So far, my published books have all been horror or horror-adjacent. Yet in this blog, I do not talk about horror.
At all.
So I thought I would put out a between-posts post with some podcast recommendations for those of you who may have tastes on the more spooky side.
(EDITED IN AUGUST 2025): I did not include links when re-adding this to the blog. In all cases, either I have quit listening to the show for varying reasons or the podcast has ended. I am fairly certain that any podcast still available to download is searchable in the podcast platform you choose.
Kill By Kill – Patrick Hamilton and Gena Radcliffe dive into the horror genre by talking about “the least-discussed component in horror movies: The characters.” In each episode they “unpack all the gory details” of that film’s murders “in the hopes that a victim’s untimely end is just the beginning of the jokes we can make about them.”
Recently, they began a spin-off series (in the same podcast feed) called Dish By Dish: A Hannibal re-watch series. Having not watched Hannibal in its network run, I have been following along on Netflix.
In both shows, they break down their respective media, talk about the deaths that happen, discuss the characters and all their flaws, and cap off the episode with a game they all “Choose Your Own Deathventure.” Patrick, Gena, and their guests have to decide, out of all the deaths mentioned in that episode, how they would want to go out.
I have started back at the beginning of Kill By Kill, where they talked about the Friday the 13th franchise. (That was how I found them, in fact — I was looking for some F13-related somethings.) Because their podcast is not something you have to listen to sequentially (like some of the audio dramas I listen to), I also pick up their new ones as they come.
I like these two a lot, and even if they’re talking about a movie that does not interest me, most of the time I will still listen just for them. (The one exception I can think of is a recent episode on the Jack Nicholson travesty Wolf.)
Kill By Kill and Dish By Dish are each bi-weekly, released on alternate weeks so an episode drops on a weekly basis on Fridays.
Eerie Earfuls – I came across this one by accident. During a recent “stay-at-home vacation” from JOB, I was able to join some live streaming shows by Mur Lafferty of I Should Be Writing and Ditch Diggers fame.
One person asked a question about self-promotion, and I joked, “Start a podcast.” (That’s how Mur and a LOT of writers from the 2000s promoted their stuff.) As it turned out, a podcast is exactly what he was trying to promote. I asked him what/where it was, he told me, I listened, and now I am recommending it.
In Eerie Earfuls, Justin and Brandon take turns choosing a double-feature to discuss in detail. The criterion has to be that the two movies have to have something in common. In their last episode before a hiatus in 2018 — Jaws and Tremors — the commonality was initially SHARKS. Jaws had ocean sharks, and the “Graboids” in Tremors are shark-like creatures underground. In both films, you cannot see the thing hunting you. It is beneath the surface. As the discussion continued, they found other similarities, new common ground the films shared. And, in one of my favorite sections of the cast, they even talk about the music of each, and how the themes fit the tone of their respective films.
What I’m enjoying MOST about this podcast, though, is that they have found elements in movies that I had not even considered. For example, in Candyman, what I think of as a jump-scare festival of blood and gore (with Tony Todd’s incredible voice adding to the tension) is actually a romance story. And remembering the movie and looking at it through the lens these guys provide, I actually see it.
Eerie Earfuls is a monthly podcast scheduled to drop on the last Monday of each month.
Death By Monsters – Okay, this one is not about horror movies but is about “monsters, mysteries, and the unknown” in the real world. Each week the hosts Matthew Jude, Paula Deming, and Nick Murphy take us on either a well-researched ride into the supernatural or a “Home Strange” story of something bizarre happening to one of their listeners. (These formats alternate episode to episode.)
And strangely enough, I found this podcast through my love of Board Games. Paula Deming does a sketch-comedy show on YouTube called Things Get Dicey. Both she and Matthew Jude appeared on a BoardGameGeek show called “Who’s Playing WHAT now?” Nick Murphy also has a segment on BGG’s YouTube channel, “In Focus” — though, full disclosure, I only started seeing that segment after I was already listening to Monsters. Three Board Game people, and they have a horror-ish podcast! (Which only Matthew plugged on his WPWN appearance.)
What is the podcast about, you ask? Well, recently there was a two-part episode on Jack the Ripper. They dove deep down to learn what kind of women he killed. There are five “canonical” murders, and Part One detailed who they were before they died — it’s important to remember the victims as they lived and not as sensationalist statistics. Then Part Two went into the gory details on various people that have been identified, and the trio discussed the merits of each.
There have been episodes on alien encounters, the Salem witch trials, the Mothman, and all kinds of other disappearances, deaths, and unexplained phenomena. Then in alternating episodes, they dive into their mail and read off an experience one of their listeners has had. Sometimes they mock that listener, and sometimes they just say something like, “Wow, I would hate to have that happen to me.”
Every episode creeps me out in some way, and every episode has me laughing so hard my eyes threaten to fall out. I love Paula to pieces, and when I found out she was on this show, I had to hit subscribe, sight unseen. And now I love Matthew and Nick, as well.
Death By Monsters is a weekly podcast, dropping on Mondays.
I enjoy all three of these shows and encourage you to give them a listen.
Take care, be kind, and STAY SAFE!