We have another special interview bonus episode for you this week focusing on the debut novel from Isabelle Spotts. SAINT DELILAH, a feminist supernatural suspense drama, tells the story of a young woman who has been brutally murdered and left in the woods in the small midwestern town. But for Delilah, her death was only the beginning. Delilah finds herself in a surreal, spectral existence. She's hunted by mysterious entities and her only real friend is the town medium, Magda. When a stranger arrives named Cross who can not only see Delilah but touch her and love her, she feels alive once again. But Delilah is steadily hurtling towards a dreadful, tormented afterlife existence unless she, Cross, and Magda can learn who killed her and find a path to justice for her untimely death.

Isabelle's novel is part Twin Peaks, part Promising Young Woman, and saturated with rich and complex characters. It grapples with the threat of male violence, particularly towards overtly sensual women, and the ways that moral judgments are cast upon victims as barricades to keep us from facing our most horrific tendencies. It's a wonderful book and we really hope you'll check it out.

We sat down with Isabelle for a brisk and remarkably fun conversation about her novel, its origins, and its numerous treasure trove of compelling themes. We hope you'll check out SAINT DELILAH, available wherever books are sold as of August 11, 2026 and we hope you enjoy our conversation with the author, Isabelle Spotts.

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This week is a special episode. First, we're kicking off a brand-new miniseries of films curated by friend of the show and professor Rev DeAnna Daniels, PhD. It's an opportunity for us to more directly engage our values, in expanding our FoG family in more deliberate ways, and in elevating horror-themed cinematic works that directly feature voices and experiences that grow our spirits, our minds, and our capacity to love all of God's FoGgers better.

Kicking off this special series is coverage of a film that wouldn't necessarily be considered horror on its surface. HONK FOR JESUS. SAVE YOUR SOUL. is a film centering on a pastoral couple (Sterling K. Brown and Regina Hall) who formerly lead a booming megachurch ministry before a scandal obliterated their influence and scattered their congregants elsewhere. The film, told in a mockumentary style, follows their aim to recapture their former glory -- in the name of the Lord, of course -- and the seemingly unconquerable obstacles in their path.

We're joined by DeAnna as series curator and her friend Dr. Indhira Udofia, an interdisciplinary educator and scholar whose work is committed to cultivating spaces where justice, leadership, and healing converge. It's a hearty and robust conversation (among the lengthiest in FoG history), in which we each vulnerably and thoughtfully discuss church, faith, and the captivating intersection where the divine and the monstrous are sometimes indistinguishable.

We really hope you'll open your ears and your hearts for this one, and we really hope you enjoy it.

7:11 - Two Questions with Indhira Udofia

Patron Only Segment: Whatcha Watchin' / Readin' / Listenin' To?

21:28 - HONK FOR JESUS. SAVE YOUR SOUL.

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We have another bonus interview for you this week about a film that hits VOD on Friday, Aug 7th. BIG BABY tells the story of a screenwriter who has a nightmarish dream of a hulking killer in a baby mask. When he begins to put his dreams in a screenplay, he quickly realizes that maybe this nightmare is more than merely imagination.

Reed and Vera sit down with writer/director Spider One and star Krsy Fox to discuss their new film, including the personal connections that made this creative process so meaningful. Big Baby is not only an inventive contribution to the slasher genre, it's also a fascinating commentary on our relationship with our own creativity.

We hope you'll check out Spider and Krsy's film and we hope you enjoy this interview!

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We have a very special podcast crossover episode for you this week! Friend of the show and fellow NCFCA Film Critic Lindsey Dunn invited us to collaborate on an episode with her podcast, 1 OF MY STORIES.

William Golding's iconic novel LORD OF THE FLIES was recently given the miniseries treatment on Netflix, developed and directed by Jack Thorne (of Adolescence) and starring a host of young talent like Winston Sawyers, Lox Pratt, David McKenna, and Ike Talbut. The story paints a bleak and harsh portrait of a decaying civilization when a handful of adolescent boys crash land on a remote island, where their superstitions, prejudices, and fears foster a downward spiral into chaos and violence.

In this week's episode, Reed joins Lindsey -- alongside fellow guests Aaron Jones and Anna Gonowon -- for a hearty discussion of the show's central themes, cultural significance, and with a particular focus on its four primary characters. It's a robust and thoughtful analysis of what makes a leader, what makes a coward, what makes a society, and what makes us human.

We're very proud to present this episode simultaneous with 1 of my Stories and we really hope you enjoy it.

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In an episode that is both unconventional and textbook for The Fear of God, we continue our examination of societal and individual deterioration by exploring Francis Ford Coppola's landmark 1979 film APOCALYPSE NOW (specifically, the version known as THE FINAL CUT).

Apocalypse Now was loosely based on Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and set in the Vietnam war. It tells the story of a mercenary soldier (Martin Sheen) who is tasked to travel deep into the heart of Cambodia to find and assassinate the rogue Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando). Along the way he encounters a parade of human experiences, from bloodthirsty militarists (Robert Duvall) and French expats to civilian casualties and an extravagant USO show. He will also inevitably confront the landscape of his own soul and be forced to face how shattered it has become through the addictive torment of war.

We're joined by Father Josh Bowron to dig into the cinematic, spiritual, and cultural aspects of Coppola's astonishing film. We unpack the different ways our addictions to combat manifest; and we directly tackle the distortions that politics and power can create for the perspective of the Christian faith. It's one of our more bold and robust conversations, but also thoughtful and vulnerable. We really hope you'll join us and we hope you enjoy it.

Patron Only Segment: Stump Reed

3:56 - APOCALYPSE NOW

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It's time to curl up by the campfire for another Ghoul Scouts edition of The Fear of God!

This week, our intrepid scouts Vera Goudie, Jess Fischli, and Jocee Worley continue their journey through childhood fears by tackling a film as adventurous as it is terrifying. 1995's JUMANJI was a thrilling action comedy about a board game with magical consequences. It featured the incomparable Robin Williams and Bonnie Hunt (alongside a young Kirsten Dunst and Bradley Pierce) as two childhood friends whose lives were devastated by the game's unexpected dynamics. When a chance to finish the game and end the chaos for good emerges, they realize that finishing might just cost them everything.

Jumanji had a unique blend of thrills, suspense, humor, and heart. It also featured some disarming observations about family and friendship and the power of our personal choices. The Ghoul Scouts unpack all of this and more in a fast-paced and thoughtful discussion we really think you'll enjoy!

Patron Only Segment: Favorite Childhood Board Games

5:20 - JUMANJI

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Continuing the themes we began exploring with last week's Videodrome, we dive more directly into considerations of political turmoil, election interference, and manipulation of our collective perspective. In 1962, John Frankenheimer's haunting film THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE painted a bleak picture of the ways people in power would take drastic measures to ensure they maintained that control. Starring Frank Sinatra, it told a tale of soldiers who were kidnapped and "conditioned" into becoming cold-blooded assassins in order to eradicate political opponents. It was remade by director Jonathn Demme in 2004, starring Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Liev Shreiber, and a host of other recognizable faces.

We're joined by pastor and pop-culture maven Sonya Brown this week to examine both of these films and to reflect upon the terrifying ways their stories comment on our present moment. It's a thoughtful and remarkably hopeful conversation this week that we really hope you enjoy.

3:50 - Two Questions with Sonya Brown

Patron Only Segment: Whatcha Watchin' / Readin' / Listenin' To

18:06 - THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962 & 2004)

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This week, we examine the dangerously transformative power of media intake by tackling David Cronenberg's VIDEODROME. Operating on a studio's budget for the first time in his career, the visionary filmmaker known for boundary-pushing body horror unleashed a wildly intuitive vision of a sinister broadcast -- known as Videodrome -- which causes intense hallucinations and compulsions in anyone who views it. The film used uncomfortable visualizations and psychosexually violent scenarios to create a nightmarish portrait of media manipulation and control. What's perhaps most frightening about the film is how eerily similar it is to our current state of technological codependency.

To unpack this film's fascinating details, we're joined by Josh Willenbrink of Restoration Games who last joined us to discuss and promote their upcoming releases and Justin Donnahoo, a youth pastor, Batman enthusiast, and co-host of the Moviga podcast. Together, we dive into the striking ways this film forecasted where we might one day find ourselves and we discuss the vital necessity of preserving our humanity amidst an ocean of algorithms.

It's a hearty and thought-provoking episode this week that we really hope you enjoy.

3:42 - Two Questions with Justin Donnahoo

15:34 - Catching Up on Games with Josh Willenbrink

Patron Only Segment: WHATCHA

25:47 - VIDEODROME

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