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Movie Oubliette

Should these forgotten fantastical films escape the oubliette?


Latest episode

  • 200. Labyrinth (featuring David Goelz)

    01:29:10||Ep. 200
    For our 200th episode, we're revisiting the film that inspired our podcast name!David Goelz of The Muppets joins us as our very special guest to celebrating the 40th anniversary of Labyrinth. The film paired Jim Henson’s creature-shop with a Terry Jones screenplay, George Lucas producing, Brian Froud's world-building, and David Bowie doing what only Bowie could plausibly do: play a goblin king as if he were headlining a particularly sinister school dance. Jennifer Connelly’s Sarah, annoyed beyond reason at being asked to babysit, spends the film crossing a maze filled with sarcastic puppets, impossible architecture, and a villain who seems to believe charisma and a Limahl fright wig is a substitute for governance.It recouped less than half its budget at the box office, but is the lighter companion to The Dark Crystal (1982) a delightful adventure that rightfully found a devoted audience on VHS, or should it be locked in its own oubliette? Find out!

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  • 199. Masters of the Universe (1987) (with Matt Swaford)

    01:22:55||Ep. 199
    To mark the release of the new Masters of the Universe film, Matt Swaford of Reklaimer's Vintage Toys joins us to revisit Cannon Films' notorious attempt to launch the cinematic branch of Mattel's toy franchise in 1987. Featuring an all-star cast of Dolph Lundgren, Frank Langella, James 'Mr Strickland' Tolkan, a pre-Voyager Robert Duncan MacNeill, and pre-almost everything Courteney Cox, the film is most remembered for disappointing fans of the sword and sorcery sci-fi mash-up by setting most of the action in a school gymnasium on present day Earth, and replacing Orko and Battle Cat with the more budget-friendly Billy Barty in an orange troll make-up.But is it an unfairly maligned hidden gem or a best-forgotten example of 80s genre excess on the cheap? Find out!

  • 198. Bug Buster (featuring Doug Jones and Derek Maki)

    01:30:09||Ep. 198
    Legendary actor and creature performer Doug Jones and independent filmmaker Derek Maki join Dan and Conrad to reminisce about Bug Buster (1998), a late-90s horror-comedy in which a quaint lakeside town is terrorised by mutant insects. The incredible cast combines a pre-Knocked Up Katherine Heigl with Randy Quaid, Star Trek alumni James Doohan and George Takei, Meredith Salenger, and – of course – Doug Jones as the big bad: Mother Bug! The movie sits squarely in the era when creature features were increasingly living on video rather than in theaters, and it builds its appeal from ecological panic, practical-effects goo, and the deliciously overripe promise that a “former military man” might somehow sort out an insect apocalypse with enough swagger.You can follow and support Derek's documentary on Doug's incredible career by visiting www.getmedougjones.com and adding it to your watchlist on imdb. The Kickstarter campaign kicks off on Monday 18 May.

  • 197. Phenomena

    01:14:32||Ep. 197
    Dan is back from vacation and treats us to Phenomena (1985) – a supernatural giallo from Dario Argento that features a pre-Labyrinth Jennifer Connelly in a star-making lead as an insect-loving teenager who arrives at a Swiss girls’ school only to sleepwalk into a serial murder case that only becomes more bizarre as the story unravels. Released by New Line Cinema in the U.S. as Creepers (shorn of 30 minutes of its running time), Phenomena emerged in Argento’s most-celebrated period, with the director producing and co-writing with Franco Ferrini, Donald Pleasence as the obligatory learned eccentric, and a soundtrack that behaves like it's had one espresso too many. But is it an under-appreciated piece of Italian art, or an excessive and unruly misstep? Find out!

  • 196. Cool World (with Melinda Mock)

    01:14:23||Ep. 196
    RetroBlasting's Melinda Mock stands in for Dan as animation auteur Ralph Bakshi's Cool World (1992) bursts out of the oubliette and threatens to overwhelm us with its incoherent plot and haphazard melange of visuals. Starring a post Batman Kim Basinger as femme fatale Holli Would, Gabriel Byrne as murderous cartoonist Jack, and a very young Brad Pitt as by-the-book Cool World detective, Frank, Cool World is a very 90s live action/animation crossover with a remarkable soundtrack.Tonally the film tries on noir, erotica, satire and straight-up fever dreams, and then leaves the dressing room without checking the mirror. It’s flashy but confused, but never dull. But does it deserve to be pricked by the spike of power and be released from oubliette, or should it be sucked back into the author's pen and forgotten forever? Find out!

  • 195. Cure

    01:16:23||Ep. 195
    In this Patrons' choice episode, we're exposing ourselves to Cure (1997) – the film that announced Kiyoshi Kurosawa as one of the most unsettling voices in modern horror. Set in Tokyo at the tail end of Japan's "lost decade", it follows weary detective Takabe (Kōji Yakusho) as he investigates a string of seemingly connected string of murders... with apparently different perpetrators. Victims keep turning up with the same grotesque X carved into their necks, and the killers – usually found standing nearby in a daze –have absolutely no idea why they did it. Just when things seem bleak enough, Takabe encounters a mysterious drifter, Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara) – a soft-spoken young man who asks everyone the same simple question: Who are you? Should this early progenitor of the "J-horror" phenomenon be released from the oubliette… or would it be safer if we all forgot we ever saw it? Find out!

  • 194. Hardware

    01:19:19||Ep. 194
    Released in 1990, Hardware is the abrasive feature debut of cult filmmaker Richard Stanley. Starring Stacey Travis as sculptor Jill and Dylan McDermott as desert drifter Mo, the film begins with a romantic gesture that – through the entirely avoidable gift of salvaged military hardware – turns into a claustrophobic battle with a self-repairing government robot determined to follow its programming to the letter. Emerging at the tail end of the VHS-era cyberpunk boom and somewhere in the industrial-grime lineage between The Terminator and Mad Max 2, Stanley’s film quickly carved out a reputation as a cult object: equal parts grimy dystopian satire and mechanical slasher movie. But is this often hard-to-find rusty curio a gem that deserves to be given pride of place in your lounge, or is it best left in the desert? Find out!