Welcome back for a more typical episode of Genre Grinder. Gabe’s finally done talking about SOV horror movies and is joined by Now Playing Network & Director’s Club co-host Jim Laczkowski to take a long, very nearly complete look at Body Snatcher Movies. Specifically, science fiction – or at least sci-fi adjacent – movies that feature usually alien, sometimes human, and almost always malevolent entities that possess human bodies, stealing identities, and/or creating automaton doppelgängers (pod people, robots, zombies, et cetera).

Welcome to the home stretch! After dozens of movies and six hours of podcasting, we’ve come to the end of Genre Grinder’s shot-on-video horror retrospective. Gabe and returning extra-special co-host Patrick Ripoll (who, yet again, did most of the research) drag and claw their way through a final 16 SOV oddities; nine of which one or both of them were able to watch, including Mark Shepard’s Dark Romances Vol. 1 (1990), Carl Denham’s Shreck (1990), and J.R. Bookwalter’s Kingdom of the Vampire (1991). The list is shorter this time, but we both had a lot to say about some of these movies, especially Carl J. Sukenick’s mind-bending Alien Beasts (1991), Olaf Ittenbach’s gut-wrenching The Burning Moon (1992), and Scooter McCrae’s genuinely great The Shatter Dead (1994).

Welcome to an extra special BONUS EPISODE of Genre Grinder. What you are about to hear is a digital mixtape compiled and mixed by Tracks of the Damned creator Patrick Ripoll. It includes themes, complete songs, and various clips from the films we’ve been discussing throughout Genre Grinder’s shot-on-video horror series. Be aware that, in most cases, Patrick or myself had to rip the audio from the films themselves, so the sound quality will be uneven to say the least. Then again, that’s kind of the point isn’t. So, sit back, relax, and let the SOV horror vibes take you away.

Part three of our epic (seemingly never-ending) FOUR-PART look back on the insane world of shot-on-video horror movies from the pre-digital era. Gabe and returning extra-special co-host Patrick Ripoll (who, again, did most of the research) trudge through an additional 32 movies, 12 of which one or both of them were able to watch, including D3’s Death Row Diner (1988), Wally Koz’ 555 (1988), Herb Robins’ The Brainsucker (1988), Jim Whiteaker’s Night Feeder (1988), Dean Alioto’s The McPherson Tape (1989), and Eric Parkinson, Michael Rissi & Steve Sommers’ Terror Eyes (1989).

Bring on part two of three! Wait, of three? That can’t be right. Oh, yeah, this is a four-part epic now. Gabe and special co-host Patrick Ripoll (who did most of the research) break down 21 more shot-on video horror movies; nine of which one or both of them have been able to actually see, including ‘classics,’ like the Polonia Brothers’ Hallucinations (1986) & Splatter Farm (1987), Jeff Hathcock’s Night Ripper! (1986), Chester Novell Turner’s Tales from the Quadead Zone (1987), and Gary P. Cohen’s genuine cult classic, Video Violence (1987).

Strap in for part one of a three-part look back at an era when three teenagers with a camcorder could shoot a horror movie without a script and sell it to video rental stores across the country. Gabe and special guest/co-host Patrick Ripoll of Tracks of the Damned do their best to parse the mind-melting world of shot-on-video (SOV) horror movies. Their total list came dangerously close to 100 titles and, while they were only able to watch around half of those between them, Patrick did enough research to at least describe some of the unobtainable obscurities we weren’t able to stream, buy, or even pirate. Part one includes 21 movies, 11 of which we cover in-depth.

DUST OFF YOUR PORK PIE HATS, FLAPPER SKIRTS, AND ROUNDED GLASSES, YA DEWDROPPERS, AND SHUT YER YAP FOR A HOTSY-TOTSY TRIP THROUGH PRE-TALKIE ANTICS! Let us journey way back in time, before sync sound was easy to record and people still thought a pie in the face was the height of comedy with Gabe and today’s guest, his girlfriend Kristine. Kristine has the knowledge and Gabe has the will to learn as they look at a handful of classic films and shorts. Today’s sockdoglar includes Henry Lehrman’s Keystone Kops: The Bangville Police (1913), George Nichols’ Fatty Joins the Force (1913), Roscoe Arbuckle’s Fatty & Mabel Adrift (1916), Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush (1925), Buster Keaton’s Go West (1925), and Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor’s Harold Lloyd-starring hit, The Freshman (1925). Please excuse the lower volume level on Kristine’s voice – I thought I had everything balanced when we tested, but she was still pretty quiet – as well as the murmur of a rainstorm outside.

We all know that found footage and mockumentary horror is the scourge of straight-to-streaming media these days, but there are some good movies out there, assuming you’re willing to endure a lot of very bad ones. Returning guest Betsy Jorgensen has taken it upon herself to cull through hundreds, nay, thousands of found footage horror movies. She has separated the gems from the muck using the finest fine-toothed comb and is here to talk about the best of the best. Or at least three of them – André Øvredal’s Trollhunter (2010), Joel Anderson’s Lake Mungo (2008), and Stephen Cognetti’s Hell House LLC (2015). Your humble host, Gabe Powers, does his best to find what we might consider the first found footage horror film, we try to parse the difference between “found footage'' and “mockumentary,” and both of us pepper additional recommendations throughout the entire podcast.

Movies based on video games. Absolutely nobody enjoys them, right? Well, they wouldn’t keep making them if someone wasn’t watching them. Who is that someone? It’s actually two someones, your humble podcast host Gabe and his friend, video game player, chronicler, critic, and all-around enthusiast, Justin Clark. Join them on their co-op mode adventure through four classic and, erm, not-so-classic motion pictures – James Yukich’s Double Dragon (1994), Paul W.S. Anderson’s Mortal Kombat (1995), Christophe Gans’ Silent Hill (2005), and Takashi Miike’s Ace Attorney (2012). We also take some side-quests to talk about other early movies, Anderson and Uwe Boll’s dominance in the field, and wonder which games would make good movies in the future (and vice versa). As always, remember: don’t blow air into your cartridges; instead, clean them by gently swabbing the area with alcohol.

You can’t talk about the legacy of legacy sequels without talking about the legacy of a legacy sequel that skirts the lines between the legacies of film, television, and even David Lynch’s as a filmmaker. I (Gabe) am not exactly a Twin Peaks novice, but this was my first time watching anything other than the original series (i.e., Fire Walk with Me and The Return), so, Tyler Foster, who is well-versed in all things Lynch, was there to tell me behind-the-scenes tales, as well as walk me through a litany of fan theories. I offer up a few theories of my own, which will hopefully become series canon, because I’m quite clever, you see.