The HorrorBull Podcast

Phantasm V: Ravager is the Evil Dead II of the Phantasm series, and that is saying something. You can easily dismiss it as a last gasp for relevance, but you’d be wrong. It’s a smart, funny, gory, and self-referential BLAST of a film. I wish I understood more of it, but that has nothing to do with the film’s quality. It’s just that I don’t do well with nonlinear timelines, I guess, and that can explain quite a lot of why I spent most of the movie just going YEAAAAAAH! Here’s a synopsis for Phantasm V: Ravager that does a better job of explaining the movie than I could ever dream of doing: Small-town friends Reggie (Reggie Bannister), Mike (A. Michael Baldwin), and Jody (Bill Thornbury) continue in their quest to stop the evil, dimension-hopping schemes of The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm) and his armada of killer Sentinel Spheres. This time, the fight becomes a multi-dimensional battle across multiple timelines, alien planets and altered realities, where no less than the fate of Earth is on the line. There are only a few unfortunate aspects of the movie. One of them is that Don Coscarelli, though he wrote the screenplay, did [...] The post Ep 185, Phantasm V: Ravager l The HorrorBull Podcast appeared first on The HorrorBull Podcast.

This week’s episode revolves around Ken Russell‘s controversial 1971 historical drama / horror, ‘The Devils.’ The film is particularly controversial due to its commentary on the Catholic Church and its  Inquisition-era policies. Here’s a brief summary of the plot: In 17th century France, hunchbacked nun Sister Jeanne (Vanessa Redgrave) lusts after the town’s priest, Father Grandier (Oliver Reed), a sinful but ultimately just man. But when the priest marries, jealous Jeanne accuses Grandier of using witchcraft on her convent, and the other nuns play along, behaving as obscenely as possible. Ken Russell’s savage portrait of religious hypocrisy earned the film the top spot on the list of most controversial horror films ever made — and an X rating. The movie, it should be known, is based on both the 1952 book The Devils of Loudun by Aldous Huxley, scribe of the essential Brave New World, and the 1960 play The Devils, by John Whiting. It combines the historical backdrop of the 17-century French plague and themes of unrequited sexuality. Honestly, it’s quite a lot like The Crucible, what with the false accusations of witchcraft and whatnot. Controversy extends the life of art. Such is the case with The Devils, which is STILL missing two-and-a-half minutes of [...] The post Ep 184, The Devils (1971) l The HorrorBull Podcast appeared first on The HorrorBull Podcast.

The Synopsis: In The Void, police officer Carter (Aaron Poole) discovers a blood-soaked man limping down a deserted road and rushes him to a local hospital with a barebones night shift staff. As cloaked, cult-like figures surround the building, the patients and staff inside turn ravenously insane. Trying to protect the survivors, Carter leads them into the depths of the hospital where they discover a gateway to immense evil. Writers / directors Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski (assistant art director and special effects artist on Suicide Squad and Hannibal) evoke movies of an earlier generation, namely John Carpenter’s The Thing and Clive Barker’s Hellraiser. The movie slides along at a hellacious clip, and though the acting is great, the performances are outshined by the practical effects. Though it takes place in an enclosed space, The Void never grows stagnant because Gillespie and Kostanski give the characters plenty to do within the walls of the mostly abandoned hospital. Without giving away too much of the second and third acts of The Void, suffice it to say that the movie takes a turn from being a kind of schlocky-but-quiet creature feature to something of an existential horror picture. The characters turn from bewildered innocents in this confusing, almost opaque plot [...] The post EP 183, The Void (2016) l The HorrorBull Podcast appeared first on The HorrorBull Podcast.

The Devil’s Candy is more than a Marcy Playground. It’s a 90s reference that you’ll have to listen to the episode in order to understand. The basic premise for The Devil’s Candy goes likes this: Ethan Embry paints less-than-metal murals to make a living, but he and his daughters are fans of punishing, guitar-driven rock. The family ends up buying a home that happens to be haunted…by the devil? Okay, so here’s where I have to admit that I don’t totally understand the whole premise, but the dude who used to live at the house is definitely possessed, and Ethan Embry becomes possessed, so there’s that. Anyway, the malevolent force running Ethan Embry’s life starts to divide the family, to the point that even a kick-ass red Gibson Flying V can’t solve their problems. What is interesting about the movie are the subtle references to metal. Metallica is mentioned more than once, and Kirk Hammett is mentioned specifically in The Devil’s Candy. There’s a kick-ass use of Pantera’s By Demons Be Driven, from Vulgar Display of Power. They manage to snag Metallica’s cover of Diamond Head’s Am I Evil? and there are a few other things I probably didn’t even catch. Tyler’s wife Kate calls the [...] The post Ep 182, The Devil’s Candy l The HorrorBull Podcast appeared first on The HorrorBull Podcast.

Beyond the Gates sounds like a kick-ass death metal band — probably from Sweden — but it’s actuality a 2016 horror movie about VHS cassettes, board games, and standing around. Lots and lots of standing around. This one was difficult to sit through. We’re pretty sure you’ll hear that on the recording, though. The movie is ostensibly about two brothers reconciling to split up their dad’s stuff in the wake of his (?) death (?). Included in this is the dismantling of the old man’s nostalgia-ridden video store. In this throwback to a be-kind-rewind era of American society, the two brothers — Gordon and John — find a VHS board game (a la Nightmare) and decide What the hell? We don’t need to get rid of this shit anytime soon, even though it’s the whole reason we reconciled. Perhaps the best part of Beyond the Gates is the opening sequence. Jackson Stewart very clearly possesses a love for the 80s, analog culture, and duty old video stores — as do we all on the podcast — but that love quickly subsides and is replaced by a stilted film full of melodrama and confused narrative devices. Most of the film takes place in a [...] The post Episode 181, Beyond the Gates l The HorrorBull Podcast appeared first on The HorrorBull Podcast.

‘Train to Busan’ is the kind of zombie movie we’ve been looking for. Namely, one that isn’t cringeworthy. I mean, we’re not opposed to zombies, but there’s so goddamned many of them. Movies. Not zombies. There’s always a lot of zombies. The weird thing is, we don’t quite know why we like it so much. The movie is definitely good, but we spent most of this past episode in deep discussion about what, exactly, drew us to this Korean horror movie involving a solitary trip to, well, Busan. What this Korean horror movie does, above all things, is make you care about the characters. The characters themselves are merely archetypes — absentee father; innocent, beleaguered child; young, pregnant couple; selfish, businessman — but somehow the plot and its execution forces you to care about whether or not they will be bitten. Here’s some details about the movie, including a precise synopsis from Wikipedia. (Though you can basically say ‘Two people go on a trip.) Seok-woo, a divorced fund manager, is a workaholic and absentee father to his young daughter, Soo-an. For her birthday the next day, she wishes for her father to take her to Busan to see her mother. They board the [...] The post Episode 180, Train to Busan (2016) l The HorrorBull Podcast appeared first on The HorrorBull Podcast.

Synopsis: A father and son, both coroners, are pulled into a complex mystery while attempting to identify the body of a young woman, who was apparently harboring dark secrets. Cast: Emile Hirsch Brian Cox Ophelia Lovibond Michael McElhatton Olwen Catherine Kelly Director: André Øvredal Tagline: Every body has a secret. This week’s episode is brought to you by The Autopsy of Jane Doe.  Presumably, you think we’d discuss the movie and whether or not it is of a high quality — it is — but instead, we spent mot of it talking about how we think we have cancer. That’s not to say it isn’t a great discussion. Lona doesn’t have cancer and Tyler doesn’t have cancer, but seeing someone perform an autopsy makes us think A LOT about mortality, so naturally the topic came up. You can’t stare at an autopsy in basically real-time and not bring your own organic husk gliding toward decay into the mix. Oh, and speaking of horror and autopsies, Bryan jumped in with some real-life TALES FROM NECROPSY this week. It’s a gross, disgusting, and ultimately fascinating discussion of what happens behind the scenes at an animal mortuary. We also managed to discuss Jack the [...] The post Episode 179, The Autopsy of Jane Doe l The HorrorBull Podcast appeared first on The HorrorBull Podcast.

With Resident Evil: BioHazard and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter coming out soon, we thought it would be a wonderful way to get 2017 started. Think of it as our very own transition, nyuk nyuk nyuk. Drew and I sat down to talk about everything Resident Evil, from our very first experiences with the video game series to our thoughts on the movies. (At least the ones we watched.) And, if we’re being honest, Resident Evil is to the video game side of things that Halloween is to movies, with regard to horror. There’s a near-direct connection between the first Resident Evil game, what with its zombies and haunted house themes, to everything that came after. In a lot of ways, Resident Evil sparked the new zombie movement. Everything had kind of died down in the late 80s, after the release of Day of the Dead and the few Return of the Living Dead flicks to come out. Then, in 1995 / 1996, Capcom unleashed an undead hell on the rest of us. It wasn’t perfect. The dialogue was hokey, the controls were maddening, and the save systems could actively drive you insane. But in there was something really very [...] The post Episode 178, Resident Evil l The HorrorBull Podcast appeared first on The HorrorBull Podcast.

Scream doesn’t need an introduction. Simply put, one of the best and most innovative horror movies of all-time. RIP Wes Craven. The post Ep 177, Scream (1996) l The HorrorBull Podcast appeared first on The HorrorBull Podcast.

This week’s episode is Bryan Bertino’s The Monster. As a podcast, we will probably always cover Bertino’s films, if for no other reason than he made our FAVORITE movie of the past decade, The Strangers. For that reason, he has our respect and attention. Here’s a brief synopsis: The Monster is a 2016 American horror film written and directed by Bryan Bertino. It stars Zoe Kazan, Scott Speedman, and Ella Ballentine. The film was released through DirecTV Cinema on October 6, 2016, before opening in a limited release on November 11, 2016, by A24. Well, Hell. That wasn’t really much of a synopsis, now was it? Okay, so here goes. The movie is about a mother and daughter who get trapped in their car after slamming into a wolf while driving toward the husband / dad’s house. What they encounter on the road is something straight out of a Joe Dante movie. It’s a monster in the most literal sense of the word, but we surmised that there might be a little bit more going on here. We wouldn’t be much of a horror podcast if we weren’t able to literature the shit out of these movies, now would we? What [...] The post Ep 176, The Monster (2016) l The HorrorBull Podcast appeared first on The HorrorBull Podcast.

Every month, we at The HorrorBull Podcast will be releasing an extra free episode of the podcast to subscribers to our newsletter. The newest piece of free content this month is an audio commentary for one of my favorite movies of the 80s, They Live. It has all the things a movie about an alien invasion needs: a dystopian near-future (or current future), aliens posing as yuppies, super cool sunglasses, fight sequences, gunplay, and curse words. It’s hard not to love this satire of Reagan’s super messed up trickle down economic policy from that most electro of decades. In fact, it has been deemed a “satirical science fiction movie” by the establishment at large, and I think I agree with that assessment of this John Carpenter sci-horror flick. Jeremy and Krista from Lopez Radio joined me for this hilariously dark episode. We met under the auspices of talking about John Carpenter’s vicious (and lovably goofy) sci-fi flick but ended up talking about the 2016 election and Donald Trump for a good chunk of our hour-and-a-half discussion. It’s not that this cult classic wasn’t interesting; we just happened to think that it coincided a little TOO closely with the recent election, [...] The post Great American Nightmares, Ep 2 (2016) l They Live Audio Commentary appeared first on The HorrorBull Podcast.

So, this episode is titled The Purge: Election Year. HOWEVER, what was supposed to be a discussion about a satire of a weird and horrible political future, one where the government is run by a set of psychopaths, instead became an hour-long bitch-fest about the election. Weird, huh? You get it, right? You understand that horror movies sometimes too closely reflect reality. Trigger warning: some of you might have voted for Donald Trump, but you don’t really believe in safe spaces, so you’ll love this episode of the HorrorBull Podcast. We understand, too, though. We are a horror movie podcast and not some high-faluting fake news site where rumors and innuendo can get spread like political plague. Still, we had to take a little bit of time to vent. We’ll be back to our normal horror movie shenanigans next week, we promise. Here is a brief synopsis of The Purge: Election Year: Years after sparing the man who killed his son, former police sergeant Barnes has become head of security for Senator Charlie Roan, a Presidential candidate targeted for death on Purge night due to her vow to eliminate the Purge. The overall consensus was that The Purge: Election Year is totally fine. It’s not [...] The post Ep 175, The Purge: Election Year (2016) l The HorrorBull Podcast appeared first on The HorrorBull Podcast.

Halloween III will forever be known not by its subtitle Season of the Witch but as ‘Oh, is that the one without Michael Myers?’ That being said, the movie doesn’t fair terribly on a re-watch. Certainly, it has some major plot…confusions, but the movie overall is not bad. For those who don’t remember: Halloween III features Tom Atkins as an emergency room doctor who gets embroiled in a worldwide plot to kill all children on Halloween and replace them with robots. It involves witches and Druids and corporations, not unlike Election 2016, but it does have a pretty kickass score. It was meant to be a departure for the series, in part because John Carpenter was distancing himself from the Akkads’ attempts to monetize Halloween for every dollar that could be squeezed out of the moviegoing public. Carpenter is involved in a limited capacity — he did the music — but this particular sequel is the brainchild of Halloween regular Tommy Lee Wallace, who wrote and directed the film. Did I mention that this one doesn’t have Michael Myers in it? (Note: he’s on the TV at a few certain points. I get it. Don’t email us.) This movie begs the question: What would the Halloween [...] The post Ep 174, Halloween III (1982) l The HorrorBull Podcast appeared first on The HorrorBull Podcast.

This year, we decided to make it a Madea Halloween by watching (take a deep breath) Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween, which is in and of itself a mouthful. In fact, a lot about this movie is a mouthful. The plot — don’t get Tyler (not-Perry) started on it — takes minutes to wade through, and Madea, well, isn’t she always just a mouthful anyway? That is also to mention our feelings on the movie. A Madea Halloween makes us feel complicated. It’s not a good movie. That, we can say with almost objective certainty. Is it funny? You bet your weed prescription on it. Madea herself is a fleshed-out character (and not just for sheer size of her). Even though the film is completely and utterly broad in its characterizations of people, events, and just about everything, she herself — or Tyler Perry as her — commands the screen. Otherwise, we spend our time trying to suss out exactly whether or not Tyler Perry was playing to his audience with his portrayal of the frat party, or if he doesn’t actually know what one looks like in 2016. You can follow the podcast on all sorts of social media. [...] The post Ep173, Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween (2016) l The HorrorBull Podcast appeared first on The HorrorBull Podcast.

Michael Myers is back, and your favorite horror podcast has review THE film we’ve discussed more than all the others combed: John Carpenter’s Halloween. This 1978 classic deserves all the plaudits we can levy upon it. The pacing is phenomenal, the direction is unparalleled, and the big bad…well, I think you know how we feel about Michael Myers. Our Halloween podcast episode features a wide-ranging discussion on John Carpenter’s career, the master of horror’s legacy, and the films themselves. Can’t wait for you to listen. Eventually, our goal is to work through all of the movies in the Halloween franchise, starting with the original John Carpenter’s Halloween and going all the way through Rob Zombie’s H2 [shudder] and beyond, if they decide to make more movies. Here’s some Halloween trivia to accompany the episode. Now, you’ve probably heard by now that the mask used in the film was that of William Shatner, then of Star Trek, but you probably won’t be as aware of the rest of this list. Enjoy! Halloween wasn’t the original title of the film. The film was initially called ‘The Babysitter Murders.’ Though the film was set in Illinois, it was actually shot in California. Donald [...] The post Episode 172, Halloween (1978) [Re-Release] l The HorrorBull Podcast appeared first on The HorrorBull Podcast.

[Warning: For some reason, the audio on the episode was clipping pretty badly in the beginning, so we cut a few minutes out of the beginning banter. It clears up (mostly) a few minutes in, so we’re releasing it as it. Just know that it probably won’t sound the best. All apologies.] Our Top 10 Horror Movies of the Last Decade will shock and amaze you…unless you’ve actually listened to the podcast, in which case you’ll definitely know what movies we thought were amazing. In addition to the Top 10 Horror Movies of the Last Decade list we’ll publish here on the site, we are each going to post our own Top Ten Lists. That way, those little gems — I SAW THE DEVIL — that didn’t make the total list could find a place for discussion. We had a good time arguing about the best movies of the last decade, which WOULD have come out in the episode, had it not recorded in a super weird way. (Something tells me this is the universe trying to keep our truth from reaching the ears of the anointed.) Here is the list of all the movies we culled from to make [...] The post Episode 171, Top 10 Horror Movies of the Last Decade (2016) l The HorrorBull Podcast appeared first on The HorrorBull Podcast.

Rob Zombie 31 Podcast This week, the gang discussed Rob Zombie’s 31. It feels like a sequel that is not quite a sequel to all of Rob Zombie’s other movies. You can bet there will be plenty of white trash characters talking incoherent bullshit about things that don’t actually relate to the plot. Related: Listen to our episode about Rob Zombie’s The Lords of Salem The plot goes like this: Some stanky 70s carnies get caught up in a web of murder hosted by a group I call The Antoinettes. They have to survive for twelve hours in order to…survive? I don’t know. It’s kind of a murky premise — and a simple one — but it gets the job done. If you’ve seen The Running Man, Surviving the Game, or The Purge, then you’ve got a pretty general idea of what we’re talking about here. What separates this movie from the rest is that this one features some pretty specifically horrific imagery. We ended up being relatively mixed on Zombie’s fourth(?) feature. Tyler ended up liking it a lot, but the rest of the podcast seemed sort of lukewarm on the whole thing. The biggest problem, it seemed, is the script-writing. [...] The post Episode 170, Rob Zombie’s 31 l The HorrorBull Podcast appeared first on The HorrorBull Podcast.

Join the HorrorBull Podcast Newsletter! If you’ve made it to the site, then no doubt you’ve already seen the pop-up for our newsletter. Gain access to exclusive content, including a monthly extra episode and first notice of our monthly giveaways. If you have Ad Blocker Plus installed, simply email us at wolfmansgotnards@thehorrorbullpodcast, and we’ll take care of the rest. Now, on to the post. Blair Witch. Whoo. This one caused a lot of anxiety in the podcast. We didn’t even quite know how to go about talking about the movie without talking about what frustrated us. Thing is, we LOVE Simon Barrett and Adam Wingard. As a podcast, we can very easily say that You’re Next and The Guest are two of our favorite movies of the last several years. But Blair Witch, it just squandered so much potential. Here was a real opportunity to revitalize the “brand” of the Blair Witch Project and establish Adam Wingard as THE go-to horror director of this generation. C’est la vie. C’est la vie. Still, there was plenty to like about this movie. There is plenty of bombast and lots of jump scares. The problem is that none of it really means anything. Not only that, the [...] The post Episode 169, Blair Witch (2016) l The HorrorBull Podcast appeared first on The HorrorBull Podcast.

Of all the new horror releases coming in Fall 2016, Antibirth kind of creeped up on us. We were looking ahead to Blair Witch and 31 and all manner of new horror movies, so we skimmed right past this one.  With all of the bloody good stuff coming out in the heat of this season, it wasn’t a difficult thing to do. Anyway, I kind of stumbled into this one based on a few articles I read about upcoming horror movies, just doing some research for upcoming podcast episodes. I saw the cast — Natasha Lyonne, Chloe Sevigny, Meg Tilly — and thought it would be a good fit for us. Plus, there was the potential for pregnancy jokes. We had to do this movie. Overall, Antibirth falls into the tradition of other preggers movies, like Rosemary’s Baby, The Omen, The Exorcist, and newer flicks, like Hell Baby and Bad Milo, among others. Except it has a twist: the main character doesn’t really give a shit that she’s pregnant. She continues to take huge bong rips and smoke cigarettes like she was in a 28 day program, and it doesn’t seem to have any sort of effect on the movie. Still, we managed to squeeze [...] The post Episode 168, Antibirth (2016) l The HorrorBull Podcast appeared first on The HorrorBull Podcast.

‘Don’t Breathe’ is the kind of horror movie that makes a horror movie podcast like us drool…or gag. Either way, we give our most honest movie review chutzpah to the test with this cum-guzzling entry into the genre. Fede Alvarez made us sit up and take notice with his horror remake Evil Dead from a few years ago, which we reviewed way back in 2013. This movie is a home invasion story, more or less, with a few noticeable twists and turns. You’ve got all the elements that normally make a movie like this successful: a broken down town, desperate people, desperate circumstances, poverty, thuggish white dudes, and one PTSD-wrecked military man. You might be able to guess the twists, but you’ll probably still flip your lid at how the movie plays out. FaceBook: The FaceBook Page: Facebook.com/horrorbullpodcast Tyler’s Rolson McKane Series: Facebook.com/BoogieHouseNovel Twitter: The Podcast: @horrorbullpcast Bryan: @bryncntr Tyler: @blakebraddy Drew: @moviegoer878 Lona: @mizzpanter The post Episode 167, Don’t Breathe (2016) l The HorrorBull Podcast appeared first on The HorrorBull Podcast.