This week Dave and Bryan take their first steps into the 1990's and go deep with a real hard look at The Blair Witch Project. Joining them on this trek through the forest is Ash Kelley and Alaina Urquhart from the Morbid Podcast. Though, not the first found-footage horror movie, Blair Witch is definitely the one that convinced budding indie horror directors that yes, they too could make a horror movie on very little money. Dave and Bryan struggle to understand the appeal while Ash and Alaina do their best to articulate just what it is about this movie that they love so much. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bring-me-the-axe/message

This Week, Bryan and Dave put the brakes on to talk about Roger Corman, one of the most important filmmakers in the history of pop cinema and the genres, most notably horror and science fiction. He died at age 98 on May 9, 2024 and left behind a legacy of nearly 500 films which bear his name in one way or another. Bring Me The Axe picks 4 movies of Corman's that are formative horror movie experiences and enduring favorites. Hear all about A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Raven, and Death Race 2000 and the outsized influence Corman had on the larger industry in filmmaking. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bring-me-the-axe/message

This week Bryan and Dave take a look at John Carl Buechler's swing-and-a-miss for the Charles Band dynasty, Troll. It's supposed to be filled with whimsy, adventure, and high-fantasy but is instead filled with crappy rubber monsters and cringe-inducing performances by actors tenured enough to know better by this point. Noah Hathaway casually throws away any goodwill he earned with his portrayal of Atreyu in The Neverending Story. Michael Moriarty seems to have no idea what he's even doing there. It's all a jumbled mess that somehow managed to be a smash-hit at the box office for Empire Pictures and a video rental gem of the 1980's. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bring-me-the-axe/message

This week, Dave and Bryan are joined by Jeffrey Nelson, co-creator of the Scream Factory label for Shout Factory, to talk about the utterly unhinged Charles Bronson detective movie, 10 To Midnight. It's the tale of a cop, a father, his bleeding heart liberal, college-educated partner, and a serial killer whose nude and on the loose. Bronson could catch his man if it weren't for all the sleazy lawyers and liberal courts who want to coddle the criminal element instead of punish them. You'll be hard-pressed to find another movie that so brazenly espouses the dominant political theory of the Reagan 80's. It's a real NRA fever dream and an unintentionally hilarious piece of camp from the Cannon Group. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bring-me-the-axe/message

This week, Bryan and Dave take a trip back to 1986 for the Rutger Hauer/C. Thomas Howell horror movie road trip, The Hitcher, from the murderous, deeply troubled writer, Eric Red. Dave struggles with modern re-evaluations that attempt to claim The Hitcher as some sort of queer horror hidden gem and Bryan has to do a lot of heavy lifting to fill in the movie's massive narrative gaps in order to make it a movie worth watching. Is the movie's imperiled hero Jim Halsey dead this whole time? Is he gay and on the run from the physical manifestation of bisexuality? You're going to have to listen to find out! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bring-me-the-axe/message

This week Bryan and Dave are joined by Aileen Clark of the Uy Que Horror podcast to take a trip back in time to 1990 when Turtlemania ruled the preteen scene. We explore the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles phenomenon through the lens of Steve Barron's bizarre adaptation that struck closer to the dark indie turtles comics of the mid-80's than the colorful pizza-obsessed party dudes of Saturday morning cartoons. Does the movie hold up to modern scrutiny? Well, not exactly, but it's a fascinating franchise, nonetheless. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bring-me-the-axe/message

This week, Dave and Bryan take a good long look at the gory 80's horror comedy classic, Re-Animator from director Stuart Gordon and producer, Brian Yuzna. What they find is, unfortunately, not much more to talk about than what's right there on the surface and the unfortunately troubling sexual politics of a movie that's operating head and shoulders above its contemporaries as far as sophistication and a sense of humor goes. You also get a good deal of background on H.P. Lovecraft, to whom the horror genre as we know it today owes a tremendous debt. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bring-me-the-axe/message

Alright, boppers! This week Bryan and Dave put one of their favorite movies under a microscope for a giant-sized 99 Cent Rental episode about Walter Hill's 1979 gang odyssey, The Warriors. Few movies made as much of an impact on the exploitation market at The Warriors and fewer still impacted the rental market with such an iconic poster and rental box. In its day its marketing was driven by public outrage over gang violence at the movies but how much of that was true? We go over all of it. Can you dig it? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bring-me-the-axe/message

This week Bryan and Dave take in David Cronenberg's digest of divorce horror, The Brood. Samantha Eggar spawns killer munchkins, Art Hindle isn't very good at anything he does, Oliver Reed is a condescending jerk. It's a movie possessed of a terrible anger and frustration as Cronenberg, emotionally exhausted and unable to process his feelings put it all on the page and the result is the hard divorce horror movie that meant to spit in the face of Kramer vs. Kramer. Not for the faint of heart, The Brood is often like looking into the affairs of a person who chose to confide in you specifically in order to get something heavy off their chest but are you up to the task? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bring-me-the-axe/message

This week, Bryan and Dave are ready for their close-up as they address a listener request to explore Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard through the lens of horror and cult and, well, they don't exactly pull it off but they do turn in a deep dive into Hollywood's silent era, the golden age of sound, and how it manages to keep up the fabulous illusion of fantasy with a ruthless stranglehold on every piece of machinery that surrounds it and supports it, including the very people that make it all possible. Sunset Boulevard is a drag queen's dream come true. Silent star, Gloria Swanson returns to the screen to portray the larger-than-life fallen star, Norma Desmond with grand sweeping gestures and some of the most quotable dialog in Hollywood history. Every aspect of this movie is lifted up and supported by every other piece. From Billy Wilder's writing and direction, to the photography of John Seitz, to the costuming of Edith Head, to the score provided by Franz Waxman. Join us for a deep dive into one of the greatest movies ever produced by Hollywood. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bring-me-the-axe/message

This week Bryan and Dave take a look at the criminally underrated horror movie by Tobe Hooper, The Funhouse from 1981. Tobe Hooper caught everyone's attention with the absolutely legendary horror movie, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and continued to toy with the tropes established in that movie through his other killer hillbilly movie, Eaten Alive, and straight into this one when he finally seems to get it all out of his system. Universal Pictures at the time, with their own legacy of classic black and white horror movies, wanted a piece of that hot slasher movie action of the era and secured Hooper with the hopes that he'd turn in something tuned to the expectations of the time but he surprised everyone and decided to give them a proper monster movie in the mode of their own black and white horror movies. The disparity between the studio's intentions and the director's vision results in a monster movie that succeeds despite the challenges Tobe Hooper faced. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bring-me-the-axe/message

This week Dave and Bryan take a look at Allan Arkush's follow up to Rock n Roll High School, the rock musical Looney Tunes mayhem of Get Crazy. It's a story of three filmmakers butting heads over the movie they were trying to make. Arkush intended for a nostalgia-drenched tribute to his teenage years at The Fillmore East in the style of Scorcese's The Last Waltz, the producer wanted a fast and stupid visual comedy in the style of Airplane! and the Executive Producer wanted a movie that was going to fail and fail badly so his tax shelter investors could turn a healthy profit. Somehow, they all got what they wanted in the end. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bring-me-the-axe/message

Bryan and Dave take a good long look at Fred Dekker's 1986 cult favorite, Night of the Creeps and come away with a vastly different view of it than when they watched it as kids. What could possibly change their minds so significantly? It's a pastiche of 50's and 60's drive in tropes filtered through a 1980's horror movie lens but unfortunately, given the way things have shaken out in modern times, some of those tropes haven't aged well at all. Thankfully, Tom Atkins is here to save everything. Thrill me! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bring-me-the-axe/message

Bryan and Dave get ready to break the ice and take a trip back to 1986 to relive BMX madness in the form of Rad, a sports movie that fails on every front and still manages to command a significant cult movie presence in history. It's the story of Cru Jones, a small-town kid with a dream who just need one chance to prove to the world that he's best BMX rider in the world, to prove that he's rad. Fortunately, the world is ready to just hand over the glory as he doesn't really have to work or struggle very hard to realize his dreams. Trailer: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iLuySHQkPU&t=8s --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bring-me-the-axe/message

Bryan and Dave celebrate one year of podcasting with a real deep dive into George Romero's paradigm shifting zombie epic, Dawn of the Dead. In the history of horror movies, there are only a few movies that changed the way movies are made and viewed and this is one of them. It's a zombie survival fantasy set in shopping mall with wild shifts in tone that don't always work and a graphic violence about it that its contemporaries did not share. After this one came out, everybody in Italy was suddenly making zombie horror movies. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_EviQj5tvA --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bring-me-the-axe/message

Listen up, hosers! Dave and Bryan love you and have sent you this Valentine's Day love letter to 1981's Canadian slasher movie classic, My Bloody Valentine. It's better than you expect it to be, with a cast of people that you actually grow to like. Sure, it's another slice and dice picture from the golden age of slashers but not too many of them paid this much attention to the craft of telling a story. How does this movie hold up to modern standards? You're going to have to listen to find out. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWvLgL5tdkc --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bring-me-the-axe/message

This week, Dave and Bryan celebrate Black History Month with a look at Bill Gunn's delirious 1973 vampire movie, Ganja & Hess, which stars Gunn, Marlene Clark, and Duane Jones from Night of the Living Dead. It's a sleepy, dreamy art film about black identity, gender, class, and the loneliness of a man without ancestry as damaged people deal with themes of blackness in America through the gauzy lens of a vampire movie. Often lumped in with blaxploitation movies like Blacula and Shaft, it is anything but. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEM9oEKC1Ow --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bring-me-the-axe/message

This week Bryan and Dave are joined by Jonny and Aileen from the Uy Que Horror podcast for a maddening breakdown of the Cannon Films deep cut, X-Ray (aka Hospital Massacre), starring Barbi Benton as a woman who just needs to pick up her check-up results and spends the rest of the day in a Franz Kafka nightmare, navigating a hospital staffed by intense, antagonistic hospital staff and a masked murderer from her past. This whole movie is bonkers. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfB3HOY5Ze0 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bring-me-the-axe/message

Dave and Bryan take a look at a staple of the cult movie circuit, Brian De Palma's bizarre pop music opera and riff on gothic horror, Phantom of the Paradise. It's a wild ride through the nostalgia wave of the 1970's, standout performances from a bright cast, and the music of the movie's villain, Paul Williams, whose hair is just magnificent! Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9yof8cwli4 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bring-me-the-axe/message

Bryan and Dave are joined this week by drag performer extraordinaire, Peaches Christ, to talk about the arch-80's vampire classic from 1985, Fright Night, starring William Ragsdale, Roddy McDowall, and Chris Sarandon (making his second appearance on the pod). It's an awesome movie that could have been even better for reasons we get deep in the weeds over. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMRH0RIEjnc https://peacheschrist.com/ Peaches Christ on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepeacheschrist/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bring-me-the-axe/message