Horror Hangover – Details, episodes & analysis

This month on Horror Hangover, Ryan and Cass are joined by horror author Shannon Riley to discuss the trope of single-location horror in scary movie cinema with 2010's Frozen & 2022's No Exit. Why are we so fascinated with putting people in situations that seem impossible to escape???

If you're brave enough to hold on tight & explore why, stay tuned after the movie chat to delve into Shannon's debut horror book: Pocketknife Kitty.

Pocketknife Kitty

Synopsis: Jamie is a thirty-year-old banker wedged between grief and newfound freedom. Through a domino cascade beyond her control, she winds up stuck in her suffocating hometown. The monotony is broken swiftly when, following a night of spite-fueled impulse, Jamie soon begins to undergo a rapid and gruesome transformation. She finds herself teetering on the edge of her own sanity as she pieces together if rescue will ever come for her. And if not, what is she going to do about it?

Exploring themes of sexual empowerment, revenge, and loneliness, POCKETKNIFE KITTY asks the reader to explore exactly how far they’d go to save their own skin.

CLICK IF YOU DARE:

• Snag a copy of Pocketknife Kitty now from from Ghoulish Books!

OUR SACRED OFFERINGS GO TO:

• FeliceY for our logo design
• Cano Jaguar for our creepy intro. mix
• Wolves just being wolves - even if they ate Air Bud's Dad
• Gloves! Never take them off!... Unless you want to part with your skin... or have to buy more lotion

Note: This episode discusses substance abuse issues. If you or someone you know needs support with substance abuse, help is available. Contact SAMHSA 24/7: 1-800-662-HELP (4357) &/or use the online treatment locator tool.

This month on Horror Hangover, Ryan and Cass are joined by Stoker Award-nominated horror author Laurel Hightower to delve into all things related to GHOST HUNTING in horror. Double check you packed enough flashlight batteries, turn on Find My Friends, & suit up to explore the creepiness awaiting you in a long, long, hallway cast in lurking shadows...

We'll stumble into the battered doors of 2011's Grave Encounters & 2018's Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum. 

If you survive, stay tuned for an interview with Laurel about her latest book, The Day of the Door, its inspiration, & traumatic unearthing in its pages.

The Day of the Door

Once there were four Lasco siblings banded together against a world that failed to protect them. But on a hellish night that marked the end of their childhood, eldest brother Shawn died violently after being dragged behind closed doors. Though the official finding was accidental death, Nathan Lasco knows better, and has never forgiven their mother, Stella.

Now two decades later, Stella promises to finally reveal the truth of what happened on The Day of the Door. Accompanied by a paranormal investigative team, the Lasco family comes together one final time, but no one is prepared for the revelations waiting for them on the third floor.

Available now from Ghoulish Books!

CLICK IF YOU DARE:

• Q&A: Actor Sean Rogerson Explains How To Survive GRAVE ENCOUNTERS
• Indie Horror Month 2021: Celebrating 10 Years of GRAVE ENCOUNTERS with Filmmakers Colin Minihan & Stuart Ortiz
• Navigating the dark corners of a haunted asylum
• Cass' take on using the real in found footage-style horror in "How Curse of Aurore Resurrects Aurore Gagnon: A Conversation with Llana Barron" 

OUR SACRED OFFERINGS GO TO:

• FeliceY for our logo design
• Cano Jaguar for our creepy intro. mix
• Long live the camera men of horror 
• Bathtub worm holes?
• The Body Keeps the Score book on trauma recovery

This time, Ryan puts Cass in the interviewee spot -- digging into their upcoming horror novella debut, The Caretaker. Please be gentle with this one as it contains lots of thoughts about the horrors of grief.

Synopsis: Cara, an overworked ICU nurse, could think of one million other things to do than sort through her dead mother's house. Still, she's here -- cleaning a home she thought she abandoned long ago. Of course, it doesn't take Cara long before she stumbles upon her mother's buried secrets and becomes curiously stuck with a haunted hospice bed. Roping in her ride-or-die cousin Dylan and witchy ex-girlfriend Beth into the proceedings, Cara unwittingly drags her beloveds into a gauntlet of horrors.

Snag your copy here from Hear Us Scream Press!

OUR SACRED OFFERINGS GO TO:

• FeliceY for their logo design
• Cano Jaguar for their creepy intro. mix
• My dad

We open up the Horror Hangover vault to unleash a delightful chat we had with The Horror Hour's Yutaka! about brutal vampires in horror.

CLICK IF YOU DARE:

• A fantastic video essay on Nosferatu by Vintage Soup
• Image of Drakula - cinema's first (debated) Dracula!
• What's a monumental horror image?

OUR SACRED OFFERINGS GO TO:

• FeliceY for our logo design
• Cano Jaguar for our creepy intro. mix
• Long, gnarly fingernails ftw!

Join us, dear listener, as our co-host Ryan C. Bradley interviews Ashley Deng about her upcoming novella from Tenebrous Press, DEHISCENT!

Synopsis: As the world's climate swings rapidly between oppressively hot and freezing cold, the remnants of civilization huddle in small communities to scrape together what they can to survive.

All except the Zhu family.

Yi has lived in her ancestral house her entire life, sheltered and safe from the scarcity that plagues her community. Her family enjoys a secret life of running water, electricity, and an abundance of food.

But as Yi seeks a way to share their fortune, she learns the terrible secret of the Zhu house.

DEHISCENT is an Eco-Horror tale of a future that has practically arrived, and the humanity that lurks in the most inhuman of places.

Snag your copy here!

OUR SACRED OFFERINGS GO TO:

• FeliceY for their logo design
• Cano Jaguar for their creepy intro. mix
• Medical anatomy illustrations for creeping us out... in the best of ways!

Danger Slater joins us this month on the pod to discuss his latest book -- House of Rot -- coming out from Tenebrous Press on June 14!

Synopsis:

The pink mold growing on the walls isn’t the worst thing about Elenya and Myles’ brand-new fixer-upper. There are also the inexplicable footsteps in the night; the sealed-over windows and doors; the neighbor that hears their screams but can’t be bothered to help. Soon, there’s no leaving at all. No hope of cleaning. And that encroaching mold? It’s practically become a second skin. Welcome to the House of Rot. You’re never getting out.

OUR SACRED OFFERINGS GO TO:

• FeliceY for our logo design
• Cano Jaguar for our creepy intro. mix
• Spores!

In celebration of Michelle Garza Cervera's debut feature film, Huesera: The Bone Woman, hitting Shudder on May 12, we're reviewing it with our special guest Miguel Myers from My Horror Confessional.

Also, thank you to the women who anonymously lent their voices to this episode to express their feelings about being pregnant, having a birthing body, and the frustrations they have with motherhood.

OUR SACRED OFFERINGS GO TO:

• FeliceY for our logo design
• Cano Jaguar for our creepy intro. mix
• Gay aunties with micheladas 
• Moshing while pregnant

This month we chat with horror journalist, critic, author, & lovely human all around -- Richard Newby! -- to discuss disfigured killers in horror. We dive into 1960's Eyes Without a Face & Noroi: The Curse & how utterly weird face transplants are!

CLICK IF YOU DARE:

• The Cripped-Up Horror of Halloween Movies by Brianna Schunk
• The Psychology of Scary Faces by Stuart Vyse
• Noroi: Realistic J-Horror | Video Essay by Accented Cinema
• Face Transplants: An International History by Fay Bound Alberti & Victoria Hoyle
• Check out Richard Newby's book, We Make Monsters Here!

OUR SACRED OFFERINGS GO TO:

• FeliceY for our logo design
• Cano Jaguar for our creepy intro. mix
• Sack masks rule!

This month we rewind our clocks back to 2022 when we chatted with Miguel Myers of My Horror Confessional podcast fame about nunsploitation films! We focus on the 1977's Alucarda & 2021's Benedetta & why the genre is hella radical! Sometimes!

As a warning, we do discuss trauma associated with the Catholic Church, anti-queer & trans protestors, sexual assault, & rape. Please skip ahead to another one of our chats if these are triggering topics for you.

CLICK IF YOU DARE:

• Grindhouse Database directory of all nunsploitation films
• BFI's best of bad habit films
• Candice Drouet's killer video essay on Benedetta
• Exorcism & Sexuality: The "Thick Description" of an 18th-century Transylvanian Catholic Priest's Transgression essay by Daniel Barth

OUR SACRED OFFERINGS GO TO:

• FeliceY for our logo design
• Cano Jaguar for our creepy intro. mix
• Alucarda's impeccable stare
• Sister Act I & Sister Act II 

Gals, ghouls, & badass they's of the world, tune in this time to catch our three trivia teams: Ryan C. Bradley & Valerie Ettenhofer, Queer Quadrant, & Horror Hour compete for the FINAL GIRL/BOY/ZADDIE crown. We're joined by special guest, Michael Varrati, who ups our rematch ante with a RAPID HEARTS ROUND.

Let's see who survives this time & really knows their queer rom-com trivia in honor of the happiest (but sometimes sweet) time of the year! Wanna play along? Check out the films to watch & rules below:

Rules

• Everyone starts off with a queerdo hangman that has a wig, 2 monster hands, 2 feet, 2 arms, 2 legs, & a head. For every wrong question, a body part gets slashed!
• Rapid Heart Round: When you hear the bell, this means double the trouble or double the reward. For every right answer, you gain back 2 body parts. But for every wrong answer, you lose 2 body parts. Are you game enough to try?

Films to watch:

• 1997's Sparkler
• Bound
• The Handmaiden
• Fire Island
• Imagine Me & You
• Rope
• Saving Face
• Ellie & Abbie (& Ellie's Dead Aunt) 
• Shiva Baby
• But I'm a Cheerleader
• Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Until next time...