Franchise marathons with jokes and sharp edges.
Binge Buddies follows long-form binge projects through film and television series, with recent episodes working across the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise and multiple versions of A Christmas Carol. The tone is casual, blunt, and very conversational, mixing reactions with running bits, rankings, and side arguments about games, concerts, British comedy, and superhero movies.
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Binge Buddies is a pop-culture rewatch show built around the pleasure and pain of finishing a whole run. Recent episodes make that bargain very clear. The speakers take on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise across a recurring Off the ChainSaw series, then step back to rank the damage, the killers, the gross-out moments, and the movies they may or may not ever revisit. The analysis is casual, but it is not empty. They notice when a sequel loses the original film’s small, frightening logic by overloading the family mythology. They complain when Leatherface becomes noise instead of character. They clock bad CGI blood, video-gamey staging, fake-looking geography, missing continuity, and the strange ways later films try to make Texas out of somewhere else. Then the conversation swerves. That is the rhythm. One minute the group is weighing a chase shot, a chainsaw dance, or the usefulness of an origin story; the next minute they are joking about Xbox, Baby Metal, British comedy, superhero runtimes, or the accidental life of a recurring Chainsaw Bear bit. Binge Buddies works best when the movie is flawed enough to fight with. A rough sequel gives the room material: bad acting, strange edits, overstuffed lore, baffling character choices, or a kill that is effective despite everything around it. The show can be blunt about weak films without turning joyless. Even when the speakers sound exhausted by a franchise, the episode keeps moving because the group dynamic is loose, reactive, and visibly amused by its own detours. The holiday special widens the frame, using several A Christmas Carol versions as a seasonal binge experiment rather than a straight horror assignment. That episode still follows the same underlying pattern: compare versions, chase down what works, argue about tone, and let recurring jokes interrupt the structure. Binge Buddies is for listeners who like movie talk that sounds like friends after a marathon screening, not a lecture. It is especially suited to horror fans who enjoy rankings, franchise autopsies, practical complaints, and irreverent side chatter. The show’s edge comes from endurance: it keeps watching the questionable entries long after casual viewers would have bailed, then turns that suffering into jokes, lists, and surprisingly specific criticism.
Made for: Binge Buddies suits horror fans, franchise completionists, and pop-culture listeners who enjoy informal group criticism with strong opinions. It is especially good for people who like rankings, sequel arguments, and conversations that wander without losing the movie.
What sets it apart: The show’s strength is its combination of endurance and looseness: it watches the rough entries, names exactly what fails, then lets running bits and side chatter keep the room lively. It feels less like formal criticism than a long post-screening argument among friends who still care enough to finish the series.
A big binge podcast breaking down some of pop culture's greatest film and television series.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Franchise-scale rewatches become funny, craft-minded group arguments about why horror sequels work, fail, and linger.
Binge Buddies turns franchise rewatches into lively arguments among friends, with Matt and the other regular voices comparing reactions rather than forcing a tidy consensus.
A CGI blood dispute interrupts the kill rankings; your movie night just found its people.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Binge Buddies talks A Christmas Carol, including Blackadder's reversal of Scrooge.
Binge Buddies spends this Christmas episode watching and talking through different versions of A Christmas Carol. The Blackadder Christmas special gives them a Scrooge figure who begins as a good person, then sees reasons to change.
A robbery sequence sharpens the debate over whether The Beginning is gory fun.
The Beginning leaves the hosts split on a blunt question: can a horror movie be gory and fun at the same time? One calls it "gory fun." Another grants the gore but cannot agree about the fun. The disagreement comes into focus around the robbery sequence.
A blunt Chainsaw verdict gives way to specific gripes and a running joke.
A host gives The Texas Chainsaw Massacre another chance, wondering whether he judged it too harshly before. His verdict arrives fast: he didn't. The hosts then get into what bothered them.
The hosts praise a wooded chase but take issue with Leatherface's screaming and the final chainsaw dance.
In week four of Off the ChainSaw, the hosts have little patience for the acting, and even less for Leatherface. His near-constant screaming bothers them most. They remember grunts and yelps in the original that made him sound as though he were trying to communicate.
Cast mix-ups, Ken Foree praise and relaxed banter shape this horror-film discussion.
The four hosts are at their best when the cast discussion gets a little tangled. They mix up Benny and the petrol station character, work out who they mean, and keep joking through the correction. Ken Foree gets the warmest response.
The Binge Buddies crew revisits a childhood horror memory and argues over a less frightening sequel.
The Binge Buddies crew returns to a Nightmare on Elm Street sequel that left them cold. After plenty of complaints, they try to pin down why it scares them less than the third film.
Three friends recap Daredevil, Fallout, and new releases scene by scene, in Spanish.
Slasher talk with sharp teeth.
The hosts of Deadites in Aisle 3 discuss episodes 5-6 of Ash vs Evil Dead, with a side conversation about the show Hysteria.
Hosts discuss episodes 7-8 of Ash vs Evil Dead, with tangents about a CW Christmas movie and Sam Raimi's directing style.
Hosts discuss Bruce Campbell's transition from Burn Notice to Ash vs Evil Dead and how his TV experience benefits the series.
Brian and Matt discuss the first two episodes of Ash vs Evil Dead, mixing humor with analysis.
["Ryan, Joel, Matt, and Brian compare four versions of A Christmas Carol and keep returning to whether Dickens's story itself is worth defending.
The hosts wrap up their marathon viewing of the entire Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, discussing the varying quality of the films and their reluctance to rewatch them.
Two hosts discuss their changing opinions on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre film, noting its flaws and comparing it to other entries in the franchise.
The hosts of Binge Buddies discuss the terrible origin story movie Leatherface, criticizing its poor quality and runtime.
The hosts of Off the Chainsaw introduce themselves and set up a discussion trashing the movie Texas Chainsaw 3D.
On Binge Buddies, hosts Brian Dressel and Matt review Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, the 2006 prequel starring Jordana Brewster and Matt Bomer, noting it scored lower on Metacritic than the 2003 remake despite the hosts finding it more entertaining.
On Binge Buddies, the hosts review the 2003 Platinum Dunes remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre starring Jessica Biel, and largely tear it apart.
The hosts focus on Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, with Matthew McConaughey’s “robo-leg” performance and Renée Zellweger’s final-girl role getting most of the attention.
Binge Buddies reviews Off the ChainSaw Ep 3 Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, with Matt, Joel, Brian, and Lewis criticizing its decline after the first two films.
Binge Buddies reviews A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master while joking through "Nine nights with Freddy" and the franchise's turn toward quips and sunglasses.