PsychotroniCast

Ep: 83 (Chang Cheh: Grandmaster Pt. 1) The One-Armed Swordsman & The New One-Armed Swordsman

July 08, 2019 23:41 - 1 hour - 71 MB

Episode 83 (Chang Cheh: Grandmaster) Alec and Derek begin a journey through the career of one of the undisputed masters of action films and one of the greatest directors of the famous Shaw Brothers Studio, Chang Cheh. Beginning with the film that started it all 1967s The One-Armed Swordsman. Following the success of King Hu’s Wuxia classic Come Drink with Me, and taking influence from Rebel Without A Cause, Cheh and star (Jimmy) Wang Yu present a brooding teenaged swordfighter who’s coming o...

Ep: 82 (Yuppie Nightmares Pt. 4) Into the Night

June 26, 2019 04:56 - 38 minutes - 35.2 MB

Episode 82 (Yuppie Nightmares) Alec and Derek conclude the series with a trip to L.A. and watch John Landis’s 1985 Into The Night. Learning of his wife’s infidelity, depressed insomniac aerospace engineer Ed Orkin (Jeff Goldblum) takes a drive to LAX hoping to find escape, incidentally he runs into a beautiful jewel smuggler Diana “Like the Princess” (Michelle Pfeiffer) who is also trying to escape, but in her case from the four Iranian assassins (including director Landis) hot on her trail....

Ep: 81 (Yuppie Nightmares Pt. 3) After Hours

June 15, 2019 01:32 - 1 hour - 56.9 MB

Episode 81 (Yuppie Nightmares) This week Alec and Derek watch Martin Scorsese’s Kafkaesque 1985 masterpiece After Hours. A long night begins for bored word processor Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) after meeting the attractive Marcy (Rosanna Arquette) in an uptown cafe, and is invited to spend the night with her at artist friend Kiki Bridges’ SoHo loft. But instead of the one night stand Paul was hoping for, fate sticks out a foot sending our midtown interloper into the chaotic late night...

Ep: 80 (Yuppie Nightmares Pt. 2) Something Wild

June 01, 2019 07:30 - 1 hour - 59.6 MB

Episode 80 (Yuppie Nightmares Pt. 2) This week Alec and Derek check out Jonathan Demme’s 1986 Something Wild. Things take a turn for the wild for banker Charlie Diggs (Jeff Daniels) after encountering the alluring, impulse and mysterious Lulu (Melanie Griffith) at a downtown diner, leading to an unexpected weekend crossing multiple state lines full of robbed liquor and convenience stores, roadside motels, class reunions and colorful roadside characters (peppered with a veritable who’s who of...

Ep: 79 (Yuppie Nightmares Pt. 1) Desperately Seeking Susan

May 24, 2019 00:03 - 46 minutes - 42.6 MB

Episode 79 (Yuppie Nightmares Pt 1) Alec and Derek kick off a series of cautionary tales of Yuppies in danger - particularly those that set foot in the netherworlds of The East Village or SoHo in the mid 80s. Kicking things off with Susan Seidelman’s 1985 Desperately Seeking Susan. Bored New Jersey housewife Roberta Glass (Rosanna Arquette), finds escape imagining the passionate lives of people she reads about in a series of personal ads proclaiming to be “Desperately Seeking” the titular Su...

Ep: 78 (Franco-Files Pt. 4) Eugénie... The Story of Her Journey into Perversion

May 15, 2019 04:54 - 36 minutes - 33.2 MB

Episode 76 (Franco-files part 4) Bringing things full circle Alec and Derek watch Jess Franco’s 1969 Eugénie...the story of her journey into perversion, not to be confused with Franco’s subsequent Eugénies including our first in this series. This film comes at the peak of his relationship with producer Harry Alan Towers and the polish that’s their collaborations achieved. With the staggeringly glamorous location and loungedelic Bruno Nicolai score, the scene is set for one Jess’s first great...

Ep: 77 - High Life

May 10, 2019 00:54 - 1 hour - 67.8 MB

Episode 77 lets its freak flag fly... in space! Claire Denis's new film: High Life starring Robert Pattinson is a film about a father and daughter struggling to survive in a waning space ship where they both live in isolation. Its better to go into this film ignorant on its mission than to know the facts so we'll just leave it at that. High Life is still in select theaters and if you're fortunate enough to live in a city that is screening it, we highly suggest you get your freak on.

Ep: 76 (Franco-Files Pt. 3) How to Seduce a Virgin

April 26, 2019 06:02 - 58 minutes - 53.8 MB

Episode 75 (Franco-Files part 3) Once again Franco takes inspiration from De Sade with his delirious 1973 film Plaisir à trois aka: How To Seduce a Virgin. Returning home from a mental institution after castrating a previous lover, Countess Martine de Bressac (Alice Arno) is reunited with her slinky and kinky husband Count Charles de Bressac (Robert Woods) who entices her with the prospect of sullying the virginal daughter of a neighboring diplomat. Joined by the dwarf groundskeeper M...

Ep: 75 (Franco-Files Pt. 2) A Virgin Among the Living Dead

April 11, 2019 20:46 - 46 minutes - 42.2 MB

Episode 75 (Franco-Files Pt. 2) Next stop on our journey through the world of Jess Franco is his haunting 1971 fever-dream A Virgin Among The Living Dead. Traveling to Portugal, naïve orphan Christina Bentham (Christine von Blanc) arrives at Montserrat Mansion for the reading of her father’s will, and is introduced to her family of decadent layabouts (including Franco regulars Britt Nichols, Howard Vernon, Paul Müller and Franco himself as the retarded manservant Basilio), and the mysterious...

Ep: 74 (Patreon Simulcast) Us

April 03, 2019 07:10 - 50 minutes - 45.8 MB

Episode 74 isn't breaking new ground with its subject; but Jordan Peele's new film Us deserves the over saturation of takes and analysis that it is currently receiving. This episode is also a simulcast with PsychotroniCast's Patreon feed. If you don't know, now you know. for $5 a month, you will a receive bonus podcasts such as this to infiltrate your ears. Sign up now to help us keep the lights off, and the TV on!

Ep: 73 (Franco-Files Pt. 1) Eugénie

March 20, 2019 07:29 - 46 minutes - 42.1 MB

Episode 73 (Franco-Files part 1) We begin our look at the films of the incredibly prolific Jesús “Jess” Franco with his 1970 film Eugénie (aka Eugénie de Sade). Taking advantage of the loosening of film censorship at the end of the 60s and coinciding with the termination of his working relationship with producer Harry Alan Towers, which had provided Franco with the biggest budgets and star studded casts of his career, Franco boldly made use of his new freedoms by adapting a segment of the Ma...

Ep: 72 (3rd Annual Blaxploitation Month) Super Fly (2018)

March 08, 2019 21:30 - 32 minutes - 29.6 MB

Episode seventy-two concludes PsychotroniCast's 3rd Annual Blaxploitation Month with the cold mush that is 2018's Super Fly. There is nothing worth remembering or revisiting with this film but there is plenty to discuss as to WHY it didn't work.

Ep: 71 (3rd Annual Blaxploitation Month) Super Fly (1972)

February 28, 2019 03:28 - 1 hour - 57.3 MB

Episode seventy-one tackles one of the most iconic Blaxploitation movies ever made (and with good reason) Gordon Parks Jr.'s 1972 classic: Super Fly. Like Shaft, the soundtrack is more popular than the film itself; thanks to the Chicago born soul legend, Mr. Curtis Mayfield. But don't sleep on this film, forty-seven years later you can still see the influence into popular culture and subcultures alike.

Ep: 70 (3rd Annual Blaxploitation Month) Shaft (2000)

February 20, 2019 02:07 - 56 minutes - 52 MB

Episode seventy continues PsychotroniCast's 3rd Annual Blaxploitation Month with the 2000 John Singleton sequel Shaft. This movie may not be the topic of much discussion these days but looking back at the cast of this film, its a whos who of Hollywood stars. Samuel L. Jackson as John Shaft. Vanessa Williams as his trusted confidant. Christian Bale and Jeffery Wright as the villains. Rounding out the cast are supporting roles by: Toni Collette, Dan Hedaya, Andre Royo, Mekhi Phifer, Busta Rhyme...

Ep: 69 (3rd Annual Blaxploitation Month) Shaft (1971)

February 07, 2019 05:01 - 40 minutes - 37.1 MB

Episode sixty-nine kicks off PsychotroniCast’s 3rd Annual Blaxploitation Month with one of the most iconic films from this genre, Shaft. Released in 1971, this was the first Hollywood financed Blaxploitation movie. Spawning four sequels (the fifth to be released this summer) and a theme that is one of the most recognizable in movie history. Directed by Gordon Parks, an acclaimed photographer for Life magazine from the 1940’s-60’s and starring Richard Roundtree in his first on screen roll.

Ep: 68 - The House that Jack Built

January 26, 2019 22:35 - 1 hour - 102 MB

Episode sixty-eight is by far the longest episode to date for PsychotroniCast; but when the subject is Lars Von Trier, there's a plenty to be said. With every Lars Von Trier film comes it's share of controversy, and The House that Jack Built is no exception.

Ep: 67 - Nightcrawler

January 18, 2019 22:42 - 40 minutes - 37.1 MB

Episode Sixty-seven. Alec Hijacks programming for his birthday and selects 2014's Nightcrawler. Written and directed by Dan Gilroy, Jake Gyllenhaal gives the performance of his career as Louis Bloom: a sociopath with drive and ambition that will stop at nothing to become the best at his craft, audio journalism. Co staring the then up and coming Riz Ahmed, Rene Russo, and the late great Bill Paxton.

Ep: 66 - (Acid Western Series) McCabe & Mrs. Miller

January 05, 2019 08:52 - 54 minutes - 49.8 MB

Episode 66 concludes our psychotronic trip through acid Westerns (though in this case opium western -if you can mix your substances), Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Hot off the heals of the success of M*A*S*H director Robert Altman and reining Hollywood “it” couple, Warren Beatty and Julie Christie set up camp the woods of the Pacific Northwest to create a Western unlike anything before or since. Enhanced by the haunting music of Leonard Cohen, and the innovative and dreamlike ...

Ep: 65 - (Acid Western Series) The Hired Hand

December 21, 2018 22:20 - 46 minutes - 42.5 MB

Episode 65 Alec and Derek continue riding this Acid Western trail to talk about The Hired Hand (1971). Banking on the wild success of Easy Rider in 1969 Universal offered Peter Fonda full artistic control to create his directorial debut. Reversing the previous films youthful lust for the open road, Fonda delivered an elegiac western chamber-drama meditating on the longing to return home. Showcasing the work of legendary cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond in his debut feature, the innovat...

Ep: 64 - (Acid Western Series) Dead Man

December 07, 2018 21:37 - 1 hour - 59 MB

Visit PsychotroniCast on patreon.com to get 4 bonus podcasts a month! Only $5! Episode sixty-four. Next stop on Alec and Derek’s acid western trip is Jim Jarmusch’s stunning 1995 film Dead Man. As if hearing the Horace Greeley call to “Go West, young man” naive Ohio accountant William Blake (Johnny Depp) journeys west to the industrial town of Machine only to be met with the gravest of misfortune. The incredible ensemble cast includes Crispen Glover, Gabriel Byrne, Gary Farmer, Iggy Pop, Jo...

Ep: 63 - (Acid Western Series) El Topo

November 29, 2018 07:53 - 53 minutes - 51.3 MB

With Episode sixty-three Alec and Derek begin a hallucinatory journey through Acid Westerns. Few films could more appropriately don the acid label than Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1970 film El Topo. Through a series of gunfights with desert masters representing a variety of philosophical and religious beliefs, Topo accrues the keys to enlightenment and eventually atonement. This unforgettably surreal and violent odyssey inaugurated the era of midnight movies, by turning one the most robust of Hol...

Ep: 62 - Withnail and I

November 16, 2018 20:52 - 1 hour - 68.9 MB

Visit our Patreon page for bonus episodes! Episode sixty-two will cause you to reflect on all of your most degenerate moments as a young adult. 1987's Withnail and I is set in 1969, mostly taking place on an English country side focusing in on two substance-abusing unemployed London actors in their early twenties trying to survive the rain, lack of survival skills, their lack of preparation, and Withnail's uncle Monte who's cottage they're staying at on holiday. On the surface this doesn't ...

Ep: 61 - (MEGA POD!) Suspiria (1977, 2018) Halloween (2018) Piranha (1978) New Year's Evil, Tourist Trap, Nightmare City

November 08, 2018 22:48 - 1 hour - 81.5 MB

Episode sixty-one brings PsychotroniCast back from the dead with a MEGAPOD! They explain their sudden hiatus along with discussing a slew of movies they watched throughout their break including: Suspiria (1977 & 2018) Halloween (2018) as well as the film lineup from the Hollywood Theater’s “All Night Horror Movie Marathon” Piranha (1978) New Year’s Evil, Tourist Trap, and Nightmare City. The Boys also preview the new Patreon episode and discuss changes to PsychotroniCast moving forward. All ...

Ep: 60 - (Satanic Panic Double Feature!) The 'Burbs / The Devil's Rain

October 13, 2018 20:09 - 1 hour - 61.6 MB

patreon.com/psychotronicast for $5 a month you will recieve 4 bonus podcasts a month! Help us keep the lights off and the TV on! Episode sixty is a satanic panic double feature! First up, Joe Dante’s 1989 cult classic The ‘Burbs. Shot entirely on a studio lot, this film is Joe Dante’s love letter to genre film (Look no further than his Spaghetti western style of shooting a score). This film is packed to the gills with big time movie stars and drizzling with Roger Corman players: Tom Hanks, ...

Ep: 59 - Mandy

September 22, 2018 22:55 - 39 minutes - 35.9 MB

Episode fifty-nine might be the flavor of the week for psychotronic fans out there, but the taste that Mandy leaves in your mouth will stay for some time to come. With Mandy and his feature debut Beyond the Black Rainbow, writer/director Panos Cosmatos has a thing for: 1983, color distortion, slow warped dialogue, and drugs. Late period Nicolas Cage is perfect for the crazy world in which Panos creates. Availble on VOD and unfortunately showing in a few select cities, Mandy should be a film ...

Ep: 58 - Blood Sucking Freaks

September 12, 2018 23:49 - 47 minutes - 43.7 MB

Episode fifty-eight is a film so sleazy, it is the literal definition of schlock: Cheap or inferior goods or material; trash. 1976’s The Incredible Torture Show, better known as Blood Sucking Freaks when Troma acquired the film and rereleased it in the 80’s is a flick that was eventually banned during its original release following protests by the group Women Against Pornography. Troma had the film cut to gain an R rating but sneakily sent the unrated print to theaters behind the MPAA’s back...

Ep: 57 - (Cannibal Series) Messiah of Evil

September 04, 2018 00:03 - 43 minutes - 40.2 MB

Episode fifty-seven is the final bite in PsychotroniCast's Cannibal Series. Released in 1973 and starring Marianna Hill (The Baby, High Plains Drifter), Messiah of Evil is a low budget masterpiece of mood and atmosphere. Taking inspiration from the booming art house films of the 1960's director/writer duo: Willard Huych and Gloria Katz (the writers behind American Graffiti, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, as well as Howard the Duck) infuse their directional debut with a healthy dose of...

Ep: 56 - (Cannibal Series) DOUBLE FEATURE! The Most Dangerous Game/Countess Perverse

August 11, 2018 21:03 - 1 hour - 75.6 MB

Continuing our journey through cannibal films with a double dose of human carnage! Starting off with one of the most influential horror films most people haven’t seen, the grisly 1932 masterpiece The Most Dangerous Game, from the same team who would unleash King Kong on world a year later. This tale of Russian Count Zaroff living on a remote island, and his perverse desire for new game to hunt has had countless imitators, possibly even including the Zodiac killer. Made over 40 years later, o...

Ep: 55 - (Cannibal Series) Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals

August 01, 2018 21:34 - 41 minutes - 37.7 MB

Episode fifty-five: Emanuelle and The Last Cannibals! Fifty episodes later, the time has come for Alec and Derek to pick back up with nymphomaniac photojournalist Emanuelle (Laura Gemser). Taking place shortly after the globe trotting escapades of Emanuelle in America, this time director Joe D’Amato sends our horny heroine and her stylish squad (including Gabriele Tinti and Nieves Navarro) to bang their way through the remotest jungles of Brazil in search of a lost tribe of cannibals. As an ...

Ep: 54 - (Cannibal Series) Eating Raoul

July 22, 2018 19:31 - 46 minutes - 42.5 MB

psychotronicast.com Episode 54 kicks off a series of films about those with an appetite for humanity. Alec and Derek begin this trek though anthropophagy with Paul Bartel’s classic comedy Eating Raoul. Paul and Mary Bland -Paul Bartel and Mary Waronov respectively, are a couple of straight laced gourmands with big dreams of opening a country kitchen in Valencia, yet can barely scrounge money for rent. To make matters worse their apartment building is infested with unhinged sex-crazed swinger...

Ep: 53 - (1st Annual Pride Month) Bound

July 09, 2018 18:53 - 47 minutes - 43.5 MB

Episode 53 Alec and Derek conclude their series of queer films with the Wachowski’s 1996 Lesbian neo-noir debut Bound. Ex-con Corky (Gina Gershon) begins a new life after a stint in prison when she encounters neighboring thug Caesar - a psychotronicast theme! (Joe Pantoliano) and his seductive moll Violet (Jennifer Tilly). The ladies heat things up in short order and in true James M. Cain fashion, the conspiring lovers hatch a plan to secure the fate of their futures as well as a mob owned ...

Ep: 52 - (1st Annual Pride Month) Thundercrack!

June 30, 2018 19:22 - 48 minutes - 44.8 MB

Episode fifty-two takes Alec and Derek underground on this journey into the outer reaches of queer cinema. Thundercrack! the mutant lovechild of director Curt McDowell and legendary underground superstar George Kuchar, combines hoary old dark house conventions, soap opera melodrama, with anything goes hardcore pornography, and witty whip-cracking dialogue that leaves the viewer in a constant state of joyous disbelief. Despite its epic roadshow length of 160 minutes that justifies a 10 minute...

Ep: 51 - (1st Annual Pride Month) Funeral Parade Of Roses

June 20, 2018 05:15 - 48 minutes - 44.1 MB

sode fifty-one picks up where we left off exploring queer focused cult films. This time Alec and Derek take a look at Toshio Matsumoto’s 1969 kaleidoscopic reimagining of Oedipus Rex, Funeral Parade Of Roses (薔薇の葬列). Eddie, played by Japanese trans star Peter, works her way up the hierarchy of late 60’s Tokyo gay bars, by dancing, screwing and serving killer looks with her band of fellow queers and hippies, while gradually sinking into the depths of familial tragedy. This experimental master...

Ep: 50 - (1st Annual Pride Month) Cruising

June 14, 2018 05:33 - 1 hour - 58.5 MB

June being the month of Pride Alec and Derek will be watching a small group of queer cult films, each one worth checking out! Beginning with a film which courted controversy before the cameras even began rolling. William Friedkin’s American giallo Cruising. Al Pacino huffs poppers and sweats his tank top in the pre-AIDS New York leather scene, hunting for serial killer targeting gay men. Protested, heavily edited, championed and even partially reimagined, Cruising continues to be a fascinati...

Ep: 49 - (Hail Caesar Double Feature) Little Caesar / Black Caesar

June 07, 2018 07:26 - 44 minutes - 41.1 MB

Episode forty-nine is a double feature unlike any other. 1973's Black Caesar and 1931's Little Caesar vaguely follow the same plot outline, but nothing else seems to share the same characteristics. Except the two lead actors in their respected film do one thing in correlation: being badass mother fuckers. Edward G. Robinson as Little and Fred Williamson as Black are the Caesars you should build statues for, like their boy Julius.

Ep: 48 - You Were Never Really Here

May 26, 2018 19:06 - 47 minutes - 43.5 MB

Episode forty-eight covers a film that is still in theaters, which is a first for PsychotroniCast. You Were Never Really Here is an instant classic directed by the brilliant Lynne Ramsay and starring the greatest actor working today (Daniel Day Lewis is retired) Joaquin Phoenix. Without giving anything away, we believe the best way to go into this movie is blind. Please go see this film while it is still in theaters and then listen to this podcast.

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