lightninli
JoinedMarch 18, 2018
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By day, Eric is a mild-mannered Architect, bringing great buildings to the good boys and girls of his hometown of Portland, Oregon. By night, he is a disreputable podcaster looking to promote the best and worst of horror movies!

The Scariest Thing Podcast Episode 145: Tropetown Showdown!

Remember who we are: Your Gateway to the Trends and Tropes of the Horror Genre. That means we had better know our tropes... like REALLY know our tropes. And as such, welcome to Tropetown! This is a speed round session where we try and come up with the best and most original example of the trope. It's a game of can-you-top this? The winner gets to be named Mayor of Tropetown!
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Eric’s Review: The Columnist (2019)

★★★★ out of ★★★★★ When a likable protagonist goes horribly, horribly wrong and the movie turns out to be very, very, right. The Dutch film, The Columnist, is an adult study of cyberbullying and the drastic measures that a journalist will go through to exact a pound of flesh from her trolls. The mix of emotions watching a character you like descend so far is palpable.
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The 2022 Thingy Awards!

Celebrate the best of 2021 Horror in the 2022 Thingy Awards! Yeah, it's a little late in the Awards season, but we're all still recovering from the Will Smith slap heard around the world, and now that we have recovered from being stunned, it's time to concentrate on the Scariest Things you saw from last year. Once again, you are invited to fill in a ballot for your favorites from 2021!
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The Scariest Things Podcast Extra: An Interview With the Cast and Crew of When the Screaming Starts (Panic Fest 2022)

At Panic Fest in Kansas City, a wicked slice of horror-comedy has been ordered up in the form of an indie UK feature, When the Screaming Starts. The Scariest Things podcast crew immediately fell for this mockumentary about a Manson Family-style murder cult setting its roots in London. We were joined by the Director and Actor/Producers of the film to discuss the story of the "family" that slays together and doesn't stay together (ahem!).
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The Scariest Things Podcast Episode 144: The SXSW 2022 Recap

SXSW made its return to live audiences in Austin in March of 2022, and The Scariest Things was present for the event. Liz Williams took in as much as she could at the festival, and the rest of TST's staff followed by streaming for one of the world's great film festivals.
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Book Report: 3 Monstrous Audiobook Recommendations for Light Spring Listening

A Dirty Job: ★★★★1/2 The Kaiju Preservation Society: ★★★★ Gil's All Fright Diner: ★★★1/2 Are you at home networking while listening to audiobooks? Do you have a long drive in front of you, and you need something to keep you occupied on your journey? Looking for something light and fun and horror-tinged, but not so graphic as to make you want to run from the room and pee your pants? Here are three fun listens available on Audible for some amusing monstrous titles.
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Sissy (2022) Review: (SXSW World Premiere)

★★★ out of ★★★★★

Intensity: 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸

Cecilia has become a successful influencer, using self-help meditation rituals of her own creation. Unfortunately, she has yet to truly conquer her own insecurities, and when she gets invited to spend some quality time with a long-lost childhood bestie, her childhood bully is there too, bringing up long-dormant fears and is forced to take a more aggressive approach to deal with her problems. At times admirable, at others frustrating, the movie is a bit of a mixed bag of bullying tropes.

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Eric’s Review: Slash/Back (SXSW World Premiere 2022)

★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★ At the edge of the Arctic Circle, in an isolated and remote Inuit community under the unending daylight of the arctic summer, a group of teenage girls fights off boredom... and an alien invasion of Earth. This is the simple premise, executed earnestly, of the feature Slash/Back which had its world premiere at SXSW 2022.
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Eric’s Review: The Cellar (SXSW 2022 World Premiere)

★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★ The Cellar, which debuted at SXSW 2022, feels on the surface like a fairly conventional haunted house film, but it produces some fairly clever takes on the traditional model. A physicist uses an arcane equation to save his dying son but ends up damning himself and dooming the family that has just moved into the mansion in which he disappeared.
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The Scariest Things Episode 142: Our Favorite Horror Couples

Couples. Partners. Lovers. Siblings. Spouses. Besties. Some of the most fascinating horror characters come in pairs. Whether they team up for good or evil, these characters are inextricably linked together to their fates. In Episode 142 we explore some of our favorite horror duets.
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An Unfathomable Lovecraftian Horror Short: The Relic (2021)

The thrilling horror short "The Relic" manages to pull off the incredible in satisfying both the academic Lovecraft purists and those who want a spectacular body horror showcase. For those in the know, this may be the definitive screen depiction of the crawling chaos, the old God, Nyarlathotep.
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Eric’s Review: Evil Eye (2020)

★★★ out of ★★★★★ Familiar family themes resonate in the Indian immigration tale of generational trust issues and the classic trope of the lover with a deep dark secret. The movie vacillates between being poignant to predictable, but it is always buoyed when veteran character actress Sarita Choudhury (Mississippi Masala) is on screen. It works much better as a family drama than a horror film, but it does have a thriller payoff at the end.
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The Scariest Things Podcast Episode 141: Police Procedural Horror

Detective, you are a loose cannon! Turn in your piece, your shield, and make sure to turn that ancient evil tome into evidence. Now get out of my office! The cop cliches are layered on top of a genre with plenty of our favorite tried and true horror tropes. This is the world of the thriller and the hunt of serial killers. It is time for Episode 142 and we're talking police procedural horror.
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Eric’s Review: Meander (2020)

★★★ out of ★★★★★ Can a film without a plot to speak of still be compelling? In the case of Meander, a claustrophobic tricks and traps film, the answer is a qualified yes. A woman grieving the loss of her daughter is abducted and stuffed into a ductwork maze sprinkled with an escalating parade of devilish traps. That is pretty much the entirety of what you need to know, but if you take a simple idea and execute it well. it is worth watching.
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Eric’s Review: Don’t Breathe 2 (2021)

★★★ out of ★★★★★ Stephen Lang's Blind Man is back. Though this time he's managed to flip the script and is now the nominal protagonist in the sequel to the 2016 break-out surprise hit. Once the fearsome monster from the first movie, he is still a force to be reckoned with, but now he has a young charge to care for. It is tense and exciting, but there are still some major questions that require answers though.
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The Scariest Things Podcast Episode 139: The Worst Horror Films of 2021

This is the annual ritual of summarizing the year that was. We first celebrate the best of the year, and then we have to get real. Not everything was worth your time when it comes to scary movies last year. We don't enjoy doing this, but we have to name names. Welcome to Episode 139 where we dish out what wasn't good in 2021.
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The Scariest Things Review: Scream (2022)

The movie that brought meta front and center to horror, and gave an adrenaline boost to a tired slasher genre is back with its fifth installment. The movie remains meta, and brings a fresh new group of victims... I mean characters... to the screen, along with a few old familiar friends. Is it any good? For a feature this significant it takes all three of the Scariest Things Podcasters to weigh in.
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Gas Station Horror! : A Scariest Things Dead List

What's the scariest setting in a horror movie? A graveyard? A dungeon? A basement? Nah. Try gas station. The gas station is a favorite point of conflict in a horror movie. If it shows up in your favorite horror film, you know something really bad is going to happen. Check out our dead list of how awful gas stations really are in horror movies.
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Dead List: The Elderly in Horror Movies

It's hard enough being an older actor in the movies. In horror movies, it can be exponentially harder to make an impact, but there is a new and growing trend to feature older performers in horror movies. Is it a change in the movie culture? Is the audience growing older? The truth is probably that Horror films are casting a wider demographic net than ever, and Hollywood may now recognize that audiences who grew up as teens loving their '70s cult films and '80s slasher flicks are now in their 50s and 60s... and we still love our horror!
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The Scariest Things Podcast Episode 138: The Best Horror Movies of 2021

Happy New Year Scariest Friends! The Scariest Things has now banked FOUR YEARS of podcasts and reviews, and despite a world-wide pandemic, we were able to see a lot of good movies and share our impressions with our ever growing fan base. It's a good time to thank everybody who has checked in with us over the year. The new Golden Age of horror continues on, unabated, and we look forward to sharing with you a fantastic 2022!
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The Scariest Things Podcast Episode CXXXVII: The Psychology of Horror Movies

We Horror fans are an odd lot. We actively seek emotional sensations that make us uncomfortable, agitated, and if done well, terrified. To say that we are adrenaline junkies testing our courage is an easy way out, and doesn't really get to the truth of things. Ashley Hirusina, a graphic artist managed in one poster, a deep but succinct analysis of why we seek the scary.
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Eric’s Review: Bashira (2021): Another Hole in the Head Film Festival

★★★ out of ★★★★★ Bashira is an artistically ambitious and technically accomplished feature debut film from special effects auteur Nickson Fong. As much as it is a treat for your eyes and ears, though, the film's plot is overly complex and the execution of the work sometimes over-shoots the target. The story often feels like two competing stories going at the same time.
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Eric’s Top 10 Horror Films of 2021

Chalk 2021 into the history books! And, every year that I do this, I find it hard to separate my favorite films, and this year was no different. There were really good films from both the festival side and the studio wide release efforts from the past year.
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Eric’s Review: Human Resources (2021): Another Hole in the Head Film Festival

★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★ A remarkably nuanced slice of horror at work, from a 19-year-old writer/director that poses the question as to how far would you be willing to go to unearth and expose the dirty secrets at your place of employment. The movie is probably twenty minutes too long, but the plot has a solid mystery backbone to tell a good story, and it is graced with great characters and snappy dialogue.
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Eric’s Review: Crabs! (2021): (Another Hole in the Head Film Festival)

★★★ out of ★★★★★ Do you miss goofy '80s era R-rated monster movies? Crabs! is one of those cheesy nature-gone-wrong films that doesn't take itself too seriously and manages to deliver some good gory entertainment. It's inconsistent, but there's enough here to have a good night with a bag of popcorn and a B-movie creature feature.
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