Xenomania

Some zombies want flesh. These ones want BRAAAINS!
This week, Xenomania resurrects The Return of the Living Dead (1985), Dan O'Bannon's outrageous blend of punk rock, black comedy, and undead mayhem.
Jon, Ryan, and Kearns revisit the unforgettable cast, legendary soundtrack, practical effects, and zombies that completely rewrite the rules established by George Romero.
We also unpack the legal controversy surrounding the troubled new sequel, debate whether this '80s cult classic still holds up, and dive into audience reviews, our final ratings, and Top Fives celebrating Dan O'Bannon's remarkable horror legacy.
Forty years later, is Return of the Living Dead still one of the greatest zombie movies ever made?
Turn up the punk rock. Stay out of the cemetery. And whatever you do, don't open the barrel.

This week on Xenomania, we return to Ti West’s X trilogy for Pearl, the story of a young woman desperate to escape the farm, become a star, and outrun the suffocating life closing in around her.
We talk Mia Goth’s incredible performance, Pearl’s Technicolor nightmare aesthetic, the Wizard of Oz influence, the scarecrow, the audition, the dinner-table tension, Pearl’s mental decline, and the unforgettable ending. Along the way, we detour into awards-season strategy, movie theater candy, Slash or Stash, Rotten Tomatoes reactions, final scores, and Ryan’s Top 5 Alfred Hitchcock films.
Pearl wants to be loved. Pearl wants to be famous. Pearl wants to leave the farm.
Pearl is not okay.
This is Pearl. This is Xenomania. And we are stars.

Poltergeist: The Movie That Changed Haunted House Horror
They're here.
This week, Xenomania heads back to 1982 for Poltergeist, the supernatural horror classic that made television static terrifying and suburban homeownership seem like an exceptionally poor life decision.
We revisit the Freeling family, our childhood memories of the movie, its iconic scares, supernatural effects, surprisingly grounded characters, and the strange little details that make Poltergeist feel alive more than four decades later.
Then we go deeper into the film's legacy, the Spielberg and Tobe Hooper debate, the infamous stories surrounding the production, reviews, and whether the movie still deserves its reputation as one of supernatural horror's defining films.
Plus Pinpoint, Top Fives, and the usual collection of tangents that somehow includes an investigation into the exact 1981 Rams-Saints game playing in the movie. Poltergeist
The house is clean.
Sure it is.

A podcast receives mysterious audio recordings from an unknown sender. What begins as a man recording his girlfriend talking in her sleep becomes something much darker.
Meanwhile, skeptical podcast host Evie is caring for her dying mother, and something inside her own home may be listening.
This week on Xenomania, we're diving into Undertone, a strange, minimalist horror film that weaponizes silence, sound, grief, and the things your imagination creates when the camera refuses to show you what's there.
We debate the paranormal, the movie's unsettling audio design, its glacial slow burn, Evie's skepticism, the mysterious recordings, and an ending that left us with very different ideas about what actually happened.
Plus, reviews, Top Fives, and an unexpectedly creepy recording that arrives while we're discussing a movie about unexpectedly creepy recordings.
Coincidence? Probably.
Probably.

Resident Evil FINALLY Got the Games Right... Sort Of
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City promised fans something they'd been waiting decades for: a Resident Evil movie that actually feels like Resident Evil.
So why did they make Leon an idiot?
In Part I, we're heading back to Raccoon City to talk about our history with the games, the characters the movie absolutely nails, the ones it completely fumbles, and whether cramming Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 into one movie was ever going to work.
We also get into George Romero's lost Resident Evil, the strange history of video game adaptations, and whether nostalgia is doing some of the work for this one.
Then Slash or Stash puts video game movies on trial, from Resident Evil and Street Fighter to Mortal Kombat and some truly questionable cinematic decisions.
 
Part II goes deep into the games and the lore behind Raccoon City before we tear into what the movie changes, what it leaves out, and the bizarre decisions that keep a faithful adaptation from becoming a great one.
We're talking the T-virus, Umbrella, Spencer Mansion, missing monsters, questionable character changes, Wesker, Leon, Claire, Jill, and whether trying to combine multiple games ultimately doomed the movie.
Then we unleash some wonderfully unhinged audience reviews before closing with our Top Five Resident Evil games.
Is Welcome to Raccoon City the adaptation fans wanted, or another wasted opportunity?

In Part I of Xenomania's The Faculty, we're heading back to Herrington High to talk Robert Rodriguez, Kevin Williamson, the extremely '90s soundtrack, and one absolutely stacked cast.
Does The Faculty still hold up? Are any of these teachers believable? Why is Usher here? Is Zeke actually cool? And would you really buy drugs from Josh Hartnett?
Plus, we put Robert Rodriguez's filmography through Slash or Stash.
In Part II of Xenomania's The Faculty, we're digging into the monster gimmick, the homemade drugs, the alien queen, and why the movie's second half doesn't work nearly as well for some of us as the first.
We also tackle the huge influence of The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, some wildly divided audience reviews, and finally our Top Fives.
So, after 28 years, is The Faculty still a cult classic, or is nostalgia keeping it alive?

Sex, murder, alligators, and one extremely questionable farmhouse. Welcome to Ti West's X.
This week on Xenomania, we're heading back to 1979 for Ti West's X, where a group of young filmmakers arrive at an isolated Texas farm hoping to make an adult movie and leave with considerably fewer cast members than they started with.
But underneath the blood and grindhouse aesthetics is a surprisingly strange little horror movie.
We get into whether X actually hooked us from the beginning, the bizarre mainstream moment adult films experienced during the 1970s, rental culture, the real-life Farmer's Daughter connection, and the story of Spalding Gray. We also talk about Ti West's decision to put Mia Goth in dual roles, whether the characters are actually likable, and whether any of us initially realized who was underneath all that old-age makeup.
We break down the movie's extensive foreshadowing, Easter eggs, kills, and the clues Ti West plants before things go spectacularly wrong. We also tackle the bigger question at the center of the movie: does Pearl actually work as a horror villain?
And with X becoming a hit for A24 and launching an entire trilogy, we look at what made this filthy little throwback connect with audiences in the first place.
Who walks away with the movie, Mia Goth or Jenna Ortega?
Grab your camera, stay out of the lake, and whatever you do, don't piss off the elderly couple who own the property.
Welcome to X.

The Deadites are back. The blood is flowing. And apparently someone decided a chainsaw wasn't enough anymore.
This week on Xenomania, we're digging into Evil Dead Burn, the latest descent into the wonderfully deranged world of The Evil Dead.
With a new female lead stepping into the nightmare and a jackhammer joining the franchise's increasingly ridiculous arsenal of improvised demon-killing hardware, Burn has a hell of a legacy to live up to.
Because Evil Dead isn't just another horror franchise.
From Sam Raimi's low-budget nightmare in the woods to Ash Williams, Evil Dead II, Army of Darkness, the 2013 remake, Ash vs Evil Dead, and Evil Dead Rise, this series has spent decades reinventing itself without completely losing the nasty little soul buried underneath.
So where does Evil Dead Burn fit?
We get into the new characters, the Deadites, the practical insanity, the franchise's evolving mythology, the new setting, and—of course—the decision to hand our heroine a freaking jackhammer.
But we're also asking the bigger question:
How far can Evil Dead evolve before it stops feeling like Evil Dead?
Grab the Necronomicon, ignore every warning written inside it, and join us for Xenomania.
What could possibly go wrong?
Xenomania is a horror podcast exploring horror classics, cult favorites, modern nightmares, creature features, franchise deep dives, and everything wonderfully strange lurking in the dark.

This week on Xenomania, all aboard for Train to Busan (2016)—the South Korean zombie phenomenon that took a speeding train, filled it with the undead, and created one of the most relentless zombie movies of the modern era.
Ryan experiences the movie for the first time, while Jon and Kearns return to a film that somehow manages to make its confined train setting feel bigger and more dangerous with every passing minute. We get into Yeon Sang-ho's direction, the incredible physicality of the infected, fast zombies versus shamblers, the influence of George Romero, and those unforgettable sequences where sheer masses of bodies come crashing through glass.
But Train to Busan isn't only about zombie carnage.
We also meet the characters who give the movie its heart, including Seok-woo, a distant father whose relationship with his daughter Soo-an becomes increasingly important as the outbreak spirals out of control—and Sang-hwa, who immediately establishes himself as exactly the kind of human wrecking ball you want beside you during a zombie apocalypse.
Along the way we talk Korean horror, World War Z, Peninsula, Seoul Station, zombified animals, claustrophobic horror, streaming's role in bringing international genre films to American audiences—and why Yeon Sang-ho may have made a movie that's almost impossible for him to top.

This week on Xenomania, we're heading into Insidious, James Wan's supernatural horror hit that helped reshape mainstream horror in the early 2010s.
When Dalton Lambert suddenly falls into an unexplained coma, his family begins experiencing increasingly disturbing supernatural activity. But the problem isn't the house. Dalton has wandered into The Further, and something on the other side wants his body.
In this episode, we revisit why Insidious felt so fresh when it first hit theaters, why the first stretch of the movie still builds dread so effectively, James Wan's approach to suspense, the effectiveness of the first 30–40 minutes, the Red-Faced Demon's diminishing returns, astral projection and The Further, the similarities to Poltergeist, and whether the film loses some of its power once the supernatural mythology takes over.
We also get into the Red-Faced Demon, Josh's questionable parenting, the movie's take on astral projection, the similarities to Poltergeist, and whether Elise, Specs, and Tucker help the film—or push it too far into camp. And because one Lin Shaye discussion apparently wasn't enough, Jon unveils a brand-new game: Shaye or Nay.
If you love supernatural horror, haunted-house movies, James Wan, creepy family dramas, and horror films that divide the room, this episode is for you.
🎙 About Xenomania
Xenomania is a horror podcast exploring horror classics, cult favorites, supernatural nightmares, modern hits, franchise deep dives, and everything strange lurking beneath the surface.