Fear Feasts: Food in Horror

What would you do if you were stuck on a miserable homestead in the middle of the deep, scary forest with only your religious and mean mother, your God-fearing and totally inept father, your sex-obsessed younger brother, your bratty twin siblings that were constantly talking to the pet goat, the baby that would not stop eating, and a witch hiding somewhere in the woods? What if your miserable father couldn't hunt food to save his life or couldn't work the farm to get corn to grow, and your family were starving? What if your mother left you in charge of the family baby and the baby mysteriously disappeared? What if your lustful brother was taken by the witch and left to vomit up really disgusting apples? What if the goat, named Black Peter, asked if you wanted to taste butter and live deliciously, after you were continually accused of being a witch yourself? You'd surely go for it, right? We're discussing these appetizingly apprehensive questions as we analyze the connection between food and horror in the 2015 film The Witch, so grab an apple and your broom and join us!

What would you do if your dear Grandmother was constantly warning you about witches? What would you do if you and Grandmother went on holiday by the English seaside in a fancy hotel complete with seafood, chocolate bars, strawberries and cream, roast lamb, and candy? What would you do if you started to notice odd women with gloves, wigs and eyes that sparkled with weird purple lights offering chocolate to children in the hotel? What if the Grand High Witch of England caught you and turned you into a scampering rodent? Would you grin and bear it and spend the rest of your life eating cheese, avoiding mousetraps and sneaking around floorboards? Or would you fight back, enlist the help of Grandmother, and poison the green-pea soup intended for the witch's supper? We're talking about Roald Dahl's classic novel The Witches and the two film versions as we analyze the connection between food and horror so please join us. Just grab your wig and candy bars beforehand.

Some witches are old and scary. Some witches are tall and intimidating. Some witches are young and sexy. All witches are potentially dangerous, and the wine-loving, maggot-spreading, chicken drumstick-eating stregas at Tanz Akademie in Berlin run the gamut. This ain't Hogwarts, honey! Join us as we discuss ballet, witchcraft, Nazi Germany, maggots, the importance of red wine when you're sick, the challenges in flushing drugged food down the toilet, the difficulties in finishing a communal witch meal when your coven leader cuts her own throat over all the food (oh the damn blood) and the connections between food in horror in Dario Argento's giallo classic Suspiria, and the 2018 remake. Those maggots are looking mighty tasty, aren't they......

When you're a witch, you can summon the Devil. But when your two best friends are also witches and you summon not just the Devil but the Daryl Van Horne, you're in for some horny times! Daryl loves beautiful witches, tennis, pianos, swimming pools, recording the greatest fears of his witch lady friends, and of course, he loves his fruit.....cherries in particular. Be more like Daryl, and join us as we discuss motherhood, kitchen spells, zucchini and its many uses, sex, chocolate, misogyny, the varied ways a witch can utilize cherries, and of course witchcraft as we analyze the connection between food and horror in the 1987 film The Witches of Eastwick and the novel of the same name by John Updike!

The joys of marriage are highly overrated, at least if you're a timid soul whose new husband was widowed less than a year ago, he brings you to live in and run his vast mansion on the coast, and his scary housekeeper keeps trying to turn you into a replica of the dead first wife. Even worse, you can't get any servants to bring you tea and crumpets under the chestnut tree without them laughing behind your back. It's enough to make you want to jump from the 3rd-story window, or maybe even burn the mansion to the ground. Well, you could always toast some marshmallows in the flames and make S'mores, right? We're talking marriage, murder, menus, mayhem, mealtimes, and the scariest M of all......Mrs. Danvers......as we analyze the connection between food and horror in Daphne Du Maurier's classic Gothic tale Rebecca and the Hitchcock film of the same name. So grab your dog Jasper, a cup of tea and a broken figurine and join us!

We are cracking nuts and getting our stockings stuffed here in Fear Feast Land as we talk with Dr. Neil Buttery about his favorite Christmas movie of all time, Gremlins! Gremlins is a bizarre 80s film produced by Steven Spielberg about a cute little furry animal that turns into a host of horrifying creatures once being fed after midnight, and the subsequent chaos that ensues. Don't eat after midnight, kids, that's all we have to say about it!

Eating disorders are no joke, and when you combine one with a philandering husband, a haunted house, and living in upstate New York in the dead of winter - pun intended - it's no wonder you'd go off food entirely. We discuss the terrors of family dysfunction and eating, memory and fear, the nastiness of protein shakes, the importance of salad when avoiding "real" food, infidelity and Catholicism, and the angelic realms of Emanuel Swedenborg, as we analyze the connection between food and horror in the 2021 film Things Heard and Seen, and the book it's based on, All Things Cease To Appear, so don't forget your ax and that Thanksgiving turkey when you tune in.

It's Halloween, Fear Feast listeners, and we couldn't let the day pass us by without paying homage to the ultimate holiday horror film and book - Halloween! Yes, we're taking on that bad boy Michael Myers, his creepy white mask, his weird obsession with young topless women, his love of cookies and milk after murdering his sister, and trying to figure out why spilled butter from popcorn would require a babysitter to strip naked while washing her clothes. Join us as we analyze the connection between food and horror in this bonus episode, and watch out for strange men waving their zucchini at you. Happy Halloween!

As though life isn't hard enough without having to live in a run-down council flat strewn with maggot-ridden pizza boxes, it's made even worse in this case by a witch spirit running round in the walls and scaring the holy hell out of you and your poor spouse. All you want to do is assimilate, eat some good food whether on the rug or at the dining room table, and try to forget the horrors of the war in your home country that forced you to relocate to a place where kids run around insulting you and eating - horror of horrors - soggy chips! And when you start being haunted by the ghost of a night witch from your home country, it's it's anyone's guess where things will end up. Will you survive the haunting of your flat? Will you live through your husband singing football songs? Will you launch a random piece of fruit at him to try and alleviate your terror? Join us as we analyze the connection between food in horror in the terrifying 2020 film His House, but please don't aggravate the apeth!

We all have mommy issues, and at the Allardyce House, there is one mother of a problem up in the attic. Still, if you got the chance to spend the summer in your dream (albeit a bit run-down) house and all you had to do was cook for a creepy old lady, fend off your horny husband's never-ending advances by the pool, rescue your kid from drowning a few times, and serve martinis to your lush of a great aunt, you'd do it and never turn a gray hair, right? Join us as we discuss the joys of motherhood, the wonders of constant cooking, cleaning and hair coloring, that terrifying chauffeur in black sunglasses, and the connections between food and horror in the extremely creepy book Burnt Offerings and the film of the same name.

Being Goths, we are totally down with black clothing in every instance. However, the solicitor at the heart of our episode will soon grow to hate the color black, particularly as he is constantly running into this terrifying woman dressed in our favorite color. It's bad enough he is sent to a house named after eels, it's difficult enough that he has to bring along his own brandy, and it's even harder when a ghostly spirit begins appearing around every corner. How can you possibly enjoy your beer and cheese and bread, or your roast pheasant and apple-raisin tart if you're constantly being haunted by a spooky revenant in black? Join us as we analyze the connections between food and horror in Susan Hill's classic ghost story The Woman in Black and the two films of the same name, so head out to Eel Marsh House now!

Growing up is hard enough without some pesky psychic ability rearing its ugly head, but when you're stuck in a haunted hotel over the winter with your neurotic mother and alcoholic father, enough ghosts to make you into a thumb-sucking terror, with no fresh fruit and with (oh the horror!) CANNED soup, why, it's enough to make you want to shine a light into every room to see what else you can find. After all, you might discover a decomposing body in a bathtub, a creepy pair of twin girls in ugly blue dresses, a pantry full of Triscuits, Oreo cookies, prune juice and other tasty goodies, or you just might get a whiff of oranges and realize you're about to receive a mental message from some kid in Colorado. We discuss these culinary conundrums and analyze the connection between food and horror in Stephen King's classic and masterpiece The Shining and the Stanley Kubrick film of the same name, so please join us but we promise not to make you play with us......forever and ever and ever.

There's something to be said for being an only child who's also an heiress to a large fortune and an aspiring writer, but in this case, the truth turns out to be far stranger than any fictional Gothic tale. If you appreciate terrifying, blood-dripping ghosts and big, eerie mansions with holes in the roof, if you are partial to your afternoon tea served with a lovely dose of firethorn berries, and if you thought Roderick and Madeline Usher were a lot closer than your average brother and sister, you'll appreciate this episode in which we discuss tea and porridge (again), the wide variety of breakfast foods that can be used as weapons, incestuous sibling relationships, and how the pen can literally be mightier than the sword, as we analyze the connections between food and horror in the gorgeously frightening 2015 masterpiece Crimson Peak. But don't be frightened......the ghosts are only metaphors.

Wouldn't you like to be stuck on a British island in a big, eerie house with only your two bratty kids for company? You might want to kill them, but that's totally normal. What's not normal is when your daughter insists there is an invisible boy living in the house, when your son hears ghostly breathing, and when all you want to do is relax with your afternoon tea but you keep hearing spooky footsteps in the empty rooms above? We'll be discussing these fascinating issues, as well as the importance of bread in post-WWII Great Britain, how religion can sometimes negate spirituality (literally!), and the wide variety of ways one can eat porridge as we analyze the connections between food and horror in 2001's terrifying film The Others, so please join us!

Nothing is scarier than the spirit of a child, wouldn't you say? In this particular house, bells go off for no reason, the phone rings and there is no one on the other line, mothers get mysteriously locked in the nursery with the ghost of their dead daughter, and worst of all, there's no money for good food. There's a strange family doctor who is oddly obsessed with the house itself and once the family members start being picked off one by one, the action really gets going. We're heading to Hundreds Hall in post-WWII Great Britain to hang out with the Ayres family as they navigate teatime with no scones, miniature smidges of fruitcake, spiked party punch that leads to one of the stranger trysts in literature, and a dog who mysteriously eats the face off a bratty child......or does he? So please join us as we analyze the connection between food and horror in the novel The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters and the film of the same name.

Do you believe in haunted houses? 'Cause this haunted house sure believes in you, especially if your name is Nell and you're a little on the edge. We're tagging along with four slightly neurotic individuals this summer as they enjoy creature comforts, and eat delicious peach shortcake and cheese soufflé courtesy of the world's creepiest housekeeper, and we're talking with our first guest! The talented, accomplished and very funny Jamieson Ridenhour joins us as we analyze the connections between food and horror in Shirley Jackson's iconic book The Haunting of Hill House.

Jamieson is the writer, co-producer and co-creator of the fantastic horror podcast Palimpsest, which features a rather eerie house that seems to slip the bonds of time and space in some very weird and scary ways. Highly recommended, and available on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts or anywhere you get your podcast fix. #embracewhathauntsyou

Allie and Vanessa introduce Season 2 of Fear Feasts, focusing on food and haunted house horror, and briefly discuss the films and books they will cover this season, including classics such as The Haunting of Hill House and Rebecca, and newer horror like His House and Things Heard and Seen. It's going to be a fun-filled, terrifying and hunger-inducing season so stay with us!

All parents know that their children can be little devils at times, but Ambassador Thorne and his slightly neurotic wife Kate literally have the Antichrist on their hands. Talk about growing pains! And they can't even find good help for their little fallen angel Damien, what with the first nanny hanging herself from the top of the house, the second nanny feeding Damien demonic strawberries, and that damn photographer capturing everything on film. So join us as we discuss Satanic peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, jackals and goats (yes, goats AGAIN!), chin-dribbling strawberries, the edible properties of scrotums, and the other connections between food and horror in the 1976 film The Omen, as well as the book and the 2006 version of the movie. Just watch out for those big black dogs and don't water your hanging plants on the third-floor balcony when your demonic kid is running around you on his scooter!

The Straker family is one that puts the "fun" in dysfunction as they manage life on the farm, now that it's been infiltrated by the devil.....with a little "D." Goats drop dead (sorry, no goat cheese!), Dad's in a coma, Mom starts chopping vegetables frantically including her own fingers, and siblings are told constantly that they shouldn't have come. Well, since Mom's cooking dropped off a bit and since Dad's nurse went and did that crazy thing with her knitting needles, we're inclined to agree as we talk carrots, devils, onions, family, cigarettes in coffee, breakfast cereal, beer, the Allie and Vanessa scream-o-meter, and we analyze the connections between food and horror in Bryan Bertino's oh-so-cheerful 2020 film The Dark and the Wicked. Join us, won't you? Just keep the goats at a safe distance and watch out for floating Mom corpses!

Ever heard the saying that the Devil is in the details? In this case, he's giving us Daddy issues as well as influencing what we eat, so if you enjoy your Popeyes chicken with a nice helping of demonic influence, if you've ever dreamed of being made love to by a devilish Keanu Reeves in the flames of hell, or if you simply want to enjoy seeing a nice piece of veal put on the stand as a piece of legal evidence, you'll enjoy our discussion about the 1997 film The Devil's Advocate and the book it's based on by the same name. So pour a bourbon or a tequila shot, munch down on a burger and some fries, and get ready to quote some scripture with us!

What's a girl to do when she's trying to get a promotion and ends up getting cursed? Make a harvest cake? Consult a goat at a séance? We're talking baking, gender inequality, turkey club sandwiches with spicy mustard, Gypsy curses, body image and fat shaming, and most importantly, goats and harvest cake as we analyze the connection between food and horror in Sam Raimi's campy horror classic Drag Me To Hell.