Horror films, scored out of ten, derailed by jokes.
Josh, Matt and Charlie score horror films out of ten, and each number comes with real reasons, from a five and a half for a film that abandons its best idea to an eight for the fourth entry in a Jason series. Between verdicts, the conversation drifts through crude gags, song parodies and pop-culture riffs.
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Horror Show Hot Dog is a horror review show where the jokes and the judgements arrive in the same breath. Josh, Matt and Charlie watch horror films, argue about them and put scores out of ten on what they saw. The scores are specific. One film gets a five and a half. It had a strong idea and a promising character friction and dropped both, and before long the reviewer has a whole list of why-didn't-yous. The fourth film in a Jason series gets an eight, with credit for good acting, good effects and a score described as Hitchcockian. The same discussion admits to bouncing hard off Feldman but still enjoys the moment he snaps and starts beating an already dead Jason. Character writing gets close attention. One film is mocked for a character who cycles through ex-con, youth pastor, ex-cop and concerned dad. Its best line, a promise to keep searching every day weather permitting, is ribbed for having stricter standards than the post office. Horror logic gets its own rule: if an object turns up somewhere new in a house where the only other person cannot move, leave or call the police. Praise is rationed. A Miyazaki comparison comes with the note that it is never offered lightly, and a market sequence is called astonishing. Another film is judged stylish and mildly entertaining, but with no human parts. Episodes open with Josh and Matt introducing themselves with a gag. One of Josh's is a full song parody about a vampire, another a rhyming verse about brujeria and a cursed toad. Pop-culture asides pile up: Statler and Waldorf, Clueless, Hugh Hefner and Iggy Pop. The tangents wander further still, to a regretted pass on Scream items at a Hollywood prop auction, to young people's slang and gaming culture, and to phones that keep everyone in a state of hypervigilance. Titles like 'Episode 515 – Soulless Acridity', 'Episode 481 – Ennui and the Forest' and 'Episode 517 – The Organ on Weed' show how much the show likes odd, funny labels. A good first listen is 'Episode 513 – There’s No Human Parts', which has both the Miyazaki praise and the verdict it shares a name with. The language is strong and the humor is crude, so this is a poor fit for anyone who wants a tidy critical roundup.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants horror films scored and argued over with real specifics, and who enjoys rambling tangents and crude jokes as part of the fun.
What sets it apart: Under the constant gags the criticism is concrete: a character rewritten four times in one film, a firm rule about leaving a house when objects move, a Miyazaki comparison that is not offered lightly. Scores out of ten keep the arguments anchored.
Every week Josh Nite, Charlie Buttermann, and Matt Allex watch, discuss, and review three horror movies and one horror short. Sometimes they love them, sometimes they hate them, sometimes they come up with movies they like better on the spot. Come find the best and the worst the genre has to offer with Horror Show Hot Dog. (Don’t worry, there are lots of jokes.)
A Jason sequel gets you effects praise and a Statler-and-Waldorf riff about its curmudgeonly kids.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A horror discussion where one moved object becomes enough reason to abandon the house.
Carnival of Souls gets a horror discussion built around a beautifully plain survival rule: when an object moves and nobody in the house could have moved it, the correct next step is not investigation but exit.
A sharp, profane look at movie dialogue, from Beast of War insults to a missing-child search stalled by bad weather.
Josh and Matt turn the odd life of movie dialogue into the joke itself, starting with a Beast of War insult and widening into why British, Scottish, Spanish, Brazilian, and Australian shit-talking can hit with such specific force.
A loose horror-movie autopsy where Hitchcockian scores, curmudgeonly kids, and an unofficial Muppet sequel all share the table.
Horror Show Hot Dog works best when the hosts frame one movie's solemn violence as comedy that somehow got stuck carrying death around with it.
A Dust Bunny joke opens into Miyazaki comparisons, zombie culture, and a nine-out-of-ten verdict.
A Dust Bunny gag sends the episode on a loose, shaggy route through bad jokes, fantasy horror, zombie culture, and bargain-bin creature features.
Three friends recap Daredevil, Fallout, and new releases scene by scene, in Spanish.
Slasher talk with sharp teeth.
The hosts discuss and review horror movies and a short film, with humorous banter.
The hosts discuss recent horror movie viewings and introduce a short film called My Cat Lucy.
The hosts discuss and review horror movies with humorous commentary.
Horror Show Hot Dog Episode 517, “The Organ on Weed,” moves through three horror titles: the animated short The Worm/El Gusano, the podcast-style feature Undertone, and Carnival of Souls.
Horror Show Hot Dog opens with a short called The Owl, or El Buo, and spends much of the review on one visual: a woman facing a wall before turning her head all the way around.
Josh and Matt spend much of the episode on Beast of War, a World War II shark film that they describe as a metaphor for war, mortality, and Australian front-line experience rather than a simple creature feature.
Horror Show Hot Dog episode 514, 'Wholesome Horniness,' spends a long stretch on the short film 'Avoid Asking,' which the hosts describe as a three-minute biohazard-clad bureaucratic experiment that ends with an off-screen creature attack.
Horror Show Hot Dog spends most of Episode 513 on a killer-rug short called “Rug” or “La Alfombra,” with the hosts noting it was made with mostly senior citizens and built around a monster that eats people under a bed.
Horror Show Hot Dog Episode 512 pairs a review of the nine-minute stop-motion short Playing God (Jugando al Dios), reportedly made over seven years, with a rewatch of the first three Friday the 13th films.
Episode 511 of Horror Show Hot Dog opens with Irradiated, a roughly ten-minute Russian animated short that Josh found through YouTube recommendation rabbit holes, which the hosts praise for its shifting concrete-rubble creature and "click click click" sound design.
Hosts Josh, Matt, and Charlie open Episode 510 with 'To the Brink,' a stop-motion short about an angel and devil singing a duet on a man's shoulder, which they call 'thoroughly realized' and compare to Henry Selick's James and the Giant Peach and Coraline.
The hosts discuss horror movies and share humorous banter, with this episode focusing on villains and nostalgia.
Three hosts joke about horror movies, including a short film, with crude humor and banter.