Episodes
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The first of a two-part special with the Scaredy Boys, my
brothers-in-cowardice from Down Under. Damo, Tom and Sean are famously and unashamedly terrified of horror movies, and started a podcast to face their fears. Since 2020 they’ve been watching and analysing a horror movie every week – so now they’ve probably seen more than most of us.
I got them onto Talking Scared to discuss their insane project, their changing attitudes to horror, and ask them some specific questions about what they’ve learned to love and fear along the way.
Episode Two is out next Friday, or available right now for Patreon subscribers
Enjoy!
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I dunno if this week’s episode is a dystopian nightmare or just a realist thriller.
Naomi Krtizer, multi-award winning author of sci-fi and horror, join me for a conversation about her new novella, Obstetrix. It follows the struggles of doctor, kidnapped by a cult to work as their in-house OBGYN. What follows is a balance between personal survival and the obligation to the women in her care.
Naomi and I talk about the state of healthcare and reproductive rights in America, which is never not a serious conversation. But we try to lighten the mood with some chat about the respite of reading (and re-reading), and the working definition of cults.
Enjoy.
Other books mentioned:
“Monster” (2020), by Naomi Kritzer
American War (2017), Omar El Akkad
The Midnight Shift (2025), by Cheon Seon-Ran
Nestlings (2023), by Nat Cassidy
The God of Endings (2023), by Jacqueline Holland
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Missing episodes?
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Horror’s reigning Queen of Extreme returns to the show!
CJ Leede is the author of Maeve Fly and American Rapture, and if you’re abreast of contemporary horror you’ve heard of her twisted take on Americana.
She’s back to talk about her third novel, Headlights, in which people are waking up from fugue-like states, to find themselves draped in the flayed skins of other people. What’s going on? Who’s doing it? Is it human or supernatural? Does it have anything at all to do with Stephen King’s The
Shining? And where does the songwriting magic of John Denver come into
things?
CJ answers these and many other similarly weird questions. There’s so much to cover, we barely even talk about the act of skinning someone
alive.
Enjoy.
Other books mentioned:
The Shining (1977), by Stephen King
Doctor Sleep (2013), by Stephen King
How to Disappear Completely (2027), by Liz Kerin
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Melissa Albert’s novel may be called The Children, but it’s certainly not for kids.
This is a story about the dark creativity behind bright make-believe,
about the pretty lies of childhood and the brutal truths of growing up. It’s
about writers and writing and as you’ll hear me point out, it does for fantasy
fiction what Stephen King’s Misery did for Gothic romance.
And by god do we talk about all of that. As well as celebrating a character that I believe to be one of the best “bad-mothers” in recent fiction (and the secret hero of the book!)
But maybe that’s just me. I’m twisted.
Enjoy.
Other books mentioned:
The Hazel Wood (2018), by Melissa Albert
The Magicians (2009), by Lev Grossman
Daytide (2026), by Chris Panatier
When You Reach Me (2009) by Rebecca Stead
Fangirl (2013), by Rainbow Rowell
This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me (2026), by Ilona Andrews
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Off to Old Dublin Town to have creepy tales pumped direct
into our earholes this week. I’m joined by Peter Dunne, the writer and director of Petrified — Ireland’s premier horror drama podcast.
It’s a horror show with a vein of Irish humour, but it’s not afraid to get really nasty when the chance arises. Across dozens of episodes, Peter and the team have offered serial killing parents, haunted lighthouses, doomed housing estates and possessed call centres. And now and then they
shatter the fourth wall to curse the audience!
And despite being surely the busiest man in podcasting, Peter talks to me all about it.
Enjoy!
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Disgust, despair and belly laughs on the show this week – with Neena Viel and her new novel, I’ll Watch Your Baby.
It’s a dense, troubling tale of child theft, social horror and demons, with plenty of putrid feet to give you a summertime ick! But if the book is a sickener, the author is a delight. Neena makes me do a proper full-on guffaw (has anyone EVER guffawed?), whilst we talk about urban-vs-rural horror,
reprehensible acts and problematic protagonists, and the abiding lie of the Welfare Queen trope.
Enjoy. Laugh. Even learn (up to you!)
Other books mentioned:
Listen to Your Sister (2025), by Neena Viel
The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth (2019), by Josh Levin
On Sundays She Picked Flowers (2026), by Yah Yah Schofield
The Night Pool (2026), by Lauren Lee Smith
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A little more chat as the last of the starkblast fades.
In this bonus Palaver episode, Nat and I stick around to dissect Chris’s disproportionate love for The Wind Through the Keyhole. We talk about
what, if any conclusions can be drawn from this book, and then we get onto King’s intersections with Lovecraft and Tolkien – and some deep cut Dark Tower references elsewhere in the canon.
Enjoy. But Do Not Listen if you haven’t read the entire Dark Tower saga!!
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Whilst the wind and world howls outside, we can all hunker indoors for the latest Dark Tower Deep Dive into King’s 2012 novel-of-stories, The Wind Through the Keyhole.
To some, this could be an inessential pitstop, a mere nostalgic coda, written long after the climax of the main saga. To others it’s a testament to Stephen King’s raw storytelling chops, which shed a little more purpling light on Roland’s failing, fading world.
You’ll have to listen to find out where we each stand. But I promise there will be talk of story structure, and Billy Bumblers, and certain Randall Flagg. And you’ll also hear how Chris Panatier has been trolling kind old uncle Stevie on social media. Boo Hiss!!
Enjoy folks!
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Trad wives are taking over horror in 2026 – but I predict none will be more frightening and more gorgeously WEIRD than Sarah Langan’s novel.
It’s the tale of a young woman in the dying era of journalism and the YouTube influencer who offers her hope, and much worse things…. I absolutely loved it.
Sarah and I talk about the trad wife phenomenon, where it comes from, what it means, and how it’s all really based in cold hard capitalism. We talk about literary influences, about sustaining extreme weirdness in fiction, and why establishing character properly is so important.
And we even recall the time we bonded over the gift of a mutant duck!
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
Pet Sematary (1983), by Stephen King
Trad Wife (2026), by Saratoga Schafer
Yesteryear (2026), by Caro Claire Burke
“The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892), by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The King in Yellow (1985),
Robert W. Chambers
Rosemary’s Baby (1967), by Ira Levin
The Ceremonies (1984), by T. E. D. Klein
Room (2010), by Emma Donaghue
Station Eleven (2014), by Hilary St. John Mandel
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Kaelyn Moore returns to talk scared, straight from the helm of Heart Starts Pounding – her mega podcast of mysteries, murder and the
macabre.
She watches a lot of dark documentaries for research. I asked her to come talk about a few that recently inspired her (or disturbed her). We cover serial killers, cursed objects and a relationship that will give you serious ICK!
But of course, this being Talking Scared, we also spin off into a conversation about ethics, belief and the justice system.
** I apologise to you as well as Kaelyn for my terrible suggestion of a documentary to watch. Hopefully my anger and self-loathing is funny.
Enjoy
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This week is full of muck and murk and mushrooms. We flit amongst the trees, we bed on moss, we howl at the moon.
Daisy Pearce is entering her bog witch era!
The author takes us to her native Cornwall, for a story of haunting and imprisonment, small town baggage and creepy houses in the woods. We
talk about the oppressive landscape and the mythical texture of the place. We ask whether anyone in a small town can ever really leave high school behind… and we really look at the fine art of trepanation AKA – having a hole drilled in your head (and what it would feel like!)
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
Something in the Walls (2025), by Daisy Pearce
Water Shall Refuse Them (2019), by Lucy McKnight Hardy
A Head Full of Ghosts (2015), by Paul Tremblay
Itch (2025), by Gemma Amor
The Man From the Train : The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery (2017), by Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James
A Simple Plan (1993), by Scott Smith
From Hell (1999), by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
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This week we host one of the most exciting horror filmmakers of the decade – Damian McCarthy, the twisted mind behind Caveat, Oddity and
now, Hokum.
It’s the biggest film in Damian’s career so far, with his biggest star, Adam Scott playing Ohm, a deeply flawed American writer who travels to Ireland, to spread his parent’s ashes. Whilst staying in a creaky old hotel, he stumbled across dark human conspiracy and witchy haunting.
Damian is so much nicer than Ohm, and this is a cheery conversation about the cheeriest scary film I’ve seen in a while!
Enjoy
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Cognitohazards abound this week, as Marcus Kliewer joins me for a conversation about the reality-shredding We Used to Live Here and his new novel of obsessional rules, The Caretaker.
In both books, there are things that should not be known, and certainly not questioned. Yet questioning is my job – so we get into the expansive and weird universe Marcus is building, and the process of playing games
and leaving clues for the reader. We talk about how his own terrors and neurodivergence informs his fiction, and I pass on a lecture from my wife that these books should come with an OCD trigger warning.
Plus – you get not one but TWO recommendations for true existential
horror reads.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
We Used to Live Here (2025), by Marcus Kliewer
House of Leaves (2000), by Mark Z. Danielewski
The Denial of Death (1973), by Ernest Becker
A Short Stay in Hell (2009), by Steven L. Peck
The Divine Farce (2009), by Michael Graziano
Japanese Gothic (2026), by Kylie Lee Baker
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A conversation about codes of honour and the rules of haunting in this week’s episode – as I’m joined by Kylie Lee Baker, author of 2025’s incredible Bat Eater, and the brand-new Japanese Gothic.
It’s the story of a very particular haunted house, a brutal samurai family, and a murderer who can’t remember his crime. It’s exhilaratingly weird and Kylie leads me through its many strange rooms.
We talk about her own dual heritage, it’s role in the story, and links to the very real historical Samurai. We discuss the meanings of Gothic in her work, the art of writing puzzling fiction, and Timothy Chalamet's role in inspiring the novel.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
Bat Eater (2025), by Kylie Anne Baker
Mexican Gothic (2020), by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
So Thirsty (2024), by Rachel Harrison
Rekt (2025), by Alex Rodriguez
Man of Wind and Moss (2026), by Alex Rodriguez
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When Stephen King tells you to have a guest on your podcast – you listen!
That’s how I came to meet Caroline Bicks, the inaugural Stephen E. King Chair at the University of Maine, and author of the Monsters in the Archive – the first full-length study of the King literary collection.
It’s part memoir, part literary biography, part granular exploration of King’s editorial process – but ALL fun. I’m a nerd on this subject, and I found out plenty that I didn’t know.
As well as discussing our own relationship with King’s early work, we also talk about the stuff that never made it to print. The exploding vampire babies, the Kaiju-sized Carrie and the original ending of The Shining that is so much darker than you could bear.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
Carrie (1974), by Stephen King
‘Salem’s Lot (1975), by Stephen King
The Shining (1977), by Stephen King
Night Shift (1978), by Stephen King
Pet Semetary (1983), by Stephen King
On Writing (2000), by Stephen King
North Woods (2023), by Daniel Mason
Ulverton (1992), by Adam Thorpe
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Listen at your own peril this week.
I spoke with Ian Tuason and Nina Kiri, the director and star of Undertone – billed as “the scariest movie you’ll ever hear!”
It’s the story of an isolated podcaster, who makes the terrible mistake of listening to some very unnerving audio files…which then start to bleed into her own life. You can imagine the number it did on me!
Ian and Nina talk about the movie’s roots in Ian’s own experience of late-life care for his parents, and the responsibility of portraying that on screen. We discuss how the film weaponises sound, how the internet is a scary, fascinating place, and even a little exclusive heads up about more to come in this universe.
Enjoy
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Corporate culture is a nightmare, but getting out of the office brings its own problems in Carter Keane’s debut novella – Morsel.
It’s a story about monsters and eldritch beings, about killer cults and evil law-enforcement, about wellbeing scams and a boss from hell – but it’s also a springboard for a whole conversation about the cons (many) and pros (debatable) of capitalism. Carter indulges my devil’s advocacy, before we get back to the matter of strange forest disappearances and horrible shit that happens with bears.
It’s a whole range of ways to feel scared of the world.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
The Ritual (2011), by Adam Nevill
Last Days (2012), by Adam Nevill
All the Fiends of Hell (2024), by Adam Nevill
The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion (2017), by Margaret Killjoy
Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1989), by Frederic Jameson
Debt: The First 500 Years (2011), by David Graeber
Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist (2017), by Kate Raworth
The Cold Vanish: Seeking the Missing in North America’s Wildlands (2020), by Jon Billman
Rust Belt Femme (2020), by Rachael Anne Jolie
Night of the Grizzlies (1969), by Jack Olsen
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Nat and I stick around in the shadowed recesses of Black House for another half hour, to discuss all the things that Chris got right and wrong – and to make some entirely unfounded claims of our own.
It’s overflowing with spoilers for the whole Dark Tower series, so don’t listen if you’re a newbie. We start to ask who is the Crimson King? Would Roland and Jack have gotten along? And we get very grumpy about certain wolves in a certain town further down the road.
Enjoy.
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Time to whet our appetites for the Dark Tower again – this time with an extra serving of ass cheek!
After three months away, we’re picking up with travellin’ Jack Sawyer after we left him in The Talisman. We find him in a sleepy Wisconsin town, where the dimension-hopping, child-eating Fisherman is plying his awful trade.
Yep… it’s time for Black House. The book in which King’s universes collide.
Nat, Chris and I argue – about where we see the spirit of King and Peter Straub in this story, about the believability of characters and the RIGHT amount to mourn a fallen hero. But we also agree about the beauty of theprose, the sublime depiction of the deepest horrors, and the sheer joy of one of the Dark Tower’s nastiest villains.
It’s as much fun as you can have with a book about so many dead kids.
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After seeing an early screener of Something Very Bad is Going to Happen I immediately thought it was going to be huge!
So I leapt ahead of the curve and invited writer and showrunner, Haley Z Boston to come talk scared about weddings, soulmates, David Lynch and Danish horror, and what it’s like to work with the Duffer Brothers.
This show has been my whole personality for two weeks. Ihope you watch, listen to this interview, and love it all.
Enjoy
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