Best Horrorreferencebooks Podcasts (2025)

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Episode 109 - Hammer Frankenstein Films with Peter Cushing Part 2 1:47:13

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4h ago1:47:13

1:47:13

Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969), Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974) Continuing our quest to get through the rest of Hammer's Frankenstein films which starred Peter Cushing, we cover the last three titles that Hammer made. Cushing loved to play this character, and he's done it like no one ever had,…

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Episode 108- Hammer Frankenstein's with Peter Cushing pt 1 1:45:23

7d ago1:45:23

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The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), and The Evil of Frankenstein (1964) What can you say about the Hammer Frankenstein films that hasn't been said before? Well, a lot, actually! In 1957, a relatively small, mostly unknown studio made a film that would forever change horror and kick off a cycle of sensual, bloody, a…

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Episode 107 - Making Monsters with Howard Berger and Marshall Julius 1:22:38

30d ago1:22:38

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No matter what kind of horror fan you are, there's a good chance that you love the monsters. Whether it's from the Universal Classics, Hammer's colorful reinterpretations, the amazing creatures from Ray Harryhausen, to the no-classic aliens in Star Wars, monsters are a backbone of cinema, and arguably, are the backbone of horror. It's one of the th…

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Episode 106 - Hammer's Quatermass Films 1:25:41

1M ago1:25:41

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The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), Quatermass 2 (1957), Quatermass and the Pit (1967) Everyone knows the name Hammer Films (at least, we hope they do!) but most people associate it with gothic horror, particularly their reimagining of the Universal classic Frankenstein in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957). Yet Hammer had been around long before Peter …

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Episode 105 - Andy Milligan 1:32:28

2M ago1:32:28

1:32:28

The Ghastly Ones (1968), The Man with Two Heads (1972), and Carnage (1984) There are not many filmmakers like Andy Milligan. Sure, there were a lot of no-budget independents during Milligan's era that somehow got their finished pictures to play theaters and released on home video. But there weren't many whose real life was almost as terrifying as t…

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Episode 104 - Fantasy Horror 1:34:17

2M ago1:34:17

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A Company of Wolves (1984), Nightbreed (1990), Errementari (2017) As horror fans, we might not really think about the amount of horror elements that are in other sub-genres, such as fantasy. Sure, we all know titles like Conan the Barbarian (1982) that has a guy who turns into a giant snake, or Legend (1985) where one of the main characters is some…

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Episode 103 - Late Night Snack with Horror Artist Don England 1:22:13

3M ago1:22:13

1:22:13

If you've been to a few horror conventions over the years, you've probably noticed all the artists showcasing their work. Do you ever stop to browse, flipping through their illustrations and taking in the different visions of horror they bring to life? These artists set up hoping to catch the eye of fans wandering past, sharing their unique takes o…

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Episode 102 - Bob Clark 1:44:31

3M ago1:44:31

1:44:31

Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (1972), Deathdream (1974), Black Christmas (1974) Director Bob Clark will probably always be remembered for his now classic holiday film, A Christmas Story (1983), released the same year as his previous film, Porky's, which is one of the raunchiest sex comedies of that era! But he started off making horror f…

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Episode 101 - Horror 101 with Dr. AC 2:29:14

4M ago2:29:14

2:29:14

Better grab something to write with before you hit play on this one. In this extra-long episode, we dive into a variety of horror sub-genres and each pick a title that we think defines that category. Not necessarily the best film, but one that captures the essence of the sub-genre in a meaningful way. To help us take on this ridiculously huge (but …

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Episode 100 - The Bloody Best of DtH! 1:50:41

4M ago1:50:41

1:50:41

That's right . . . we made it to episode 100! Taking a nod from Fangoria Magazine from back in the day, when they would put out their annual "Bloody Best Of" issue, we're going to follow suit (in a way) by revisiting favorite moments from our previous 99. When we published our first episode back on Oct. 5th, 2021, who knew we were going to make it …

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Episode 99 - Jaws 50th Anniversary 1:19:00

5M ago1:19:00

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Fifty years ago, a film was released that literally changed the world. Jaws transformed the way people think about going into the water and revolutionized how studios make movies, effectively creating what we now call the "summer blockbuster." Its influence is still felt five decades later, by both fans and filmmakers alike. And there's a reason fo…

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Episode 98 - Twice Told Tales: The Blob 1:19:23

5M ago1:19:23

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The Blob (1958) & The Blob (1988) Continuing our theme of taking a deep dive into an original film and its remake, this time we're looking at a pair with exactly 30 years between them: The Blob, from 1958, and its 1988 remake. A lot had changed in those three decades, especially on the technical side, with advancements in special makeup effects def…

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Episode 97 - Chas. Balun 1:57:08

6M ago1:57:08

1:57:08

There have been many horror writers that have been important to the genre, but few have had the outsized impact of the one and only Chas. Balun. Whether it was his work in Fangoria, Gorezone, or his own magazine Deep Red, even if you didn't see his name at the head of the article, you knew it was him within a few sentences, by either by the tone of…

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Episode 96 - Made-for-TV Horror Part 4 1:25:38

6M ago1:25:38

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A Taste of Evil (1971), Snowbeast (1977), This House Possessed (1981) We're back on the small screen for our fourth dive into the world of made-for-TV horror—which should tell you something: we love these things. Maybe it's nostalgia from growing up in an era when you couldn't stream whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted. Or maybe it's because s…

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Episode 95 - Mario Bava 1:47:50

7M ago1:47:50

1:47:50

Black Sunday (1960), Blood and Black Lace (1964), and A Bay of Blood (1971) There are films by certain directors that are truly iconic—classics of the genre we sometimes assume everyone has already seen. But it's easy to forget that, right now, there are fans just beginning their journey into horror. Whether due to age or a newfound curiosity, they…

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Episode 94 - Horror at Home 1:44:06

7M ago1:44:06

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As horror fans, it's hard enough trying to keep up with all the movies—let alone the memorabilia and collectibles—but just imagine having to live with one of us! In this episode, we've invited our wives onto the show to share their perspectives—not just on living with a slightly obsessive fan, but on how they've come to embrace the genre themselves…

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Episode 93 - 90s Sci-Fi Horror 1:42:27

8M ago1:42:27

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Hardware (1990), Death Machine (1994), and Event Horizon (1997) The 1990s are often thought of as a decade of dread for horror fans—not because of what was on the screen, but because nothing good supposedly came out of it. Or at least, that's the typical response. But as we continue down the path to Discover the Horror, we're starting to realize th…

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Episode 92 - H.P. Lovecraft Movies 1:49:49

8M ago1:49:49

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Die, Monster, Die! (1965), Necronomicon (1993), and Gods of the Deep (2023) While Stephen King may dominate when it comes to movie adaptations of his work—good or bad—one might expect that H.P. Lovecraft, given his immense impact on the literary world, would inspire just as many films. Yet, despite his influence, far fewer movies have been made fro…

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Episode 91 - Author Bryan Senn 1:46:40

8M ago1:46:40

1:46:40

In our search for more knowledge about the horror genre, the films we love, and the people behind them, many horror fans began their journey with reference books. Long before the internet, these books served as stepping stones, introducing fans to films they had never heard of and offering deeper insight into the people behind the movies they alrea…

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Episode 90 - Video Nasties 1:59:34

9M ago1:59:34

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Night of the Bloody Apes (1969), Don't Go in the House (1979), Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (1981) In 1984, in the U.K., the Video Recording Act was passed, which required certification of all video releases by the British Board of Film Classification, aka BBFC. This all came about due to a list of video titles that a group of various religious …

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Episode 89: Fright Rags with Ben Scrivens 2:02:41

9M ago2:02:41

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In the horror community, the easiest way to show you are a fan is by what you wear. The horror T-shirt has been a staple in the fandom for what seems like forever. But it wasn't always like that. To say that fans have it easy today is a slight understatement. Not only in terms of their availability, but of the selection that is out there! It is an …

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Episode 88 - Val Lewton Part 2 1:22:19

10M ago1:22:19

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The Leopard Man (1943), The Seventh Victim (1943), Isle of the Dead (1945) Back in episode 23, we covered producer Val Lewton and three of his films. While Lewton only produced about a dozen films—and only a handful of them horror—his work made a huge impact on the genre. That's why we've decided to discuss three more of his films, hoping to inspir…

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Episode 87 - Twice Told Tales: Nosferatu 1:38:10

10M ago1:38:10

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Nosferatu (1922), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) In episode 78, we started our ongoing Twice Told Tales segment, featuring the first two versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In this episode, with the recent release of Robert Eggers long awaited version of Nosferatu, we're going back to the original, one of cinema's first true monsters, in F. W…

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Episode 86 - 2024 Wrap Up 3:17:55

11M ago3:17:55

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As 2024 comes to an end, we look in a rearview mirror filled with some amazing films, especially ones that came out this year. Filmmakers around the world wowed us with creative stories, intriguing plots and outstanding techniques. It is definitely a great time to be a horror fan. 2024 was another stellar year for us at the podcast, where we covere…

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Episode 85 - Modern Folk Horror 1:50:19

11M ago1:50:19

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Wake Wood (2009), The Wind (2018), Apostle (2018) Folk horror has its roots in tales of witches and paganism, stretching back centuries. In cinema, the term "folk horror" was first coined by Rod Cooper in Kine Weekly to describe the 1971 classic Blood on Satan's Claw. However, the themes that define folk horror—witchcraft, ancient rituals, and the …

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Episode 84 - Turkey Day 2024 1:22:53

12M ago1:22:53

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From Hell it Came (1957), The Oily Maniac (1976), Cry Wilderness (1987) It's Turkey Time once again here at the podcast! And in this one, we have 3 wonderful titles to serve up to you, each one with a different flavor to appease a variety of tastes! As we've mentioned many times before, a "turkey" is not a bad movie. It's not an intentionally made …

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Episode 83 - Wes Craven with Joe Maddrey 1:22:52

1y ago1:22:52

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One of the things we continue to preach on this podcast is learning about the people that are involved with the films we love. It helps you see more and understand more, about the person, as well as the final product they are involved with, whether they are an actor, makeup artist, or director. Author Joe Maddrey's recent book, The Soul of Wes Crav…

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Episode 82 - Haunted Houses 1:28:47

1y ago1:28:47

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The Legend of Hell House (1973), Hausu (1977), The Abandoned (2006) In older small towns, there is usually some old house on the outskirts of town, maybe someone lives there, maybe not. But it is one that young kids dare themselves to go up to. And if you do dare to enter this dwelling, you'll find creaking boards, dust covered items from furniture…

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Episode 81-Fangoria 1:22:02

1y ago1:22:02

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Four decades on, and Fangoria is still one of the leading voices of horror culture. But in it's heyday in the 1980s, it was the gold standard. It wouldn't be an overstatement to say that Fangoria was the most important part of horror culture at that time. On this episode of Discover the Horror, we take a trip through Fango's history and discuss how…

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Episode 80 - Blood Thirsty Trilogy 1:07:42

1y ago1:07:42

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The Vampire Doll (1970), Lake of Dracula (1971), and Evil of Dracula (1974). In the annals of Japanese horror cinema, this vampire trilogy from director Michio Yamamoto seems to be close to escaping into obscurity. In fact, try finding much more than a passing mention of these films in any reference books. But thanks to Arrow Video, all three of th…

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Episode 79 - Gordon, Yuzna & Paoli 1:43:33

1y ago1:43:33

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Re-Animator (1985), From Beyond (1986), and Dagon (2001) Bringing the works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft to the screen is not an easy task. Much of the horror Lovecraft talked about wasn't described or explained too much, leaving it up to the reader. But when director Stuart Gordon, producer Brian Yuzna, and writer Dennis Paoli got together to adap…

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Episode 78 - Twice Told Tales: Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1:12:16

1y ago1:12:16

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Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978). We've decided to take on a little twist here, doing an on-going series that we're calling Twice Told Tales. This is where we are going to compare two films, an original and its remake. This is not to say which one is better, but to highlight the positives of both, wha…

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Episode 77: Slashers with Aaron Crowell from HorrorHound Magazine 2:01:38

1y ago2:01:38

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Mother's Day (1980), Madman (1981), Pieces (1982), and Evil Dead Trap (1988) When you're talking about horror films with most non-horror fans, they usually are thinking about the slashers which they seem to encapsule all of that genre. But when us fans start to dig into that sub-genre, that's when the questions arise, parameters seemed like they ha…

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Episode 76 Al Adamson and Sam Sherman 1:20:33

1+ y ago1:20:33

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Films discussed: Satan's Sadists (1969), Brain of Blood (1970), Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971) From the mid-60's until the late 70's director Al Adamson and producer Sam Sherman made some of the most memorable low-budget horror and exploitation pictures to slide across American drive-in and grindhouse screens. Together they made films that not onl…

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Episode 75 - Special Guest Zandor Vorkov 1:01:04

1+ y ago1:01:04

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In the realm of low budget filmmakers, Al Adamson, along with his partner, producer Sam Sherman, are gods among men. They created a wide variety of pictures, in just about every sub-genre out there, and made with more love than money. But they were entertaining, and always memorable. Perhaps their most memorable (and successful) film was 1971's Dra…

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Episode 74 - Silent German Expressionist Films 1:42:33

1+ y ago1:42:33

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The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), The Golem (1920), and Waxworks (1924). In the very beginning of cinema, it was the German filmmakers who took cinema to the next level, even when it was still in its infancy. Creating strange angles, weird landscapes and buildings, and bizarre stories, these filmmakers gave audiences something completely new and …

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Episode 73- Pre-Code Horror Comics 1:42:35

1+ y ago1:42:35

1:42:35

In the mid 1950's an overzealous witch hunt took place in the United States focused on the corrupting effects of comic books on young people, which ended in horror comics being banned from the shelves by a draconian comics code. But why? What did those comics contain that got people so riled up? Well, it depends on who you ask. WE asked Dr. Dan Yez…

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Episode 72: 50's Giant Creepy Crawlers 1:41:35

1+ y ago1:41:35

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Them! (1954), The Deadly Mantis (1957), and The Black Scorpion (1957) The decade of the 1950s gave horror fans a ton of different giant monster flicks, but usually taking something seemingly harmless, such as ants or grasshoppers, but somehow, someway, are mutated into growing into gigantic proportions! We had giant spiders, praying mantis, mollusk…

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Episode 71 - Infectious Body Horror 1:33:11

1+ y ago1:33:11

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Splinter (2008), Thanatomorphose (2012), and Contracted (2013) When discussing films that deal with body horror, David Cronenberg and his work usually come up in the conversation. How can he not, when so many of his earlier films all dealt with some sort of body horror, mutations, and transformations? But there are plenty of films that go above and…

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Episode 70 - Universal's Creature from the Black Lagoon Films 1:45:22

1+ y ago1:45:22

1:45:22

Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Revenge of the Creature (1955), The Creature Walks Among Us (1956). And now, we come to the end of our Universal Monster episodes, having made our way through all the Dracula, Frankenstein, Invisible Man, Mummy, and the Wolf Man films, we now take a dive into the Black Lagoon! Coming out a little less than a d…

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Episode 69 - Horror at the Music Box with Programmer Will Morris 1:59:03

1+ y ago1:59:03

1:59:03

Obviously, many of us film fans see movies in theaters througout the year, whether it be at a national chain or at an independent, arthouse theater - or both. Some of us are even hitting film festivals, special screenings, and for the truly unhinged cinephiles, film marathons. For these kind of events to happen though, there have to be some mad gen…

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Episode 68 - Made for TV Horrors 3 1:09:01

1+ y ago1:09:01

1:09:01

The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre (1964), Crowhaven Farm (1970), and Cruise into Terror (1978) With this being our 3rd episode covering these little television terrors, one would get the idea that there is a lot of teleplays, or TV-movies, out there that deserve our attention. And you would be correct! From the '60s into the early '80s, there was a plet…

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Episode 67: Film Preservation and Archiving with Special Guest Oscar Becher 1:33:49

1+ y ago1:33:49

1:33:49

During conversations with serious film collectors, you might hear terms like inter-positive, or first negative, or even OCN, and have no clue to what they actually mean. Don't feel bad because a lot of us are in the same boat. These are some of the many terms used when discussing the preservation and archiving of films, not to mention the amount of…

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Episode 66 - Women Directors 1:40:07

1+ y ago1:40:07

1:40:07

Chained (2012), Honeymoon (2014), and Relic (2020) With over 60 episodes so far in our podcast history, we realized that in all that we covered, we had never covered anything by a woman director. We knew we needed to change that. Going through the history of women directors, we realized that not only wasn't something new, but have been working in t…

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Episode 65 - Universal Monster Rallys 1:21:33

1+ y ago1:21:33

1:21:33

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), House of Frankenstein (1944), and House of Dracula (1945). Some say that the monster rally films marked the end of the Universal creature features, which could partially be true, but we feel it is for different reasons than the actual films themselves, and they still have a lot of merit to them. While the stu…

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Episode 64 - Severin Films with David Gregory 1:40:27

1+ y ago1:40:27

1:40:27

This truly is a great time to be alive as a crazy cinephile. Just about every day, new amazing looking releases of some of our favorite films are announced, as well as some almost forgotten films brought back from the edges of obscurity for a whole new generation of fans to enjoy. And one of the companies at the forefront is Severin Films, who cont…

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Episode 63 - Amicus Anthologies 1:47:28

2y ago1:47:28

1:47:28

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965), The House that Dripped Blood (1971) and Tales from the Crypt (1972) Amicus Productions was most known for their anthology films, even though that was a small percentage of the types of films they did make in over the years. But because of the quality of the films, the power of the stories they were based on, an…

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Episode 62 - Bigfoot! 1:12:43

2y ago1:12:43

1:12:43

Bigfoot (1970), Creature from Black Lake (1976), and Abominable (2006). Tales of a mysterious, giant beast that wanders the wooded areas of the U.S., has never really proven to exist, but even to this day, is believed by many to really be out there, still hidden from mankind. Starting with Bigfoot in 1970, our furry giant became the subject of many…

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Episode 61 - Norman J. Warren 1:15:00

2y ago1:15:00

1:15:00

Satan's Slave (1976), Prey (1977), and Terror (1978) There are a lot of directors out there that might not have a huge filmography, or even be that well known to the general population of film fans, even in the horror genre. So there is always room to discover them! In this episode, we take a look at three films by British independent director Norm…

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Episode 60 - 2023 Wrap Up 2:08:20

2y ago2:08:20

2:08:20

Another year ending means another Wrap Up episode where we go over our top picks for the year, as well as discussing some other titles we've seen in 2023. While most of the films we do cover here as our favorite viewings for this year are from the last few years, they are not all from 2023. But as we've pointed out many times before, if you're watc…