141 – S.F.W.

German DVD art for S.F.W. starring Stephen Dorff and Reese Witherspoon
bro that’s so crazy bro

No truer words were spoken about this movie than “So Fucking What.” Jen and Tim welcome Bryan Quinby of Street Fight Radio to talk about a justly forgotten 90s something-or-other called S.F.W.

Hear the whole thing over at our Patreon!

Trace the history of the beer ball! 

If you want to revisit that scene we mentioned from Sleep With Me, watch it here. 

Jen was wrong about Juliet, incidentally— she was intended to be about 13 or 14.Romeo was 16 or 17, though, so obviously the play is problematic due to the age gap and Shakespeare is still cancelled.

The name of the teenaged girl school shooter Jen failed to recall is Brenda Spencer. She committed the Cleveland Elementary School shooting in 1979, and she is still incarcerated.

140 – Maps to the Stars

Julianne Moore in David Cronenberg's Maps to the Stars (2014), written by Bruce Wagner

Tim and Jen scratch their heads over an incest-filled nightmare of a David Cronenberg movie, Maps to the Stars!

Hear the whole thing over at our Patreon!

Hey remember that Mysteries and Scandals show on E!? They did an episode about Jon-Erik Hexum! (Whatever happened to A.J. Benza?)

The poem by John Cooper Clarke that so moved Tim, “Evidently Chickentown,” may be heard here.

Jen pointed out a mention of another poet, Anne Sexton, in the movie. Interestingly, while Sexton’s daughter reported credibly in her memoir Looking For Mercy Street and elsewhere that her mother sexually abused her, Sexton’s own memories of abuse have been called into question due to the methods her psychiatrist used to unearth them. However, Sexton’s history of dissociation, psychotic breaks, and eventual suicide seem to point to some kind of trauma.

Finally, if you missed our Crash episode, listen to it here!

139 – Talk Radio

Key art for Talk Radio (1988) directed by Oliver Stone, featuring Eric Bogosian

Jen and Tim welcome back Josh of The Worst of All Possible Worlds podcast to discuss the Oliver Stone version of the Eric Bogosian play, Talk Radio from 1988.

Jen got the date of the crash of Air Florida flight 90 wrong— it happened in January of 1982.

“The comment that brought Howard Stern his most notoriety during his time on Washington, DC radio in the early ‘80s was the infamous Fourteenth Street Bridge Incident. As morning man at ‘DC101’ WWDC, Stern was reacting to the Air Florida flight that crashed into the bridge in February 1982. ‘What’s the price of a one-way ticket from National to the Fourteenth Street Bridge?’ he asked. ‘Is that going to be a regular stop?’”

Via insideradio.com

Also Stern did not call the actual Air Florida ticket counter, because as most of us know, talk radio prank calls are faked. Just ask Bryan of Street Fight Radio! In fact, you can hear a deep dive into shock jocks for a pledge as low as $1 over at the Street Fight Patreon!

Poster for Street Fight Radio special, Shocktober
hey who did this cool artwork? someone named Jennifer Albright!

Shortly after his murder by white supremacists, a memorial piece about shock jock Alan Berg appeared in Rolling Stone. The author of the piece, Stephen Singular, later expanded this piece into the book Talked to Death: The Life and Murder of Alan Berg. You can read the original Rolling Stone article here.

And don’t miss our freewheeling episode with the TWOAPW guys about a sad little fake Hammer film, IT! starring Roddy McDowall!

138 – Short Eyes

Shawn Elliot, Ken Steward, and Jose Perez in Robert M. Young's Short Eyes (1977)

Tim and Jen get locked in with a raw adaptation of Miguel Piñero’s sensational play, Short Eyes!

Hear the whole thing on Patreon and get access to more than 50 bonus episodes!

Go here for a bio of Piñero, the trailblazing Nuyorican playwright, as well as a list of his works. 

BTW, there’s a documentary called The Survivor’s Guide to Prison that is slick, well made, and narrated by Danny Trejo as well as many other cultural icons. You can watch it for free with ads on Tubi, or on Kanopy with a library card. In other words, it’s perfect for sending to your normie friends who haven’t been hipped to the cause of prison abolition yet! 

NYC Urbanism has historical information on the setting of Short Eyes, the Manhattan Detention Complex, aka The Tombs.

If you missed our episode on The Jericho Mile, why not give it a listen? It’s free!

137 – Heart of Midnight

Jennifer Jason Leigh and Peter Coyote in Matthew Chapman's Heart of Midnight (1988)

Jen and Tim take a look at an exploration of trauma anchored by an incredible Jennifer Jason Leigh performance, Heart of Midnight!

Hear the whole episode at our Patreon and get access to more than 50+ bonus episodes!

The writer/director, Matthew Chapman, wrote the screenplay for Color of Night, but don’t hold that against him! See some of his unproduced material at The Blacklist. 

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk is an excellent treatise on what we know about trauma, the human brain, and addressing the treatment needs of people suffering from people with PTSD. Visit van der Kolk’s website to read an interview about the book. 

For some insight into Jennifer Jason Leigh’s process as an actor, read her conversation with John Turturro for Interview magazine in 1996. 

OH SHIT we totally forgot to mention in the episode that the film’s score is by Yanni. Do people remember Yanni? It’s a pretty good score, too! 

We will be phasing out our $2 tier in June! If you’d like to stick around for more demented media and special guests, Patreon has instructions on how to edit your pledge. 

136 – 50 States of Fright

Rachel Brosnahan in "The Golden Arm"
bury me with my out-of-context viral video clip

Tim holds forth on the mind sickness that led to short-lived streaming service Quibi before diving into a review of short-form horror anthology 50 States of Fright. Jen just tries to keep up!

This AV Club article is pretty emblematic of the unkind response to the first episode of the series, “The Golden Arm.”

Watch Tim’s video work over at YouTube! Hit Like and Subscribe!

Oh I almost forgot to post the funny dog fart video

For more anthology horror, check out our episode on Hammer House of Horror!

135 – It!

Deceptive promo art for It! (1967)
This monster isn’t actually in the film, I just thought the art was sick

Have You Seen…All Possible Worlds?! Tim and Jen team up with Josh and Brian of The Worst of All Possible Worlds podcast to discuss a wretchedly stupid British horror film starring Roddy McDowall called It! No, not that one. This one came out in 1967 and involves a golem that looks like a wet trash bag.

Subscribe to HYST on Patreon to hear the full episode and get two bonus episodes every month!

Listen to The Worst of All Possible Worlds wherever you listen to us, or at their website! 

Atlas Obscura has an article about the Metropolitan Museum forgeries evoked in the film. 

Dennis Bartok and Jeff Joseph’s A Thousand Cuts: The Bizarre Underground World of Collectors and Dealers Who Saved the Movies is a fascinating read about the days of analog movie bootlegging, a must for any film buff. Read an excerpt about the Roddy McDowall film piracy case over at ScreenAnarchy (you can also buy the book directly from University Press of Mississippi). And yes, to answer Josh’s question from the episode, the MPAA (now the MPA) was one of the driving forces behind the crackdown as a proxy for the major film studios.

The documentary Jen failed to remember the name of is Recorder, which is the story of an activist named Marion Stokes who obsessively taped the news 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and thus amassed a library of 70,000 cassettes.

For a discussion of a much, MUCH better ersatz Hammer film, try our episode about Horror Express!

134 – Ravenous

Guy Pearce in Ravenous (1999), directed by Antonia Bird

Jen and Tim take a bite out of cult cannibal Western flick Ravenous, with the help of Mike Rosen, aka Twitter’s lovable* bitterkarella!

Hear the whole episode over at our Patreon and get access to more than 50 other bonus episodes!

“The Windigo is sick because it’s cut off from its roots. It’s a ghost with a heart of ice. It eats everything in sight. Its hunger knows no bounds. When there is nothing left to eat, it starves to death. When it sees something, it wants to own it. No one else can have anything. This illness feeds on a spiritual void. Canada and US are presently in an advanced stage of the ‘Windigo Psychosis.’”

Mowhawk Nation News 

Sample a scholarly paper about Windigo psychosis thanks to the Internet Archive. 

You can buy Shawn Smallman’s Dangerous Spirits: The Windigo in Myth and History directly from the publisher online. 

As mentioned during the episode, John Coulthart’s Feuilleton blog is highly recommended!

If you missed out on the discussion of folk horror alluded to in the episode, go listen to our Eyes of Fire episode, also featuring Mike!

*unless you’re a hater

133 – The Jericho Mile

Tim and Jen effuse about an early Michael Mann joint for television, the prison story The Jericho Mile!

You can buy a beautiful blu-ray of the film from Kino Lorber, but if you just can’t wait to see it, it’s on YouTube. And we highly recommend it!

The 1977 film Short Eyes, based on Miguel Piñero’s incendiary play, is free with ads on Tubi.

For more Michael Mann, check out our episode on The Keep!

132 – Eyes of Fire

Eyes of Fire, directed by Avery Crounse, 1983

Jen and Tim host Mike Rosen, who is a witch, to discuss a very witchy cult horror movie, Eyes of Fire! Also, if you were dying to know Jen’s thoughts on Midsommar, they’re in there.

Hear the whole episode over at our Patreon and get access to more than 50 other bonus episodes!

Mike’s graphic novel, Malleus Malleficarum, is indeed on itch.io and comes highly recommended by your hosts!

Jen misidentified the actor who plays Will Smythe as “Douglas Lipscomb.” She of course meant Dennis Lipscomb.

Severin Films included Eyes of Fire in their recently released All the Haunts Be Ours folk horror boxed set. If your interest in Eyes of Fire isn’t quite up to that $170 price tag, you can of course watch the film on Shudder’s excellent streaming service.

For more on the genre, Folk Horror Revival offers a generous repository of knowledge.