Crackpot Theories

Back from hiatus with some more horror content! We all know the legacy of the famous 'cursed' films... The Omen, The Exorcist, Poltergeist etc. But could the bad vibes surrounding those films been deliberately attracted by another set of iconic films? Ones that involved notorious fan of the occult Christopher Lee? Why did they have to make evil look so goddamn sexy? Featuring special guest Ali Khamseh!

This week featuring Eric Holden from The Goblin's Corner podcast sees us discussing Skyrim's creepy reality-shifting Dragonborn and deep diving into the psyche of Alduin the World-Eater. Bonus theory: are all of Lady Gaga's biggest hits secretly referencing the Elder Scrolls? Is the Wobbajack a disco stick?

Why do the struggling-for-survival fantasy creatures of the Dark Crystal look and sound so much like Muppets? Same production company or something more sinister? Can you really go from modern day television hijinks to magical dystopia simply by shooting Beaker into the sun? Featuring special guest Geoffrey Golden.

Could the expansive lore of Star Wars have its roots in the most down-to-earth musical of all time, Fiddler on the Roof? Are Leia's hairstyles a reflection of her East-European heritage? Are there six degrees of separation between Yoda and Yente? Discussion with guest star Shai Korman!

Do the residents of Summerisle really believe that burning one policeman to death in a big wicker effigy is going to help their crops, or is that just a cover for what they're REALLY up to? And how did it get burned? We never found out....

What could a super-popular genre-defining musical like Les Miserables have in common with the uber-violent techo-horror Terminator franchise? One robotic stone-faced man-machine hunting his quarry, leaving bodies in his wake and fixated on one particular person: John Connor/Jean Valjean. Guests this week are Matt and Jack from the Mockbusters podcast!

After a short hiatus we are back with more nonsense! Disney has been making some strange decisions lately that seem to be popular with absolutely no-one. What's behind these choices? And what has it got to do with Pokemon? Or Twitch?

In a slightly unusual turn, this week sees us discussing the ins and outs of glass chemistry with BillieBBillie, an expert on the subject. Big Pharma is one thing, Big Glass is something else!

This episode sees us trying to make sense of the beautifully animated but uncomfortably subtexted Charmkins OVA, made to promote the short-lived Charmkins toy line. Did the people making this cartoon genuinely not realize how much innuendo made it into the finished product? Or was this a deliberate attempt to tank the franchise a la The Producers? Featuring special guest Scarlett Crypt!

This week tackles that monolith of blonde ambition, Barbie! How could one personality hold down such a vast array of jobs, contacts, fashion trends and phases of existence over the course of seven decades? Your mistake is in assuming that Barbie is just one person... Featuring special guest and avid Barbie fan Scarlett Crypt!

In our second episode of season 2, we discuss the notoriously nonsensical film Mulholland Drive and attempt to do the impossible...explain it in a way that makes total sense! Hobos behind diners, mysterious band-less clubs, terrible hitmen, amnesia and no-one likes the coffee, how do we turn this into a mundane everyday kind of film? Featuring special guest BillieBBillie and Ian!

Crackpot Theories is back for a second season with a slightly tweaked format and a whole new collection of silly fan theories! To kick things off, Sinead and special guest BillieBBillie discuss the possibility of family ties between blood-soaked scapegoat Carrie White and bookworm wunderkind Matilda Wormwood. Do you need to be related to cause psychic havoc at your local school? Let's find out!

Our second episode of Drag Race (because we are mildly obsessed) sees us wondering if Beyonce is some sort of blood-sacrifice demanding God, if certain drag queens are capable of astral projection and if the worlds of Pokemon and Drag Race are more closely related than we realize... Note: Due to health circumstances, we are taking a temporary hiatus. We hope to be back for season 2 asap.

In this episode, we manage to merge the happy-go-lucky world of Gravity Falls with the misery pit that is Bojack Horseman through two characters that share a voice actress: Mabel Pines and Sarah Lynn. Do the parallels between these two characters go further than just a common voice? Is it possible that perpetual ray-of-sunshine Mabel exists only in the imagination of a troubled young woman who wishes that was her life? Bring some tissues for this one, it gets pretty sad.

Is it possible to make the dark and gritty 'technology bad' series Black Mirror even more disturbing and depressing than it already is? Of course! In this episode we connect a few dots and we find a handy scapegoat to blame for all of humanity's misfortunes in the series; Capitalism! From rogue robot bees to super-prisons full of exercise bikes to what happens to your soul in San Junipero when the Google Drive housing it crashes and burns, we cover just about everything. Warning: You should probably be at least 30% dead inside for this episode.

In the fourth episode that sees us discussing cannibalism for some reason, we try to get to the bottom of Hannibal Lecter's amazing skillset and the multiple lifetimes' worth of obscure talents he's managed to build up in a relatively short space of time. Is Hannibal capable of skipping through alternate realities, reinforcing his DNA as he goes? Why does he never manage an actual Lithuanian accent? Is there a timeline where he worked as a Mall Santa? Probably not, but we're going to discuss it anyway.

Episode Thirty sees us recovering from the fish-related trauma of last week by shooting wildly into the wind with some short, barely there theories. Theory One: Is there a reason beyond putting together the leftover scraps of chocolate that goes into creating Cadbury's flakes? Theory Two: Do all cleaning experts from Kim and Aggie to Marie Kondo to the brave souls on Hoarders have the same basic idea? Theory Three: Is there a chance that Legolas is a shambolic drunk by elf standards and didn't realize what he was getting into when he signed up for the mission in Lord of the Rings?

This week's episode finds Sorika bravely confronting her fish phobia to talk about the link between happy colourful Pixar classic Finding Nemo and grim as hell sushi-bound Korean film Padak. Whereas one is a sweet ocean adventure where natural predators coexist peacefully beside their prey, the other is a gauntlet of captive fish suffering with the added bonus of fish cannibalism. What could they possibly have in common? You'd be surprised. Please light a candle for Sorika's sanity.

Are the shenanigans of Winnie the Pooh and his woodland friends as sweet and wholesome as they appear to be? Or is the entirety of Hundred Acre Wood just a very complex honey trap to tempt a small child into abandoning the human world for the realm of the fairies? Where are Christopher Robin's parents?

This episode is a deep dive into one of Sinead's favourite childhood films, horror classic The Omen. Is Damien truly the literal spawn of Satan, or is he a relatively normal kid who just happens to have terrible adoptive parents? Is there a doomsday cult manipulating circumstances around this poor child because they took an ancient arcane text far too seriously? Just how hairy does a child have to be for you to miss a great big 666 birthmark on their scalp, and why does it look like it was drawn there in biro?