Episodes
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Dan and Keith head beyond the veil for some Jacob's Ladder scenarios! In 1990, a biblical term and also electric desk toy becomes a thriller starring Tim Robbins and a bunch of future stars, as a Vietnam vet named Jacob gradually learns maybe he never actually made it home from the 'Nam after all. Keith has some glowing praise while Dan digs into the layers of the storytelling: what IS real? What life does he struggle to let go of? Then, nearly three decades later, a remake occurs in which an Afghanistan vet named Jacob chases a conspiracy involving his presumed dead brother, but everything in his life begins to collapse... as does any chance of following the plot or how this is a Jacob's Ladder remake. One has layers upon layers worth unpacking, one slaps a classic film title on a shaky story and hopes to cash in. Catch the breakdowns!
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With a cry of "Klaatu barada nikto," Hugo Book Club founder Olav Rokne returns to help Dan and Keith break down two takes on The Day The Earth Stood Still. In the 1950s, an alien named Klaatu and his robot pal Gort arrive on Earth with a message for all for mankind... but finds it difficult to get the leaders of mankind in one room to hear it. Then we jump to the 2000s, as an all-star cast takes on a new take on Klaatu's warning to humanity, with a new message for humanity to learn before it's too late. But which message lands the best? We discuss, you listen, lest Gort come at you.
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Dan and Keith hit the Amazon river for not just ANaconda, it's TWOacondas! In 1997, a handful of rising stars and also Eric Stoltz went looking for hidden indigenous tribes, only for Jon Voight, making a big choice with his accent, to hijack the expedition to find giant man-eating snakes. CG carnage ensues! Then we jump to last year, as Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Thandiwe Newton, and comedy assassin Steve Zahn head to South America for an Anaconda remake about doing an Anaconda remake. Do the laughs hit in 2025? Does anything Jon Voight is doing work in 1997? Debate ensues! Listen in!
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Dan and Keith return to the Coen Brothers for tales of Ladykillers! In 1955, Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers led a gang of thieves making their home base the spare room of a doddering widow. The heist goes well, but the escape proves difficult under their landlady's eye, and dark hijinks ensue! Five decades later, the Coen Brothers took the gig of remaking it and transporting the story from England to the US deep south with Tom Hanks at the center, resulting in... nobody's favourite Coen Brothers movie. But how do they compare? Does the original hold up? Can the Coens top it? Find out!
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Dan and Keith return to the Hyborian Age for two tales of the iconicly armoured redhead, Red Sonja. Back in 1985, schlock kingpin Dino De Laurentiis attempted to bring Conan the Barbarian ally (via Marvel Comics) Red Sonja to the big screen... without being able to feature or mention Conan himself. Despite talking Conan actor Arnold Schwarzenegger into a cameo that got stretched into a co-lead in post production. And its box office meant that it would be over four decades before anyone tried again, with a 2025 release that may never have seen a theatre, in which Matilda Lutz steps into the chainmail bikini to find her people and overthrow an empire, in sort of that order. How does the 80s version hold up? Is the 2025 version correctly or unfairly overlooked? Find out!
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Dan, Keith, and guest Gina return to dig into the big screen version of Stephen King's It, the prequel spinoff Welcome to Derry, and more from the original novel (yes, there is still weird sex stuff left to unpack). In 2017, Andy Muschietti brought a new version of It to the big screen, one that drifted further from the source material... well, half of it, specifically the kid half, and when it proved to be a hit, the adults followed in 2019. Gina's back to compare and contrast the movies with the novel: what they kept, what they skipped, what they invented. Meanwhile Dan digs into what extra layers have been added by the prequel series Welcome to Derry, which proves the passion the Muschiettis (and Dan) have for Pennywise lore. And Keith falls between, reminding us all of the actual topic. All the evil clown discourse you could ask for! Listen in!
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Dan and Keith head into the sewers of Derry, Maine to confront Stephen King's IT in all ITs current forms. Back in the 90s, IT became a very famous TV show, a two-part miniseries that tried to squeeze 1100+ pages of novel into three hours of movie with network TV standard to uphold, which meant some substantial cuts from the novel. Thankfully, guest Gina Stewart is here to walk Dan and Keith through all those cuts, and how much of it was weird sex stuff. We sort through what worked, which cast shone (and it isn't JUST Tim Curry), and what was never making it to television (including, yes, THAT scene). Join in for part one, before Pennywise is reborn for the big screen next episode!
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Grab your mops and get ready to clean up this town as Dan and Keith take on the Toxic Avenger! Way way back in the 1980s, b-movie titans Troma Films accidentally created a surprisingly mainstream franchise when bullies sent a neurodivergent janitor into a vat of toxic waste, creating mutant superhero the Toxic Avenger, who set out to clean up Tromaville with a mop, a mission statement, and a radar for evildoers... and, time permitting, deal with the mass-murdering bullies who tormented him. Just last year, after two years on a shelf, Troma released a new take on Toxie, with Peter Dinklage as a man, torn from his family, murdered in his prime, only to return to Earth resurrected as a super-strong, hard to kill toxic mutant, who takes on Kevin Bacon for the future of his city and stepson. A b-movie classic vs a modern remake that refuses to take itself seriously: which Toxic Avenger prevails? Find out!
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At last, the Phantom Saga arrives at the most influential and successful adaptation of Gaston Leroux's doomed romance horror novel... Andrew Lloyd Webber. Dan and Keith are joined by musical theatre aficionado Colleen Bishop to break down Webber's adaptation of the story, and what happened when Joel Schumacher was tasked with bringing it to the big screen. But wait, there's more! Decades later, in place of seeing a therapist, Webber chose to work through some issues by writing a bizarre sequel where the Phantom runs a burlesque show, Raoul is a drunken gambler, and Christine was a fool for ever choosing the pretty rich guy over the soulful artist, Andy's doing fine you guys, he's doing SO fine. What makes the musical a classic? How did it survive its film adaptation? And how off the rails does Love Never Dies get? All this and more as the Phantom saga concludes!
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Hollywood hasn't stopped remaking and rebooting the same stories over and over since we began this journey, and it was inevitable that at some point past topics would see new versions. Dan and Keith check in on the latest editions of iconic heroes, chocolatiers, or holiday-themed mass murderers. Timothée Chalamet pits whimsy against ruthless capitalism (while Keith questions if music makes you a musical), James Gunn takes the DCU up, up, and away, while a new Santa finds good uses for an axe. One delights, one is an argument, and one works much better than either host expected, find out which as Recovered Revisits.
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Strap on your sneakers and get ready to bolt as Dan and Keith jog into two very different takes on Stephen King's The Running Man! Way way back in the 1980s, secret government employees frame Arnold Schwarzenegger for a mass murder he'd refused to commit, and he ends up recruited to the police state dystopia's most popular game show, The Running Man. Arnold and his pals must survive an arena and the high-concept gladiators sent after them to win (maybe) freedom, or possibly find a way to crash the system. In 2025, Edgar Wright goes back to the source material, as Glenn Powell finds his only way to get his family out of crippling poverty is to enlist on the Running Man, where he's given 30 days to try and elude some more generic hunters... and every person with a cell phone being encouraged to turn on him. The dangers of deepfakes, the end goal of the "war on woke," and some classic Arnie one-liners abound. Which Man Ran best? Find out!
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Dan and Keith head down once more into the lair of the Phantoms and their various operas, if not of the box office. One made-for-TV movie sets Jane Seymour and Michael York against a Phantom whose motives go from sympathetic to sinister on a dime, while another stretched the story to a full miniseries to soft-launch a rival Phantom musical. In between, an animated version tries to speed-run the original novel with Hanna-Barbera level animation. Finally, Dario Argento enters the opera house with some wild swings, including the prettiest Phantom and way more of a specific character than anyone would expect. How to the Phantoms hold up? Which one is wildly popular with viewers? Find out!
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Dan and Keith head to Germany for two movies on three key things: dance, magic, dance! In 1977, Italian director Dario Argento told the tale of an American ballerina caught up in a German dance academy secretly run by witches... witches that go from zero to murder alarmingly quickly. The visuals were sharp and colourful, but the story seemed thin... then in 2017, Luca Guadagnino went with starker greys, more dance, and so much story Dan and Keith need shovels to unpack it all. Which Suspiria succeeded in which ways? Is the original Argento's best movie? Is the remake Dakota Johnson's? Find out our thoughts.
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And we're back into the Phantoms & Operas sagas, seeing how two distinct film eras take on the Phantom: the auteur era of the 70s, and the slasher horror era of the 80s! In the time when creative vision was king, two Phantoms emerge. Wicked, Wicked attempts a new cinematic technique called DuoVision as a Phantom haunts a mid-range hotel, while Brian De Palma and Paul Williams unite for the rock opera Phantom of the Paradise, blending the Phantom with Faust and a lot of great tunes. But once Andrew Lloyd Webber made the Phantom a Broadway smash, there was only one thing to do: cheap knock-off horror movies! Robert Englund tries to break away from Freddy Krueger in the more book-accurate Phantom of the Opera, while a competing film in the same year goes another way in Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge, both brining the key elements of terror: blood, gore, and... Pauly Shore? Which is the best adaptation? Join us and find out!
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'Tis the season to embrace, be merry, and hope the rich jerks in your life get haunted, and to celebrate, Dan and Keith take on a Curated Selection of Christmas Carols. Trying to cover every version of Dickens' classic holiday haunting would be an act of madness, so after travelling back to 1901 for the first ever film Scrooge, the boys examine ways Scrooge cinema tried to add elements to the story, be it meta-commentary, modernization, Muppetization, and more. Bill Murray, Michael Caine, Some Bloke From Eastenders, and Miscellaneous learn the errors of their ways on Christmas Eve, and we break down what errors they may have missed. God bless them, (almost) every one! Join in!
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At last it arrives! In sleep it sang to you, in dreams it came... the Phantoms of the Operas Mega-Saga begins! Dan and Keith head way, way back to the silent era for the first film adaptation of Gaston Leroux's gothic horror novel the Phantom of the Opera, with Lon Chaney as the signature Phantom. Then it's off to China for Chinese cinema's first ever horror movie, the loose Phantom remake Song at Midnight, which may have added an element to Phantom lore? Back in America, the 40s tried a version that was too little Phantom, too much Opera, while in the 60s Hammer Horror asked "But what if the Phantom WEREN'T the villain?" Dan and Keith debate unmaskings, which even count as horror movies, and how some were held back by their eras as the Phantom Journey begins!
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It's the big 100th episode, and to celebrate, our hosts (or are they?) dig into our lords and saviours, the RoboCops! In 1987, Paul Verhoeven satirized capitalism through a hero that was part man, part machine, and all cop, and John Tebbutt explains what got lost from the later director's cut, while Emma Gallaher relates her first-time-viewing experience. Then, 27 years, two sequels, a TV show, and at least one cartoon later, a star-studded remake was attempted that came close to touching on big topics, but like the robotic cop at the center of the story, it stops working when emotions are involved. Dan and Keith have thoughts... wait, who's hosting this again? Listen in and find out!
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Wrapping up our dissection of Fantastic Four cinema with two polar opposite takes on Marvel's First Family. In 2015, Josh Trank attempted a more grounded, body-horror-infused take that met with severe studio notes and mandated reshoots, leading to a bunch of grey corridors and one action beat before the credits. It did not go over great. This very year, the MCU finally got their crack at the characters, and presents a whimsical, retro-futuristic world where an established Fantastic Four takes on Galactus for the fate of their world, and moreso, their family. Have we hit the best and worst of the Fours Fantastic? Find out!
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The Fantastic Four! Once dubbed "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine," they've struggled to make it on the big screen, split between earnest attempts at blockbusters and quickie attempts to retain the film rights. And Dan and Keith are here to tackle one of each as the road to First Steps begins. Roger Corman produced the first attempt, a low-budget B-movie never intended to see the light of day, but which didn't account for the nascent internet's ability to spread a video file. Eleven years later, Tim Story made it into theatres with, at present, the only Fantastic Four movie to earn a sequel. Who did best with Dr. Doom? Which source material should Tim Story NOT have referenced? Can The Thing look good on screen? All this and more, with the Fantastic Four(s)!
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Dan drags Keith into his film history brainrot in order to answer a question: do the biggest hits of the 20th century need or warrant a remake? We look at the biggest hit of each year from 1927 until 1999, from the dawn of the silent era to the birth of Jar Jar Binks and ask which of these hit films should be made again, which should stay lost to film history, and which will never stop being remade. Join in!
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