The Horror Pod Class: Season 3 Episode 29: The Monster Club With Jason Teal
Welcome to the Junior Year Episode 28 of the Horror Pod Class. My name is Tyler and I am the editor-in-chief of Signal Horizon, a magazine dedicated to exploring horror both in and out of the classroom. When I’m not managing Signal Horizon, I am a teacher at a local high school here in Kansas City, Missouri. Tonight, as I am every night, I am joined by my co-host and monster ambassador here at Signal Horizon, award-winning writer Orrin Grey! Today we have a very special guest.
Jason Teal is a writer, editor and publisher at Heavy Feather Review, He is a specter now living in the Little Apple of Kansas. His first book, We Were Called Specimens: An Oral Archive of Deity Marjorie, is forthcoming from KERNPUNKT Press in July 2020. He currently hosts Driptorch Open Mic + Featured Readings at Arrow Coffee Co. One last rec from Jason.
Welcome to the show JASON
What have we been reading or watching
Jason: Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell (More stories about cancer and space ships casper kelly), What We Do in the Shadows, One Bloody Thing After Another Joey Comeau. John Waters-This Young Monster by Charlie Fox from The Lifted Brow publishing.
http://intosurvival.blogspot.com/2012/10/some-good-trigger-free-horror-movies.html?m=1
Orrin: The Vast of Night
Tyler: Beach House, The Relic, Mostly the protests, Also One Cut of the Dead
Dark Corners of the Web
Nebula Award Finalist for Best Short Story
https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/12/27/102333/deepfake-girlfriend-fiction-story/
I (28M) created a deepfake girlfriend and now my parents think we’re getting married
A fiction story about artificial romance
By Fonda Lee
Essential Question: What Can The Monster Club teach us about how to structure an anthology.
Range of voices tones, styles, approaches to storytelling. If you don’t have those then why read a book!
Gooey center is where the humor sleeps lest the entire collection become a joke
R Chetwynd-Hayes British pulp fiction writer – the bookstore display we always wanted but never see; also the author being amused by their work on display, funny
Roy Ward Baker – Hammer director / Milton Subotsky producer of Amicus films, one of which, From Beyond the Grave, also based on stories Chetwynd-Hayes wrote
Sword & Sorcery productions started after Amicus – something like Full Moon Features today? Or is there too big a difference?
They’re so obviously masks – camp played up for lighthearted tender hearted celebrations?
Great Opening Band
I would totally go to the Monster Club. It feels like a holiday pop up bar.
This cool stuff could only exist in KC, not my kansas…
Wait is the author drinking o positive blood with Erasmus? They didn’t say what he ordered…
RA Bakerton is an amazing songwriter that sounds like Al Yankovic doing Monster Mash (see “Bang Bang”)—also the band Night (Stevie Vann strip song) and UB40 (soundtrack only) somehow attached to this film; or the lost art of the compilation album
I want the monster genealogy chart bad!
23&me but monsters – could be a hit like Japanese Fighting MonstersTM (Digimon is a recent obsession of mine and confuses the heck out of any traceable genealogy)
Read All the stories Vallencourt Books
https://www.valancourtbooks.com/the-monster-club-1976.html
Basic Rules of Monsterdom
Vampires suck
Werewolves hunt
Ghouls tear
Shaddys lick
Maddys yawn
Mocks blow
Shadmocks whistle
https://www.comingsoon.net/horror/features/798337-in-praise-of-1981s-the-monster-club
The cat steals the show – other famous horror cats?
Donald Pleasance’s BSquad of vampire hunters – why is he a clergy before he is a blues brother? And why violins?
Meta humegoo story about making a movie feels meta, and necessary for any anthology
Humor and horror are the perfect couple – I need to read more of Cherwynd-Hayes’ work (even the anthology by Stephen Jones I guess)
Crazy use of multiple formats – EC comic style exposition and animated strip tease; haven’t seen a modern movie take a stab at this since Starfish, and to much different results
Stake proof vests – how do they work? And why are the stakes sanded and stained?
https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/lists/10-great-anthology-horror-films
Check out the music below
Not everybody likes this
https://worstmoviesevermade.com/best-worst-movies-ever-monster-club-1981/
AAU
I only had to watch 5 minutes of this movie to know what it was going to be like. Humans and monsters as friends is just impossible. Also, the monsters aren’t classic (like Dracula is just chatting away) instead of everyone being more scary they’re just like humans themselves, only worse… You don’t even have to look at this review to know what it’s like. Nude people, more than human-like monsters, and the plot and action make this movie the lone star of the losers of the world of horror videos. One last time, I urge you: DON’T WATCH THIS MOVIE FOR YOUR OWN GOOD. Even if you didn’t watch it you’ll be glad.
Next Week: Leslie Kurtz
Tyler has been the editor in chief of Signal Horizon since its conception. He is also the Director of Monsters 101 at Truman State University a class that pairs horror movie criticism with survival skills to help middle and high school students learn critical thinking. When he is not watching, teaching or thinking about horror he is the Director of Debate and Forensics at a high school in Kansas City, Missouri.