Dummies of Horror Podcast runs on a teacher-and-pupil gag. Tim is the host, and Mushroom, called the dumbest little mushroom in one intro, is the one being taught the genre. It is a joke, but it gives the show a spine. Recent episodes are built around themes rather than single films, and the spread is wide. There is virus horror, western horror, survival horror and natural disasters. There is also an episode on bad CGI that turned into a run through the Sharknado films. Sharknado 1 was judged the most grounded of the lot, and its habit of passing off a dozen different beaches as one counted in its favour. The sequels did worse: each opened with a quick recap, and then attention drifted. The talk is crude, rambling and constantly profane, full of sex jokes, mock insults and fights over who gets to deliver the intro. Under the noise, the pair do form real opinions. In the survival discussion, one of them describes watching a film back to back with Lord of the Flies. The verdict on Lord of the Flies was a cool concept with horrible editing. The other film was a surprise, with more black comedy than expected, including a teacher and an instructional video that got real laughs. The natural-disasters episode reads out a tidy formula for the form, from early warning signs to emotional resolution. It then challenges the claim that nature in these films is indifferent rather than evil, because the score sometimes makes an earthquake feel almost Final Destination. The same episode adds a top 10 of the worst real-life natural disasters, with an advance warning about mangling some of the names. The virus episode lists the films put to a poll, Cabin Fever, The Crazies, The Bay, Carriers and Blindness, and draws a firm line: zombies do not belong in the subgenre. The western episode greets the audience with 'Howdy partners', and one of them admits to being won over by a chaptered, out-of-order film after expecting another witch movie. In 'Dummies Of Horror Ep.301- Chuffed Or Not Chuffed?' the pair go through the year's big horror releases. Mushroom is accused of skipping the Five Nights at Freddy's sequel, insists he watched it and just never logged it, and the two disagree on whether it beat the first. The show's view of itself is part of the fun. A sung theme bills it as 'four idiots, one podcast', though the excerpts center on Tim and Mushroom. A closing song drifts through popcorn, sandwiches and a running joke about someone named Benny. The spoken intro keeps calling the show the Beef Wellington of horror podcasts, and at least once the pair stop mid-sentence to agree they have to quit saying it. The virus episode is a good place to start, because the poll and the zombie ruling show how the show sets its own terms.