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The Slumber Party Massacre (Jones 1982)

This film is a cult classic. Written by Rita Mae Brown who also penned Rubyfruit Jungle and was an avowed feminist and civil rights advocate it was supposedly written as a feminist response to the first wave slasher films of the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, Amy Holden Jones who directed the film may have been more interested in producing something successfully commercial and possibly deliberately within the exploitation genre. We think we see both of these strains competing in the film. And as you might imagine, that makes for a unique film!

Join us for the full discussion.

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SPOILERS IN THIS EPISODE

The Slumber Party Massacre (Jones 1982)

TOPIC INDEX – The Slumber Party Massacre  (Jones 1982) (times are approximate) 

0:30 – Introductions

3:15 – Discussion begins

3:15 – Marshall’s history with the film

8:30 – the film’s messaging as relatively progressive (for 1982)

15:00 – satire and filmmaker intent

24:00 – nudity in comparison

25:00 – phallic symbols

29:00 – male gaze

30:00 – kills

40:00 – grading the film using the Collective Nightmares Evolving Rubric of Social Responsibility

Related Episodes

I Spit on Your Grave (Zarchi 1978)

Related Films

Carrie (DePalma 1976)

Credits

Edited and processed with Audacity. Free, cross-platform, open source, and awesome.

https://www.audacityteam.org/

We would very much appreciate any contributions to help offset the cost of producing the podcast. Thanks! paypal.me/collectivenightmares

Thanks for listening. Please let us know your thoughts.

• www.collectivenightmares.com

• IG: @collectivenightmares

• Marshall@collectivenightmares.com

• Laura@collectivenightmares.com

“Horror films are our collective nightmares.”

Episode 112

Keywords

horror, podcast, sociology, gender, sisters, feminist, slasher, phallic symbols, queer, satire, parody, male gaze, exploitation, nudity, killer,

Titane (Ducournau 2021)

One of the more bizarre films we have ever watched, and that is saying something! Docournau has managed to produce a film that transcends most hegemonic  categories and divisions. This effectively disarms viewers pushing them into experiencing the film emotionally rather than analytically. This is no small feat. The deserved winner of the 2021 Palm d’Or at Cannes. Let this film drive over you and then join us for our full discussion.

There is lots more of our podcast! Please listen, review, subscribe, and tell your friends.



SPOILERS IN THIS EPISODE

Titane (Ducournau 2021)

TOPIC INDEX – Titane  (Ducournau 2021) (times are approximate) 

0:30 – Introductions

6:00 – Discussion begins

6:00 – laying out the gender pieces

7:00 – West and Zimmerman – gender as omnipresent

11:30 – serial killing

21:00 – relationships and fire

27:00 – femininity and masculinity

29:00 correction – “queer” should be “heterosexual”

36:30 – vibes

44:30 – Los Angeles Times interview with Ducournau

48:00 – comparisons to Henry

52:00 – outside hegemoinc systems and outside binaries

55:00 – emotional experience of the film

1:06:00 – hope

1:14:00 – resist

1:29:00 – KUSO (Lotus 2017)

14:20 – SPOILERS begin

1:02:00 – filmmaking and plot movement

1:23:10 – grading the film using the Collective Nightmares Evolving Rubric of Social Responsibility

Related Episodes

In My Skin (de Van 2002)

Crimes of the Future (Cronenberg 2023)

Monster (Jenkins 2003)

Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer (McNaughton 1986)

Knives and Skin (Reeder 2019)

Kuso (Lotus 2017)

Related Films

Crash (Cronenberg 1996)

Credits

Edited and processed with Audacity. Free, cross-platform, open source, and awesome.

https://www.audacityteam.org/

We would very much appreciate any contributions to help offset the cost of producing the podcast. Thanks! paypal.me/collectivenightmares

Thanks for listening. Please let us know your thoughts.

• www.collectivenightmares.com

• IG: @collectivenightmares

• Marshall@collectivenightmares.com

• Laura@collectivenightmares.com

“Horror films are our collective nightmares.”

Episode 111

Keywords

horror, podcast, sociology, gender, cars, vehicles, fire, metal, abortion, baby, sexuality, masculinity, femininity, pregnancy, nudity, sociopath, outside the binary, binary, cyborg, bizarre, fetish, family

Squid Game – Season 1 (Dong-hyuk 2021)

Join us for the full discussion.

Our first foray into television. This was recorded when Squid Game was at peak popularity. The show is brilliant in execution and rife with sociological content. The series especially excels at drawing connections the show makes between structural circumstances and individual agency, which is the foundation of the sociological imagination. These connections are sometimes taught as the relationships between a buffet (structure) and what people choose to put on their plate (agency). People can only really make choices from the options that are presented to them. In an individualistic culture like the U.S. we focus intently on what people have on their plate, while often completely ignoring the options that were presented in the buffet. Squid Game consistently and clearly makes these connections clear and we are here for it!

This is a long episode and we still definitely didn’t cover all the sociology in it, but we did what we could.

There is lots more of our podcast! Please listen, review, subscribe, and tell your friends.



SPOILERS IN THIS EPISODE

Squid Game (Dong-hyuk 2021)

TOPIC INDEX – Squid Game  (Dong-hyuk 2021) (times are approximate) 

0:30 – Introductions

6:00 – Discussion begins

6:00 – thoughts on the ending

10:30 – laying out our topics

16:00 – structure and agency

18:00 – linking game to society

30:00 – Zimbardo’s prison experiment

32:00 – Mills’ sociological imagination

34:30 – anomie

35:00 – is the Squid Game better?

38:00 – sociological imagination

40:00 – structure vs agency

46:00 – heroes and villains

49:00 – social contract

56:00 – dyads and tryads

57:00 – the ending plot recap

1:13:30 – marble game

1:19:30 – is it horror?

1:23:00 – white collar crime

1:26:00 – structural vs individual violence

1:31:00 – ethnicity and nationality

1:32:00 – Korea, communism, capitalism

1:46:30 – sexuality

14:20 – SPOILERS begin

1:02:00 – filmmaking and plot movement

1:23:10 – grading the series using the Collective Nightmares Evolving Rubric of Social Responsibility

Related Episodes

Wiener Dog (Solondz 2016)

Dark Waters (Haynes 2019)

Credits

Edited and processed with Audacity. Free, cross-platform, open source, and awesome.

https://www.audacityteam.org/

We would very much appreciate any contributions to help offset the cost of producing the podcast. Thanks! paypal.me/collectivenightmares

Thanks for listening. Please let us know your thoughts.

• www.collectivenightmares.com

• IG: @collectivenightmares

• Marshall@collectivenightmares.com

• Laura@collectivenightmares.com

“Horror films are our collective nightmares.”

Episode 110

Keywords

horror, podcast, sociology, social contract, tv show, trust, capitalism, structure, agency, inequity, myth of meritocracy, meritocracy, equality of opportunity, guilt, complicit, existential, pessimism, optimism, communism, capitalism, Korea, sociological imagination, dyads, tryads, gender, family, children

Violation (Mancinelli and Sims-Fewer 2020)

We spent much of this episode confused as to details of this film. Please don’t come after us for this confusion until you listen through to the end. We do finally clarify our understanding of the film and respond to the text as it stands. It’s quite something to have the interpretation of a film hinge on ice cream and sleep. It was a journey to get to the end and figure it all out, but we did it! Part of the podcast is our exploration of the film as we experienced it while watching. And we account for the fact that we both needed to rewatch specific parts of the film after our initial viewing in order to resolve our impressions of the film. Learning and understanding is a process. That is much of why we do this. We hope you find our evolution during this episode interesting as well.

My confusion is likely a byproduct of my privilege and I will try to do better in the future. – Marshall

Join us for the full discussion.

There is lots more of our podcast! Please listen, review, subscribe, and tell your friends.



SPOILERS IN THIS EPISODE

Violation (Sims-Fewer and Mancinelli 2020)

TOPIC INDEX – Violation  (Mancinelli and Sims-Fewer 2020) (times are approximate) 

0:30 – Introductions

4:15 – Movie discussion begins

5:00 – overall takes – NO SPOILERS

15:00 – depictions of sexual assault

20:00 – resisting problematic readings

31:00 – still on interpretations especially allegiance

35:00 – emotional experience of the film

38:00 – our views of humanity

41:00 – a lighter topic

43:00 – intensity modulation and audience engagement

48:30 – SPOILERS for Proxy

54:30 – Ice cream

1:13:00 – filmmaking and plot movement

1:23:10 – grading the film using the Collective Nightmares Evolving Rubric of Social Responsibility

1:28:00 – post credits chat including Tom Six’s film post The Human Centipede trilogy, The Onania Club.

Related Episodes

Black Christmas (Takal 2019)

Promising Young Woman (Fennell 2020)

Scalene (Parker 2011)

Proxy (Parker 2013)

Credits

Edited and processed with Audacity. Free, cross-platform, open source, and awesome.

https://www.audacityteam.org/

We would very much appreciate any contributions to help offset the cost of producing the podcast. Thanks! paypal.me/collectivenightmares

Thanks for listening. Please let us know your thoughts.

• www.collectivenightmares.com

• IG: @collectivenightmares

• Marshall@collectivenightmares.com

• Laura@collectivenightmares.com

“… horror films: they are our collective nightmares.”

  – Robin Wood

Episode 109

Keywords

horror, podcast, sociology, binary, revenge, outside the binary, rape, rape revenge, unreliable narrator, sisters, vision, eyeglasses, ice cream, sexual assault,

There’s Someone Inside Your House (Brice 2021)

We thought we could finally be done with Wan, but we ended up watching one he co-produced. Still conservative in ideology, the film does show some advances in diversity and representation. Could this be a shift in the baseline expectations of inclusion in horror films and if so what does that mean for the genre?

Also, we definitely have to give the film its due accolades for the intriguing and innovative title.

Join us for the full discussion.

There is lots more of our podcast! Please listen, review, subscribe, and tell your friends.



SPOILERS IN THIS EPISODE

There’s Someone Inside Your House (Brice 2021)

TOPIC INDEX – There’s Someone Inside Your House  (Brice 2021) (times are approximate) 

0:30 – Introductions

4:15 – Movie discussion begins

5:00 – overall takes – NO SPOILERS

6:00 – societal fears

8:00 – punishing racism

9:30 – Marshall doesn’t get it

14:00 – new horror genre fears

22:00 -who dies and why

25:00 – secrets

26:30 – research methods

39:00 back to societal fears

42:00 – women and gender roles

44:00 – or James Wan’s involvement

50:00 – streaming compared to direct to video

53:00 – progress and not with gender and sexuality

59:00 – characters

1:02:00 – filmmaking and plot movement

1:23:10 – grading the film using the Collective Nightmares Evolving Rubric of Social Responsibility

Related Episodes

We Summon the Darkness (Meyers 2019)

Saw (Wan 2004)

Malignant (Wan 2021)

Summer of ’84 (Simard, Whissell, & Whissell)

Related Films

Sleepaway Camp (Hiltzik 1983)

Credits

Edited and processed with Audacity. Free, cross-platform, open source, and awesome.

https://www.audacityteam.org/

We would very much appreciate any contributions to help offset the cost of producing the podcast. Thanks! paypal.me/collectivenightmares

Thanks for listening. Please let us know your thoughts.

• www.collectivenightmares.com

• IG: @collectivenightmares

• Marshall@collectivenightmares.com

• Laura@collectivenightmares.com

“Horror films are our collective nightmares.”

Episode 108

Keywords

horror, podcast, sociology, inclusive, non-binary, multi-racial relationships, diversity, addiction, mental health, bullying, pre-marital sex, corporate greed, nostalgia, binary, secrets, gay characters, privilege, fun,

Malignant (Wan 2021)

Join us for the full discussion.

There is lots more of our podcast! Please listen, review, subscribe, and tell your friends.



SPOILERS IN THIS EPISODE

Malignant (Wan 2021)

TOPIC INDEX – Malignant  (Wan 2021) (times are approximate) 

0:30 – Introductions

4:15 – Movie discussion begins

5:00 – overall takes – NO SPOILERS

6:00 – Laura’s over it with Wan

11:00 – establishing cohesion and continuity in film

14:20 – SPOILERS begin

15:00 – wealth inequality and horror incredulity

21:30 – story recap

26:30 – positive aspects of the film

32:00 – gender representation

44:00 – women as reproductive vessels in the Wan-iverse

52:00 – considering counter arguments

55:00 – abusive relationships

1:04:00 – privilege

1:05:30 – carnivalesque vs classical bodies

1:13:30 – creature

1:15:30 – objectifying vs humanizing

1:17:00 – filmmaking and plot movement

1:23:10 – grading the film using the Collective Nightmares Evolving Rubric of Social Responsibility

Related Episodes

Saw (Wan 2004)

Insidious (Wan 2010)

The Conjuring (Wan 2013)

Credits

Edited and processed with Audacity. Free, cross-platform, open source, and awesome.

https://www.audacityteam.org/

We would very much appreciate any contributions to help offset the cost of producing the podcast. Thanks! paypal.me/collectivenightmares

Thanks for listening. Please let us know your thoughts.

• www.collectivenightmares.com

• IG: @collectivenightmares

• Marshall@collectivenightmares.com

• Laura@collectivenightmares.com

“Horror films are our collective nightmares.”

Episode 107

Keywords

horror, podcast, sociology, shock, jump scares, schlock, wealth inequality, privilege, rape, sexual assault, siblings, twins, medical, telekenesis, Harry Potter, gender, women, babies, mothers, sexist, kinship, chosen family, families, adoption, abuse, trauma, stereotypes, jail, Othering, carnivalesque, bodies, heterosexist, creature, monstrous, monster, rationality,