Darkest Hour Podcast

The Stabby Awards roll on with categories like Most "Unintentionally Funny Scene and "Best Incestuous Psychosexual Mother/Son Relationship"! Join the discussion as we reflect on our slasher season in all its bloody glory.

It’s awards night in the Madlands! Let’s hand out the hardware for the greatest achievements and silliest aspects of the 64 slasher films we’ve studied this season. Put on your best mechanic’s coveralls or green work shirt and join us for this retrospective of the ridiculous and the sublime. It’s the Stabby Awards!

Luke Merrick returns to help us tempt fate, judge Laurie's Final Girl cred, count crossed eyes, and speculate endlessly on the inner workings of The Shape. It’s the grand finale of our loving autopsy. Scrub in, grab a scalpel and join us at the slab!

Author Luke Merrick is our special guest as we unpack the horrors of Halloween (1978), the blank-faced Shatner mask that launched a thousand ships — or 10,000 slasher movies.

The Madmen talk Ted, kill quality, Jason makeup and “doppelgänger Muffins” for the last time as we wrap up our insanely through analysis of Friday the 13th Part 2!

What does that last perfume squirt reveal about Vickie? Who set the rope snare, and why did Jason bring Terri’s body back to his shack? We also reach the regrettable conclusion that this Jason isn’t that great at his job yet… All this and much more as we finish our obsessive scrutiny of Mr. Voorhees’ first rampage!

We welcome you to the eerie banks of Crystal Lake, where this summer a campfire tale has come true... It’s a scene-by-scene examination of what we think is the best Friday the 13th movie ever made!

Our insanely thorough examination of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) concludes! Mike Kuciak is back to help us put this all-time classic in perspective.

Let’s take another look at Leatherface and his fam from a bird’s eye view — what makes this movie so damn special, and what is its cinematic legacy? Joining us again to figure that out is our good friend the horror filmmaker Mike Kuciak, an authority on the subject. What do we see in Saw? Listen up...

Our magnificent cinematic ordeal concludes with the Sawyer clan’s unique brand of “hospitality” and Sally’s night of terror in the Texas scrub. It's one of the most grueling third acts ever... Rev up your saws!

Let's keep cutting Tobe Hooper’s classic into many little pieces of delicious despair! In this one the Madmen examine the pizzle (don’t Google that), the spider house, poor Franklin, the generator, Pam's Cassandra complex and much more.

It’s time to venture into the remote corners of Muerto County, Texas, home of a certain family you don’t want to have you over for dinner. (Because they’ll have you for dinner.) Texas Chain Saw, baby! Our loving autopsy begins now…

John is joined by his former writing partner, Karen Craig, for one last look at Black Christmas. Karen hails from Toronto, where the movie was filmed, and considers it one of her biggest influences. Let’s get a fresh perspective on the flick!

In this one the Madmen take a step back from the slab to examine Black Christmas in the larger context of slasher movies, compared to the other three films in our Fatal Four and the subgenre as a whole. It’s a pretty influential flick!

This autopsy concludes with analysis of the film’s approach to blood and gore, Jess as a Final Girl, the mystery of the MacHenry sisters, and the subtle but overwhelming horror of the ending, among other things!

Our dissection of Black Christmas (1974) continues! Does the whodunit aspect really work? What is Billy’s mysterious back-story, and how does it drive him to kill? These questions and more garner careful consideration…

Our bone-deep analysis of Bob Clark’s 1974 classic Black Christmas begins! Topics include the remarkable camerawork, chillingly idiosyncratic score, inimitable Margot Kidder and unexpected (but welcome!) laughs everywhere you look.

Big decisions are made as the Madmen conclude their selection of the Fatal Four, our finalists for this season’s horror film tournament. What IS the greatest slasher movie ever made? We’re working on it!

In this one the March Madmen put their foot on the gas to get through multiple rounds of the tournament in a single night, boiling it down to 10 favorite films apiece. Then they have to hash out which ones make the Fatal Four and get the patented "loving autopsy" (TM) treatment. Not an easy task!

Vik and John conclude their mini-autopsy of the 2022 Texas Chainsaw Massacre, in this one covering the bulk of the movie scene by grisly scene. Where does all that bus butchery fit into the hierarchy of great Leatherface moments? Classic or canceled? You decide...