345. Looking Back, Moving Forward: The 2018 Edition
https://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode345LookingBackMovingForward2018/Sandf–Episode345–LookingBackMovingForward2018.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadWow. It’s finally here! Our first episode on our new website, using our new feed! Hopefully everything works out and it ends up in your ears, because it’s time for the team to talk about what they loved in 2017 and what they’re looking forward to in 2018! We had reason to be a bit down about 2017. Last year was tough for many of us, but it still brought with it some amazing speculative fiction and some amazing growth on the Skiffy and Fanty Show. Our Patreon supporters allowed us to start 2018 fresh and shiny and new, and that brought with it a renewed sense of hope! For the last couple of weeks, many of our previous guests have been sharing what brings them joy. Hopefully, their joy has inspired some of your own. But sometimes it’s a struggle to find joy, to embrace joy. Our theme this year is “hope,” but hope often starts from a dark place, a place of struggle, fear, and pain. That’s where we leave 2017 and how we’re going to tackle 2018.
344. Krampus: The Reckoning (2015) — A Special Holiday Torture Cinema "Adventure"
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode344HolidayTortureCinemaMeetsKrampusTheReckoning/Sandf-Episode344-HolidayTortureCinemaMeetsKrampusTheReckoning.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSTang, overbites, and gratuitous boob shots, oh my! In this special Holiday edition of Torture Cinema, Shaun, Paul, Jen, Alex, and Becca mix too much alcohol with a really, truly terrible movie. This one definitely comes with some language and content warnings, because the team is just so very angry that they have to watch this. They discuss how a potentially interesting premise is utterly destroyed by an awful, convoluted script, terrible production values, and some of the worst acting that the state of Arizona has ever produced. The only reason we can come up with that anyone should ever watch this film is so they know how NOT to make a movie. Happy Holidays! We hope you enjoy the episode!
SEA Quest: Southeast Asian Horror Fiction
Southeast Asia is a hot-bed of horror. The region is saturated with dark histories and even darker mythologies. From the krasue from Thailand to hantu tetek from Malaysia and Singapore, legends and stories are rife with things that not only go bump in the night, but are more blood-thirsty than your average Northern Hemisphere ghosts. Centuries of years of trade, migration and settlement brought in more scary spirits and monsters. The Southern Chinese diaspora celebrate Hungry Ghosts Festival for an entire month. Don’t go out at night. Don’t swim in the sea. Don’t kick offerings on the floor. People often breathe a sigh of relief once the month is over. Similarly, the bloodshed and trauma of many wars have left the imprint of haunted memories and hauntings by restless spirits displaced by massacre, starvation and pain. Southeast Asians love horror. Horror movies are extremely popular. Horror and ghost stories are consumed avidly by fans of this genre. In Singapore, a series of ghost stories is still on-going, fueled by the popularity of ghost stories and our obsession with the paranormal. The stories are ghost-written (pun intended, as claimed by the author who collects personal accounts from fans of the series) and range from poignantly sweet to downright horrific. Some remind me of the composition writing I received when I was teaching. Some are real and make me shiver at the sheer terror they evoke in me. We all grow up listening to stories about the pontianak, the penanggalan and the manananggal. The region shares similar stories about female ghosts who would detach their heads from their bodies. Their heads fly in the night, organs and entrails dangling beneath. the organs apparently glisten or shimmer. My relatives would talk about planting cactii around the house as protection. In the morning, so they say, they would find the penanggalan with her entrails snared and tangled by the cactii. For this SEA horror special, I will focus on two Southeast Asian horror writers.
Horror review: Penny Reeve on A Skinful of Shadows by Frances Hardinge
Although she’s been a name within the young adult horror/fantasy scene for a while now, Frances Hardinge was recently projected into the mainstream public gaze when her novel The Lie Tree won the 2016 Costa Book of the Year Prize. After such a bar was set with her last novel, Hardinge’s fans waited with bated breath for her newest, A Skinful of Shadows. Luckily it is an intricate and masterfully told coming-of-age tale, full of intrigue and more than a little creepy, which lives up to expectations. Plus, it was nominated for the Waterstones Book of the Year Award 2017. Take that, Costa. A Skinful of Shadows is a dark fantasy novel, set during the English Civil War. We meet our protagonist, Makepeace, as a young girl who lives in the attic of her Puritan uncle’s house, along with her mother. She is haunted by very realistic dreams of ghosts and other terrifying things, and to help her deal with her strange affliction, her mother often forces her to stay in a church overnight to deal with the demons in her head.
Horror Review: Penny Reeve's Top Picks from the Mayhem Film Festival
October is my favorite month of the year. From the first of the month I put on my favorite knits — regardless of the weather outside — and draw up reading and movie lists full of horror, creepiness and witchcraft. This October I spent time watching a ton of films — a lot of which were screened at the incredibly good Mayhem Film Festival held in Nottingham, UK, each year — and I wanted to share with you my top picks, from the classic to the hilarious to the ritualistic. Have you seen anything great over the past month and a bit? Let me know in the comments.
339. Maximum Overdrive (1986) — A Torture Cinema Halloween Special "Adventure"
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode339HalloweenTortureCinemaMeetsMaximumOverdrive/Sandf-Episode339-HalloweenTortureCinemaMeetsMaximumOverdrive.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSCocaine, man eating machines, and AC-DC, oh my! In this special Halloween Horror edition of Torture Cinema, Shaun, David, and Alex are joined by Zena, the Real Queen of Horror, to review the 1986 Stephen King written and directed “horror” film, Maximum Overdrive. Apparently, even Stephen King couldn’t get Stephen King right. The crew discusses how stupid the premise is, eviscerate the despicable characters, muse on where one might find a goblin semi-truck, and share a story that makes the reality of this coked out travesty even more horrifying than the movie. But at least Zena liked the movie, and that means our work here is done.
