Genre Grinder

Genre Grinder treats film genre as something that can be sliced very thin. Each episode names a narrow category, and host Gabe Powers spends it with a guest sorting out what the films share and where they came from. The recent run shows how wide the net goes. There are B-grade barbarian and sword-and-sorcery films from the 1980s, biopics that refuse the usual formula, the neurotic women of '70s giallo, environmental horror and films about marrying a witch. Prestige is not a requirement. One episode covers fantasy films pitched all the way down to Z grade. Guests shape each conversation. Luana Saitta of Defend Your Trash Movie returns for both the '80s fantasy episode and the witch episode, and the easy rapport shows in the detours: an elementary school song about a witch's brew, a back-and-forth over whether the episode title should alliterate. Justin Clark, who writes for Slant Magazine, GameSpot and Kotaku, comes back for environmental horror, which Gabe frames as a companion to a disaster-movie episode they made together. Sharon Gissy, who runs a Chicago film festival about mental health called Mental Filmness, joins for giallo, and Tyler Foster sits in for the biopics. The strongest stretches are the history lessons. Explaining the Italian barbarian wave, the talk reaches back to peplum, the sword-and-sandal tradition dating to the silent era, and sets the fantasy fad that followed Conan beside a parallel run of post-apocalyptic films inspired by Mad Max and Escape from New York. The giallo conversation covers censorship, including the practice of shooting sex scenes twice, clothed and unclothed, for other countries. The witch episode wanders into Doris Day and Cary Grant in That Touch of Mink and the old idea of a star aging past a role. Environmental horror gets a Godzilla theme with droopy horns and slow surf guitar, likened to a '50s striptease song. Gabe is candid about his own taste. Early in the biopic episode he admits he finds most biopics formulaic, which gives the conversation its purpose: finding the ones that are not. Alex Cox's Walker comes up as a film whose unconventional shape comes from its director rather than its subject. The framing stays playful. Episodes open with themed welcomes, including a string of yellow shades for giallo, and close with mock advice tied to the subject, such as a reminder that anyone who needs therapy should simply go rather than follow a giallo killer's lead. Closing notes also plug a Genre Grinder Cares shirt and sticker sale, with profits going to Gender Justice, which Gabe credits with helping keep trans people in Minnesota safe. One entry breaks the pattern. The episode titled Halloween Special: Rusty & Dip's Final Broadcast, a Found Footage Music Mix Tape is staged as the only surviving recording of a doomed 1992 radio broadcast. Newcomers might start with the '80s sword-and-sorcery episode, which puts the jokes, the synopses and the film history in one place.