Grindhouse film canon, argued scene by scene.
SLEAZOIDS treats film history like a double-feature repertory night with sharper notes in the margins. Its conversations move from camera technique and performance choices to trashy premises, franchise detours, ratings, rankings, and new-release genre chatter.
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SLEAZOIDS approaches film history from the grimy side entrance. The show’s organizing pleasure is the double feature, pairing movies through shared subjects, genres, filmmakers, actors, franchises, or stranger lines of influence. Its center of gravity is 20th-century genre cinema, but the conversation is not locked in nostalgia. Monsters, gothic horror, splatter, sexploitation, anime adaptations, action blockbusters, and new-release horror all become part of the same rolling argument about taste and craft. The show can be loose. It is also frequently precise. A discussion of The Mummy turns into a close look at makeup effects, expressionist lighting, and early mobile-camera technique. A conversation about The Rock lingers on Ed Harris’s unusually emotional villain and the heavy theatrical weather of Michael Bay’s style. Please Don't Touch Me! becomes a way to talk through dated sexual politics, sympathy, autonomy, and whose pain a film chooses to prioritize. Bride of Frankenstein opens onto James Whale’s attraction to theatrical mad scientists and distorted close-ups. Even when the movies are outrageous, the analysis tends to ask what the film is doing, how it is staged, and where its perspective gets shaky. That gives the show its shape. It likes sleaze, but it does not treat sleaze as an excuse to stop thinking. The tone is conversational, fast, and sometimes irreverent, with an archive-minded habit of ratings, rankings, bonus episodes, and side transmissions. Guest episodes add extra texture, including Perry Ruhland on X: The Movie and James O'Barr's The Crow, Trevor Henderson on Anthropophagous and The Slayer, and Christian Gudegast on the Den of Thieves films. The Christian Gudegast interview shows another mode: practical talk about heist-film sound, crime-world texture, sequels, genre layering, and tough-guy filmmaking craft. Across the feed, SLEAZOIDS keeps returning to the friction between high canon and low reputation. It respects formal technique. It also respects a ridiculous premise when the movie earns it. The result is film criticism for viewers who want scholarship, enthusiasm, and blunt genre appetite in the same conversation.
Made for: SLEAZOIDS suits genre-film obsessives who want cult cinema, horror, action, exploitation, and monster movies discussed with both craft attention and blunt humor. It is especially strong for listeners who already enjoy double features, filmmaker rabbit holes, and ranking debates.
What sets it apart: The show stands out by giving disreputable and canonical genre films the same level of formal attention, from camera movement and lighting to ideology and performance. Its double-feature format keeps each episode comparative, not just recap-driven.
Welcome fellow SLEAZOIDS!!! Come along as hosts Josh Lewis and Jamie Miller (and, occasionally, guests) go down the rabbit hole of 20th century genre fare from the most influential canon classics to the the trashiest exploitation films we can get our hands on. Each week is a double feature—grindhouse style—where we discuss two films loosely related by subject, genre, actor, filmmaker or franchise and at the end of each episode, along with our HONORARY SLEAZOIDS (click on over to our patreon to become one), we decide on ratings and rankings for each film that's covered. Join us as together we work to uncover the best genre films of 20th century.
Josh and Jamie turn double features into a canon of sleaze you can argue with.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A crime-film interview that lingers on craft, silence, and the future of the Den of Thieves series.
The episode makes room for a lively conversation with Christian Gutgast, tracing a path from UCLA hip-hop music video director to industry script polisher and then to the filmmaker behind Den of Thieves and Den of Thieves 2 Pantera.
Loose, lore-heavy Star Wars conversation.
Hosts Josh Lewis and Jamie Miller analyze the 1973 film 'Charley Varrick', focusing on Walter Matthau's character as a pragmatic bank robber.
Sleazoids hosts Josh Lewis and Jamie Miller interview writer-director Christian Gudegast about his heist films Den of Thieves and Den of Thieves 2: Pantera.
SLEAZOIDS pairs Steven Seagal's Hard to Kill (1990) with Out for Justice (1991), two early action films built around revenge and three-word titles.
Sleazoids episode 367 pairs Edmund M.
This episode analyzes the music in John Waters' 1990 film 'Cry-Baby', discussing how most songs are curated 1950s tracks rather than originals, with only a few written specifically for the movie.
This episode analyzes the film noir 'Out of the Past' (1947), focusing on Robert Mitchum's character as a mysterious newcomer with a secret past and Kirk Douglas's portrayal of a menacing gambling kingpin.
This episode of Sleazoids introduces a double feature discussion on genre films, focusing on building a canon of sleaze while promoting Patreon benefits for subscribers.
Sleazoids episode 429 pairs John Allen Schwartz's 1978 mondo film Faces of Death with Sheldon Renan's 1981 archival documentary The Killing of America, with guest Daniel Goldhaber.
This episode analyzes key scenes and cinematography in the 1932 and 1959 versions of The Mummy, focusing on makeup effects and camera innovations like the unchained camera technique pioneered by Karl Freund.
This episode analyzes Ed Harris's nuanced and sympathetic portrayal of a villain in Michael Bay's film 'The Rock' (1996), comparing it to his role in 'Enemy of the State' (1998) and discussing how it subverts typical action movie tropes.
This episode analyzes a 1959 film's problematic portrayal of a husband's perspective on his wife's sexual trauma and marital expectations.
This episode analyzes the character of Dr.
The hosts discuss a film's depiction of a cruel, nihilistic cult with extreme torture sequences, expressing mixed feelings about its direction and character development.
Sleazoids episode 421 pairs Rintaro's 1996 anime X the Movie with James O'Barr's The Crow, a shot-on-video adaptation made by teenagers in Ohio.
Sleazoids episode 403 pairs Joe D’Amato’s 1980 Italian cannibal horror film Anthropophagous with the 1982 American slasher The Slayer, with guest horror illustrator and writer Trevor Henderson.