A Cure for the Common Craig

Send us a text Do you believe in cryptids? Is Bigfoot, or some variation like the Fouke Monster, really out there? And if they are, are they just lonely, but shy creatures? Or are they genital-ripping monstrosities who want to mate with you? Look, we really don't know. But we'll try to answer these very important questions. We want to believe! But if these movies are any indication, you may want to use caution if you decide to go camping. Grab your guitar and serenade the sasquatch, while we discuss The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972), Night of the Demon (1980), and Willow Creek (2013). And please, mind your hogs, regardless of how much they weigh!

Send us a text After the length of that last episode, you may have thought that we were dead. But no, we have one final stop before we can escape the Summer of Action! Well, two technically. But if we're going to escape from two of America's major cities, we may need help from someone with experience. Thankfully, Snake Plissken always seems to get captured at the most convenient times, when some serious rescue or recovery situation presents itself. Better team up with Snake and give this a listen if you want to be the Duke of Podcast Listeners, a number one! Break out of summer with John Carpenter's Escape from New York (1981) and Escape from L.A. (1996)!

Send us a text The Summer of Action arrives in the Hyborian Age! Brother Brian joins us, as we discuss the Riddle of Steel, the Wheel of Pain, the Tree of Woe, the Mountain of Power, and other elements related to the film adventures of Conan the Cimmerian. Do you want to live forever? If you do, you may as well listen to a really lengthy podcast episode featuring Conan the Barbarian (1982), Conan the Destroyer (1984), and Conan the Barbarian (2011). Let us tell you of the days of high adventure!

Send us a text You didn't think that it was game over for the Summer of Action, did you? What are we gonna do now, what are we gonna do? We're not going to build a fire and sing a few songs, I'll tell you that. Look, if we're going to do this right, we need to bring in a special guest. James (not Cameron), allegedly the foremost expert of all things involving this movie, joins us to discuss the ins, facehuggers, and outs, chestbursters, of the James (okay now) Cameron classic Aliens (1986)!

Send us a Text Message. If you think action movies are all testosterone, think again! We have three movies for you, with ladies kicking some serious butt. You'd better hope that you're not on the wrong side of vengeance, messed with a police officer/martial arts instructor's family, and that you haven't been stealing babies! A child conceived to become an instrument of vengeance? Probably not the best situation to be born into. But she does manage to display some wonderful umbrella sword-related blood spraying and splattering for us. Meiko Kaji IS Lady Snowblood (1973)! An unfortunate mistake causes a martial arts instructor to leave a big city police force, returning to small town Utah, where some rich jerk and his goons are ruining everything. Including eliminating her father, the local sheriff! Can she become the new sheriff, thanks to an emergency election, and make things safe again for the innocent townspeople? Cynthia Rothrock IS China O'Brien (1990)! And then from there, babies are being stolen and taken to the underworld, with one set to become the emperor of China, and the others destined to become evil minions of the Grandmaster! What the hell? Only three women from different perspectives can possibly stop this madness! Maggie Cheung, Michelle Yeoh, and Anita Mui ARE The Heroic Trio (1993)!

Send us a text The Summer of Action continues, and it feels like a steel mill outside. Hot enough to melt a liquid nitrogen-frozen T-1000! Oh, yeah, and it's also 40th anniversary of the first movie in this series. So, chill out, dic...oh, wait! I mean, chill out and relax while we discuss some James Cameron cyborg stuff. Overshadowed by its sequel, is there any reason to watch the original movie in this series? The Common Craig argues its merit as a slasher-style horror film with a science fiction coat of paint. Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as a seemingly unstoppable cyborg from the future, sent to the past to wipe out any Sarah Conner that gets in its sights. Grab your phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range, and join us for a 40th anniversary celebration of The Terminator (1984)! And then from there, with reportedly a nearly $100 million budget increase, can James Cameron deliver on the promise of a sequel to match the intensity of the original? Or will it be all Hollywood polish and little substance? Get ready to up the ante, with dueling Terminators, both trying to track down a 10-year-old John Conner, with the future of the human race potentially at stake! Beware of AI, or prepare yourself for Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)!

Send us a text It's time we does the tell, so that we 'members the man who in the roar of an engine lost everything. A burnt-out, desolate man, who wandered out into the wasteland. It was there, in that blighted place, that he learned to live again. Witness us doing the tell, so we will ride eternal, shiny and chrome. While we have not yet had a chance to see the new movie, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), it feels right to blaze into the Summer of Action by discussing the previous films in the series. Join us as we spend some time with Max. His time in the Interceptor with the Main Force Patrol, battling gangs in a world in decline in Mad Max (1979), to the post-apocalyptic mercenary loner, in search of gasoline in The Road Warrior (1981). And then from there, displaying moral fiber, placing himself in harm's way, showing compassion to protect a group of abandoned children in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), and to assist a group of woman struggling to escape an oppressive regime in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).

Send us a text Mentioned way back in Episode One of the podcast, one of Nicole's favorite horrors finally receives the featured treatment. Please don't tell Angela Bettis that it took us this long to get back to it. If you can't find a friend, make one. Angela Bettis stars in writer/director, Lucky McKee's May (2002), delivering a charming, moving performance as an awkward young woman who seems to have a difficult time meeting and connecting with people. When she does meet someone new, she sometimes sees parts of them that are not particularly appealing, leading her to develop a solution to the problem. So many pretty parts, no pretty wholes.

Send us a text There's always time for horror. Especially on Mother's Day! Even if your mom pretends or acts like she doesn't really care for horror, you know that she's only kidding. So kick back and listen as we discuss two of the most famous horror mothers in cinema history, and then go watch the movies with your mom! Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) finds herself in a difficult position, after making an impulsive, even criminal decision. After stopping at a roadside motel, and a mostly pleasant conversation with the proprietor, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), we can only hope that she'll take steps to set things right. After a nice shower, of course. And if she can avoid a run-in with Norman's mother. It's Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960)! And then from there, a young woman experiencing her first pregnancy, finds herself unusually isolated and alone in a New York City apartment building. While she receives guidance from her husband, doctor, and the odd elderly couple who live next door, a series of events leaves her uncertain as to which of them she can actually trust, in Roman Polanski's paranoid classic, Rosemary's Baby (1968).

Send us a text Have you ever been in the shower and found yourself wondering, what DID William Shatner do in the 1970s? Between the cancellation of Star Trek in 1969 and Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979, he must have done something, but what? Well listeners, we're here for you. A former priest who had a crisis of faith (Shatner), is among a small group aboard a plane trapped in mid-air over the Atlantic, terrorized by unexpected demonic passengers, in the made-for-television movie The Horror at 37,000 Feet (1973). A traumatic childhood incident leads Matt Stone (Shatner) to a life as a gigolo conman, with a taste for stylish threads, wealthy women, and murder in Impulse (1974)! A man devoted to protecting his family and breaking them free of a devilish curse (Shatner), becomes a pawn of Satan, turned against his brother in The Devil's Rain (1975)! And then from there, a heroic, horseback-riding veterinarian (Shatner) attempts to stop a massive colony of tarantulas from transforming a small Arizona town into the Kingdom of the Spiders (1977)!

Send us a text If you're like me, you love a good road trip. The open road, listening to your favorite music, chasing suspected serial killers, picking up sinister hitchhikers, making sadistic enemies on your CB radio, taking the backroads to hell. Good times! Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis are the token Americans, obsessed with the pursuit of a driver in a green van, who they suspect may be a homicidal maniac, in the Australian trucker suspense classic Road Games (1981). C. Thomas Howell makes the terrible mistake of picking up kill-crazy hitchhiker, Rutger Hauer, and then becomes the prime suspect for his crimes in The Hitcher (1986). A young couple eloping to Las Vegas, leave the interstate, only to end up in a struggle to escape the underworld on the Highway to Hell (1991). And then from there, a CB radio prank becomes a nightmare for two brothers, who are targeted by a psychotic trucker out for revenge in Joy Ride (2001).

Send us a Text Message. A very Tall Man. Deadly, flying silver spheres. A Lady in Lavender. Jawas? Okay, technically not Jawas. Two brothers and their pal, an ice cream man by trade, attempt to unravel the mystery of what is happening to the bodies of the dead at Morningside Cemetery. Of course, snooping around manages to incur the wrath of The Tall Man and his minions, and leads them to discover a portal to some otherworldly locale. It's time for a 45th anniversary celebration of Phantasm (1979)!

Send us a text Time to pay another visit to the Dungeon of Directors, and unleash a variety of cult horrors. Writer, director, producer, Larry Cohen just had a knack for taking ideas and fleshing them out. Making something that sounds ridiculous, much more compelling and fun than it has any right to be. The Davis family is expecting, and the pregnancy seems so perfect. Until the baby is much more monstrous than expected, and goes on a crawling killing spree in It's Alive (1974)! A series of murders in New York City, committed by people who seemingly have no connection, all provide the same response when asked why they did it: God Told Me To (1976). And then from there, are you eating it, or is it eating you? There's a new dessert treat craze sweeping the nation, but it seems to have a mind-altering effect on those who consume it. Enough is never enough of The Stuff (1985)!

Send us a text The Winter of Folk Horror is not yet ready to let 2024 go. Cozy up with the comfort of witches, as we discuss three very different witch movies. Dueling witches, a witchy cousin, and a town filled with bigots. Welcome to the Witchy Winter Wonderland! When a skeptical college professor demands his wife stop practicing protective conjure magic, he opens himself up to be the victim of an opposing force in Burn, Witch, Burn (1962)! A young woman loses her parents in a deadly crash, moves in with her cousin, Linda Blair, and proceeds to ruin her life, in the Wes Craven TV movie, Summer of Fear (1978)! And then from there, the residents of a small town believe that three new arrivals are reincarnations of witches that invoked a 300-year-old curse in The Devonsville Terror (1983)!

Send us a text Adorable animals return! And at least some of them are back for the attack. Hopefully, our cat children were not negatively impacted during our viewing of these features. The bodies from a local cemetery are used to develop a new taste sensation for cats in The Corpse Grinders (1971)! An alien cat arrives on Earth, in need of repairs to his spacecraft, while trying to avoid the military, spies, and gambling debts, in Disney's The Cat from Outer Space (1978)! Lucio Fulci brings us his freely adapted film version of the Edgar Allan Poe classic, featuring a really pissed off cat who loves to shred human flesh in The Black Cat (1981)! And then from there, Hong Kong brings us three knights from outer space (two humanoids, one cat), pursuing some kind of grotesque space...thing, and a must-see cat versus dog junkyard brawl in The Cat (1992)!

Send us a text We've covered the more obvious directorial efforts of George A. Romero over the years. But, there is unseen by most, an underworld of Romero films. Movies that are just as real, but not as well-known. We crack open that creaky Dungeon of Directors and unleash these lesser-known Romero films. The residents of a rural Pennsylvania town are accidentally exposed to a bioweapon, transforming them into The Crazies (1973)! A young man by appearance, may be an 84-year-old vampire, or in reality just a serial killer, in the ambiguous Martin (1977). A peek behind the curtain of the lives of a motorcycle-jousting, traveling troupe of renaissance faire-style performers in the cult oddity, Knightriders (1981)! And then from there, a service monkey develops an unhealthy attachment to a quadriplegic man in Monkey Shines (1988).

Send us a text Have you noticed that it's kind of cold outside? Well, not everywhere, of course. But if you live near us, then you know what we're talking about. Why not warm up with a dose of cozy folk horror? It's the return of one of our favorites, the Winter of Folk Horror! We travel the world, once again, stopping first in Norway for a swim in the Lake of the Dead (1958). The over to Ireland to spend some time with the forest creatures we find in The Hallow (2015). And then from there, we visit South Korea, and try to familiarize ourselves with a variety of religious elements on the fly, to better understand Svaha: The Sixth Finger (2019).

Send us a text What else there to do in January other than sit around being cold? You should probably heat things up, Italian-style, by celebrating Giallo January! And when Sergio Martino brings Edwige Fenech along to star in his movie, that always helps. Join us for discussions of Mario Bava's early giallo, Blood & Black Lace (1964), the third film in Dario Argento's "animal" trilogy, Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971), and Sergio Martino's mix of giallo and devil cult subgenres, All the Colors of the Dark (1972).

Send us a text It's a December tradition here on the podcast, to discuss some holiday horror. Or holiday violence, at least. It must be time for Horror for the Holidays V! This year, we're featuring David Harbour versus John Leguizamo in Violent Night (2022), a bunch of naked Santa helpers running around in Finland in Rare Exports (2010) , and two spooky stories that share the same name, Whistle and I'll Come to You (1968 and 2010)!

Send us a text We've always loved Julian Sands, and were saddened to hear of his disappearance and the revelation of his passing in 2023. To celebrate his life and career, we discuss a personal favorite, along with a pair of campier entries that, if nothing else, are fun to laugh about. What happens when a warlock escapes the clutches of death, travels through a portal three centuries into the future, to locate three parts of The Grand Grimoire to undo creation? Well, you'd better believe that a determined witch-hunter follows to try to stop him! Julian Sands is Warlock (1989)! Not into warlocks and all that stuff? Well, how about Julian Sands as an infuriatingly meek surgeon who opportunistically uses a hit-and-run accident to imprison, and physically alter, the woman of his dreams? Probably not a particularly healthy thing to do. It's a story of obsession and possession, with some questionable acting. But hey, if Boxing Helena (1993) is a match for your fetish, you do you. And then from there, if you thought that the acting in Boxing Helena was bad, get ready for some of the most remarkably poor acting you have ever seen from a complete cast. Thankfully, Julian Sands returns as the warlock, the one marginal bright spot. Though it probably would have helped if these actors had some decent dialogue to work with. However, as it stands, Warlock: The Armageddon (1993) is probably best used as a device to torture your enemies.