Eros + Massacre

Samm Deighan
  • 4.8 (30)
  • FILM HISTORY
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Eros + Massacre is a cinema podcast hosted by Samm Deighan, focusing on everything from cult and psychotronic to weird arthouse, East Asian movies, and the less frequently explored avenues of film history.

  1. 10/31/2025

    Episode 25: Telephone Terror with Erica Shultz

    Squeezing in one last special episode for the Halloween season, this is another subject I’ve been dying to talk about since I started Eros + Massacre. Erica Shultz was kind enough to join me to discuss about a series of ’70s and ’80s thrillers and horror movies featuring the phone as a source of terror. You probably know Erica from her podcast, Unsung Horrors, and her book, The Sweetest Taboo: An Unapologetic Guide to Child Kills in Film. She has an upcoming Miskatonic lecture on November 18th all about that very subject, so get your tickets here. We start off mentioning the early classics, like Black Christmas (1974) and When a Stranger Calls (1979), before diving in to more obscure efforts like Someone’s Watching Me! (1978), Don’t Answer the Phone (1980), Eyes of a Stranger (1981), Murder by Phone (1982), Disconnected (1983), Open House (1987), and Out of the Dark (1988). We talk a lot about how the phone and technology function in these films,and the bliss of life before cell phones, among many other things. Answer the phone at your own risk! Happy Halloween, everyone!!!

    2h 4m

  2. 10/28/2025

    Episode 24: The Hammer Dracula Spectacular with Keith Allison

    It took me YEARS to make this episode happen, but I am finally triumphant, thanks to my generous and tolerant co-host, Keith Allison. You might remember him as my guest for our episode last year on beach party movies, or know him from his many years writing about cinema, including his book Cocktails and Capers: Cult Cinema, Cocktails, Crime, & Cool. Keith joined me to talk about one of my favorite things in the entire world, the Hammer Dracula series: Dracula (1958), The Brides of Dracula (1960), Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), Scars of Dracula (1970), Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973), and The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974). As you might imagine, we have a LOT to say about the series, the evolution of Hammer horror, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, our favorite entries, lots of hot takes, and so on. Here is the trailer Keith mentioned for a fake TV show called The Van Helsing Mysteries.

    2h 37m

  3. 09/12/2025

    Episode 23: The Desolation of Kiyoshi Kurosawa (1989-1999)

    It’s officially the beginning of Halloween season and the end of the Japanese celebration of the dead, Obon. Obon is celebrated at different times in different parts of the country, though it is traditionally mid-August. I’m being a little flexible with the dates here, because I want to start doing an annual Obon-themed episode that focuses on Japanese folklore, horror, and the supernatural. This episode is also an experiment — it’s my first solo episode of Eros + Massacre, which is something I’ve been planning to do for a while. For this one I’m discussing the horror genre’s lord and savior, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the only person who should be allowed to make new horror movies. For this episode, which I’m hoping will be the start of a recurring Kurosawa series, I’m discussing the horror movies and thrillers he made between 1989 and 1999: the special effects-driven haunted house romp Sweet Home (1989); his segment in the anthology film Dangerous Stories (1989), about a writer visited by homicidal ghost samurai with a boombox; the absurdist office slasher The Guard from Hell (1992); his effective body horror outing about an insurance saleswoman, Door III (1996); the sublime Cure (1997), contender for scariest film of all time; deconstructed revenge thriller Serpent’s Path (1998) and its wonderful sequel, Eyes of the Spider (1998); his segment about a malevolent tree spirit attacking high school students in the anthology film School Ghost Story G (1998); and his interpretation of absurdist folk horror, Charisma (1999), about a polarizing tree.

    1h 37m

  4. 08/27/2025

    Kenji Misumi's Sword Trilogy with Curtis Tsui

    This is an extra special episode near and dear to my heart, since Kenji Misumi has become one of my favorite directors, largely because of the Sword trilogy. Though his name may be unfamiliar to many of you, you have likely seen a few of his films: he directed most of the Lone Wolf and Cub series and many Zatoichi films. Longtime Criterion producer Curtis Tsui — who worked on both of those sets — joined me to discuss some of Misumi’s less frequently seen or discussed masterpieces. We briefly discuss the great Satan’s Sword (1960) trilogy, but focus mostly on his loosely connected Sword trilogy starring the wonderful Raizo Ichikawa, which includes Kiru (Destiny’s Son, 1962), the Yukio Mishima adaptation Ken (The Sword, 1964), and the supernatural-tinged Kenki (Sword Devil, 1965). We also spend a fair amount of time in the second half of the episode talking about his gothic, apocalyptic Devil’s Temple (1969), an adaptation of a play from ero guro master Jun’ichiro Tanizaki starring Shintaro Katsu (Zatoichi) as a horny, blood-soaked hedonist; and Internal Sleuth (1973), starring Katsu’s real-life brother Tomisaburo Wakayama (star of the Lone Wolf and Cub series) as a beleaguered detective up against a chaotic yakuza syndicate. We also very briefly bring up Misumi’s final film, the epic The Last Samurai (1974), which I wish we had more time to dive into. All of these films are incredible and come with the HIGHEST possible recommendation. Even if you’re not frothing at the mouth over chanbara films the way I am, all of these are masterclasses in filmmaking. I’m begging all of you to watch at least one of them.

  5. 07/09/2025

    Episode 21: Jess Franco’s Red Lips with John Dickson

    Chicago film programmer John Dickson, from the Oscarbate podcast and film collective, joined me for another wild discussion of Jess Franco’s spy/detective films. This time we’re talking about most of the movies in his Red Lips series, focusing on two female friends (and later, lovers), who are imaginative young strippers and/or cabaret performers who moonlight as private detectives, spies, vigilantes, Interpol informants, and so on. This episode covers Tio Jess’s debut film, We Are 18 Years Old (1959), which is the origin of the character types even if it isn’t officially in the series, plus Red Lips (1960), Two Undercover Angels (1969), Kiss Me Monster (1969), Les emmerdeuses (1976), and Two Female Spies with Flowered Panties (1980). And if you’re in NYC from July 12-16, John and Will from Oscarbate are presenting a slew of Franco screenings, including a marathon at Spectacle Theater, a double feature of the 4K restorations of Vampyros Lesbos and She Killed in Ecstasy, Venus in Furs on 35mm, and Lorna: The Exorcist on 35mm. Find links to all the events and tickets here.

    1h 48m

  6. 06/16/2025

    Episode 20: Hamburger The Motion Picture with Shawn Porter

    Since we’re on the verge of summer, it seemed like the perfect time for my first episode on American sex comedies. After years of asking, I finally listened to reason and sat down with gentleman pervert Shawn Porter, who has been proselytizing to me about the joys of Hamburger: The Motion Picture (1986) for far too long. You might remember Shawn from the Jamie Gillis episode of Twitch of the Death Nerve, but he also runs the body modification archive Sacred Debris, an important resource documenting the history of tattooing, piercing, other body mods, which focuses on a lot of folks in the queer and leather communities. But he’s also the world’s biggest Hamburger: The Motion Picture fan. We spend most of the episode talking about just how surreal, absurd, and incredible it is — it follows a class of hopefuls who attend a fast food university and is part sex comedy and part satire of American capitalism. We also discuss Hot Dog… The Movie (1984) and the connections between the two, Tarot cards, Road House, Porky’s, Hard Bodies, The Mutilator, Cheech and Chong’s Nice Dreams, Summer School, Waterpower, Better Off Dead, my hatred for John Hughes, and so much more. This episode is tasty, by God, though I should warn you that there’s a lot of laughing (and I actually cried with laughter while trying to edit it). If you have trouble finding Hamburger: The Motion Picture, I will help you out of that pickle.

    1h 48m

  7. 05/28/2025

    Episode 19: Shuji Terayama’s Pastoral with Angura Research Center

    Clara from Angura Research Center was kind enough to join me for this episode on one of cinema’s greatest surrealists, Shuji Terayama. Poet, writer, master of underground theater (known as angura in Japanese) and experimental cinema, and so much more, Terayama had an incredibly rich, prolific career in many art forms, which blend together influences from classical Japanese theater, pop culture, folklore, deeply personal elements of biography, etc. Consider this episode more of an introduction to Terayama: we break down why he is so important and mainly discuss one of his more accessible films, the beautiful Pastoral: To Die in the Country (1974). We also talk about his influential experimental theater troupe, Tenjo Sajiki, and some of his short films, namely Laura (1974), The Trial (1975), The Cage (1964), and Grass Labyrinth (1979), among a few other titles. I strongly recommend checking out the Angura Research Center if you want to explore more about Terayama and Tenjo Sajiki. Clara has been doing really important work translating filmed versions of his plays, which you can watch on her YouTube channel, and writing essays on her site that give some really helpful cultural and historical context. The books we mention in the episode are from Carol Sorgenfrei and Steven Ridgely. All the music in the episode is from Terayama’s lifelong collaborator, JA Seazer, and his score to Pastoral. (And if you do a little digging, you can find the majority of Terayama’s short films on YouTube, all scored by Seazer, though beware that the YouTube version of The Trial that I linked to has some other music included.)

    1h 36m

  8. 04/21/2025

    Episode 18: Teen Delinquent Hell with Byron Lueders

    Ditch class, rev your engines, sharpen your switchblades, and roll up some reefer! Extremely patient friend of the show Byron Lueders joined me for this episode that we recorded four score and seven years ago (or at least that’s how long it feels), all about American teenage girl gang films in the 1950s and ’60s. In the episode, we focus primarily on Girl Gang (1954), Teenage Crime Wave (1955), One Way Ticket to Hell (1955), The Violent Years (1956), Teenage Doll (1957), The Delinquents (1957), Live Fast, Die Young (1958), and Teenage Gang Debs (1966). We discuss: the rise of “teenager” culture in postwar America and how many of these films suggest that the America dream is toxic garbage; class warfare; the horrors of the Hays Code; teen partying and drug use on screen; proto-exploitation cinema; directors like Robert Altman, Roger Corman, and Paul Henreid (?!); and of course we have a lot of say about eyeliner, custom biker jackets, and 1950s hairstyles. Follow Byron on Instagram at @byronlueders and check out his new bootleg shirt shop here!

    1h 37m
See All (27)

4.8
out of 5
30 Ratings

About

Eros + Massacre is a cinema podcast hosted by Samm Deighan, focusing on everything from cult and psychotronic to weird arthouse, East Asian movies, and the less frequently explored avenues of film history.

Information

  • Creator
    Samm Deighan
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2025
  • Episodes
    27
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2024
  • Show Website
    Eros + Massacre

You Might Also Like