Tell Me When It’s Over

This week, it's time for a wild pivot in the Home Invasion genre with a film that is dark and haunting for a whole new raft of reasons: the directorial debut from Beth de Araújo, Soft and Quiet.  Sometimes the most terrifying villains aren't masked men with chainsaws...

This week, Luce and Claire crack into Jordan Peele's brilliant 2019 film, Us (much like you would crack into a skull and eat the juicy brains inside). They talk about Peele's clever easter eggs, Lupita Nyong'o's stunning performance, and the true message of the home invasion genre: If our homes are our life skin, then aren't our skins really just our skeleton homes? Makes you think...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Tell Me When It's Over has officially turned 1! That's right, Rosemary's Baby is all grown up. We're celebrating horror's biggest holiday and the first movie of our "Home Invasion" genre with a very special episode. So special, in fact, that this week Claire and Luce watched not one movie, but TWO: the French (and/or American) nightmare that is Martyrs.

Spelunking in the dark caves of North Carolina? Squeezing yourself through tight passages and traversing underground chasms?? Going on a forced-fun girls trip and having to wake up early instead of sleeping in?!? It's a HARD NO on all those things! Thankfully, this week Luce and Claire just have to talk about the horrors of caving (as well as the creatures that lie beneath) as they review the British deep-hole drama, The Descent. It's our last Monster Movie - let's let loose!

This week, nature is wreaking vengeance... in the form of a rapidly-evolving, blood-gushing, googly-eyed ocean monster that's taking over the city of Tokyo. That's right, Claire and Luce are talking about Shin Godzilla... or are they actually talking about mankind's incompetence and hubris? Kaiju be the judge!

It's the 4th of July weekend in an American seaside town, the teens are drinking on an unpatrolled beach and the mayor has a jacket that screams "nautical chic with a side of small-town hubris" - what could possibly go wrong! This week is Shark Week, as Luce and Claire dive deep into their fears of the water with a Spielberg classic, Jaws.

We love New York! We love Lizzie Caplan! We love huge monsters rampaging through Manhattan and messing up the Statue of Liberty! And you'd better BELIEVE we love seeing it all captured on a HandyCam that has a questionably-long battery life. So it's only natural that Cloverfield was an absolute must for Luce and Claire to cover in this week's episode. Get it in your ear holes and/or pulsating neck gills!

Terrifying isolation, monstrous creatures looming up out of the dark, a bearded alcoholic wearing the world's most ludicrous hat -- no, we're not talking about Claire's trip to Burning Man... it's The Thing! John Carpenter's 1982 body horror classic might have divided audiences when it was first released, but Claire and Luce are truly on board. That said, if you get infected by this awful creature, only one of them will save you...

Luce is on holidays and Claire is at home with the recording gear and NO ONE TO STOP HER! So this week, she's opening the Tell Me When It's Over mailbag with a letter from a listener who wants to hear all about Ghost Ship. Is Claire allowed to review a movie by herself? Is she going to sing another song? Is this week's letter writer just Claire wearing a funny mustache?! Yes, yes, a thousand times YES! Welcome to our first bonus episode from the Loose Cannon tapes (AKA "Tell Me When Lucy Is Back" because someone needs to rein this lady in).

(Singing gently) Ellen Ripley... picks up the trace in the room where the Alien's been... what has she seen? This week, Luce and Claire dig their salivating teeth into Alien - tackling disgusting eggs, suffocating facehuggers, bloody chestbursters and everyone's favourite action hero, Ripley (believe it or not!)

It's the first episode of Tell Me When It's Over's Monsters season, and we're kicking off with one of the more disgusting feats of visual effects in cinema history: David Cronenberg's body horror classic, The Fly. Luce and Claire discuss the curious magnetism of Jeff Goldblum, the very obvious magnetism of Geena Davis and why spitting mucus on food is no way to win a lady. Also Claire has written ANOTHER song, but Luce says it's her best yet!

Hereditary. An absolute no-go movie for Claire and an absolute banger of a film to talk about for horror fans and terrified newcomers alike. This week Luce and Claire talk about their love of Toni Collette, their hatred of mouth sounds and how, if you can't say something nice to your children, it's probably best not to channel your rage through dioramas.

This ain't your average horror movie from the '80s, despite the fact it was directed by Tobe 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' Hooper. It is, in fact, our first 'family' horror flick, and one that Luce has deep nostalgia for! Claire quickly had to throw out any preconceptions while grappling with the whiplash of Jerry Goldsmith's whimsical, warm soundtrack against a guy tearing his own face off. But did she think it was any good? Find out in this week's episode, where the house is DEFINITELY not clean.

Crawling out of your headphones and clawing its raggedy nails into your eardrums, this week we tackle the J-Horror ode to pirated VHS tapes everywhere: Ring. Claire and Luce discuss proper techniques for draining a haunted well in regional Japan, the power of unwashed hair and why the biggest horror of all is copyright crime. You wouldn't steal a car, but you SHOULD listen to this episode...

When it comes to paranormal investigations, how important is it for your local ghost hunters to be stone-cold hotties? This week, Luce and Claire dive into the world of chilling terror and steamy actors with The Conjuring (a film that left them deeply divided on ghost lore, but firmly united on Vera Farmiga).

After a brief break, Luce and Claire are back from the dead (get it?) with a new sub-genre: GHOSTS! Claire wanted Patrick Swayze, but instead Luce chose an absolutely axe-through-the-door classic, The Shining. This week, we talk hauntings (both real, imagined and whatever poor Shelley Duvall went through), the auteurism of Kubrick and the joy of slowly opening a massive catering tin of fruit cocktail and glugging it out into a bowl.

Vomit! Orifices! Talking goats! No, it’s not your hillbilly cousin’s barn wedding, it’s the absolutely BANGING Sam Raimi horror flick, Drag Me to Hell! This week, Claire talks about her love of the snap zoom and Luce makes a case for possibly the greatest movie fight scene EVER — with plenty of gross out comedy in between.

What is it with occult films and truly cursed children? This week, Luce and Claire dive into the 1976 film The Omen, reliving some childhood trauma of their own and talking about what makes children (one kid in particular, here's looking at you Damien) really, really terrible.

Grab your tissues and wipe your noses, it's time to look at another modern horror classic. This week we dig into the turn-of-the-millennium, "did they really wear those jeans" flick that had everyone afraid to go camping, The Blair Witch Project. Luce and Claire talk about the power of viral marketing in the pre-viral days, what it was like to watch a horror movie thinking it was real and what it's like to be almost a quarter of a century late to the cultural zeitgeist. Again. It turns out the TRUE witches were the terrified memories we made along the way.

It's time to keep your appointment with The Wicker Man! This week there's no Nicolas Cage in sight as Luce and Claire break down the original folk horror classic that spawned all the meme-worthy remakes. They talk harvest season, shagging in the barley and the epic hair of Christopher Lee, and Luce even manages to change Claire's mind!