Content Note: This episode contains discussion of horror films both classic and modern, and may include mild spoilers.
Ever since the BBC’s Ghostwatch (1992) terrified me as a child, I’ve been chasing that same raw, disorienting fear — the kind that makes your skin crawl and your imagination spiral. In this episode, I explore my lifelong quest to be scared again, and what that journey has revealed about the way horror works — and sometimes fails.
From the flickering shadows of early silent cinema to the paranoia of Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968) and the grief-fuelled terror of The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014), I look at how horror uses light, sound, and silence to build unease. Along the way, we revisit the spiritual and societal fears of The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973) and The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976), the sunlit menace of The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973) and Midsommar (Ari Aster, 2019), and the isolation of The VVitch (Robert Eggers, 2015).
I also reflect on modern reinventions — from It Follows (David Robert Mitchell, 2014) and Talk to Me (Danny & Michael Philippou, 2022) to The Black Phone (Scott Derrickson, 2021), Don’t Breathe (Fede Álvarez, 2016), and Weapons (Zach Cregger, 2025). Alongside them, I consider the more conventional studio horrors like The Conjuring (James Wan, 2013), Insidious (2010), The Village (M. Night Shyamalan, 2004), and Smile (2022) — films that divide audiences and highlight how tricky it is to balance tension, art, and authenticity.
This isn’t a simple list of favourites or failures. It’s a conversation about what truly unsettles us — how horror reflects our anxieties, our grief, our need for control, and why, even after decades of searching, I still haven’t quite found that perfect scare. But maybe that’s what keeps horror — and me — alive.
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