Episode 54 – Shiver: Selected Stories by Junji Ito

“I am a horror maniac who prefers to stay at home.”

This Halloween, we’re chugging down salad oil and hiding from our balloon dopplegangers with returning friend of the show, Kirby Green, and see if our sanity can can survive the brain-melting onslaught of Junji Ito’s collection of his shorter manga works, in Shiver: Selected Stories!

In this anthology of the legendary manga artist’s favorite short stories, we get just a little bit closer to stomach-turning madness. A rare vinyl record claims the hearts and minds of all who listen to it, driving some to theft and even murder. A mysterious jade idol inflicts a curse on those to keep it, boring countless holes into their bodies — bringing a deadly chill and becoming irresistible to burrowing insects. A hospital patient reports that the subjective length of their dreams is getting longer and longer, triggering a startling transformation in their mind — and their body. In these stories and more, we remind ourselves of the Ito’s uncanny ability to permanently stamp our brains with the most disturbing and visually stunning weirdness.

Episode 42 – Chopping Mall

Where shopping can cost you an arm and a leg.

In this month’s Halloween-themed Single Serving Selection, we hunker down in the mall with Patrick Johnson to hack into the 1986 cult favorite slasher movie by actual creep director, Jim Wynorski, Chopping Mall (aka Killbots)!

A group of young employees plan an after-hours booze and sex party in a mall furniture store. But when the mall is struck by lightning, its new state-of-the-art robot security force malfunctions and goes on a killing spree. Now trapped in the mall under high-tech lock down, they must survive until dawn, as the robots murder them, one by one.