch of locals posing as hipsters from the city.  But Jennifer’s entranced by the lead singer, Nikolai, who she finds “salty,” and as th ..read more

Driving instructor Rose Dooley lives alone in rural Ireland, but in fact she’s hardly ever alone.  The local residents call Rose any time they have a, shall we say, ghost problem. Which happens more often than you’d think. You see, Rose’s father, the late ghost hunter Vincent Dooley, has imbued Rose with certain ‘talents’ to divine and chat up ghosts that are giving people a hard time. That’s when she’s approached by one Martin Martin, a woodworker whose late wife has been making his life hell for the past several years, constantly berating him and his choices from beyond the grave ..read more

Eccentric billionaire Rudolph Deutsch wants someone to figure out what (or who's) been haunting the old Belasco mansion, the “Mt Everest of haunted houses.” Apparently the house has something to do with the secret to life after death, so Deutsch enlists a team of potential rivals to get to the bottom of it:  physicist and sometime paranormal investigator Barrett and his wife Ann; mental medium Florence Tanner; and physical medium Ben Fischer, the sole survivor of the last attempt to exorcise the old home. Almost from the jump, something’s off – no one trusts each other, science butts head ..read more

It’s a cage match in a used car graveyard, with soul hunter Cyrus Kriticos taking on soul preserver Kalina Oretzia.  Lost amidst the metal is The Breaker, a murderous ghost Cyrus wishes to add to his collection.  Assisting him is Dennis, a medium whose ability to sense ghosts sends him into spasms of pain.  Kalina’s only wish is to set souls free and let them roam the earth.  Cyrus succeeds in capturing Breaker, but loses his life in the process.  We cut to the home of Cyrus’s nephew, math teacher Arthur Kriticos, his two children Bobby and Kathy, and their nanny, the ..read more