Saturday Night Freak Show

Holly becomes a fire whisperer with Backdraft (1991), Hollywood's ode to firefighters, with Highlander/The Prophecy scribe Gregory Widen pitting two adversarial Irish brothers against each other and a serial arsonist who's been terrorizing Chicago. Listen as we turn to a Hannibal Lecter stand-in to gain psychological insight on the anthropomorphic monster on this week's exciting episode!

This week, we took a Freak Show Field Trip to see In A Violent Nature (2024), a indie Friday the 13th-style slasher shot almost entirely from a 3rd person perspective of it's Jason-like monster. Listen as we go stomping through the woods turning campers into curly-Qs in an effort to determine if the movie is having a go at us as a deadpan comedy sendup of F13 flicks on this weeks' exciting episode!

God created Sean, but science turned him into a god after getting programmed by The Lawnmower Man (1992), the best remembered 90s cautionary tale about the horrors of virtual reality. Simple-minded Jobe becomes a tyrannical terror after he's given VR brain chemistry enhancements by unscrupulous scientist Pierce Brosnan. Listen as we discuss how well VR is going in the present day, trip out to the most rudimentary computer animation ever rendered, and side with Stephen King on this week's exciting episode!

Colin kneels at the throne of Stirba, the werewolf queen of Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (1985), following Freak Show man of action, Reb Brown, into battle alongside werewolf hunter Christopher Lee into deepest, darkest Transylvania to infiltrate an orgy of punk lycanthropes. Listen as we discuss full moon sex rituals, monkey wolves, and threaten to hang the editor on this week's exciting episode!

Michaela wishes to explode over the local ruffians as a gelatinous mutant after watching X-Men (2000), the movie often credited with kick-starting the Marvel movie takeover. Listen as we reminisce about a simpler time when wire-stunts and small scale disasters were the order of the day, have nightmare flashbacks of cramming for the high school exam, and go out as swamp goblins on this week's exciting episode!

Holly finds all the boys think Nicole Kidman is To Die For (1995) playing a narcissistic, media obsessed weathercaster who seduces an idiot teen (Joaquin Phoenix) into killing her husband (Matt Dillon) in Gus Van Sant's fictionalized version of the Pamela Smart case. Listen as we discuss true-crime documentaries, 90s TV talk shows, and discover we're complicit in the ongoing media takeover on this week's exciting episode!

Sean tries to catch the invisible sex predator at large in Paul Verhoeven's Hollow Man (2000), which casts Kevin Bacon as a narcissistic scientist who discovers invisibility allows him to pursue his darkest impulses. Listen as we discuss invisible peen, God complexes, science battle montages, and more on this week's exciting episode!

"Into the light I command you," Colin exclaims, drawing out the occult investigator Constantine (2005). Keanu Reeves plays the very American version of the DC Comics exorcist, caught up in a battle between angels and demons on the streets of Los Angeles. Listen as we learn shocking things about intelligent crabs, the TV series "Lucifer," and debate if Keanu is a good actor on this week's exciting episode!

Michaela says she will never ever drive on a highway again after witnessing the catastrophic calamity that opens Final Destination 2 (2002), the movie that did to road trips what Jaws did for swimming in the ocean. Listen as we learn about Sean's real-life horror movie cat scare, challenge each other to build a red-string evidence board, and philosophize on the life of death on this week's exciting episode!