Movie Oubliette

Dan and Conrad go on a quest to rediscover Season of the Witch (2011), a supernatural medieval adventure starring Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman as crusaders with a conscience, charged with safely transporting a young Claire Foy to a monastery where she'll stand trial for witchcraft in general and causing the Black Death in particular. They're joined by a merry band that includes The Umbrella Academy's Robert Sheehan, Foy's then future/now past husband Stephen Campbell More and Stephen Graham, all sporting a range of mid-Atlantic accents regardless of their provenance. Is this forgotten Dominic Sena actioner a spellbinding grail or a bubonic boil waiting to be lanced? Does it at least have any classic Cage moments? Find out! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram Support us on Patreon to nominate future films and access exclusive bonus content

Bloody Disgusting's Joe Lispett joins us to share his love of 90s erotic thrillers and revisit one of the most-overlooked entries in the genre: A Perfect Murder (1998), Andrew Davis's remake of Hitchcock's Dial 'M' for Murder starring the obligatory Michael Douglas, the permanently gaslit Gwyneth Paltrow and steamy pre-Aragorn Viggo Mortensen. It's a twisty turny tale of sex, inheritances, Chernobyl-level stock market meltdowns and murder with a meat thermometer – but does it deserve to get away from the oubliette scot-free or should it be permanently lost along with Gwyneth's apartment key? Follow Joe Lipsett on Twitter, check out his podcast Horror Queers and read his writings on Bloody Disgusting. Because he's awesomesauce.    Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram Support us on Patreon to nominate future films and access exclusive bonus content

We're getting all romantic this week, in honour of Valentine's Day, and celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Canadian slasher 'My Bloody Valentine' – a film that vanished into a deep dark mine upon its release, possibly thanks to the heavy hand of the MPAA in the editing room. It features a mining town cursed by a legendary tragedy, Moosehead Beer and a returning killer who's a cross between Darth Vader, Michael Myers and the Cadbury Milk Tray Man. But does it deserve to be unearthed and recut into a gleaming diamond, or should it be tossed aside like a cheap box of chocolates?  Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram Support us on Patreon to nominate future films and access exclusive bonus content

Le Matos, the musical masterminds behind the scores for Turbo Kid and Summer of '84,  join us as we take a nostalgic trip back to the high school cyber crime scene of the mid-90s... on roller-blades, of course. Yes, it's Hackers – the film that introduced us to viruses (of the electronic kind), pre-Trainspotting Johnny Lee Miller, pre-Scream Matthew Lillard  and pre-anything Angelina Jolie! But is it a righteous hack or an obsolete peripheral? Follow Le Matos on Twitter, Youtube, Instagram and Bandcamp. Support great artists! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram Support us on Patreon to nominate future films and access exclusive bonus content

Happy New Year! Dan and Conrad start 2021 with something that feels like unbelievable fantasy: a movie in which someone travels to another country! It's Rogue – a 2007 monster crocodile thriller from director Greg McLean (Wolf Creek). It stars Radha Mitchell (Pitch Black) as the plucky captain of a crocodile river cruise in Oz's Northern Territory. She gives a boatful of tourists more than they bargained for when they get stranded on an islet in a tidal river patrolled by a 7-meter croc who gets extremely touchy about people invading his territory. As night falls and the water rises, the mismatched bunch – including American travel writer Michael Vartan (One Hour Photo), future Avatar star Sam Worthington and a young Mia Wasikowska (Crimson Peak) – have to hatch a plan to escape before the man-eater picks them off one by one. But is this aquatic terror an undiscovered gem in the wilderness or a waterlogged stinker? Find out! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram Support us on Patreon to nominate futu

Happy holidays, listeners! As a little treat, we'd like to give you a bonus episode for the holiday season: a collection of interviews with the cast and composer of Disney's One Magic Christmas. It includes a full version of our chat with the lovely Elisabeth Harnois, who played Abbie Grainger, as well as new interviews with Rob Magwood, who played her older brother, Cal, and the celebrated composer Michael Conway Baker, who provided the score. All of them were a delight to speak to and so generous with their time, sharing hilarious and heartwarming memories from the making of the movie. We hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, sharing time with loved ones however you can while keeping safe. We can't wait to share more with you again in the New Year!– Dan and Conrad Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram Support us on Patreon to nominate future films and access exclusive bonus content

To get a bit of festive cheer, Dan and Conrad explore Disney's One Magic Christmas, which celebrates its 35th anniversary this year. But this is from Disney's 'dark period', so they're in for a shock. A harmonica-playing stalking angel played by Harry Dean Stanton teaches depressed working mum Ginnie Grainger (Mary Steenburgen) to appreciate the holiday season by forcing her to live a nightmarish alternate Christmas Eve in which her whole family is slaughtered in a bungled bank robbery. We kid you not. For all that, it turns out to be one of Conrad's favourite Christmas movies, and has a social realism and heartwarming message that marks it out from your standard Hallmark special. It also features some stellar performances, including that of special guest Elisabeth Harnois, who shares her memories of playing little Abbie Grainger at the tender age of 5! The result is – dare we say it – quite magical! Happy holidays! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram Support us on Patreon to nominate future films an

Dan and Conrad visit the strangely familiar world of Starchaser: The Legend of Orin, a groundbreaking 3D animated sci-fi fantasy adventure celebrating its 35th anniversary this week! It tells the story of a callow blonde youth who discovers a magical sword and goes on a quest to free the galaxy from a tyrannical empire lead by a sinister man with a penchant for black capes and throttling people. They're joined by the composer of the film's lavish score, Andrew Belling, who enthusiastically shares many behind-the-scenes memories and fascinating anecdotes, while being a generally wonderful man. But is the film an undiscovered 80s sci-fi gem or should it be consigned to the VHS bargain bin? Find out more about Andrew Belling at http://www.morbroproductions.com   Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram Support us on Patreon to nominate future films and access exclusive bonus content

Scott Drebit, Senior Columnist at Daily Dead, joins us to share Burnt Offerings... which doesn't sound very appetising until you discover it's a 1976 haunted house chiller starring Karen Black, Oliver Reed, Bette Frikkin' Davis and Burgess Meredith, and co-written and directed by Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis. It finds your typical all-American family renting a suspiciously cheap, old dark house in the middle of nowhere and slowly going insane while stuck there over the summer. Sound familiar? Is it the usual family strife or is the house evil? Will the mysterious old lady living in the attic room ever come out? And why is the swimming pool so turbulent? Join us as we tour this forgotten relic to decide if it's a unique fixer upper opportunity or fit to be condemned... Read Scott Drebit's columns on Daily Dead, or follow him on Twitter. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram Support us on Patreon to nominate future films and access exclusive bonus content

Happy Halloween! We're going into an extreme form of lockdown with special guest Meagan Navarro, lead critic at Bloody Disgusting, to revisit Tom Savini's remake of Night of the Living Dead, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this week! Starring Patricia Tallman and Tony Todd, this update remodels Romero's classic into a siege thriller for our times, with updated effects, a few twists and a kick-ass Barbara. But is it a worthwhile entry in the zombie apocalypse tradition worth revisiting or is it a shambling, rotten shadow of its former self? Find out! Check out Meagan Navarro's writings on www.bloodydisgusting.com and follow her on Twitter. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram Support us on Patreon to nominate future films and access exclusive bonus content

Dan and Conrad take a trip to Ireland and learn all the customs of quaint village life in 1986: digging up ancient pagan demi-gods, burning their hands on tablecloths and urinating on vicars in graveyards. That's right – we're exploring Rawhead Rex, the first of Clive Barker's Books of Blood stories to be adapted for film. But is it a hitherto unrecognised saint or is it the spawn of evil? Find out! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram Support us on Patreon to nominate future films and access exclusive bonus content

Conrad and Dan try not to get deja-vu as they watch a rag-tag bunch of futuristic soldiers on an alien planet battling bio-mechanical monsters, discovering a pre-pubescent kid clutching a toy is the only survivor, and getting to the escape ship only to realise there's one more monster to kill! No, it isn't Aliens – it's Screamers (1995). It stars Peter Weller as a grizzled philosophical man of war, Jennifer Rubin as a black market trader who greets people by stripping and sponge-bathing in front of them, and Andy Lauer as a solider called 'Ace'. Based on a Philip K. Dick story and a screenplay by Alien co-writer Dan O'Bannon, this has a serious pedigree – but should it be allowed aboard the escape ship or should it be eviscerated by semi-autonomous buzzsaws? Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram Support us on Patreon to nominate future films and access exclusive bonus content

Dan and Conrad dose themselves up with Antiviral (2012), Brandon Cronenberg's debut film set in a near future in which celebrity illnesses are the latest must-have consumer product. Forget Gwyneth Paltrow's genital-scented candles, now you can get infected with the athletes' foot she picked up at her pilates class. Starring the fearless and riveting Caleb Landry Jones as a new breed of viral marketer, and Sarah Gadon as the hottest celebrity with the hottest fever, Antiviral is a clinical body horror fashion shoot of glossy black humour. But should it become a global pandemic or should we self-isolate ourselves away from it? Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram Support us on Patreon to nominate future films and access exclusive bonus content

Conrad and Dan visit one of the scariest places in the world right now – a suburban grocery store – to check out a lesser-known horror thriller from the creative team behind The Evil Dead movies: Intruder (1989). The night shift staff of Walnut Lake Market are being picked off one by one by a bloodthirsty maniac, but is it the leatherclad bad boy ex-boyfriend of plucky final checkout girl, Jennifer, or someone much more unexpected? Featuring notorious gruesome death sequences and small roles for Sam Raimi, Ted Raimi and Bruce Campbell, is Scott Spiegel's tongue-in-cheek video nasty a bargain bin gem or a footnote in the Book of the Dead?  Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram Support us on Patreon to nominate future films and access exclusive bonus content

From the moment the star of the Resident Evil franchise stepped out of a blurry forest screensaver and announced "I am actress Milla Jovovich", Dan and Conrad knew that special guest Isaac Sutton had dredged up a real gem from the oubliette for us to enjoy. The Fourth Kind (2009) is a half found footage, half dramatised, all fictional tale of the innocent all-white townsfolk of Nome, Alaska being plagued by alien abductions. Can Milla Jovovich's hypnotherapy prowess uncover the truth behind these experiences before she is randomly arrested by the town sheriff for... something? Will she too be whisked away by pale tale figures for an evening of anal probing? And, more crucially, is the film as good as the teenaged Isaac thought it was when he watched it at a sleepover? Find out!

Serge Bodnarchuk of Cold Crash Pictures joins us on an adventure to the world of Krull (1983) – a unique blend of swashbuckling fantasy and laser blasting science fiction starring Ken Marshall and Lysette Anthony as star-crossed lovers whose wedding is cruelly interrupted by an alien invasion. Armed with the coolest and most impractical weapon ever, our hero teams up with robbers, inept wizards and a cyclops to rescue the damsel. Among his merry band is a young Liam Neeson – before he had a special set of skills. But does Serge's childhood favourite hold up 37 years later? Or should it be cast into the swamp of unconvincing cork chippings? Check out Serge's amazing YouTube channel and follow him on Twitter. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram Support us on Patreon to nominate future films and access exclusive bonus content

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

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.

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!

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