In the 2010s and beyond, atomic monsters staged a resurgence, not as relics of Cold War panic but as flexible metaphors for a new century of instability. Radiation no longer dominates the genre’s imagination; instead, filmmakers graft its anxieties onto pandemics, climate collapse, genetic engineering, and political paralysis. From intimate, character-driven explorations to blockbuster spectacles, the atomic monster adapted to a fragmented world. Some films reasserted the allegorical weight of the genre, grounding its spectacle in disaster trauma and institutional failure, while others offered globalized mythology. Together, these works reveal how the atomic monster, far from obsolete, remains a barometer for the evolving fears of the 21st century.

FILMS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

Monsters (2010), Godzilla (2014), Kong: Skull Island (2017), Godzilla: King Of The Monsters (2019), Godzilla Vs. Kong (2021), Shin Godzilla (2016), The Girl with All the Gifts (2016), Rampage (2018), Godzilla Minus One (2023)

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Music:

Waltz Primordial, Galactic Rap, Exit The Premises

By Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

SPECIAL PRESENTATION!!!

Believing that they have left one of their films in a local theater, filmmakers Darrell and Danny Strickland sneak into the theater’s back rooms to search for the tape. When they find a bag of unmarked videos, they begin going through the films looking for their own. While watching several short horror films, they are unaware that someone… or something is stalking the halls of the theatre. This horror comedy anthology is just what you need for your fancy New York apartment party with your fancy New York friends.

Blood Red River Bed on DVD

Blood Red River Bed on VHS

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NOTE: In case we failed to mention the end date for the secret word discount at the store when recording this episode, it is September 7, 2025.

Music:

Exit The Premises, Loping Stings, Upbeat Forever

By Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Breaking News Intro

By: Luis Humanoide (Via pixabay)

Welcome to our NOT A HORROR MOVIE series! Today we take a look at Cry-Baby (1990)

John Waters took 1950s teen rebellion, dipped it in hairspray, spiked it with rockabilly hormones, and cranked up it until the needle snapped. Cry-Baby is a candy colored fever dream where drapes and squares clash in a musical warzone, and Johnny Depp weaponizes a single teardrop like it’s the National Guard when Trump's job creation numbers are down. Imagine Grease if it chain-smoked Lucky Strikes, fucked it's own cousin, got arrested for having a barbecue, and then burst into song while drag racing through suburbia. This isn’t just camp, it’s camp on nitrous. It's a cartoon vision of American repression cracking under the weight of its own hair grease. Logic? Optional. Music? Mandatory. Nothing makes sense, and everything matters.

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NOTE: In case we failed to mention the end date for the secret word discount at the store when recording this episode, it is August 31, 2025.

Music:

Exit The Premises, Loping Stings, Malt Shop Bop

By Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Breaking News Intro

By: Luis Humanoide (Via pixabay)

By the 2000s, the atomic monster had become less a spectacle of nuclear dread and more a haunting echo, reshaped by new anxieties of the millennium. With Cold War tensions receding, filmmakers turned instead to ecological collapse, terrorism, and unchecked technologies—threats that unfolded gradually rather than in the flash of a bomb. In films like The Host, Cloverfield, and Eight Legged Freaks, monstrosity emerged from pollution, corporate negligence, and opaque government power, reframing the kaiju and mutation narratives for a world suspicious of its own institutions. No longer a warning about nuclear annihilation, the atomic monster in this era symbolized the slower, more insidious apocalypses of the 21st century.

FILMS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

Supernova (2000), Eight Legged Freaks (2002), Reign of Fire (2002), Godzilla: Final Wars (2004), The Host (2006), Cloverfield (2008)

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Email us:

⁠⁠adarkishcinemapodcast@gmail.com⁠⁠

Find our store on Facebook and Instagram:

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Music:

Waltz Primordial, Galactic Rap, Exit The Premises

By Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

FILM RANKINGS UPDATED AFTER EVERY EPISODE!!!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

On the surface, Clown in a Cornfield looks like pure B-movie schlock: kids in a small town, a mascot-turned-murderer, and a cornfield that just won’t quit. But dig a little deeper, and the layers start to peel away, revealing a slasher that doubles as a manifesto on generational warfare. The adults are bitter, nostalgic for “good old days” that never existed, and furious at the younger generation. The kids, meanwhile, just want a future that isn’t stuck in the past or stalked by a killer clown with trauma issues related to corn syrup. Here we have America’s generational divide acted out with machetes, party streamers, and buckets of blood. It’s Friday the 13th with a side of “OK Boomer.” Corn has never been so political.

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Our Film Rankings:

⁠147 - Film Rankings After Happy Birthday To Me (1981)⁠

Email us:

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Find our store on Facebook and Instagram:

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NOTE: In case we failed to mention the end date for the secret word discount at the store when recording this episode, it is August 31, 2025.

Episode Segments:

1. Welcome
2. Outside The Podcast Discussion
3. Breaking News
4. What Is This Film About? - Synopsis, Genres, and Themes & Insights (Curated by Sunni)
5. Vital Statistics
6. Things That Happen In The Film
7. Inspirations (Curated by James)
8. Trivia
9. Critical Reception (Including our rankings)
10. Final Thoughts

Music:

Exit The Premises, Loping Stings, Waltz Of The Carnies

By Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Breaking News Intro

By: Luis Humanoide (Via pixabay)

Today’s episode dives into the films that don’t just scare us. They diagnose us. From Hitchcock’s Vertigo to Neil Marshall’s The Descent, from the camp of Arachnophobia to the existential dread of Faces of Death, we’re tracing how horror cinema has weaponized phobias across decades. These aren’t monsters lurking in shadows. They’re fears named, classified, and given cinematic form: arachnophobia, claustrophobia, agoraphobia, atelophobia, thanatophobia, and more. By turning pathological fear into narrative, filmmakers force us to confront how phobias reshape identity, perception, and survival. What happens when fear isn’t an intruder, but a way of life?

FILMS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

Vertigo (1958), Arachnophobia (1990), The Descent (2005), The Woman in the Window (2021), 12 Feet Deep (2017), Atelophobia (2015), Stephen King's IT (1990), IT (2017), IT Chapter 2 (2019), Faces of Death (1978), Faces of Death II (1981), Faces of Death III (1985), Faces of Death IV (1990), Phobias (2021)

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Email us:

⁠adarkishcinemapodcast@gmail.com⁠

Find our store on Facebook and Instagram:

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Music:

Twisting, Half Mystery, Exit The Premises

By Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

FILM RANKINGS UPDATED AFTER EVERY EPISODE!!!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Happy Birthday to Me isn’t just a slasher, it’s the slasher that looked at Friday the 13th, sniffed disdainfully, and said, “Cute… but what if we added brain surgery, psychosis, and a kebab to the jugular?” This is a movie where being rich, Canadian, and vaguely European counts as character development. It’s a two hour flex of sheer audacity, with red herrings stacked on top of red herrings. And the twist ending? Imagine a soap opera possessed by Satan, drunk on maple syrup, and desperate to one-up Agatha Christie

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Our Film Rankings:

147 - Film Rankings After Happy Birthday To Me (1981)

Email us:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠adarkishcinemapodcast@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Find our store on Facebook and Instagram:

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NOTE: In case we failed to mention the end date for the secret word discount at the store when recording this episode, it is August 31, 2025.

Episode Segments:

1. Welcome
2. Outside The Podcast Discussion
3. Breaking News
4. What Is This Film About? - Synopsis, Genres, and Themes & Insights (Curated by Sunni)
5. Vital Statistics
6. Things That Happen In The Film
7. Inspirations (Curated by James)
8. Trivia
9. Critical Reception (Including our rankings)
10. Final Thoughts

Music:

Exit The Premises, Loping Stings, Arroz Con Pollo

By Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Breaking News Intro

By: Luis Humanoide (Via pixabay)

FILM RANKINGS UPDATED AFTER EVERY EPISODE!!!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

A Classic Horror Story is what happens when a horror film drinks too much espresso, stares into a funhouse mirror, and decides to eat every other horror movie it’s ever seen. It's like Midsommar, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and an IKEA showroom brochure got stuck in a blender and forgot to stop spinning. There’s a cabin in the woods that may or may not have an Airbnb listing, a cult that’s somehow both ominous and a little bit into improv theater, and enough fake blood to make you wonder if the filmmakers bought it in bulk from Costco. By the end, you’re not sure if you’ve watched a folk horror masterpiece, a meta-commentary on horror tropes, or a deeply unsettling Italian cooking show that just got way out of hand.

Instagram:

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Our Film Rankings:

146 - Film Rankings After A Classic Horror Story (2021)

Email us:

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Find our store on Facebook and Instagram:

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⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/ashanddreamsokc/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

NOTE: In case we failed to mention the end date for the secret word discount at the store when recording this episode, it is August 24, 2025.

Episode Segments:

1. Welcome
2. Outside The Podcast Discussion
3. Breaking News
4. What Is This Film About? - Synopsis, Genres, and Themes & Insights (Curated by Sunni)
5. Vital Statistics
6. Things That Happen In The Film
7. Inspirations (Curated by James)
8. Trivia
9. Critical Reception (Including our rankings)
10. Final Thoughts

Music:

Exit The Premises, Loping Stings, Quirky Dog

By Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Breaking News Intro

By: Luis Humanoide (Via pixabay)