Tracks Of The Damned
S.1 E.14 - Scream (1996)
Scream (1996) has many die-hard fans and many die-hard detractors, but it's impact on the horror landscape of the late 90's is undeniable and it's status as a slasher movie touchstone is untouchable. To celebrate the greatest month of the year, Patrick decides not just to celebrate one of the greatest slasher movies ever, but also all it's sequels of diminishing quality. Every Friday this month join Patrick on an odyssey down the rabbit hole that is the final years of Wes Craven's career.
S.1 E.13 - Jacob's Ladder (1990) feat. Jim Laczkowski of Directors Club
Who is that on the subway muttering to himself? The shell-shocked vet or the man with the tail or the faces you can't make out. Is it just me or is that bag twitching? Who said that? Who are these people at this party, why can't I breathe and who is my girlfriend dancing with and why can't I breathe and where lurks the Vibroman? Natural questions if you're the main character of Jacob's Ladder (1990). For Patrick and guest Jim Laczkowski of Director's Club, the questions are a little more specific: How does a director like Adrian Lyne make a movie like this?
S.1 E.12 - City of the Living Dead (1980) feat. Gabe Powers of DVDActive
Grab your best blow-up doll and get ready to puke your guts out. You can learn all the horror movies rules, grab a crucifix, holy water, and silver bullets, but none of it will help you. An undying hanged priest don't care about your logic. An undying hanged priest just wants you to suffer. Lucio Fulci really knew how to reach out and squeeze the audience's brain, and there's few films that prove that better than City of the Living Dead (1980). Bravely in lockstep with DVDActive's Gabe Powers, Patrick explores the finer points of the seminal Italian film and asks the big questions.
S.1 E.11 - 1st Annual Tracks of the Damned Short Horror Film Festival
Among the twisted sights you'll witness in these seven films are blood-drinking Barbies, cats hiding in men's bodies, nightmarish altered-states, blood soaked ventriloquist dummies, ants crawling out of hands, and James Mason losing his goddamned mind. With the help of Jim Laczkowski, Daniel Baldwin, Chris Olson, and Samm Deighan, Patrick takes you on a journey through some of the weirdest and wildest short horror films ever made, all of which you can watch right here, on the internet.
S.1 E.10 - Troll 2 (1990) feat. a merry band of drunken delinquents
Ho boy. Ok folks, this one is a little different. Patrick took a five day trip to Salem, Massachusetts with his partner Tessa Racked to visit their friends: actress Jess Conger-Henry and theater programmer Nick Henry. He fully intended to spend all five days steeping in the rich history of Salem to return with a 4 hour lecture on witchcraft, witch hunts, the effects of historical tourism on modern day neo-pagan landscape, and the broader sociological and metaphysical implications of polytheistic cultural preservation in Western society.
S.1 E.9 - Doctor X (1932)
On the latest episode of Tracks of the Damned, the horror film commentary track podcast, Patrick dives into the many contradictions of famed director Michael Curtiz truly singular mad-scientist cannibal murder mystery Doctor X (1932). If James Whale's classic The Invisible Man is a perfect cocktail of humor, horror and sci-fi special effects, Doctor X is what happens when you mix that cocktail all wrong, with the proportions all off, leaving a drink that's twice as strong as it has any right to be.
S.1 E.8 - Carnival Of Souls (1962) feat. Chris Olson of Pop Culture Lens
Carnival of Souls (1962), Kansas' greatest gift to the world, the je-ne-sais-quoi incarnate on celluloid. In the latest episode of Tracks of the Damned, the horror film commentary track podcast, Patrick and author/podcaster Christopher Olson of The Pop Culture Lens podcast dive into the weird combination of industrial film ingenuity, otherworldly organ music and rusted out halls of 1920's Americana decadence that is Carnival of Souls, the greatest (the GREATEST) American horror film of the 1960's.
S.1 E.7 - Masque of the Red Death (1963)
Satan. Say it loud and there's music playing. Say it soft and it's almost like praying. The debauchery of the 60's had yet to even really begin when Roger Corman decided to have the final word in colorful horror bachanalia with The Masque of the Red Death (1963).
In this episode of Tracks of the Damned, the horror commentary track podcast, Patrick dives into the Corman Poe cycle, the advantages of shooting your costume dramas in England, and what Vincent Price means to Patrick as a queer man and more. What better way to celebrate the fact that at any moment any of us can be destroyed by billionaires than to watch Vincent Price as a tyrannical prince get himself, and all his rich friends, infected with a flesh-eating plague?
S.1 E.6 - Messiah of Evil (1973) feat. Bill Ackerman of Supporting Characters
Patrick's waiting at the edge of the city. He's peering around buildings at night, and he's waiting. Waiting for you! And, with his dear friend Bill Ackerman of the Supporting Characters podcast, he'll take you one by one and no one will hear you scream. Noone will hear you SCREAM!
With joy at this latest episode of Tracks of the Damned, the horror film commentary track podcast! In it, the two take a look at the 1973 cult classic Messiah of Evil and ask the really hard questions like: Did Dario Argento see this or what? Were Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck fans of Antonioni or what? Are these some incredible murals or what? In the commentary they answer (or at least ask) all that about the definitive California horror film of the 20th century.
TBT - Friday the 13th (1980) feat. Patricks Mom
Hey folks, I'm Jim, the owner of the Now Playing Network. Patrick is on vacation in Mexico, looking for a nice seaside town to flee to if Trump becomes president, but that's no reason for the show not to go on! So instead of a proper episode of Tracks of the Damned this week, he's sent us this #ThrowbackThursday blast from the past.
A white back Patrick was my co-host on our film podcast called Director's Club, where he did all kinds of wacky bonus episodes. One such episode back in 2013 was, in fact, the first audio commentary he ever did: Friday the 13th (1980) with a special guest, his mother. A 50-something year old Catholic woman with no concept of horror films, she was nonetheless an eager student as Patrick used the seminal 80's horror film as a lesson in the techniques and history of the slasher genre. He also decided to see how long it would take her to recognize Kevin Bacon, and the answer was: quite a while.