Episodes
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The Losers gather at the Dixie Boy Truck Stop to finally review Stephen King's lone directorial effort Maximum Overdrive.
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Randall, Jenn, Pfleegor, and Justo rock around the Kingmas tree in a holiday-themed episode that doubles as a gift guide for Constant Readers. They discuss King swag both real and imagined, as well as the best King books to buy for the King lover (or skeptic) in your life.
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Missing episodes?
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The Losers head to the Aladdin Theater to celebrate 30 years of Frank Darabont's The Shawshank Redemption. Losers include Justin Gerber, Michael Roffman, and Jenn Adams. Together, they discuss why it's such a ubiquitous favorite, where it ranks in the pantheon of prison movies, which of them would survive it all, and, naturally, how the film connects to 90210. This was originally recorded in January of 2023.
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The Losers spend their Thanksgiving weekend in Dooling to discuss Stephen and Owen King's Sleeping Beauties.
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Holiday dinners can be minefields. Your pretentious cousin won’t stop talking about her year abroad, your mom keeps asking when you plan to have kids, and your drunk uncle just spilled red wine all over the green bean casserole. Sometimes the tricks don’t end with Halloween and even the best sweet potato casserole can’t make up for the stress of listening to your dad go on yet another political rant.
But Constant Readers may rest assured that no matter what horrors may lie under your granny’s covered casserole dish, they won’t be as bad as the terrible families lurking in King’s Dominion. From the Cunninghams to the Hartsfields, the master of horror seems to delight in showing us the dark secrets that lie within every hearth and home.
This episode features a sour 16 of sinister clans each duking it out to be named the family you’d least like to visit for the holidays. It’s stiff competition, but thankfully your hosts Jenn Adams, Dan Caffrey, Rachel Reeves, and Julia Marchese are on hand to wade through the overturned tables and broken dishes. With a March Madness-style bracket, they’ll pit each family against each other till only one remains to claim the title of King’s Worst Family.
Note: This episode was recorded in November 2023 and is being unlocked ahead of Thanksgiving 2024.
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Losers Randall Colburn, Ashley Casseday, Michael Roffman, and Jenn Adams head to Hollywood King again to discuss the latest developments in King's Dominion, specifically Stephen King's next novel Never Flinch, Mike Flanagan's totally necessary remake of Carrie, a potential third Talisman novel, King's animated short Lily, and more.
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All the King's Men -- Michael Roffman, Dan Caffrey, Justin Gerber, and Dan Pfleegor -- assemble on Election Night to untie another big ol' Bag of Bones and answer your questions. Questions like "Who would you rather have run the country: Big Jim Rennie from UtD, Greg Stillson from The Dead Zone, or Buster Keeton from Needful Things?"; "Which King character would you want to share a slice of pound cake with the most?"; "What is the best moment or piece of writing that lives in a “bad” King book?"; "Design a Stephen King cocktail"; and more. Want to ask them a question on the next Bag of Bones episode? Become a patron at www.patreon.com/thebarrens.
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Bonus episode! The great Dee Wallace joins the Losers for a discussion on the making of Cujo. Note: This was recorded live at this past September's Creep I.E. Con and part of the beginning has been lost to the ether. Still, the majority of it remains intact!
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Today is All Saint's Day, so we thought: Why not celebrate the greatest saint of all? The St. Bernard! So, join the Losers as they remain in Castle Rock to discuss Lewis Teague's 1983 Stephen King adaptation, Cujo. Starring Dee Wallace, the film is world renown for being the de facto killer dog movie. But, it's much more than that as the Losers argue to reclaim the film as one of the great King adaptations. Listen on and stay tuned for our interview with Dee Wallace!
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The Losers turn the clock back half a century and return to Castle Rock for Stephen King and Richard Chizmar's 2017 collaboration Gwendy's Button Box. Together, they discuss the timeline of the book, the implications of the titular box, and the ways it may or may not dovetail with what we know of Mid-World. It'll take longer for you to finish this episode than to finish this book.
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Losers Michael Roffman, Randall Colburn, and Jenn Adams head to Hollywood King again to discuss the latest developments in King's Dominion, specifically the new trailer for The Monkey, JT Mollner's comments on The Long Walk, and new updates for The Institute, The Running Man, The Life of Chuck, and, yes, Fairy Tale. They also sort through some tweets, which ranges from Netflix recommends to Mark Hamill online friendships to Taylor Swift.
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Oops! All Tangents is a free-flowin' conversation exclusive to The Barrens that is based on a topic either topical or submitted by our patrons. Today, because we're nearly halfway through October, we're unlocking our recent Halloween edition. So, join Rockin' Randall, who keeps things creepy at the pumpkin patch with fellow Losers Jenn Adams, Julia Marchese, and Dan Caffrey as they talk all things Halloween.
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Half a decade after it was first announced, the Losers finally review Daub's Lot.
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All good things come to an end... even our coverage of Audience Network's Mr. Mercedes.
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Stephen King is no stranger to murderous cars. From Christine and From a Buick 8 to the malevolent Goblin truck haunting the roads of Maximum Overdrive, the master of horror knows his way around gory gear shifts, sinister steering wheels, and dangerous drivers. In 2014, he released Mr. Mercedes, a crime novel pitting Bill Hodges, a retired detective, against Brady Hartsfield, a criminal mastermind disguised as the ice cream man. Both survive the novel’s explosive conclusion, though Brady is left in a vegetative state. After a brief detour into the world of rare publications with the 2015 sequel Finders Keepers, King catches up with the disabled criminal and his newfound psychic powers. End of Watch sees Hodges once again match wits with his old nemesis aided by partners Holly and Jerome.
Hosts Randall Colburn, Jenn Adams, Rachel Reeves, and Ashley Casseday hop back into the blood-soaked Mercedes to conclude their coverage of this confounding trilogy. They’ll discuss King’s swerve into supernatural territory while puzzling over the story’s bizarre tech. Does this 2016 novel elevate the trilogy as a whole? How does King handle the story’s suicide themes? Does Jerome have any flaws and what’s up with all the Zs? The Losers reach the end of the road as they say goodbye to one of King’s most autobiographical characters
In case you missed it, they recently covered Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers within the last few months. Be sure to stream those episodes before you dive into this one.
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Here's a spooky Friday the 13th treat: Randall and Mel’s Halloween Hell, the Losers’ Club's Patreon-exclusive annual series in which Randall and Mel watch a horror movie every day in October and talk about it. They'll be back with a fourth iteration this year, but to whet your appetite, they're unlocking last year's third entry which saw the two Losers joined by fellow co-hosts Dan Caffrey and Justin Gerber. Across a marathon four hours, the gang lose their marbles while discussing more than 100 movies.
That includes 20 new releases, such as Saw X, When Evil Lurks, The Exorcist: Believer, VHS 85, Totally Killer, and many more. (Don't worry, we don't spoil anything released this year.) They also chat about pre-Hays Code nastiness, the benefits of casting real sickos in your movies, Caff's bizarre hatred of Ernest, and literally all things Ghoulies. (Seriously, we spend an ungodly amount of time talking about Ghoulies.)
Enjoy this ride and join The Barrens -- patreon.com/thebarrens -- for earlier installments and this year's coming fourth go-around.
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It took a few years, but we finally got a first trailer for Gary Dauberman's 'Salem's Lot. Naturally, the Losers have thoughts. Behold, a mini episode. Bite-size, if you will.
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There are 20 stories in Stephen King's The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. In the second of two episodes dedicated to the 2015 collection, Losers Dan Caffrey, Jenn Adams, Michael Roffman, and Dan Pfleegor rank their 10 favorites. Don't miss the first part of our series from last week in which they rank the bottom 10.
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There are 20 stories in Stephen King's The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. In the first of two episodes dedicated to the 2015 collection, Losers Dan Caffrey, Jenn Adams, Michael Roffman, and Dan Pfleegor rank all 20 tales, starting at the bottom. These aren't necessarily their least favorite. They're just ranked as such. Stay tuned next week for the concluding coverage with the top 10.
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Constant Listeners, yes, we originally planned to drop our Bazaar of Bad Dreams coverage this week. However, given Sai King’s renewed interest in Hearts in Suspension, we opted to unlock our coverage of the collection from The Stephen King Archives.
For those not in the know, The Stephen King Archives is our Patreon exclusive imprint in which your Losers search the vault of Stephen King material – dusting off unpublished short stories, long-forgotten interviews, coffee-stained manuscripts, and alternate versions of your favorite tales.
This particular entry was recorded in December 2021 - in conjunction with our Hearts in Atlantis coverage - - and sees us discussing Hearts in Suspension in full.
Published in 2016 and edited by King's longtime mentor Jim Bishop, the book features an original essay by King entitled "Five to One, One in Five", four installments of "King's Garbage Truck", a reprint of King's novella "Hearts in Atlantis", 12 essays by fellow students and friends from King's college days, and a gallery of period-specific photographs and documents.
We time travel back to UMO and talk about it all.
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