It's one of those movies that is on just about every serious horror fans favorites list. John Carpenter's The Thing is one of the most debated and dissected films of all time, and so is certainly fertile ground for lengthy discussion. So when I wanted to discuss, debate and dissect the movie, I contacted one of my longest-running Vault contributors, and someone who has been kind of silent as of late.
If, however, long-windedness is what you're looking for, then you've come to the right place. When was Blair assimilated? What does the Thing really want? How does it work? And what the hell happened to Fuchs? Ray and I discussed the weighties, and generally rambled on and on for nearly an hour and a half, so if that's your bag, then go ahead and take a listen to this very special "You Gotta Be Effin' Kiddin' Me" edition of Conversations in the Dark. You can either listen directly to the embedded player below, or proceed to the Vaultcast page to download for listening at your leisure...
He's one of horror's most political and outspoken filmmakers. Over the past 45 years, George Romero has given us a body of work unlike anyone else in the genre. Along the way, he's become a Hollywood outsider, doing things his way--or at least trying his best to.
To discuss Romero and his work, I brought on a blogger whom I've admired for some time now, the masked and mysterious Pax Romano of Billy Loves Stu. A fellow Romero fan and zombie lover, Pax was a whole lot of fun to have on Conversations along with me and my very own zombie companion, Captain Cruella. We get into everything from the Living Dead flicks to Martin, Creepshow and all points in between (not to mention a brief but entertaining non sequitur into the world of horror porn parodies...)I've been an admirer of the work of Kevin Maher for some time now. His well-regarded genre video clip show series, Kevin Geeks Out, was an eye-opener for me, and if you've been reading the Vault for a while, you may have seen my reviews of several of those events. Simply put, Kevin is a kindred spirit, a fellow unabashed geek--and so I'd been eager to have him as a guest on Conversations in the Dark for a while.
Thankfully, it finally happened, and it was worth the wait. Having just come off a first-time viewing of Stephen King's Maximum Orverdrive, Mr. Maher was pretty jazzed to wax rhapsodic on the topic of killer machines. Which is pretty ambitious, since this is probably not one of the most high-profile of horror subgenres. But we went for it, and with an assist from Captain Cruella, put together a little something I think you'll enjoy. So listen in as I'm joined by a brilliant TV comedy writer and movie nerd for a discussion of murderous vending machines and homicidal laundry folders.
This is one I've been anticipating for a long time... For as long as I've been doing Conversations in the Dark, actually. Tenebrous Kate is probably my closest real-life, real-world pal out of the entire horror blogosphere, and I respect the living hell out of her. She's got style, she's got talent, and she's also got the coolest taste in flicks of almost anyone I know.
I hope you enjoy our giddy discussion on the end of the world... Feel free to listen in on the embedded player below, or proceed to the Vaultcast page and download it for listening at your leisure!
Once you get two dyed-in-the-wool Godzillaphiles together, it seems you just can't keep them apart. And so, we come to the third installment of the crossover podcast series Monster Island Resort's Miguel Rodriguez and I have been recording--all about our mutual passion, Big G. This time out, we turn our attention away from the classic Showa series of the 1950s-1970s, and move on to the second series of Godzilla films.
And CitD returns after a month-long hiatus! What better way, I ask, to bring the series back than with the one and only Stacie Ponder, author of a little blog some of you folks may know, by the name of Final Girl? Hmm...anyone?
The spot: A clandestine, undisclosed location on the New York/Connecticut border. The guest: Captain Cruella, Zombie Queen of the Carnivorous Cadavers. The cuisine: Confidential.
We're here to discuss a fascinating phenomenon in our popular culture: The rise of the zombie. Face it, our undead friends are everywhere, and the movies are just the beginning. They have infiltrated our world, metaphorically speaking. And on Saturday in Saugerties, New York, they will do so literally (well, heh, almost) thanks to Cruella's Village Invasion zombie crawl, which we also touch on (including The Vault of Horror's involvement in the event).
I'm thrilled about this week's edition of Conversations in the Dark, because Italian horror is one of my favorite topics to discuss. And if there's anyone whose name is synonymous with Italian horror, it would be Dario Argento. Suspiria is one of my all-time favorite horror films, and Argento's signature style in other movies like Deep Red and Tenebrae have long fascinated me.
So of course, I had to bring in one of my favorite Argento fanatics, Ms. Christine Hadden of Fascination with Fear. Christine is more well-versed in Argento than myself--and so, seeking, as always, to make myself look good by surrounding myself with talented individuals, I invited Christine to join me this week. By listening in on the embedded player below, you can hear us wistfully sing the praises of Italy's ambassador of terror, as well as veer into Hitchcock, Deodato and all points in between.
Have you recently found yourself overcome with the unrelenting need to hear two 30-something year-old men talk for nearly an hour about Japanese monster movies? If so, then boy, have you come to the right place.
This week on the Vaultcast, it is my distinct honor to have as my guest Mr. Miguel Rodriguez, a fellow Godzilla-phile who also happens to run his own podcast, Monster Island Resort. As you can probably tell from the name of his show, Miguel is a huge fan of the big green lizard and his many far-out cohorts and foes. And given my own unconditional love of all things kaiju--see my three-part history of the original Godzilla series--I figured it might be a very good idea if we put our heads together and engaged in some mutual worship of rubber monster suits.
For the first time ever, this time around in Conversations in the Dark we spend our allotted minutes focusing on one film and one film only...more or less. It's an exceptional kind of show this week, but one makes exceptions when one is joined by an online horror dynamo the likes of Ms. Kristy Jett, the omnipresent force whose work can be found on sites like The Blood Sprayer, Fangoria.com and Dread Central, and who is one of the guiding lights behind Fright Rags, online horror T-shirt merchant extraordinaire.
Make yourself comfortable tonight, ladies and gentlemen. Because this time around, we have a very special, double-length edition of Conversations in the Dark. As part of the ongoing Lucky 13 series in which both the Vault and Brutal as Hell are currently embroiled, I was originally going to be joined by BAH's Britt Hayes for back-to-back weeks, discussing both the recent zombie edition and upcoming sci-fi edition of The Lucky 13. But plans changed, and so instead we combined both into one mondo, 90-minute Vaultcast.
It's a thrill this week to be joined by the one and only BC of Horror-Movie-a-Day and Bloody-Disgusting, one of my true blogging inspirations. He had an opportunity to attend Comic Con last weekend, and now that the geek explosion has come and gone, I figured I'd have him on to talk about all the stuff that went down in San Diego. While I had his attention, we also went off on random tangents about M. Night Shyamalan's downward spiral, and our cautious expectations for Matt Reeves' Let Me In.
I bet you've been laying up nights, just wondering when Conversations in the Dark would return... Well the answer is, right now! That's right, the Vaultcast returns just in time for the San Diego Comic-Con. As my guest this week I have someone who will actually be going to the event (unlike me)--and that's Maweanne (a.k.a. Maryanne Schultz) of The Spooky Brew.
Remakes are indeed such a ripe subject for endless pontification, that this week in CitD, I return to the well for more! This time around, I'm joined by Doug Plomitallo, creator of the horror anthology web series Scared Stiff. We tackle some of the many problems with remakes, and why those within the horror film industry seem to be so obsessed with them. We also get off on a few long-winded tangents I found too entertaining to edit out, so enjoy!
In keeping with last weekend's kick-off of The Lucky 13 in tandem with Brutal as Hell, this time around I invited Brutal as Hell's managing editor and founder Marc Patterson to join me on Conversations in the Dark. And since our first Lucky 13 installment featured discussions of our favorite horror films in the sub-genre of grindhouse/exploitation, we took this opportunity to really get in-depth and talk about exactly what defines grindhouse and exploitation in the first place.
Survival of the Dead is a film which has polarized the horror masses. I've already stated how much I enjoyed it, and one of the folks who called me out on that from the word go was someone who didn't particularly enjoy George Romero's newest zombie opus, Mr. Chuck Conry of Zombies DON'T Run. What to do? Why, invite him on the Vaultcast to discuss the film, of course!
Remakes! There, doesn't that just make your stomach get all tight and your palms cold and sweaty? Horror fans tend to get a bit up in arms at the very notion of remakes, but take a listen as The Horror Digest's Andre Dumas and myself wax philosophic about exactly why remakes are not always a bad thing, and how they can actually serve an important purpose!
Ever since I started doing CitD, I've been looking forward to having a chat about classic horror, and who better to have it with than the guy who runs Classic-Horror.com? Nate Yapp, author of that Rondo-nominated site (as well as of Cinema Geek, home of my 52 Perfect Movies series), was kind enough to join me this time out for an interesting discussion of all things old school.
Delve down into horror's murky underwater depths with me this week, as I'm joined by the Divemistress, of the blog Zombots! and The Avod podcast. DM is probably the best horror blogging oceanographer around, and she's also Canadian--which is why we've devoted the Vaultcast this week to talking about Canuck horror.
