Movie Oubliette

The City of Lost Children (with Lotta Losten)

Actor and producer Lotta Losten (Lights Out, Annabelle: Creation and Shazam!) takes us on a tour of The City of Lost Children (1995), the unique science fantasy film directed by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. It's a surreal steampunk fever dream featuring a circus strongman, evil conjoined twins and hypnotic mechanical fleas, but does it deserve to be overshadowed by Jeunet's international breakthrough hits Delicatessen and Amélie?

Follow Lotta Losten on Instagram and Twitter, and check out the horror shorts she makes with husband David F. Sandberg on the Ponysmasher Youtube channel.

---

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

Support us on Patreon to nominate future films and access exclusive bonus content

Explorers (featuring Robert Picardo)

Robert Picardo joins us as we celebrate the 35th anniversary of Joe Dante's Explorers, the wistful and wild tale of three school friends who build a spaceship and set off for a close encounter of the Wak-y kind. Featuring the debuts of both Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix, this sci-fi adventure also includes not one but three memorable performances from Robert Picardo. He shares his memories of making this underrated cult classic, the challenges of working in Rob Bottin's elaborate make-up effects and his thoughts on the tonal differences between the film's two halves.

All this, plus our usual review of the film, which is one of Conrad's childhood favourites, but completely alien (pun intended) to Dan. Does it live up to Conrad's hype? Does it have the same effect without the filter of nostalgia goggles? 

---

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

Support us on Patreon to nominate future films and access exclusive bonus content, including an extended version of our interview with Robert Picardo.

Turbo Kid

Conrad and Dan set their joy to 11, mount their BMXs and set off to explore the delicious 80s smoothie Turbo Kid, which unbelievably celebrates its 5th anniversary this year. With more retro references than you can shake a gnome stick at, inventive gore and a soundtrack that's screaming to be spun on vinyl, is Turbo Kid the best 80s kids' movie we never had or a relic of a nostalgic wasteland? Find out!

Vamp (with Heather Wixson)

Dan and Conrad find themselves in the neon purple and green world of Vamp (1986), the often overlooked eighties vampire movie starring Grace Jones, Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler, Dedee Pfeiffer and Gedde Watanabe. Fortunately, they have an expert to guide them: Heather Wixson, Managing Editor of Daily Dead and co-host of its excellent podcast Corpse Club. Vamp features an indescribable performance by the iconoclastic Jones, cinematography that defined the 80s for a generation of graphic designers and one of the best buddy relationships captured on film... but does it deserve to be resurrected or will it burn into nothingness when brought into the light? Find out!

Follow Heather Wixson on Twitter, read her articles on Daily Dead and check out the Corpse Club podcast! 

---

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

Support us on Patreon to nominate future films and access exclusive bonus content

The Relic (with Horror Queers)

Joe Lipsett and Trace Thurman of Horror Queers dig up The Relic (1997) and drag us on a wild museum tour with two of the most unlikeable characters in monster movie history: Penelope Ann Miller, who's so entitled she shrieks about job losses in the middle of the office when someone has the gall to apply for a research grant, and Tom Sizemore as the superstitious cop wearing a raincoat big enough for two. It has Stan Winton creature effects, early CGI, decapitations galore and Linda Hunt in full Edna Mode mode. But should it be restored and put back on display, or shoved back into the archives and never mentioned again?

Check out Joe and Trace's writings on Bloody Disgusting, follow them on Twitter, join their lively Facebook Group and listen to their podcast. Because they're awesome.

---

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

Support us on Patreon to nominate future films and access exclusive bonus content

Winter Kills (with Jacob Gentry)

Jacob Gentry, director of The Signal and Synchronicity, returns with another 70s conspiracy thriller for us to explore: the little-seen, star-studded enigma Winter Kills (1979). It stars Jeff Bridges as the pampered younger brother of an assassinated president, sent on a wild goose chase by his domineering father (John Huston) to discover the identity of the killers. Along the way, he's helped and/or hindered by the likes of Anthony Perkins, Toshiro Mifune and Sterling Hayden. And Elizabeth Taylor has a non-speaking cameo in a flashback. Go figure. The film was funded by weed sales and might make more sense whilst utterly baked, but does it deserve to be let out of our oubliette?

Flight of the Navigator (with Duncan Skiles)

Duncan Skiles, director of 'The Clovehitch Killer', returns to discuss a popular source of childhood nostalgia: Disney's Flight of the Navigator (1986). It focuses on David Freeman, who falls into a ravine in 1978 and wakes up 8 years later to discover he hasn't aged, while his parents look like they've been in quarantine the whole time and his bratty little brother is now a 16-year-old hottie who says 'rad' a lot. Everything makes more sense when he's reunited with a UFO shaped like a Guylian chocolate driven by a robot who sounds suspiciously like Pee-Wee Herman and goes on the run from a strangely authoritarian NASA.

This has everything you want in a kid's sci-fi movie: pioneering CGI effects, a giant eyeball that screeches like Yoko Ono and Sarah Jessica Parker hitting on a 12-year-old because he's, you know, technically 20. But does it live up to the fond memories or should it be forgotten forever? Find out by listening! COMPLIANCE!

The Bird With the Crystal Plumage

To celebrate our 50th episode, Conrad and Dan explore a film that celebrates its 50th anniversary this year: Dario Argento's The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. The Giallo maestro's first outing often gets overlooked in favour of his more supernatural and outlandish masterpieces, but there's a lot of fun to be had here. Highlights include a black-gloved serial killer, a painter who eats cats and the most unprofessional police inspector in movie history. As the latter would say, "Bring in the perverts!"

Doomsday

For a bit of escapism, Dan and Conrad watch a far-fetched science fiction film in which the UK falls victim to a deadly virus... oh dear. In Doomsday (2008), director Neil Marshall (The Descent) prepares us for what lies ahead: basically, a combination of 28 Days Later, Mad Max and Duran Duran's Wild Boys music video. With a dash of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. But should it be given herd immunity and allowed to roam free or should we all socially distance ourselves from it?

The Serpent and the Rainbow

Dan and Conrad join Bill Pullman on a khaki-clad tour of Haiti in search of a powder that turns people into zombies, in Wes Craven's often overlooked dark fantasy thriller The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988). It has everything you want in a travelog: candlelit processions to a cathedral of waterfalls, exploring a vibrant culture torn by revolution, and getting your scrotum nailed to a chair. Is it an under-appreciated serious work from a director keen to grow beyond his type-casting as a master of horror, or is it a crusty cadaver that should have stayed buried?