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The Batbois approach the finish line with hesitation and remorse, grimly revisiting the abusive monster that haunted every corner of the movie world one year ago. How could it come to this? What the hell did any of us do to deserve this? Why even do these anymore? Really, what's the point? Does anyone even read these blurbs? I could write anything. Like the word skittles 8 times. skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles skittles Check it out: Listen on SoundCloud #Newsletter #Podcasts #November2017 #Batarang #Batman #ZackSnyder #BatmanvSuperman #DawnofJustice #Superman #JusticeLeague #DC #DCEU #Batfleck

Jack, Robby and Bernadette discuss Yorgos Lanthimos' new film, The Killing of a Sacred Deer , where the insanely talented director attempts to follow-up one of the greatest black-comedies of all time, last years The Lobster . So, how does this auteur's vision translate to psychological-horror and just how messed up is this thing? Check it out: Listen on SoundCloud #Newsletter #Podcasts #HotTakes #TheKillingofaSacredDeer #JackKolodziejski #RobertAnderson #BernadetteGorman #YorgosLanthimos #TheLobster #November2017

Mike is joined by Tim Irwin to wrap up the mini-series devoted to Nolan's "other" flicks during his tenor as the Batman director, covering the epic, Interstellar . So, what do they have to say about this wildly ambitious, yet quickly forgotten space-mystery? As it turns out, quite a bit actually. Check it out: Listen on SoundCloud #Newsletter #Podcasts #Overdrinkers #Interstellar #MikeBurdge #TimIrwin #ChristopherNolan #Space #2001ASpaceOdyssey #Rage

The Batbois, Robby, Jack and Mike, finish out the Nolan trilogy of Batman movies that progressively have less Batman in them, all the while taking in just what works and doesn't with this final film, and why the final product is so disheartening to so many. There is also much Bane voice. Check it out: Listen on SoundCloud #Newsletter #Podcasts #Batarang #Batman #TheDarkKnightRises #RobertAnderson #JackKolodziejski #MikeBurdge #Bane #KindaCatwoman #ChristopherNolan

Jack and Robby just saw the latest MCU installment, Thor: Ragnarok , and have quite a lot of things to say about it. Wonder what they are? Of course you do. Here, have a listen... Check it out: Listen on SoundCloud #Newsletter #Podcasts #HotTakes #ThorRagnarok #Thor #MCU #Marvel #JackKolodziejski #RobertAnderson #Thunder #ImmigrantSong #TaikaWaititi

Jack and Jeremy talk about the new McG joint, The Babysitter , which just landed on Netflix in time for the spooky Halloween season! Is it good? How bad could it be? Wait, it's fun? How fun?? Check it out: Listen on SoundCloud #Newsletter #Podcasts #HotTakes #TheBabysitter #McG #Horror #Netflix #JackKolodziejski #JeremyKolodziejski #October2017 #Halloween

(This was written, ironically, in bits and pieces between sweaty sleep, in the midst of a horrible bit of being sick. My feverish sweat permeates through these disjointed, unfocused paragraphs. I don't know what I'm getting at here. Enjoy!) Child's Play Oh Baby You're So Vicious or You've Got a Friend in Me or How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Use the Dr. Strangelove Title Joke or 1511 Rambling Words About Child's Play When I was younger, I had a very specific nightmare that depending on the state of my health could've of very well been a fever driven hallucination that has stuck with me. My adolescent life was plagued with getting sicker than most when my turn came up on the normal benchmark firsts of childhood maladies. Chicken pox so thoroughly kicked my ass, and was almost immediately followed up with an insanely viscous bout of tonsillitis, that I missed enough of first grade that my teacher had to come to my house to catch me up. Couple that with my battle with extreme night terrors, sleep talking, and the occasional sleep stroll around the house, (my parents once found me asleep in the cabinet where we hid the garbage can), and all of a sudden I'm starting to think that there’s a connection with my inability to comfortably sleep before 3AM most nights. Sorry, this isn't the place for personal realizations, I'm supposed to be expounding on my particular take on Child's Play . (Isn't this how pop-culture blogging and article writing works? You make it about you, so that the reader feels like it’s about them! Look at me! I'm Chuck Klosterman! Wanna hear about my ex-girlfriends?) But ANYWAY... I must've been about five years old at the time, (nearly 26 years ago, that's before terrorism!). I was almost certainly half awake, and definitely dealing with a fever, as I starred down at the space where my pillow meets the mattress. With only one eye open, I was already giving myself a vertigo-like bit of spatial confusion, when right in that space appeared Pee Wee's fucking Playhouse (Pee Wee was a comedic adult take on a children's television show that became a Tim Burton film about adult fears about their childhoods, that became a children's television show that adults also love, that became a late night punch-line about adult-films, and finally became a nostalgia-backed reboot on Netflix... for everyone?). It was as if someone had torn the roof off the place and I was starring down at a to-scale diorama of the titular children's entertainer's home base. In my mind I was immediately terrified by the all-too-real feeling that I was too large, or that the Playhouse was too small. Either way, something was fucking off. Then Pee Wee himself appeared, his wiry arms outstretched, and his tiny, tiny self stared me dead in the one eye, as he began to violently spin in circles, from room to room in his madhouse, while chuckling his signature chuckle. The scene itself is more than enough that it still gives me the chilly-willies. Where were you when you first met Chucky? For those of us of a certain generation, it was most likely accidentally in the form of a poorly “cut for cable” film version on the USA network, or you accidentally caught a glimpse of just the grainy, cardboard VHS box, (insert joke here explaining what VHS tapes are in a way that makes it sound like they're from a primitive society decades gone, and there is no possible record of their actual existence), pausing in abject horror, as you clutched The Duck Tales Movie , (insert similar joke explaining what Duck Tales was, while referencing the soft around the edges reboot that is currently airing, and add in something about the new voices not being as good as the originals or not liking the animation), ready for its 34th rental. Maybe, at least true for me, Chucky was already in your house before Charles Lee Ray had taken control of the brand, in the form of a My Buddy Doll. For those who remember, My Buddy was that cherubic, overall wearing, progressive for the 80's doll for boys, slightly creeping you out with its otherness. You weren't quite sure why, but you knew, at least I knew, at least my brother and I knew, yeah, fuck that doll. For those of you who don't know, Child's Play is the first in a film series, (seven in total as of this writing), about a doll possessed by a serial killer named Charles Lee Ray, (played with gusto by the “could have been Andy Serkis of all could have been Andy Serkises,” Brad Dourif), aka the Lake Shore Strangler. Charles is gunned down inside a toy store after being abandoned by his partner while running from the police, (which, real quick, what serial killer has a partner? I guess the guy was his getaway driver? But also, what?). Using a voodoo spell he learned during a stint in the joint, the Lake Shore Strangler transfers his soul into a Good Guy Doll, a creepier, red-haired version of the My Buddy Doll, with a dash of Teddy Rupskin talking and blinking thrown in for added creep effect. Thought dead, but now momentarily trapped in the form of Chucky the Good Guy, Charles finds himself gifted by an unsuspecting put upon mother, to her son on his birthday. I'm always amazed how little the voodoo comes into play. Case in point, the original Child's Play has Chucky using a voodoo doll to dispose of one of his victims, (easily the strangest of his murders). What ensues over the course of the series, (with a few cul-de-sacs of what-the-fuckery), is nothing short of an epic battle for souls as Charles, now Chucky, attempts to swap places with Andy, the boy he first revealed himself to, sealing their fate. Andy falls victim to Chucky on numerous occasions, his childhood destroyed, slowly becoming a sort of Van Helsing-meets-Dr. Loomis to Chucky. Over the course of seven films, Chucky kills nearly 40 people, (oddly. only one of which I can recall is by strangulation, go figure), takes a bride, births a gender-queer doll child, kills Britney Spears, is lit on fire, melted, exploded, torn to bits, and shot. Yet each and every time, the little bastard finds his way back to the land of the living. He's evolved from just straight slasher-with-a great-hook, to comedic post-modern 90's horror, to a strange sort of anti-hero, complete with a rich, remarkably easy to follow mythology. No Irish death cults, no zombie worms, and no side-reimagining-boot-quels to his name. He's Chucky, the killer fucking doll, and he fucking digs it. The terror in the original Child's Play trilogy (when you get to the _____of Chucky films the franchise becomes wholly different; the strangest of character studies), to me, is really made up of two very specific and unique ingredients. There is the obvious horror of a living doll; this inherent lizard brain superstition we've had since as early as ancient Egypt (go ahead, Google that). From killer ventriloquist dummies, to Zulu fetish dolls, to Talky Tina, to the 80's classic Mannequin (Andrew McCarthy baby), to your grandmother's weird porcelain collection (trigger warning: dead grandmas), to Toy Story (trigger warning: Randy Newman), to the fucking Annabelle -verse (it is a whole verse right?)... We've approached these self built others with a palpable sense of dread. Staring over the cliff into the uncanny valley of not quite self: "Ew. Gross. That thing looks like me." The second more potent element that makes Chucky initially work so well though is his vicious, unpredictable nature. This effect is a melding of masterstroke voiceover work by Brad Dourif – literally in everything from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to Lord of the Rings to Deadwood – the dude rules, and the beautiful, practical effects of good, old-fashioned puppetry. Take this for instance: probably the best scene in the original film (and possibly the whole series) is when Andy's mother, ( Star Trek IV's Catherine Hicks), is finally beginning to question the validity of her son's claim that his doll is alive. It's an all-timer of a reveal when she picks up the Good Guy box and looks it over, muttering through her exhaustion, “He wants you for a best friend... Yeah. Sure,” and suddenly, Chucky's D batteries, still in their packaging, fall to the floor. What follows is the perfect blend of inhale exhale suspense as Karen Barclay inspects the doll, reveals he's missing his batteries, gets a great jump scare, drops the doll under the couch, pokes and prods him to no avail, and then finally threatens to destroy him in the fireplace, (Hey! Nice foreshadowing!). Here is the most frightening Chucky has ever been: as he finally comes to life in her hands, the puppetry seamlessly blending from inanimate to active, flailing wildly, he berates her with: “You stupid bitch! You filthy slut! I'll teach you to fuck with me!” Brad Dourif delivers each of these lines with such a razor sharp sense of violence, creating intimidation and just plain dread that pops right off the screen. It is here that we get the true reveal of what, and more importantly who, Chucky is. He is finally complete, not just as the living doll, but also as a sadistic, vicious, unpredictable monster. He is a horrible soul that relishes the chance to murder someone, not just on a whim, but also with an almost artistic drive. Captured in the form of a doll, there is a sense of perversion and wrongness, seeing a toy capable of such raw anger and power, something that seems all so adult. Child's Play the franchise is a strange beast. Chucky rightfully is often placed in the hallowed halls of slasher-dom alongside Leatherface (9 films), Myers (10 films), Voorhees (12 films), and Kruger (9 films). Yet Child's Play is the one that has never needed, (or suffered rather), a reboot. Writer/Creator Don Mancini has in one form or another always been behind the scenes, including writing every installment, and directing the last three films to varying degrees of success. Throughout Chucky's life, Don has experimented with weird settings, (a military academy, a haunted house), weird genre's (a farcical extrapolation of Bride of Frankenstein , or the all out bonkers meta-approach of Seed of Chucky ), and weird expansions of even the basic voodoo backbone in the mythology, (Have you seen Cult of Chucky yet? It's on Netflix). All of these things have created the strangest tapestry of mixed results, and somehow Chucky lives on. Not a decade has gone by since his inception when he first graced the screen. What say ye, Freddy Kruger? And I think it's the vicious nature subverting something so wholesome, and innocent that's made him stick. You could search the series for deeper meaning, tell me how it attacks consumerism, the way hollow marketing will target kids, the desensitization of the youth, how adults don't truly listen to their kids, or the deep seeded rage of childhood, the destruction of the family unit, whatever. You'd probably write something better than this diatribe you just wasted your time reading. You could probably connect all kinds of dots and site sources; really think it out. Good for you! Start a podcast or something. Chucky has lasted, and will last, because of the entrance he made. The My Buddy Doll, truly inescapable Christmas sales trample worthy toy, never recovered from the creation of Child's Play . That's not because a slew of adults were terrified the dolls would come to life (though, then again, I don't know, maybe?), but instead the children who somehow were exposed in the tiniest ways to Chucky's cruelty and wanted nothing to do with it. And that's Chucky. Myers kills babysitters in Haddonfield. Jason chops up campers boning down at Crystal Lake. Krueger is out for revenge in dreams on every town's Elm Street. They're all mowing down teenagers and adults that should know better. Chucky is as schticky and predictable as the rest, but there is that little something else. The little bastard is gas-lighting children, asking them to make sense of the adult world by exposing them to the worst of it in potent, razor sharp “fucks,” and a terrifying chuckle. He's glommed himself onto a portion of our psyche that the rest of his contemporaries never did. He's this fully realized character, with layers like Shrek . There is nothing scarier than questioning your surroundings, to being all alone, being called crazy, losing your bearings on the ups and downs of the world. There is nothing worse that being a kid. That Pee Wee nightmare was terrifying from its imagery sure, but it was the sense of wrong that was truly scary. The perversion of something I truly loved, that seemed to be made for me, is what really left dents in my psyche. That's Chucky. That's why he's still around. That's why he'll never die. Brian Bernard Murnane A freelance writer, modern explorer, and he drinks grapefruit juice. His work can be found sometimes in the pages of SpongeBob Comics or on stage at IO West in Los Angeles as part of the soon to be infamous improv team FRAN. Twitter: @GogBrianBernard #Newsletter #Article #ChildsPlay #BeaconHorrorShow3 #Chucky #BrianBernardMurnane #Dolls #Horror #October2017

Mike talks to guests Jack Kolodziejski and Cabot Bramhall about Christopher Nolan's gigantic blockbuster, Inception , which is attributed to the auteur director's continued legacy. Did they like it? Do they still like it? Is JGL hot? Is it all a dream? Does it matter? What are they drinking?!?! All of these answers and more await within.... Check it out: Listen on SoundCloud #Newsletter #Podcasts #Overdrinkers #Inception #ChristopherNolan #Dreams #MikeBurdge #JackKolodziejski #CabotBramhall

If you’re anything like my brother Jeremy and me, Halloween isn’t merely a day but an entire month long celebration. And what better way to celebrate all month long than by watching copious amounts of horror movies? As such, we’ve kept an annual tradition to assemble a watch list for October. These range from new flicks we’re excited to see to old favorites we’ve been meaning to get back to. This year, Jeremy and I have each selected thirteen movies so that you, dear reader, can take part in our family tradition. Jack’s List: Gerald’s Game Released: 2017 Director: Mike Flanagan Available on: Netflix A Dark Song Released: 2017 Director: Liam Gavin Available on: Netflix Raw (Grave) Released: 2016 Director: Julia Ducournau Available on: Netflix Starry Eyes Released: 2014 Director: Kevin Kolsch, Dennis Widmyer Available on: Netflix Under The Shadow Released: 2016 Director: Babak Anvari Available on: Netflix Trollhunter Released:2011 Director: André Øvredal Available on: Netflix We Are Still Here Released: 2015 Director: Ted Geoghegan Available on: Netflix The Girl with All the Gifts Released: 2017 Director: Colm McCarthy Available on: Amazon Prime What We Do In the Shadows Released: 2014 Director: Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement Available on: Amazon Prime Night of the Living Dead Released: 1968 Director: George Romero Available on: Amazon Prime Rosemary’s Baby Released: 1968 Director: Roman Polanski Available on: Amazon Prime Suspiria Released: 1977 Director: Dario Argento Available on: Amazon Prime It Comes at Night Released: 2017 Director: Trey Edward Shultz Available on: Google Play, YouTube ($4.99) Jeremy's List: Underrated Modern Horror: Hellhouse LLC Released: 2016 Director: Stephen Cognetti Available on: Amazon Prime The Midnight Meat Train Released: 2008 Director: Ryuhei Kitamura Available on: Netflix A Cure for Wellness Released: 2016 Director: Gore Verbinski Available on: Google Play, YouTube ($4.99) Murder Party Released: 2007 Director: Jeremy Saulnier Available on: Shudder (Free), iTunes ($3.99) 80’s Monsters and Creatures: The Blob Released: 1988 Director: Chuck Russell Available on: Hulu The Gate Released: 1987 Director: Tibor Takacs Available on: Google Play, YouTube ($1.99) Re-Animator Released: 1985 Director: Stuart Gordon Available on: Google Play, YouTube ($3.99) From Beyond Released: 1986 Director: Stuart Gordon Available on: Vudu (Free), Amazon Video ($2.99) Night of the Creeps Released: 1986 Director: Fred Dekker Available on: Shudder (Free), Google Play, YouTube ($2.99) Maniac Cop Released: 1988 Director: William Lustig Available on: Amazon Video ($2.99) Maniac Cop 2 Released: 1990 Director: William Lustig Available on: Amazon Video ($2.99) For Twin Peaks Fans: The Hidden Released: 1987 Director: Jack Sholder Available on: Google Play, YouTube ($2.99) The People Under the Stairs Released: 1991 Director: Wes Craven Available on: Google Play, YouTube ($2.99) Jack Kolodziejski Jack makes drugs for a living, but not necessarily the fun kind. He enjoys international travel and discussing music, movies, and games in excruciating detail. Jeremy Kolodziejski Jeremy is younger than he looks, and has passionately studied the art and craft of filmmaking for as long as he can remember. He is currently a freelance wedding videographer, and is also heavily involved in Competitive Fighting Games. IG: jeremyko95 #Newsletter #Article #October2017 #BeaconHorrorShow3 #Shocktober #Horror #JackKolodziejski #JeremyKolodziejski #13DaysofHalloween

Bernadette welcomes Diana DiMuro and Robert Anderson to the newest episode of the podcast that has set out to tackle the big names in television. This time, they're gearing up for Season 2 of the hit Netflix original series, Stranger Things , by revisiting that first season that swept the world. Check it out: Listen on SoundCloud #Newsletter #Podcasts #StrangerThings #CathodeRayCast #BernadetteGorman #DianaDiMuro #RobertAnderson #Eggo #UpsideDown #Netflix

Robby, Jack and Mike are joined by special guest BatBoi, Jeremy Kolodziejski, to talk about the big one. They also discuss the film scene of pre and post- Dark Knight , Heath Ledger's phenomenal performance and tragic passing, as well as our character's roles in the matters of morals, institution and chaos. Check it out: Listen on SoundCloud #Newsletter #Podcasts #Batarang #TheDarkKnight #Batman #ChristopherNolan #RobertAnderson #JackKolodziejski #JeremyKolodziejski #MikeBurdge #Joker #HeathLedger #AcademyAwards

An early sign that 2017 has been one of the best years in film was Jordan Peele’s horror masterpiece, Get Out . Mainly known for his acting roles on the classic sketch show Mad TV , and as one half of the comedy power couple that is Key & Peele , Get Out , was Jordan’s freshman run at writing and directing a feature film. Currently sitting at 99 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, (and having flipped its $4.5 million budget into a $175,484,140 total domestic gross), I think it’s safe to say that Jordan Peele has proven himself a very capable writer and director. Horror films are known for taking something from our world – be it a mundane activity, painful memory or terrifying phobia – and turning it into something unanimously horrific for all the anxious butts in those theater seats. Horror can make our fear of child predators as tangible as clowns hiding in sewer drains, turn an anxiety of airborne epidemics into a zombie apocalypse, or transform that lingering feeling of someone sneaking through the corridors of your house, into a home invasion movie. The power of horror can be as educational as it is frightening, because that’s often what the truth really is. In the case of Get Out , Jordan Peele makes the real world horror of racism into the true monster of this movie. "Do they know I’m black?" This is the question photographer Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) asks his girlfriend, Rose Armitage (Allison Williams), before setting out to meet her parents after dating for four (or maybe five) months. Rose playfully dismisses Chris’s worries, saying that her parents wouldn’t care, that her father would elect Obama for a third term if he could. Once Chris and Rose arrive at her parents house it’s not exactly clear whether or not her parents are okay with the color of Chris’s skin. Her parents don’t treat Chris badly upon meeting him; in fact, they’re almost overwhelmingly nice. It just seems that the only thing they see in Chris, is what’s on the outside. Their conversations seem to orbit around the subject of race, almost as if they have an odd obsession, or are enthusiasts of the skin tone. The question Chris asks Rose in that first scene is integral to the film because of its implication. The ideas of “casual racism,” or “micro aggressions” against Chris as the film progresses, eventually grow and grow, creating tension that rises as each of these transgressions worsen. The first chunk of the movie, dealing with Rose’s parents explores this casual side of racism: the type of discrimination that sits just under the surface, rearing its ugly head so quickly, that you have to question whether it is what you think it is. The middle portion of the film expands on this idea with a party. The Armitage parents tell Chris and Rose that some of Grandpa’s old friends are coming over the house; it’s an annual party that of course just happened to land on the same weekend that Chris came to visit. The party attendees seem to be no better than Rose’s parents. For every white person Chris meets, he is only reminded of his own skin color. A conversation about golf instantly moves towards Tiger Woods. A couple literally tells Chris that fair skin is no longer in fashion, but black is. Though these comments aren’t as vile or aggressive as some examples of modern day racism, what they do is ‘other’ Chris. The partygoers make it clear: they don’t see him as one of them. As the racially fueled comments continue to become less subtle, the casual racism bubbling under the surface turns into surreal ignorance, his identity being suffocated by white people who do not see him as just another person, but instead, as a black person. The party scene culminates in the auctioning off of Chris – a scene reminiscent of slave auctions – revealing the true sinister intentions of these partygoers. The Armitages belong to a cult of white folk who wrangle black people into their clutches, and then perform a surgery they call, “the Coagula,” a procedure where they take the brain of the auction winner and then place it into the body of the captured black person. Chris eventually escapes the Armitages, laying waste to the family and the horrors that lie within their home. Peele mentions in a few interviews that he started writing Get Out during the beginning of the Obama administration. The election of a black man into the White House ushered in what Peele calls, “the Post-Racial Lie.” The notion that since we finally had a black president that racism was, of course, finally over as well. This, of course, is not the case. Racism is still a powerful beast that stomps all over the world and especially our nation. Peele describes racism as a demon, the American monster. This is why Get Out is so satirically subtle with its comments on race. Clearly it’s there, but there’s no character being overtly in-your-face-racist because that isn't the type of racism that is most prevalent in our society today; the dominant form is subtle, it’s under the surface, but it’s there like roots in the earth. The “Sunken Place,” is a major plot point of Get Out . Missy Armitage, (Catherine Keener), uses hypnosis to put her victims into a state of “heightened suggestibility.” By using the rhythmic clinking of stirring her tea against the cup, she can render someone paralyzed and put him or her into the “sunken place.” Visually, this place is like sinking into the depths of your own mind, floating downwards, so far away from your vision that you look upon what you see like a television screen hovering above you. You become trapped in your own mind while your body is paralyzed. Kind of like sleep paralysis, but totally worse and lasting forever. This is to give the Armitages the opportunity to combine the captured black person within the brain of a white person. This works on a terrifying horror movie level, but it speaks to the many themes of the film as well. This is a type of institutionalized slavery, keeping the black mind caged, so that a white mind can use the person’s body for its own needs and wants. In an interview with Daniel Kaluuya, he said what drew him to the project was that the script accurately described what it feels like to be in a racist environment. This is perhaps the most important theme of the movie and this article. Us: the audience, the viewers, coming from diverse backgrounds to see this movie, is Chris, the protagonist, as we watch this film. We all feel othered, we all sink into the sunken place, we all question why these weird white people are telling us that black is in style and that they know Tiger Woods. We all scream at the screen, “GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE DUDE, THEY’RE TRYING TO DO SOME WEIRD SHIT TO YA BRAIN!” The greatest gift Jordan Peele gives us with this film is experiencing the feeling that he and many other black men and woman feel on a daily basis. Everyone can say, “Racism is bad,” it’s not hard to spot injustice, but to feel it? That is something else entirely. The best thing about film and stories is that they’re trying to impart something with you as you walk away from the theater. Sometimes you just want to feel entertained, to escape for a while. But there are times when the artist is trying to communicate a feeling that cannot just be articulated, a feeling that they need three acts and a budget to convey. Jordan Peele used the horror genre to make audiences all over the country experience what many citizens across the country already feel on a daily basis, and he made it scary. Racism is a demon, it is the American monster, and it’s movies like this that can help slay it. Robert Anderson Robert has a degree in Screenwriting and Playwriting and works in multiple genres. He's just your typical man-child who enjoys most things nerd culture. You can follow him on Twitter @RoBaeBae #Newsletter #Review #GetOut #RobertAnderson #BeaconHorrorShow3 #Horror #JordanPeele #Racism