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Episodes
Conrad and Dan review forgotten fantastical films
Episodes
Tuesday Mar 26, 2024
Tuesday Mar 26, 2024
Writer/director and cryptid enthusiast Serge Bodnarchuk of Cold Crash Pictures joins us for a expedition into previous unexplored territory for Movie Oubliette: 1950s Hammer Horror! But The Abominable Snowman (1957) isn't a gothic horror or even a monster movie. It's an atmospheric thriller starring Peter Cushing as a sweetheart botanist with a thing for yetis who foolishly joins a brash American expedition into the Himalayas to find the eponymous beast, despite the protests of his wife and sage warnings from the local Lama. Sort of The Blair Witch Project meets The Thing with a dash of Wolfen? But, crucially, does this largely forgotten gem from the famous studio deserve to be carried back to civilisation? Or should it be used as monster bait with an unloaded gun? Find out!
Follow Serge's Youtube channel Cold Crash Pictures for excellent film essays – including one on cryptids!
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Tuesday Mar 12, 2024
Tuesday Mar 12, 2024
The spice must flow! And we have a feeling all kinds of spices were flowing during the making of Dune (1984), David Lynch's first faltering steps into the Hollywood mainstream. An ambitious attempt to realise Frank Herbert's seminal science fiction novel as a baroque, epic, intelligent, space opera, blockbuster yielded some indelible images – Sting naked except for a winged codpiece springs to mind – and flounders in the uncanny valley between a true Lynchian vision of a world some 8000 years in the future and a cleansed, PG-rated family film for the cinemagoing masses. The result is fascinating and curious – not least for having a jaw-dropping cast – but, crucially, does it deserve to leave the oubliette on its 40th anniversary? Or should it be left as a footnote in the great director's career, its memory erased in favour of Denis Villeneuve's box office smash hit remakes? Find out!
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Tuesday Feb 27, 2024
Tuesday Feb 27, 2024
Rob Hill, author of The Bad Movie Bible, joins us on a medieval adventure into the solo directorial debut of Terry Gilliam: Jabberwocky (1977). The comedy fantasy features a veritable 'who's who' of British comedy: three Pythons, music hall star Max Wall, Harry H. Corbett of 'Steptoe and Son', John Le Mesurier of 'Dad's Army', Warren Mitchell of 'In Sickness and In Health', and Carry On's Bernard Bresslaw. It also has everything you want in a hero's quest: a terrifying monster, brave knights, a beautiful princess... and public urination. It sits somewhere between the Gilliam we came to know and love, and the Monty Python traditions he was trying to leave behind. But does it work? Find out!
Buy Rob's book on Amazon.com or other, non-billionaire-funding outlets, and check out his Youtube channel.
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Tuesday Feb 13, 2024
Tuesday Feb 13, 2024
Dan and Conrad are invited to join Roddy McDowall's live action role play of 'Donkey Kong' – complete with homicidal primate and princess at the top level – as they check out Shakma (1990), thanks to our patrons' choice nomination! In it, McDowall plays a professor who experiments on baboons with mind-altering substances by day, but stages elaborate LARP-ing sessions with his students in the college building by night. In their latest game, Sam (Christopher Atkins), Tracy (Amanda Wyss), Kim (Ari Meyers) and their friends get more than they bargained for when one baboon goes berserk and starts to pick them off one by one. How will they defeat the primal rage of Shakma? Will pushing cutlery out of the window alert passers by? And why is the hero obsessed with moving around dead bodies? Find out if this is a hidden treasure or an experiment gone wrong!
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Tuesday Jan 30, 2024
Tuesday Jan 30, 2024
We're back at last! And what better way to start the year than being reunited with FilmJoy's Mikey Neumann and Zoe Wells for another Kevin Costner apocalypse movie? This time it's 1997's The Postman – the tale of a travelling one-man-and-one-mule Shakespeare company who, after his acting partner is killed and turned into paste by a roving fascist militia, accidentally starts a religion around a basic infrastructure service that brings hope to the ragged survivors of the third world war. It's heartfelt. It's three hours long. It strangely features most of Kevin's children – in one case, as a townsperson who makes a pass at him. But is it a bloated vanity project or a hidden gem that's more relevant now than it was in the 90s? Find out!
Follow FilmJoy on YouTube and, if you're brave, Mikey and Zoe on the smouldering wreckage of Twitter!
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Tuesday Dec 12, 2023
Tuesday Dec 12, 2023
Happy holidays! Writer Dan Wells joins us for our festive finale for the year to discuss the adaptation of his novel I Am Not a Serial Killer. The film stars Max Records as John Wayne Cleaver, a serial-killer-obsessed teenager who works in his mother's mortuary and has been diagnosed with sociopathy, and Christopher Lloyd as Bill Crowley, John's gentle old neighbour... who harbours a dark secret. When a killer terrorises John's snowbound midwestern town from Halloween to the holiday season, what begins as a hobbyist's investigation turns into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with a monster even John struggles to understand. Can he stop the slasher before his family becomes the next target? Will he be able to keep his own dark impulses under control? And will his absentee father send him a decent gift this year? Find out!
Check out Dan Wells' website to find out about his books, public appearances and gaming retreats!
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Tuesday Nov 28, 2023
Tuesday Nov 28, 2023
Isaac Sutton guest co-hosts with Dan (while Conrad is on vacation!) to talk all things underworld related in Highway to Hell (1991). We follow lovers, Charlie and Rachel, as they try to escape the clutches of the merciless Sargeant Bedlam, grotesque girlfriend doppelgangers and Ben Stiller's entire family. It's a movie for the whole family! Strap in for Anarchy, Armageddon and Annihilation with the Satanic Mechanic. You're in for a hell of a ride!
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Tuesday Nov 14, 2023
Tuesday Nov 14, 2023
Dan and Conrad resurrect an ancient wizard from a screaming coffin of tomato soup, hoist their triple-bladed shootin' sword and set off for the swashbuckling, headsplitting adventure of The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982) – the late Albert Pyun's directorial debut, featuring Lee Horsley, Kathleen Beller, Simon MacCorkindale, Geroge Maharis and Richard Lynch. It's your standard orphaned son of a murdered king returns to avenge his father's death and restore freedom to the realm, except he's actually not bothered and only wants to shag the Princess who hires him. It has some shocking scenes of gore and copious amounts of unnecessary female nudity, which made it somewhat of a video rental treasure for pre-pubescent boys in the 80s... but does it stand up to scrutiny now? Find out!
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Tuesday Oct 31, 2023
Tuesday Oct 31, 2023
Chris McKay, director of the thrilling horror comedy Renfield, joins us for our Halloween special for a tour of one of his favourite haunted house movies: The Legend of Hell House, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. It features a rag-tag group of psychics and physicians investigating a notoriously evil abode once inhabited by a deranged megalomaniac whose hobbies included bestiality, necrophilia and "a gamut of sexual goodies". Based on a novel by Richard Matheson and directed by John Hough, this 70s take on The Haunting stars Pamela Franklin, Roddy McDowall, Clive Revill and Gayle Hunnicutt and features homicidal chandeliers, ninja cats and Roddy slapping a naked woman. But crucially, is it a spooktacular des res or a footnote in the haunted house listings? Find out!
Follow Chris McKay on the social media formerly known as Twitter and Instagram.
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Tuesday Oct 17, 2023
Tuesday Oct 17, 2023
Serge Bodnarchuk of Cold Crash Pictures joins us for a spooky season double-whammy spectacular. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the late William Friedkin's classic horror The Exorcist (1973) and the release of David Gordon Green's apprehensively anticipated rebootquel, The Exorcist: Believer (2023), we've scrabbled around in the oubliette and fished out not one but two Exorcist prequels: Renny Harlin's The Exorcist: The Beginning (2004) and Paul Schrader's Dominion: Prequel to the Excorcist (2005). That's two for the price of one! Well, more accurately, two for the price of two disastrous box office bombs based on the same premise with largely the same cast on the same sets but with different directors. It's quite simply the weirdest situation to ever befall a major horror franchise. How the hell did this happen? What are the differences? And crucially, are either of them worth exorcising and releasing into the world? Find out!
Follow the immensely talented and insightful Serge on YouTube and Instagram!
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Support us on Patreon to nominate future films, vote on whether films should be released or thrown back, and access exclusive bonus content!