Scream Scene Podcast

Scream Scene Podcast rests on a premise that sounds impossible on paper: Sarah and Ben are watching every horror movie ever made, in chronological order, and ranking the whole lot from best to worst. The project is well advanced. What that gives a listener is context. Each film lands on a timeline the hosts have already covered, so Hammer's Phantom of the Opera is announced as a test of how Herbert Lom stacks up against earlier screen Phantoms. The Brain That Wouldn't Die arrives with the hope that it is not simply Donovan's Brain again. On a rewatch, one host likes a film more than before and credits all the Hammer and horror titles watched for the show since, though its ending still lands as badly as remembered. That conversation turns into a reflection on fandom, built around the kind of viewer for whom Roger Moore will always be James Bond. Episodes open with an easygoing check-in. The weather gets its due, from false springs and fresh snow to lengthening days. The hosts also speak candidly when the state of the world has them down or people they care about are struggling. Then the film takes over. Recaps are thorough and give away endings, so expect spoilers. They do not skirt ugly material either: one recap describes a sexual assault in plain terms. Craft gets attention too. A low-budget picture earns credit for trying things a standard B movie might not, such as filming a car crash from inside and alongside the moving car instead of using rear projection. The talk reaches past the screen as well. It covers Robert Mitchum's later career of acclaimed films, panned ones and off-screen controversies, and the 1975 court case that exposed the private life Wingard had tried to keep secret and badly hurt his career. The humor is dry and low-key. Learning that the next film is The Cabinet of Caligari, not Dr. Caligari, prompts the aside 'Who needs to be a doctor these days?' Night of the Eagle turns out to have been released in the US as Burn Witch Burn, which is judged the better title, and Freda's The Horrible Secret of Dr. Hitchcock is suspected of copying Franco and The Awful Dr. Orloff. Each sign-off names the next film and says goodbye to the 'creatures of the night'. One recent sign-off promises Roger Corman's Poe anthology Tales of Terror, with Vincent Price in all three stories. A Patreon carries bonus material, including audiobooks and actual plays. Episode titles are playful phrases rather than film names, among them 'Seesaw of Quality', 'Bulletpoint Opera' and 'Hands Hands Hands'.