February 14, 2020

EDITOR’S NOTE: Man, did this age poorly!

One of the best things we could’ve asked for this holiday season was for our weekly horror podcast show, Shock Waves, to join the FANGORIA podcast network! Hosted by myself, FANGO’s own Rob Galluzzo, along with Ryan Turek (Head of Development at Blumhouse Productions), Elric Kane (a Kiwi filmmaker that also co-hosts the Pure Cinema Podcast) and Dr. Rebekah McKendry (movie director, former FANGO head of marketing and NIGHTMARE U host), each week for 2 hours, we kick back, relax, and invite fellow horror enthusiasts to join in on our conversations. The first hour dives into all the latest horrors we’ve seen, whether it be theatrical releases, something from one of the boutique Blu-Ray labels, a festival entry, or just a recent discovery as a way to recommend titles the way we’d get recommendations from the old-school video store clerks. The second half, we welcome an industry professional to tell us their story. Usually, one of the hosts will know our guest personally, which gives us a really inspiring and educational interview that you wouldn’t hear anywhere else.

This iteration of the show has been around for a couple of years. As of this writing, there are 150 plus episodes for devoted FANGORIA readers to discover. So, we decided to highlight a few of our personal favorites.

If you want to hear from some of our modern “Masters of Horror,” why not dig way back to episode 4 when we had Mike Flanagan on. He had just come off a successful festival premiere for HUSH, which then dropped on Netflix. We’d known Mike for several years, so hearing him at this pivotal point where he was about to start the first of a handful of Stephen King adaptations was incredibly inspiring. Several months before GET OUT hit theaters, Jordan Peele popped on episode 16 to just talk about his love and upbringing on horror. For episode 12, Fede Alvarez explained to us how he made his short film PANIC ATTACK, uploaded it before bed, and woke up an overnight sensation thanks to a tweet from Kanye West!

Sometimes, it’s just great to hear from various genre voices. On episode 60, revered horror writer BJ Colangelo came on to explain why films in the usually unpleasant “rape/revenge” subgenre, like I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, are actually quite cathartic. It’s one of our most intimate and important conversations about how the genre helps us cope with our own personal traumas. For Quentin Tarantino fans, having his life-long friend and New Beverly manager of operations Jules McLean on for episode 137 was as eye-opening as we can get on the auteur. And actors? Scout-Taylor Compton, most well known as Rob Zombie’s Laurie Strode was one of the most fun guests we’d ever had for episode 98. Horror icon Lin Shaye was on twice, episodes 78 and 128, I had birthday beers with Udo Kier for episode 110, we broke down Mike Oldfield’s music masterpiece “Tubular Bells,” most well known as THE EXORCIST theme with Christian James Hand of The Session On Air on episode 101, picked out own Monster Squad villains to go up against with the cast of THE MONSTER SQUAD, and so much more!

Don Coscarelli, the late Larry Cohen, John Landis, Katt Shea, Issa Lopez, the Scream Factory, Severin Films, Synapse Films & Vinegar Syndrome teams, SpectreVision, Instagram sensation Christine McConnell. Not to mention our live shows from Texas Frightmare Weekend, Slashback Video, the Halloween convention. Looking back – it’s been an amazing journey producing this podcast, and now we couldn’t be more thrilled for FANGORIA readers to catch up!