One Spooked Professor artwork

One Spooked Professor

15 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 1 year ago -

An episodic study of Horror and its many different forms, tropes, origins, and cultural importance.

Fiction TV & Film horror tropes scary psychological cultural history
Homepage Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed

Episodes

Holiday Horror Comes Back Every Year

December 24, 2022 10:00 - 20 minutes - 14.1 MB

In today’s short episode, we dive into horror works themed around holidays. These range from the so-bad-they’re-good flicks like ThanksKilling and Jack Frost to the straight up terrifying Halloween. Surprisingly enough, there are some similarities between the morality tales of horror and the traditional holiday yarn, and modern-day marketing has turned holiday movies, including horror ones, into a thriving business.

Does the Black Dude Go First In Horror? Often Not, Actually

December 21, 2022 08:00 - 15 minutes - 10.4 MB

In this episode, we take a dive into one of the more mocked and maligned tropes in the horror genre: the black dude dies first. Turns out, this has not often been the case, and the truth is more complicated than you'd expect. White girls tend to outlive everyone, but black men tend to have a better shot of surviving the beginning a movie than common jokes would have you believe.

How Urban Folklore Evolved Into Creepypastas

May 28, 2021 04:00 - 36 minutes - 25.1 MB

Folklore is a universal throughout human cultures, and it didn't just die off in the modern age. Indeed, urban legends are an example of just that. Once people began to surge into the digital frontier, modern folklore began to morph into something else. The Creepypasta is the route the scary fable and creepy tale ended up taking. In this lecture, we'll treat the formation of what is today the Creepypasta as a new genre and form of cyber-driven literary movement.

Apocalyptic Log On Apocalyptic Logs

May 26, 2021 08:00 - 29 minutes - 20.4 MB

Enjoy a corny, cringe-inducing look at how apocalyptic logs function in storytelling, particularly within the horror genre framed as a fake apocalyptic log.

When Horror Went Goth

January 22, 2021 14:00 - 48 minutes - 33.1 MB

This episode covers the origins, details, and legacy of the Gothic horror movement, which remains probably the most influential literary movement that shaped the modern horror genre.

Here There Be Monsters

January 20, 2021 02:00 - 49 minutes - 34.2 MB

There exists in virtually all cultures and storytelling traditions a notion of monsters. They serve many different roles and have taken myriad forms over the generations. In this episode, we look at what those roles and forms are and what they can tell us about the nature of monsters and exactly where they come from.

The Two Sentence Terror

January 01, 2021 09:00 - 26 minutes - 18.4 MB

Take a dive with me into the genre of the Two Sentence Horror story in order to understand the set up and scare at its most basic level. This is an analysis of the building block of more advanced and complex horror.

Horror In The Ordinary

December 25, 2020 09:00 - 44 minutes - 30.6 MB

Familiarity doesn't just breed contempt. Sometimes what we're most used to, what fills out lives, and what we consider normal is a source for terror that strikes deeper than ghosts, aliens, or some other brand of monster. Let's take a look at how the ordinary can become utterly terrifying.

Murder (In Horror) as Characterization

December 15, 2020 07:00 - 1 hour - 43.3 MB

Take a dive into murder and mayhem in horror as this episode takes a look at how horror stories characterize heroes and villains through violence. Actions demonstrate who we are as people. The same can be said for characters in stories, the more dramatic and meaningful ones even more so. Thus, killers are defined by why they kill, who they kill, and how they kill. Stories that focus on murder and violence live and die by a proper understanding of the narrative functions of character and bloo...

Horror as a Teacher

October 12, 2020 04:00 - 42 minutes - 28.9 MB

Horror stories are the descendants of morality tales, which has shaped the nature of the form and the tropes within deeply. Let's take a dive into how that works.

Horror As A Teacher

October 12, 2020 04:00 - 42 minutes - 28.9 MB

Horror stories are the descendants of morality tales, which has shaped the nature of the form and the tropes within deeply. Let's take a dive into how that works.

Slashers and Torturers

January 30, 2020 21:00 - 34 minutes - 23.8 MB

This episode, we take a look at the slasher and torture genres, looking at how they developed and why they captured our interest the way they did.

Episode 2: The Zombie Invasion

December 03, 2019 02:00 - 32 minutes - 22.3 MB

Take a look into the origin, themes, tropes, and forms of the pop culture zombie!

Episode 2: The Zombie In You

December 03, 2019 02:00 - 32 minutes - 22.3 MB

Take a look into the origin, themes, tropes, and forms of the pop culture zombie!

Episode 1: The Many Masks Horror Wears

July 25, 2019 06:00 - 38 minutes - 26.6 MB

This is the introductory episode of One Spooked Professor. It outlines many of the most common forms that horror takes and how they often fit in to the traditional four conflicts of storytelling: Man vs Man, Man vs Nature, Man vs Self, and Man vs Society. All this in order to understand how human fear has shaped horror storytelling and where this podcast aims to go.