Ted Bundy was a prolific serial killer who was put to death in the electric chair in 1989, and ever since then people have been fascinated by his crimes and his legend. But what if there was never anything behind the legend but a sad, damaged man who hurt people because he liked it? That's the premise of 'No Man of God', and as a result it's a film that requires a bit of unpacking. Which is, luckily, what Half Price Horror loves most in a movie.
When he heard that the prophecies of Armageddon were coming true and the Antichrist may in fact already be walking the earth in human form, Harvey Bernhard responded the way only a Hollywood producer can: "Hey, I should make a movie about that!" And thank goodness he did, because the world might not have ended in 1988 but 1976 gave us an all-time horror classic, so let's dig into it, shall we?
This is a podcast about horror, but it's been a long time since a scary movie--especially a haunted house movie--genuinely freaked out your horror host. But 'Terrified' proves it can still happen, and HPH is here to explain to you exactly what makes this movie about a whole damn haunted neighborhood so magnificently horrifying to its audience.
All good things must come to an end, and so it's time to bid farewell to intrepid reporter Carl Kolchak and his monster-hunting adventures with two final episodes, "The Youth Killer" and "The Sentry", that feature immortal demigoddesses and giant lizard monsters and of course Tom Bosley. Plus, a special appearance from Blast Hardcheese!
Time to take another deep dive, this time into 2020's disaster horror flick 'Underwater'! But will things go swimmingly, or is the final release from 20th Century Fox all washed up? Let's find out in another wet and wild episode!
Time for another peek into the life of Carl Kolchak, news reporter and reluctant monster slayer, as he helps Erik Estrada with a pesky Aztec cult, whips a suit of animated armor into shape, and closes the books on a corpse-possessing succubus! It's just another day at the office for Kolchak, so let's dive in and see what makes it all so much fun!
It's the 200th episode of Half Price Horror, and naturally there's only one movie big enough, important enough, and profound enough to qualify for such a momentous occasion! But instead we covered 'Satan's Cheerleaders', so jump in for a discussion of 70s exploitation movies, schlock producer Greydon Clark, and more old Hollywood stars than you can shake a stick at!
Time to take another trip back to the 70s and find out what's going on in the world of intrepid reporter Carl Kolchak--and it looks wild back there, with insta-grow ape men, witchcraft in the fashion industry, and... is that a young Robert Zemeckis? Face it, true believers, this one has everything!
"Welcome to Potters Bluff". It's an odd thing to say to someone right before you kill them, but then again Potters Bluff is no ordinary town. It's a town with a horrible secret at its heart... and Sheriff Dan Gillis is going to wish he'd never discovered it. But we can find out together, in another episode of Half Price Horror!
The Kolchak train rolls on, with energy devouring bear gods, shapeshifters from Hindu legend, and androids looking for books on tape to complete their programming! Time to continue our look at this 70s cult classic with "The Energy Eater", "Horror in the Heights", and "Mister R.I.N.G."!
In the wake of 'Land of the Dead' and its somewhat disappointing box office performance, Romero had nowhere to go but back to the beginning. So he went small-scale, with a mockumentary based on the first days of the zombie apocalypse filled with raw footage taken by an amateur camera crew... and how successful was he? Give a listen and find out!
Spanish moss, Satanic politicians, and messy cultural appropriation--this one's got it all, as we take a look at three more episodes of 'Kolchak: The Night Stalker'. This time out, it's "The Devil's Platform", "Bad Medicine", and "The Spanish Moss Murders", each of which gives our intrepid reporter another chance to clash with editor Tony Vincenzo and learn more about the secret world of the supernatural that co-exists uneasily with our own.
Two thousand, zero zero, party over, oops, out of time, so Godzilla started the Y2K fun early in December of 1999! The big guy dukes it out with aliens attempting to drain the entire Internet of data so they can learn how to build the perfect body for themselves, and unsurprisingly it ends in a big fight in the middle of downtown Tokyo! Join HPH for a fun discussion of the most Hollywood of Japanese monster movies.
Do you love vampires? Werewolves? Sinister spectral doppelgangers and spontaneous human combustion? Then join Half Price Horror for an exploration of a classic 70s TV series that embraces the paranormal, the New Age, and all those classic monsters we adore so much!
Paul Verhoeven's 'Hollow Man' hit at the exact transition between the post-Cold War euphoria of Bill Clinton and the nasty hangover that was the Bush years, when we were just beginning to realize how difficult it was going to be to pry misogyny loose from the hands of entitled white dudes. But is this film a critique of sexist men, or a depiction of them? Let's dive in and find out!
(TW: sexual assault and rape, animal death, animal experimentation)
The 70s were a gestational era for cult fiction, the incubator that gave birth to every kind of fascination from UFOs to Jack the Ripper to voodoo. So it's not surprising that a series like "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" would come around, and it's not surprising that it would become a foundational text for Chris Carter, JJ Abrams, and everyone in between. But what were the original episodes like? Join HPH for the first in a series on the series and find out!
"Shark attack". Is there any phrase more thrilling to the horror fan's spirit? There's a never-ending bonanza of shark movies out there, but this one is notorious for its use of real sharks and the real-life Australian incident that inspired it. So join HPH for a deep dive--no pun intended--into crafty no-budget thriller 'The Reef'!
(Not to be confused with 'The Ref'. Denis Leary does not appear in this movie.)
When audiences found out they were going to get a movie about aliens from Jordan Peele, a lot of people jumped to a lot of conclusions about what they were going to get--but nobody imagined a heady, action-horror-Western that serves as a meditation on the exploitative nature of Hollywood and a joyous celebration of the power of cinema. Join HPH as we do our level best to dig into all the messages of Peele's most ambitious work, and join the celebration, too!
It's time to finish our tour of the Conjuring Universe, as we return to Valak the demonic nun and her sworn enemies Frenchie and Irene! Get ready for Wan and Safran's version of 'The DaVinci Code', with a lost relic and an ancient mystery and a third act surprise demon goat, as we put this franchise to bed once and for all.
It may not get as much discussion as it did seventy years ago when it first premiered, but 'Les Diaboliques' (or as it was known in America, 'Diabolique') is one of the most profoundly influential thrillers in cinematic history. So let's dig in for a discussion of the plot twist you've probably seen a dozen times the way it was done originally, by Hitchcock's French rival Henri-Georges Clouzot, and discuss a classic tale of the perfect crime gone wrong.
