Castle Of Horror Podcast

We continue our celebration of Summer with the best killer-fish movie that wasn't Jaws ever: Piranha (1978), directed by Joe Dante.

Kevin Murphy portrayed Tom Servo on Mystery Science Theater 3000 for 10 years, has written bestselling books on films, and contributes to NPR as a movie commentator. Now as a member of Rifftrax, he's doing a live show in August, a comedy show built around the 1983 special episode of Doctor Who, "The Five Doctors." We chat about riffing, respect for Doctor Who, and being known as Tom Servo.

We discuss the strange, melodrama-with-a-monster third and final entry in the series that brought us the last Universal monster: the Creature From the Black Lagoon.

GRAVEYARD SHIFT is the debut novel of Michael Haspil, a hard-boiled noir about an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh masquerading as a detective and investigating supernatural crimes. We talk about the book and entering the writing world.

Leanna Renee Hieber returns to the show to talk about her Victorian Supernatural Adventure series Strangely Beautiful and the new book in the series, Perilous Prophecy, about a team she calls "Victorian Ghostbusters."

We return to the Black Lagoon for the 1955 REVENGE OF THE CREATURE, in which our creature goes on the loose at an Ocean Park in Florida.

We talk to the author of Flashmob, the latest in a series we describe as "Reacher with ESP," about an ex-military troubleshooter who can read minds-- and what he reads is often terrifying.

We RETURN with a look at the 1954 CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. Then, in honor of George Romero, we recommend our favorite Romero features including the upcoming October 2017 Romero series at the SIE Center in Denver.

Jason checks in from sabbatical to chat with Andrew Pyper, whose new book from Simon & Schuster, The Only Child, features a psychiatrist investigating a killer who may have a personal connection to the great gothic novels Frankenstein, Dracula and Doctor Jekyll & Mister Hyde.

We wrap up our King Kong retrospective with King Kong Escapes (released in Japan as Counterattack of King Kong, a 1967 Japanese-American science-fiction kaiju film featuring King Kong, co-produced by Toho and Rankin/Bass. This is a wild, fun film full of 60s spy tropes, an obsession with a world-ruling UN, and one giant robot ape.

We talk about the strange "monster mash" of American and Japanese giant monsters with the 1962 "King Kong vs. Godzilla" from Godzilla's own Toho Studios.

We talk to the author of Monster Mash: The Creepy, Kooky Monster Craze In America 1957-1972 (Twomorrows Publishing). We talk about horror hosts, toys, books, movies, and why monsters became an integral part of mid-century pop culture. 

We continue our look at Kong with Peter Jackson's 3-hour-plus tribute to the 1933 King Kong, featuring Andy Serkis' moving performance as the emotions of the great ape. 

We take a fresh look at a version of King Kong just as time-stamped as its 1933 predecessor: the big-budget 1976 King Kong, which featured Rick Baker and his team creating the gorilla-suited Kong. Does this movie deserve a rehabilitation?

A chat with Sarah Habel, just recently Riverdale's sexy, troubled Mrs. Grundy, as she stars in the new Syfy film Atomica.

We kick off our retrospective on the world's most famous giant ape with a look at the 2017 KONG: SKULL ISLAND.

We wrap up our Sexy Vampire Retrospective (for now) with Jim Jarmusch's 2013 film ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE starring Tom Hiddleston, Tilda Swinton and John Hurt. The film was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and tells the story of two vampires living out what may be their final days on modern earth which has become dissolute, predictable, and contaminated. 

Kaaron Warren is the author of The Grief Hole (IFWG Publishing), about a young social worker haunted by ghostly visions that warn her how people are going to die. When she investigates the death of her cousin in an Australian beach community, she discovers a dark landscape of grief and exploitation. A cerebral, thought-provoking horror tale. We chat about the book, writing, and the weird 18-hour time difference between Melbourne and Colorado.

Director Ed Gass-Donnelly is the director of The Last Exorcism Part II and Small Town Murder Songs. His new film is Lavender: When a photographer (Abbie Cornish) suffers severe memory loss after a traumatic accident, strange clues among her photos suggest she may be responsible for the deaths of family members she never knew she had. 

Sheryl Scarborough is an award-winning writer for television, having written for shows such as Kim Possible, Doug, and Tiny Toon Adventures among many other credits. She lives in Washington state, and has always had an obsession with forensics since long before she became a writer. Her debut teen novel is To Catch a Killer, about a witty young protagonist who balances her school work with a budding forensics career.