Castle Of Horror Podcast

We discuss the deeply weird Cobra Woman, a South Seas adventure featuring evil twin Maria Montezes, cobra dancing, and a mute Lon Chaney, Jr.  

Another WolfCop, new in DVD, is a Canadian horror comedy film written and directed by Lowell Dean, who also directed the 2014 film WolfCop as well as the zombie thriller 13 Eerie (2013) and the post-apocalypse action film SuperGrid (2018).. The Wolfcop series is an irreverent horror comedy about a cop in a depressed town who becomes a werewolf but retains his identity as a police officer.

We augment the Atom Age Horror Retrospective with a strange, deeply problematic expedition movie from 1960 by adventure/disaster maestro Irwin Allen: The Lost World, about an expedition to a plateau where cannibals and dinosaurs played by lizards with glued-on fins roam.

Paul Tremblay's new book is a terrifying home invasion story about a small family under attack from four strangely polite, very scary people. We talk about the home invasion genre and how evil can sometimes sound so darn nice right up until the worst moments. 

We discuss the 1958 film The Blob, often cited as the film debut of Steve McQueen.

Tiki Culture was marked by a desire to explore lost worlds, particularly of Polynesia, but always from the comfort of your own home. This urge to explore found its voice in music but also in film. Voodoo Island (1957) is a prime example of the fascination/exploration/exploitation of the South Seas. We talk about this odd feature starring Boris Karloff and others like it.

We talk to Halloween Man creator Drew Edwards on his new special from Sugar Skull Media, Lucy Chaplin: Science Starlet, and about creating a new heroine who has garnered surprising attention.

We take on the best giant lizard movie ever to be filmed around Lake Dallas, 1959's The Giant Gila Monster. Along the way we talk about small towns and the roles people play within them, and how films like this one can help understand the need for vaccinations. Also, a few thoughts on Godzilla 1985.

This week we introduce California Tiki, a new podcast on America’s fascination with Tiki, that odd culture that made everyone suddenly put on Hawaiian shirts and start downing rum drinks. Tiki Culture was everywhere from the 40s to the 70s, and the reasons why are surprising, often involving exorcising America’s wartime demons. We start out with a look at Beach Party, the 1963 film that kicked off the beach movie trend and also introduced the pairing of Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello.  But at the center of the film is Robert Cummings, who plays a scientist yearning for a simpler life– a key element of Tiki.

David Bowles, professor at University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, talks about his sweeping new book of Myths of Mexico: Feathered Serpent, Dark Heart of Sky. 

We look at giant-bug movie Tarantula, which actually has a lot to say about small towns and the real fear of radioactivity. Plus we discuss whether there ever can be something "so bad it's good."

Welcome to the new home of the California Tiki Podcast!  Hosts Adam Foshko and Jason Henderson will be discussing Tiki Culture in the runup to the release of our new book California Tiki from the History Press. What is California Tiki? After World War II, suburbs proliferated around California cities as returning soldiers traded in their uniforms for business suits. After-hours leisure activities took on an island-themed sensuality that bloomed from a new fascination with Polynesia and Hawaii. Movies and television shows filmed in Malibu and Burbank urged viewers to escape everyday life with the likes of Gidget and Hawaiian Eye. Restaurants like Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic's sprang up to answer the demand for wild cocktails and even wilder décor. The culture--a strange hodgepodge of idols, torches, lush greenery and colorful drinks--beckoned men and women to lose themselves in exotic music and surf tunes. Authors Jason Henderson and Adam Foshko explore the state's midcentury fascination with all things

Gary Rhodes talks about his new book culled from thousands of primary sources and long-unseen illustrations, The Birth of the American Horror Film. The book  explores the influence of horror-themed literature, theatre and visual culture in America, and how that context established a foundation for films produced between 1895 and 1915. Exhaustively researched, bridging scholarship on Horror Studies and Early Cinema, The Birth of the American Horror Film is the first major study dedicated to this vital but often overlooked subject. 

We look at a film that set the vocabulary for paranoid film from its release in 1956 to today: the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers starring Kevin McCarthy.

We cover the paranoid SF movie with the strange name, I Married a Monster from Outer Space-- a movie rife with subtext about homophobia, gender roles, and the claustrophobia of small-town America. 

We kick off our new series on Atom Age Horrors, from Big Bugs to Teenage Monsters, with Them!, a well-made, high-budget-for-its-time 1954 story about giant ants threatening America.  Then we have a spoiler-filled discussion of Avengers: Infinity War, because we've been aching to compare notes.

Jason and Drew chat with Larry Blamire, creator of affectionate, keen parodies like The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, The Lost Skeleton Returns Again and Dark and Stormy Night, among others. 

We chat with Cutter Wood, author of Love and Death in the Sunshine State: The Story of a Crime from Algonquin Books. A gripping piece of creative nonfiction in the tradition of Capote's In Cold Blood, Wood's book tells the story not just of the murder and its three suspects but of his own journey in telling the story. We chat about nonfiction, true crime, and writing.

We talk about Larry Blamire's knowing ode to 1950s low-budget sci-fi films like Plan 9 From Outer Space, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. We ask, what is this movie? Is it camp (deliberately bad) or parody (good, observing the bad?) 

RS Belcher is known for the urban-legends-based horror novel The Brotherhood of the Wheel, which has been optioned for TV and compared by The Wall Street Journal to Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. Belcher's new book is The Night Dahlia, new from Tor, a noir fantasy about Laytham Ballard, a modern mage hired to find the missing daughter of a faery mob boss. To find Caern Ankou, Ballard will have to confront old enemies, former friends and allies, and a grisly cold case that has haunted him for years. We chat far and wide about noir, writing, and daring prose.