Tracks Of The Damned

Hey folks, Jim here. We are gathered here today to mourn the loss of Patrick's computer, now in a deep coma. I have used my skills as a part-time fortune teller and medium to contact it in The Great Beyond and can confirm that it may be quite some time before it returns, if it ever does. So we must announce that Tracks of the Damned is on an indefinite hiatus until this matter can be resolved. However before Squinky The Wonder Laptop had her unfortunate accident, she did do one last noble deed. She recorded the Horror of Dracula (1958) episode of Tracks of the Damned, the horror film commentary track podcast! Lucky you! On this episode Patrick is joined by Robert Reineke of Still Watching the Skies and Where The Long Tail Ends and in addition to talking about the classic adventure horror film they discuss Hammer studios, the profile of Christopher Lee, and the cultural importance of 1950's cleavage. They assure me the latter is very important indeed. They also talk about the wide pantheon of Hammer's legendar

You will not be saved by iTunes. You will not be saved by Stitcher Radio. In fact, YOU WILL NOT BE SAVED.    You take Carpenter's filmography and put it in a giant 1,500 lb blender, mix with some green goo, and hit puree. The result? Prince of Darkness (1987), a supernatural quantum physics siege film that has as many high minded science fiction ideas as it does characters. But can a director who's worked his way to major studio projects go back to a puny 3 million dollar budget? Can you slow burn an entire movie? And where does Alice Cooper fit in?   All this and more on the latest episode of Tracks of the Damned, the horror film commentary track podcast, PLUS Patrick answers a listener question about the state of big budget studio horror. This is not a dream! This is a signal broadcasted electronically from the year 1-9-9-9!   Intro - 0:00 - 4:24 Commentary - 4:25 - 1:43:18 Question - 1:43:19 - 1:57:08 Outro - 1:57:09 - 1:59:40

But is that deer head you have hanging above the couch in your den really secure? Just how good are your cars brakes anyway? Did you know that 11 out of 10 people who use a ladder start a Rube Goldberg chain of events that ends with a bowling ball smashing someone's head? Yep, it's a big dangerous world out there and in 2000 New Line Pictures saw all the dough Scream and it's derivatives were raking in and shouted into a phone "DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT." Thankfully, instead of another masked whodunnit high speed slasher, writer Jeffrey Reddick produced a Twilight Zone/Sole Survivor/Carnival of Souls kind of X-Files knock-off called Final Destination. Granted, Final Destination was kinda trash, BUT it's sequel, Final Destination 2 (2002) got the formula just right, a rare modern horror franchise primarily concerned with subverting and fucking with audience expectations, culminating in an approach that combines horror and slapstick comedy in ways that hadn't been seen in Hollywood in nearly 20 years.   On the la

So we all know the stories. Spielberg was a wunderkind. He snuck onto the Universal lot as an 8 year-old with nothing more than a turtleneck, viewfinder and a suitcase full of candy bars and was immediately hired to design the Creature From the Black Lagoon and do re-writes on Magnificent Obsession. But the truth is that even The Beard started somewhere and anyone who's seen his episodes of Night Gallery knows that start was inauspicious at best. So while now we can look back on Duel (1971) as a no-brainer, the 20th century's preeminent film entertainer being handed a story full of car chases, the reality that this movie exists at all, let alone this good, is actually absolutely insane. So what happened? How did Spielberg pull it out? And how did he almost never end up collaborating with John Williams? On the latest episode of Tracks of the Damned, the horror film commentary podcast, Patrick answers all this and asks the question: Where did all the country bumpkins go in Steven Spielberg movies?   He also int

Look, I get it. You're a major studio, you see a movie like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre make a boatload of money, you look at a movie like Friday the 13th make a trainload of money, you think "Well, if we could get the director of THAT to make a version THIS, we could make a planeload of money!"   Here's your wake-up call. Tobe Hooper is only ever gonna do what Tobe Hooper wants to do. He doesn't just follow his own drummer, he IS his own drummer (listen to the TCM score if you don't believe me) and while you may think you're going to get a quick cheap slasher movie out of a film like The Funhouse (1981), what actually turns out is much much stranger.   When a drug-addicted auteur is flown to Miami and given access to the DP from The Warriors and a football field's worth of carnival rides, The Funhouse is what results. In this episode of Tracks of the Damned, the horror film commentary track podcast, find out how this chimera came to be, how it's novelization got in the way of it's audiences enjoyment of the

What is behind that door? It's maybe the key question at the root of all horror. What is behind that door, what is in that shadow, what was that noise? It's a fact that RKO producer Val Lewton exploited better than anyone and one that Robert Wise, who was mentored by Lewton, used as the backbone of his 1963 psychological ghost story classic The Haunting. For the season 2 premiere of Tracks of the Damned, the horror film commentary track podcast, Patrick is joined by author Christopher Olson (Possessed Women, Haunted States: Cultural Tensions in Exorcism Cinema) as they both watch The Haunting and wonder: Is there really a ghost here? Is there really a house? How did Wise and screenwriter Nelson Gidding go about adapting Shirley Jackson's classic horror novel? Is there a scientific rational way to measure hauntings?   We also talk about the lessons we wish modern horror films would take from The Haunting and other atmospheric black-and-white psychological horror films of the 60's. Good stuff!   0:00 - 5:36 - I

His tomb disturbed by raging teenagers, Patrick returns from the cold embrace of death to issue this warning: Bonus episodes are here, if you want them.   So here's the deal. Season 2 will begin as planned July 7th, with one episode a week, 20 episodes total. All free of charge, at your leisure.   HOWEVER.   Patrick's already started recording Season 2. There will be 5 or 6 episodes already complete by the time July 7th rolls around. So if you'd like access to Season 2 episodes before they air, all you need to do is send a one-time donation of 20 dollars to one of the charities listed below and send proof to tracksofthedamned@gmail.com   ALSO   Patrick will also record 12 bonus commentaries throughout the year. Looser, crazier, more off the cuff with fun guests and plenty of beer. If you want access to all of these bonus episodes and advance access to Season 2 episodes before they air, all you need to do is send a one-time donation of 40 dollars to one of the charities listed below and send proof to tracksoft

Hey folks, Patrick here. With Season 2 of Tracks of the Damned on the way, I figured it'd be a good idea to give people an update on the podcast, why Season 1 was abruptly cut short, and why, now more than ever, it's important to record commentary tracks for A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2. Or whatever.   Also, check out a new song by Genki Genki Panic, whose new album, Litanies of Surf, is available on Bandcamp now.

In 2016 the streets of Chicago are full of celebrations but in 1963 the streets of Miami were full of blood. Anyone can walk into a nudist camp and point a Bolex at some breasts, but it took a mad professor (Herschell Gordon Lewis) and his carny friend (David F. Friedman) to think of ripping a sheep's tongue out of a Swedish model's face in screaming color. Enter Blood Feast.   On the latest episode of Tracks of the Damned, Patrick takes aim at the world's first gore movie (no, for real, Eyes Without A Face doesn't really count), and dives into what is probably the weirdest movie we've covered yet. A subversive neutron bomb of a film that influenced everything from Night of the Living Dead to Pink Flamingos, Blood Feast is what happens when 24,000 dollars and two soft-core pornographers collide with destiny in a motel with a concrete sphinx out front.   But Patrick has not only done a commentary for Blood Feast, but has a never before heard interview that he conducted way back in 2011 at Terror in the Aisles'

New decade, new cast, new blood, new rules? Well wait, let's pump our brakes a sec here, what are the rules of remakes? What do the remakes of The Fog and A Nightmare on Elm Street share, other than the fact that they both suck?    So maybe the whole "someone's trying to remake the events of the original" angle is a bit clumsy, and maybe there's no actual reason for this movie to exist. But the Final Chapter (until the New Beginning) of this seminal slasher series does have some merit to it. At least, that's what Patrick would have you believe. Tessa Racked of Consistent Panda Bear Shape, on the other hand, remains unconvinced. And with no Parker Posey teeth-acting to admire, will they see eye to eye on anything?   In addition to (FINALLY) completing the Scream series, Tessa and Patrick answer two listener questions and recommend some creepy haunted house music. Put this on your tin foil and freebase it!   0:00 - 12:57 - Intro 12:58 - 1:59:15 - Commentary 1:59:16 - 2:24:45 - Questions 2:24:46 - 2:27:11 - Outr

Scream once, Scream twice, Scream as loud as you can, but you've got an episode about Scream 3 (2000) in your red right hand. Reviled by many, defended by a few, Scream 3 was the death knell for the new slasher boom. With an assist from Tessa Racked of Consistent Panda Bear Shape, Patrick dives into a movie that dares to ask: are two Gale Weatherses better than one?   If one of those Gales is Parker Posey, the answer is "Yes, hell yes, oh my God yes".   In addition to discussing the troubled production and diminished ingenuity of Scream 3, Patrick and Tessa respond to a listener who asked "What do you think of the horror genre, in regards to it's treatment of women?" and Holy Shit was that a can of worms they opened. Tessa and Patrick ended up speaking for 40 minutes on the topic*. Turns out our status with women and horror films is "It's Complicated".   Next week we conclude the Scream series with the dark horse outlier Scream 4 (coming out Saturday the 29th, instead of the usual Friday), so get caught up n

Oh Jesus Christ, will the internet never leave Scream 2 alone? First there was a script leak before they even started filming. Then an extra brought a camcorder into the opening scene and filmed the whole thing. Then another script leak that made them change the ending. And now, the final indignity, some moron named Patrick Ripoll is gonna release a commentary track and jabber on over the whole thing?   Is there no justice in the world?   There is no justice, there's just us. And what we have for you this week is a dive into the most frenzied shoot of Wes Craven's career, a movie with a tortured production that nonetheless managed to win over crowds and critics alike. A movie that dared to ask: Can a sequel be better than the original?   The answer is: Yes, it's especially common in the horror genre, but not this time.   Still, while Scream 2 might, at times, feel more like Scream: The TV Show (before there was a tv show) there's still plenty of fun to be had and, at one point, Portia De Rossi talks about giv

What's your favorite scary movie? Ok, well what's your favorite scary movie that was originally titled "Scary Movie" but then changed to "Scream" because the Weinsteins thought that first name was box office poison?   Scream (1996) has many die-hard fans and many die-hard detractors, but it's impact on the horror landscape of the late 90's is undeniable and it's status as a slasher movie touchstone is untouchable. To celebrate the greatest month of the year, Patrick decides not just to celebrate one of the greatest slasher movies ever, but also all it's sequels of diminishing quality. Every Friday this month join Patrick on an odyssey down the rabbit hole that is the final years of Wes Craven's career.   For this episode, he wrestles with the cinematic autoclave that was Miramax in the 90's, the "fuck-it" mentality that lead to Wes Craven doing the greatest work of his career, and a culture policed by an MPAA that had all but eradicated old-school horror from the modern landscape.   He also talks about the ph

Who is that on the subway muttering to himself? The shell-shocked vet or the man with the tail or the faces you can't make out. Is it just me or is that bag twitching? Who said that? Who are these people at this party, why can't I breathe and who is my girlfriend dancing with and why can't I breathe and where lurks the Vibroman? Natural questions if you're the main character of Jacob's Ladder (1990). For Patrick and guest Jim Laczkowski of Director's Club, the questions are a little more specific: How does a director like Adrian Lyne make a movie like this? What historical basis is there for this film? And can you create a subjective nightmare and still try to ground it in a Oliver Stone styled historically-based paranoia thriller? And how cute is Danny Aiello, a year out from Do the Right Thing, as a cherubic guardian angel? Actually, that one I can answer right here: the cutest.   In addition to tackling the many rungs of Jacob's Ladder, Jim and Patrick are offered a rare opportunity to program a horror fi

Grab your best blow-up doll and get ready to puke your guts out. You can learn all the horror movies rules, grab a crucifix, holy water, and silver bullets, but none of it will help you. An undying hanged priest don't care about your logic. An undying hanged priest just wants you to suffer. Lucio Fulci really knew how to reach out and squeeze the audience's brain, and there's few films that prove that better than City of the Living Dead (1980).   Bravely in lockstep with DVDActive's Gabe Powers, Patrick explores the finer points of the seminal Italian film and asks the big questions like: What makes Italian film music different than American? Just how the hell did they pull off that drill scene? And what's with that ending? Armed with Gabe's deep knowledge of Italian genre, they dive into Fulci's Gothic/Gates of Hell/Zombie (don't ask) trilogy.   Also, a special listener sends in a question that leads to the pair finally cracking the code on how you can figure out which Friday the 13th movies are the good one

Did you know the original Halloween is 110 minutes long? I'm sorry, but who's got time for that noise? Maybe back in 1978 when all people had to do was homebrew beer and collect Susan B. Anthony dollars and wait in line for gas that shit would fly, but us modern folks got things to do, places to be, Pokemon to Go.   What the world needs now, is films, short films.   And we here at Tracks of the Damned are all about fulfilling your needs (hey baby, hit me up at tracksofthedamned@gmail.com ), so here we are with our 1st Annual Tracks of the Damned Short Horror Film Festival. Among the twisted sights you'll witness in these seven films are blood-drinking Barbies, cats hiding in men's bodies, nightmarish altered-states, blood soaked ventriloquist dummies, ants crawling out of hands, and James Mason losing his goddamned mind. With the help of Jim Laczkowski, Daniel Baldwin, Chris Olson, and Samm Deighan, Patrick takes you on a journey through some of the weirdest and wildest short horror films ever made, all of w

Ho boy. Ok folks, this one is a little different. Patrick took a five day trip to Salem, Massachusetts with his partner Tessa Racked to visit their friends: actress Jess Conger-Henry and theater programmer Nick Henry. He fully intended to spend all five days steeping in the rich history of Salem to return with a 4 hour lecture on witchcraft, witch hunts, the effects of historical tourism on modern day neo-pagan landscape, and the broader sociological and metaphysical implications of polytheistic cultural preservation in Western society.   But then he got fucking sloshed.   Looking back, Patrick can't really tell where one day started, one day ended, and if he actually saw Lon Chaney drinking a Piña colada at Trader Vic's or if he just did Waren Zevon karaoke at a Boston tiki bar. So, instead of a really smart and well-researched discussion, here's something really stupid: Troll 2 (1990).   So Tessa, Jess, Nick, Patrick and a bottle of absinthe all had a smashing time watching Claudio Fragasso's cult classic

You ever see something so ugly it's cute again, like an armadillo or a pangolin? Not to oversell it, but this movie is kind of like that. It has the color of reality, just muted, twisted, slightly broken. Alive but not. That's right: two-strip technicolor is the synthetic flesh of color processes.   On the latest episode of Tracks of the Damned, the horror film commentary track podcast, Patrick dives into the many contradictions of famed director Michael Curtiz truly singular mad-scientist cannibal murder mystery Doctor X (1932). If James Whale's classic The Invisible Man is a perfect cocktail of humor, horror and sci-fi special effects, Doctor X is what happens when you mix that cocktail all wrong, with the proportions all off, leaving a drink that's twice as strong as it has any right to be.   Patrick also answers a listener question about horror films that hit close to home, in one way or another. As one cannibal scientist said to another, you might as well dig in because it isn't getting any warmer!   0:0

Sure, Night of the Living Dead is the masterpiece, the one they all fawn over.. But you know what else it is? Wasteful. Did it shock the world, invent a lasting pop cultural icon, and inspire hundreds of low-budget copycats the world over? Certainly. But it also cost 90,000 dollars. Which means, if I do my math correctly (and what is art if not the result of math), George Romero could have taken that same $90,000 and made THREE Carnival of Soulses.   Yes Carnival of Souls (1962), Kansas' greatest gift to the world, the je-ne-sais-quoi incarnate on celluloid. In the latest episode of Tracks of the Damned, the horror film commentary track podcast, Patrick and author/podcaster Christopher Olson of The Pop Culture Lens podcast dive into the weird combination of industrial film ingenuity, otherworldly organ music and rusted out halls of 1920's Americana decadence that is Carnival of Souls, the greatest (the GREATEST) American horror film of the 1960's.   In addition to tracing the roots of copy-cats and the valu

Satan. Say it loud and there's music playing. Say it soft and it's almost like praying. The debauchery of the 60's had yet to even really begin when Roger Corman decided to have the final word in colorful horror bachanalia with The Masque of the Red Death (1963). In this episode of Tracks of the Damned, the horror commentary track podcast, Patrick dives into the Corman Poe cycle, the advantages of shooting your costume dramas in England, and what Vincent Price means to Patrick as a queer man and more. What better way to celebrate the fact that at any moment any of us can be destroyed by billionaires than to watch Vincent Price as a tyrannical prince get himself, and all his rich friends, infected with a flesh-eating plague?    No, I will not put a spoiler alert around that. Read a book!   He also gets into his own humble beginnings as a horror fan by answering listener question about the first horror movie he ever saw. Tuck in!   0:00 - 9:06 - Intro 9:07 - 1:37:31 - Commentary 1:37:32 - 1:50:47 - Questions 1: