Saturday Night Freak Show

Holly waits for the Blood Moon to bring the return of the "Dark Stranger" from the ocean's depths with Messiah of Evil (1973), in which a woman goes searching for her missing artist father in a seemingly abandoned seaside town where residents await the fulfilment of a centuries old curse. Listen as we revisit the first film from the Howard the Duck-Indiana Jones writing team of Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, get chased by crowds of cat-screeching undead ghouls, bleed from our eyes, and camp with the Donner Party on this week's exciting episode!

Sean creates ripples through time and fractures his mind with the time-travel mind-bender The Butterfly Effect (2004), in which childhood friends experience a catalog of traumas that one of them tries to fix as an adult when he discovers his power to warp time by uncovering repressed memories. Listen as we rate the Misery Index as "High" on this one, discover that worms' memories are the key to human survival, and remind each other of traumatic past experiences on this week's exciting episode!

Colin gets caught in the middle of warring factions of angels battling it out on Earth in The Prophecy (1995), with Christopher Walken having the time of his life as the archangel Gabriel, searching for "the darkest soul" to lead his army against heaven. Listen as we wonder what an angel smells like, suck souls out of corpses, experience apocalyptic visions, and more on this week's exciting episode!

Michaela downloads the latest in high tech CD-ROM interactive horror, Brainscan (1994), in which Edward Furlong gets immersed into a virtual murder simulator emceed by a big-hair Freddy Krueger wannabe named The Trickster. Listen as we discover our mail demon's secret Hollywood history, normalize mutual window peeping flirtations, and realize (with horror) that sometimes we agree with movie authority figures, all on this week's exciting episode!

Holly stares into the sun at close range and gets space madness in Sunshine (2007), Danny Boyle and Alex Garland's follow up to 28 Days Later and The Beach, which fires a crew of scientists toward the dying sun in hopes of rekindling it with a nuclear device. Listen as we find dozens of new space travel related anxieties, reduce humans to dust, worship the almighty sun god and more on this week's exciting episode!

Sean's head explodes fighting the good fight against the evil telepaths of Scanners (1981), David Cronenberg's first real hit about a mind reader sent on a covert mission to infiltrate a group of other ESPers and kill their leader. Listen as we link our nervous systems, polish our holes, eat Hot Pogo Dogs, apologize for our "O" faces, and more on this week's exciting episode!

Colin studies up on the occult to do battle with the Goat of Mendes in The Devil Rides Out (1968), in which Christopher Lee and friends discover Satanism is being practiced by a wealthy cabal of astronomy geeks and their best pal is in danger of losing his soul! Listen as we attend summonings, conjurings, woodland revels, step into protective circles and ward off the Angel of Death himself on this week's exciting episode.

Michaela warns that if you create a sexy feminine creature in your lab you should not have sex with it with Splice (2009), a movie that stars Adrian Brody and Sarah Polley as scientists in Cronenbergland who do exactly that. Listen as we talk about tongue flowers, sex in the proximity of children, mommy issues, and science run amok on this week's exciting episode!

Holly chucks grenades and ten-thousand bullets at Reb Brown but nothing can touch him cuz he's a Strike Commando (1987), a Rambo clone from the Italian Ed Wood, Bruno Mattei. Former TV Captain America Brown sets out to avenge his teammates on the corrupt general who abandoned them. Listen as we talk childhood electrocution, violent innocence, and the magic of Disneyland on this week's exciting episode!