The Desire of Horror

Charla Ferguson and Martin Essig
  • 5.0 (11)
  • FILM REVIEWS
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

Charla's love of horror movies combine with Marty's love of psychoanalysis and history of religions. This is a review and analysis of horror movies and what they say about desire.   You can purchase a t-shirt here: http://tee.pub/lic/tN64T8XLATU

  1. 6D AGO

    21. Deep Blue Sea

    One of the most common and ancient themes of horror is that of human transgression of the "natural" world. In Western Mythology this history of transgression begins with Prometheus's giving to humankind the ambiguous gift of fire, which introduced humanity's first alienation from the natural world as its preference for the "cooked" over the "raw," and for civilization over the wild. And this alienation has only increased over time as humanity has learned to separate itself from nature through "Pharmakon" (medicine) and "Techne" (technology). The transgressive nature of human progress is, perhaps, captured most famously when Eve partakes and then offers Adam the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. So, perhaps it is fitting that it is a Daughter of Eve (tongue in cheek), Dr. Susan Mcalester, played by Saffron Burrows who is both the initiator and the demise of the "Deep Blue" project. Deep Blue is a controversial genetic engineering effort to find a pharmacological technology for curing Alzheimer's by producing giant Mako sharks for their amazingly reparative brains, which may offer a biological solution to the horrible disease's infamous recalcitrance. But nature does not like to be violated, especially when it is in the form of a Mako Shark. But, is curing Alzheimer's worth whatever consequences may follow?  Follow us @thedesireofhorrorpodcast: Instagram

    57 min

  2. JAN 6

    20. Anaconda

    Forget whatever you think you know about anacondas, you're about to get schooled. Anaconda starts out with some very brief but essential facts about the Amazonian native, like that anacondas enjoy regurgitating their prey in cat-like play with their food, which is the Chekov's Gun of anaconda facts for this raucous romp into the jungle. And it only gets crazier from there. Thank God that the movie provides us with John Voight's sleaze ball advice on everything from snake poaching to women. While it's almost unbearable to listen to his offensive "Spanish" accent, you'll love the 1980's video game snakes that Voight gets almost everybody killed trying to capture live. Voight's offensive "Spanish" accent and overly affected slime even turn fun-guy Owen Wilson insane with the weird promise of all the loot they'll get if Wilson will only help him to capture the hyperreal reptile. Come join us for a special time with those two goofballs, as well as J. Lo., Ice Cube, and the amazing hair of 1990's Eric Stoltz. Follow us @thedesireofhorrorpodcast: Instagram

    59 min

  3. 12/25/2025 · BONUS

    19. Gremlins

    Gremlins is a true Christmas classic. We had Marty's sister Andrea back for this very special Christmas addition of the Desire of Horror. Although there is much about the film that doesn't make sense, this nonsense makes it all the more madcap and raucous, which is enjoyable for some of the more demented among us. And Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without Phoebe Cates recounting the time that her idiot father died a gruesome death while trying to climb down the chimney with the family's Christmas booty. The message of this film may seem to have something to do with the grim reality of Christmas for those who are not the beneficiaries of Capitalism's bounties, or it may seem to be about the invasion of foreign products that reeked such havoc on American manufacturing, but probably its about how little Corey Feldman got excited about a grown man's comic book and knocked over some water onto an innocent Mogwai named "Gizmo," which started a plague of highly intelligent Gremlins that nearly destroyed Kingston Falls, and gave Phoebe Cates one more reason to hate Christmas. Follow us @thedesireofhorrorpodcast: Instagram

    1h 24m

  4. 12/23/2025

    18. Tremors

    The concept is sharks under the ground, which is extra terrifying because you can't get away from them by staying out of the water at Amity Island Beach. And these "Graboids," as they are so aptly named, terrorize the small town of "Perfection Nevada" in grand fashion from "The Deep" below its inhabitants' feet. Apparently, Kevin Bacon was at one time embarrassed about his role in this horror-comedy, but now that it has become a "cult classic," he's thinks fondly of this fun little flick. Not everything has to be so serious, Kevin Bacon, but these "dirt dragons," clearly based on the "Sandworms," or Shai-Hulud, if you prefer, of Frank Herbert's Dune novels, are nothing to trifle with. It takes a geologist (Finn Carter), two obscurely employed, possibly handy men (Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward), some doomsday preppers (Michael Gross and Reba McEntire), and a whole cast of other quirky folks to rid the Nevada Dessert of these menaces. And we welcome a Tremors expert since an inappropriately young age, my sister Andrea, onto this podcast to frame its finer points, provide some unbelievable behind the scenes insights, and yuck it up with us two fools. Follow us @thedesireofhorrorpodcast: Instagram

    1h 12m

  5. 12/16/2025

    17. Arachnophobia

    With so much about immigration in the news as of late, it is hard not to see Arachnophobia  as not somehow in dialog with the issue of middle America's obsession with being taken over by foreign invaders. Its release date was 1990, and immigration as well as relate concerns about the racial make up of America were certainly issues then as they are now, especially for bigots who remain a substantial portion of the American population. A particularly vicious breed of spider is accidentally taken from the Venezuelan Amazon back to an idealized, small town USA. It breeds with the white bread spiders of Canaima, perhaps a reference to Canaan, or maybe Cain himself, and produces a murderous breed of poisonous spiders that threaten to ruin the Heartland along with its traditional, country values. But don't worry (spoiler alert) the big city doctor, played by Jeff Daniels, recovers his manhood, overcomes his fear of spiders, and saves the "average" American's idea of how things used to, and therefore always should, be. And then for the sake fully returning the townsfolk back to their Eden and he to his, the good doctor moves his urban family back to the big city where there are more "native," natural disasters, such as San Franciscan earth quakes. The good, country folk are finally left in peace of their nostalgia.  Follow us @thedesireofhorrorpodcast: Instagram

    43 min

  6. 12/01/2025

    16. Jaws

    The desire of the unknowable other takes on new depths in the impenetrable, black eyes of a shark. Matt Hooper, the marine biologist played by Richard Dreyfuss, waxes poetic about the almost eternal perfection of the shark's form, which was designed by evolution for the singular purpose of hunting. But there is a sort of ambiguous place for the shark at the top of the of sea's food chain since the more recent arrival of an even more effective and vicious apex predatory in the form of the human intention. A shark's blank eyes may give no indication of its intentions, but at least they can be inferred from their actions. The human intention is belied by their eyes' deceptive transparency. Even when the human speaks its desire, it remains hidden. Human intention is unknowable both in relation to each other and to themselves. Hidden behind the thin veneer of the Freudian Unconscious, human intention lies in internal contradiction to itself.  Quint, played by Robert Shaw, is insane with his desire to confront the shark. Like Ahab's desire for the White Whale, it is a hidden intention that emerges as a reckless madness that puts the other crew in danger. But the specific contours of his obsession begin to emerge one evening out at sea when Quint recalls in nightmarish details his experience of being torpedoed while aboard the USS Indianapolis after delivering the Atomic Bombs during World War II. The sharks that attacked and killed most of the crew seem to represent the mystery at the heart of the blank violence of the war and especially of those incomprehensible blasts delivered to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Martin Brody, played by Roy Scheider, also must face his own demons presented as a phobia of water but which seem to express his feelings of impotence about the incomprehensible crime of 1970's New York City, which he left to live a simpler, more intentional, island life in the vacation town of Amity. But as Freud taught, whatever is repressed returns with a vengeance until it is faced head on. Follow us @thedesireofhorrorpodcast: Instagram

    53 min

  7. 11/18/2025

    15. The Birds

    We're starting the new season off with the genre-defining classic of nature horror, Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. This movie may be about the random, inexplicable, violent behavior of birds, but it is also about the random, inexplicable, violent behavior of people as well, especially when they they're in love. Hitchcock can't let one of his film's go without a needy, overbearing mother; nor a manic, child-like woman who needs a man to take care of her; nor a self-absorbed man unworthy of any woman's devotion. No less than four women (his mother, his sister, and two lovers) vie for the love and attention of the dispassionate Mitch, but Mitch's mother will aways win because he refuses to protect any of those interested in him from the judgement of his mother. Join us for a movie full of bizarre love triangles and a bird's eye view of human relations under the pressures of love. Follow us @thedesireofhorrorpodcast: Instagram

    54 min

  8. 11/04/2025

    14. Vampires Wrap-up

    Here we go with the vampire wrap up! It's been a bloody first season at the Desire of Horror podcast, and that's how we like it! Blood has always had a central place in the History of Religions. Almost every form of sacrifice, pact, and praise has involved either literal or figurative blood as the primary representative of the mysterious life force that courses through our veins but somehow doesn't seem to belong to us. Its mysterious doings are beyond us because blood, like life, is something that is given without our asking for it, and its many necessary life operations are performed mostly in the darkness outside of our conscious awareness. And when it flows are lost, often by similarly unmanageable circumstances, life is irrevocably lost as well. The vampire's dependence on blood for its strange form of life, if what is undead is in any sense "living," renders the vampire a total dependent on it, which often puts it in situations in which it must face its own impotents. Whatever sinister pact had to be entered into to obtain eternity, the vampire inevitably ends up on the losing end because the conditions for the continuation of un-death are an endless yearning for whatever it is that is in the blood that can't be gotten from it by the ritual transfusion of blood that vampires must perform to feed. They may get to be apex predators wielding uncanny power, but this strength is tempered by the misery of its many limits, not the least of which are extreme loneliness and ennui. Join us as we discuss how these advantages and their limitations are played out in each of the films that we viewed this season. Follow us @thedesireofhorrorpodcast: Instagram

    45 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
11 Ratings

About

Charla's love of horror movies combine with Marty's love of psychoanalysis and history of religions. This is a review and analysis of horror movies and what they say about desire.   You can purchase a t-shirt here: http://tee.pub/lic/tN64T8XLATU

Information

  • Creator
    Charla Ferguson and Martin Essig
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    21
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Desire of Horror
  • Show Website
    The Desire of Horror