This week’s hair raising read is 2021’s That Weekend by Kara Thomas. The story of three friends who embark to a lake house only to have one return with no memory of what transpired, this story delves into issues of survivor’s guilt, the destructive power of secrets, and the unreliability of memory. On this podcast, we talk blood, guts, and spoilers so listener discretion is advised.
With genuinely scary jump scares, bloody kill sequences that leave an impression, and a pitch perfect 90s soundtrack, Fear Street: 1994, the first of three book-to-film adaptations dropping on Netflix today, more than lives up to the hype. When news broke that this beloved series was being adapted, we knew that we wanted to go back and revisit a couple of books in the series. And so, this week’s hair raising reads are 1989’s The New Girl and 1991’s Lights Out. A time capsule of questionable sexual politics, these books helped to establish a template of horror storytelling that authors still follow today. On this podcast, we talk blood, guts, and spoilers so listener discretion is advised.
Recommended Reading:
Coppell, Vicki. “The ‘Goosebumps’ in Goosebumps: Impositions and R. L. Stine.” Papers: Explorations into Children’s Literature 8.2 (1998): 5-15.
Jones, Patrick. “Nothing to Fear: R. L. Stine and Young Adult Paperback Thrillers.” Collection management 25.4 (2001): 3-23.
Lair, Mackenzie. “What’s so Scary about Fear Street? A Feminist Analysis of R. L. Stine’s Fear Street Series.” New Views on Gender 15 (2014): 11-15.
Nodelman, Perry. “Ordinary Monstrosity: The World of Goosebumps.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 22.3 (1997): 118-125.
Perry, Leslie Anne, and Rebecca P. Butler. “Are Goosebumps Books Real Literature?” Language Arts 74.6 (1997): 454-456.
Smith, Stacia Ann. The Exploration of Middle School Students’ Interests in and Attractions to the Writings of R. L. Stine. The Ohio State University, 1998.
Tanner, Nicole. “Thrills, Chills, and Controversy: The Success of R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps.” Dalhousie Journal of Interdisciplinary Management 6 (Spring 2010): 1-13.
West, Diana. “The Horror of R. L. Stine.” American Educator 19.3 (1995): 39-41.
Lights Out is very hard to find, but you can get The New Girl from Amazon (ad):
And you can find the first four Fear Street novels in this collection:
In this episode, we are heading back to 1987 with Joseph Ruben’s The Stepfather. Inspired by the horrific murders committed by John List, this movie doesn’t just deconstruct the myth of the nuclear family, it detonates it…and sets it to a slamming 80s soundtrack. We’re talking conservative values run amuck on this episode, so stay tuned!
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Think Jaws is the scariest reason to stay out of the water? Well, think again! In today’s episode, we’re deep diving into the Piranha franchise. A glorious mixture of exploitation and, at times, shockingly relevant social critique, Piranha is often dismissed as an uninspired parody but does it deserve that label? We’re breaking it all down on today’s episode so stay tuned!
You will find that we were in some serious disagreement over our favorite Piranha film, with some arguing that the first, directed by Joe Dante and written by John Sayles, is by far the best. You can stream that 1978 original here: Read more
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