Exorcist II: The Heretic has been called "the worst film ever made" (by Mark Kermode) and has attracted derision ever since its release in 1977, not least by the makers of the original The Exorcist (1973). Our Ian, who worships The Exorcist, has always avoided it. But esteemed critic Neil Young, our special guest on this episode, insists The Hereti…

We return to an unplanned irregular release schedule (Dan explains all on the pod) with the first in a series of long-envisioned specials in which horror maestro Simon Clark explains to Dan why the scripts of Nigel Kneale's 1950s trilogy of TV terror about Professor Bernard Quatermass are such an inspirational read. 2023 is the 70th anniversary of …

At Stella's urging, Dan has finally checked out the ghoulish comedy sequel, Addams Family Values, and it's fair to say he loves it. Hear them rhapsodise, with spoilers throughout. It's the second Missed Classic in which the team are called to praise Carol Kane (the previous one being When A Stranger Calls), but Dan feels bad that they never mention…

Welcome to our hot-take review of a movie that was released six months ago (and a discussion recorded four months ago)... In what will hopefully become an annual tradition, Stella and Dan get to talk about the new Scream movie. Just in case you still haven't seen it, the discussion is divided into spoiler-free and spoiler-filled sections. 00.00.00 …

A long while after our last Missed Classic on When A Stranger Calls (1979), Ian Winterton confronts another feted movie he has heretofore avoided, 1984's iconic Wes Craven slasher, A Nightmare on Elm Street. Dan joins him for the discussion and there are spoilers from the start. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984 version) is available to rent on Amazo…

WARNING - SPOILERS FOR MIDNIGHT MASS ARE COMING IN THE VERY NEXT PARAGRAPH - AND THIS IS ONE (HUGELY RECOMMENDED) SERIES THAT'S BEST ENJOYED ENTIRELY UNSPOILED! Or, "Vampire In A Cardigan". Kirsty, Stella, Ian and Dan are reunited to discuss a real masterpiece of recent years, Mike Flanagan's seven-part Netflix drama, Midnight Mass. We've already d…

"It's a bit like The Beatles..." Returning after a long delay, Dan, Stella, Ian and (in a surprise telephone cameo) Howard commence their latest series with a discussion of 1976's The Omen, the first in a series of retrospectives on The Omen Trilogy, inspired by the fact that all three films (plus the 2006 remake of the original) are now on Disney+…

Kirsty wanted to talk about one of her true loves, Robert Wiene's 1920 Expressionist masterpiece, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, and Dan was only too happy to indulge. Although he drew the line at pronouncing the film's German title ('Das Cabinet des Dr Caligari') because he was chicken about pronouncing two syllables wrong. The restored Blu-Ray versi…

We're fishing some unreleased content from the vault this week, to present a 2021 discussion between Stella, Ian and Dan about Rosemary's Baby, Roman Polanski's still-powerful 1968 tale of inner-city Satanism, from the novel by Ira Levin. We discuss how the film draws satirical parallels between fears of Satanism and anti-Semitism, how its meaning …

Not horror, but in many ways horror-adjacent, 2022's extremely quirky sci-fi comedy-drama Everything Everywhere All At Once was announced this week to be the unlikely recipient of 11 Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Lead Actress, Best Supporting Actress (twice), Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Score, Best S…

Stella and Dan have wanted for some time to discuss their love of Steven Spielberg's 1971 cinematic debut, Duel, written by Richard Matheson. However, they'd never seen the shorter, original intended-for-television version of the film before recording this episode, and therefore spend a lot of it speculating about what that version was like and how…

Following up (after a few delays) on our recent Lee/Cushing episode on the Star Wars franchise, the wonderful Sean Mason returns to the podcast to discuss the more recent instalments of George Lucas' cinematic legacy. He is joined by another favourite returning guest, Spider-Dan of the Spider-Dan & The Secret Bores podcast. Relevant links All films…

Happy New Year! As a counterpoint to the previous episode featuring Howard and Dan's archival music chats, here, as a final flourish of Christmassyness, is a more contemporary selection from Kirsty, Ian and Dan (again). Each of them has chosen three music tracks to talk about, which are excerpted in the episode, but you can find the full tracks at …

In our last ep of 2022 Dan & Howard unearth musical gems from the archive of the Lee/Cushing Podcast - with never-before-heard material. Here's to 2023, folks!By andnowpodcast

Apologies, yesterday's upload had a technical issue - this should now be fixed. Blurb coming soon! But make sure you visit Lucid Dimensions on YouTube And Dan's daily Christmas comedy podcast is The Faces At The WindowBy andnowpodcast

Show notes coming soon!By andnowpodcast

Stella and Dan express their fandom of co-writer/star Simon Pegg and co-writer/director Edgar Wright's horror tinged 'Cornetto Trilogy', aka the comedy films Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007) and The World's End (2013), plus the TV series they co-created with Jessica Hynes, Spaced (1999-2001). Links Spaced is currently available for streami…

We go back to the Alien franchise again, as Ian and Dan compare their personal lists of five favourite things from the 1979 classic. We assume you've all seen this one, so it's spoiler-filled from the start. And if you haven't seen it, stop listening to us, get yourself to Disney+ and treat yourself to this ageless film! Relevant Links The Ghostwat…

Together as a foursome for the first time in a while, Kirsty, Stella, Ian and Dan discuss 2012's The Hunger Games, as well as touching on its sequels and the books the films were based on. Beware, some spoilers... (Kirsty at one point says "kill to the death" instead of "fight to the death". Dan, who once said "murder kills" when he meant "mercy ki…

A few weeks late, we're giving our first coverage to Grimmfest 2022. Stella and Dan discuss the Italian comic heist thriller with a gruesome undertone, L'Orafo aka The Goldsmith, winner of the festival's Reaper Award for Best Screenplay. Dan was unable to attend Grimmfest itself due to illness, but Stella did and recorded a spoilery interview with …

This episode, Dan and Stella discuss the subgenre of body horror: what are our favourite body horror sequences in film and TV, what makes them work, how body horror crosses subgenres and how it's evolved with the development of FX techniques. The discussion takes in the following films and shows, with occasional spoilers, so beware if you haven't s…

Welcome to the second proper weekly series of --And Now The Podcast Starts! And happy Halloween. This episode, Kirsty, Ian and Dan are discussing Men, director Alex Garland's recent hybrid of folk horror, gender commentary and body horror, first in spoiler-free fashion, then with full spoilers. 00.00.41 Intro 00.04.04 Men review (spoiler-free) 00.3…

A relaxed, horror-adjacent chat this week, as Stella and Dan put their feet up and chuckle about the horrific elements of their (and possibly everybody's) favourite sci-fi sitcom, Red Dwarf. (The Series 2 episode they discuss without naming is called Thanks for the Memory.) Red Dwarf Series 1-8 are available for streaming via Britbox. Series 9 onwa…

Following their discussions of Aliens (1986) in the previous two episodes, and Alien3 (1992) much earlier, Dan and Ian now take on 1997's not-much-loved fourth part of the franchise, Alien Resurrection, although the two can't agree whose idea it was. Listen as Ian rediscovers a nightmare from literally half a lifetime ago. The discussion doesn't dw…

Following the brief discussion last episode, Ian and Dan now get to enthuse at length about one of their favourite movies, James Cameron's 1986 sequel to Alien, Aliens. Plus a child pops in. All the Alien films are available for streaming via Disney+ Find out more about the new Aliens documentary, Aliens Expanded, here Visit our website, andnowpodc…

Apart from Howard (he says hello), the gang's all here as Stella, Kirsty and Ian join Dan to discuss how far the horror genre might stretch to include action, disaster and sci-fi films, with specific reference to The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Jaws (1975) and Aliens (1986). Beware: spoilers for The Poseidon Adventure - please note the timecodes bel…

Ian, Stella and Kirsty do their best without Dan's guidance (he's away on holiday, the slacker) and dig into 'Dashcam', Rob Savage's eagerly anticipated follow-up to 'Host', with a spoiler-free and spoiler-full discussions, plus an interview with 'Dashcam' screenwriter Gemma Hurley and its producer Jed Shepherd. PODCAST TIMELINE 1'52 Trailer follow…

It's time to talk Tolkien, and specifically the more horrific elements of the Middle Earth canon. Peter Jackson's 2001 film instalment The Fellowship of the Ring (featuring the ever-forbidding Christopher Lee, of course) has long given Ian, Stella and Dan the collywobbles, but Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated version is also memorably nightmarish. Join…

AKA: 'Another Hannibal Love-In'... We return to the world of Hannibal, Bryan Fuller's majestic TV remix of the works of Thomas Harris. As with our Season One discussion last year, Kirsty and Dan are joined by very special guests Dr Lori Hitchcock Morimoto of the University of Virginia and Dr Rebecca Williams of the University of South Wales for an …

The date this episode drops, 28th April 2022, would've been the 100th birthday of Nigel Kneale, the great pioneer of SF/horror TV and film, who died in 2006. Here, in an extract from our forthcoming episode on Kneale's film version of Quatermass and the Pit (1967), renowned horror author Simon Clark tells Dan the story of how he found the script bo…

It's April Fool's Day, so perhaps it's appropriate to admit our own foolishness in failing to put out our March episode actually in the month of March. Here it is instead, and you'll get a proper April episode in due course... David Edwards, former film critic of the Daily Mirror and old mate of Ian's, is a great fan of and expert on George A Romer…

Now that the major episodes of the podcast have moved to a monthly schedule, we'll be dropping occasional mini episodes in between, including reviews of new movies. Here is the first, as Kirsty and Dan sink their teeth into director Joe Badon's surreal dark comedy, Sister Tempest. Relevant links: Order Sister Tempest on Blu-Ray Rent Sister Tempest …

It's 100 years since the premiere of FW Murnau's Nosferatu - Eine Symphonie des Grauens (A Symphony of Horror). Although not quite the first screen adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, it's the one by which all others are measured - a masterpiece of German Expressionist cinema that marks the beginning of modern screen horror. For years K…

Dan spent quite a while thinking up the title for this episode... Yes, having graduated from high school (or 'left secondary school' as we tend to say in this part of the UK) just as Wes Craven's seminal slasher comedy Scream (1996) first hit UK cinemas, Stella and Dan are franchise fans and wouldn't dare miss the latest in-no-way-confusingly-title…

Kirsty, Dan and Ian discuss 2019's Doctor Sleep and whether it was a good idea to make a direct sequel to Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980). Also, Merry Christmas! 00.00.00 Intro 00.09.25 Doctor Sleep and The Shining (non-spoilers) 00.40.49 Doctor Sleep (spoilers) Recommendations Doctor Sleep (in both theatrical and Director's Cut versions) is c…

Kirsty and Dan ponder the horror films they've decided never to go near, and the reasons behind their choice. Elsewhere, Howard returns - for the first time over Zoom - to delve into the Bag of Death. 00.00.41 Intro with Dan 00.04.55 The Bag of Death with Howard 00.25.46 The Question of Horror with Kirsty 01.24.28 Recommendations with Dan Recommend…

Ian, Kirsty and Dan discover as one the highly influential 1979 thriller, When A Stranger Calls. Elsewhere, Dan rhapsodises about Shudder (where this film can actually be found... it's on Amazon Prime, too). 00.00.00 Intro 00.06.33 When A Stranger Calls spoiler-free discussion 00.16.39 When a Stranger Calls trailer (which contains a spoiler) and sp…

2002's Dog Soldiers is a fave for Stella, a 'like' for Kirsty and Dan, and frankly a source of personal angst for Ian. The foursome all get together to chew the fat on it (and somehow never mention that director Neil Marshall went on to be a key force behind our perennial love, TV's Hannibal). Elsewhere, Howard phones in for another pick from the B…

After being introduced to the show via Stella's American TV horror two-parter last year, Dan is now a huge fan of Guillermo del Toro, Chuck Hogan and Carlton Cuse's FX series The Strain (2014-17). In this episode, Stella joins Dan for a spoilery chat about the whole series. Elsewhere, a pre-recorded Howard is present to pluck another random gem fro…

FINALLY it's here, only three years after being recorded! Join Howard, Dan and Spider-Dan (known on this recording as Dan B), in the pub with Ian Winterton (in chronologically his first appearance on this podcast) to discuss their first impressions, in both spoiler-free and spoilery fashion, of David Gordon Green's 2018 Halloween film - just in tim…

This weekend (14-17 October) it's the virtual version of Grimmfest, giving all of us lounge-lizards who missed the live festival the opportunity to catch many of its filmic highlights from the comfort of our homes. In this mini-episode, Dan talks to Aaron Bartuska, debut director and co-writer, about his found footage/slasher/character study hybrid…

The date this episode drops (7th October 2021) is the first day of Grimmfest, Manchester's festival of fantastic film, returning as a live event for the first time since 2019. And here is the second of our preview episodes, in which you can learn some details about two of the films screening there - Tarumama and Slapface. Dan and Stella are here to…

We're back! Or at least... some of us are. Dan and Ian will be your company for the first episode of the second series of --And Now The Podcast Starts! But fear not, Kirsty, Stella and Howard will all be returning in future episodes, accompanied by a number of great guests. And Grimmfest is back! Yes, it's time again for the North of England's prem…

Kirsty, Stella, Ian and Dan gather for the last time this series, to cast their minds back over the podcast so far and discuss whatever comes to mind. Meanwhile, Howard (who has now recovered from his COVID-19 jab) phones in for another delve into the Bag of Death. The show will now go on a short hiatus. We'll be returning around June to discuss, o…

It's time to wrap up the first series of --And Now The Podcast Starts! with a general chat between Kirsty, Stella, Ian and Dan as they reflect on producing 60-odd episodes of horror discussions during a global pandemic, pick out some favourite moments, and add in some bits they meant to say about earlier topics. More in this style next week, and th…

A return to 2018 (oh, those carefree, carefree days) this episode, as we release the second-to-last of our series of Halloween franchise reviews recorded in that year, with our look at Rob Zombie's sequel to his own remake. Usual suspects Dan and Howard are joined by regular Halloween guests Spider-Dan (who at the time of recording was only just st…

Dan used to love post-apocalypse horror, especially the BBC's 'humanity-destroying plague' classic, Survivors (1975-77). But he hasn't re-watched it since COVID-19 hit, as he feared it would be too much like real life; for the same reason he hasn't seen Steven Soderbergh's eerily prophetic film Contagion (2011), which has had a new lease of life on…

The brilliant drama/documentary podcast The Battersea Poltergeist has just completed its eight-part run on BBC Radio 4 (although a bonus ninth episode is due to be released in a couple of weeks), and it's also available on BBC Sounds and all the podcatchers. Kirsty and Ian have been raving about it for weeks, and finally Stella and Dan are caught u…

NBC's Hannibal (2013-15) brought to the small screen, and re-imagined, the world of FBI profiler Will Graham and his colleague/nemesis, cannibalistic psychiatrist Dr Hannibal Lecter, after their introduction in Thomas Harris' novel Red Dragon (1981) and its subsequent sequels and film adaptations. Kirsty and (to a lesser extent) Dan have been talki…

Stephen Volk wrote Ghostwatch, the 1992 TV play which rated so highly on Kirsty, Stella and Dan's list of Movies That Scared Us The Most last year. And Ghostwatch is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Stephen's diverse array of horror output in a variety of media, including prose fiction: his new collection of stories featuring a teaming …