425: 2025 Slasher’s Choice Awards

SPEAKER_06 0:11

Believe it or not, the stalk of shame is not a cornhub reference.

SPEAKER_04 0:14

Brought to you by the Cobb Gobbler. Seasons greetings and salutations and welcome to the 2025 Slasher's Choice Awards with Hacker Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. You are my affliction. If this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. We are a horror movie review podcast dedicated to telling you whether a movie is a hack, a total joke, a waste of time, or a slash. Totally killer, pun intended. We believe horror is for everyone, and as such, we rate the movies with the perspective we've gained from our varying walks of life and the flavors of fear we fancy most. My name is Chris, I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast. This week I'm joined by the classic horror connoisseur Sean.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

You have awakened me from an eternity of darkness.

SPEAKER_04 1:06

The paranormal paramour Binks.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

I dreamed a hot dog ate me last night. Like it ate me.

SPEAKER_04 1:12

The demonic darling Shell. Nothing's a toy. Not even the toys. And the found footage phonetic, Nathan.

SPEAKER_06 1:20

Take my knife and cut you from one set of lips to the other.

SPEAKER_04 1:23

Normally we're here to review movies, but this is our very last episode of 2025. Now in true hacker slash tradition, it's time for us to look back on the year, reflect on what we've done, and set our course for 2026. In this episode, we'll actually go through some of the best and worst in show, from survivors to villains to kills and overall films. We each gave our nomination for each category, and our listeners voted to decide each winner. But first up, let's see what 2025 looked like for us by the numbers brought to you as substitute teacher Shell.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

So it was another really busy year for Hackerslash. This year we did 66 total episodes that Hackerslash team did. Our total downloads this year were at 259,392. The total numbers of movies we watched was 53. The total hours of movies watched clocked in at just about 106.

SPEAKER_03 2:24

Hot damn.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

The total recording hours, if you can believe it, is 198. Which, if we count the current recording right now, we're probably hitting that 200 mark, guys. Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

For sure.

SPEAKER_07 2:36

We got it.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

So does that mean that technically we've been just talking a lot of smack with the other 90 hours in between, or maybe you know that's essentially what it means. Yes. Got it.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

So this is one that's extremely impressive. And this is, mind you, this is only being carried by just a few people on our team. 372 total editing hours.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Listen, and by a few people, let it be me to say that that's really Chris and Sean, okay? I don't know how to edit a damn thing. So let's give it a round of applause, a strong one at that for the two of them for really hunkering it down, especially for any same day releases. You know, those are real tough guys, and they lose sleep over that. So thank you both for that hard work.

SPEAKER_04 3:21

Thank you, Sean, because this number used to be in the 500s when I used to have to do it alone.

SPEAKER_07 3:25

Yeah, that's wild. Isn't that crazy?

SPEAKER_04 3:28

Imagine spending 500 hours a year on something. And that's and that something is fixing other people's words. So sorry. So sorry.

SPEAKER_07 3:37

Here to help, but I feel like, you know, we're getting better every year.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

So included in that, also we had 14 total hours of B-side content this year, which anyone who enjoyed us during the free sides or is a patron with us knows that there is some prime quality content in the B-sides.

SPEAKER_07 3:57

The B-sides, man, that's where it's at. You know, that's where all the fun happens. We talk about sometimes we start off thinking we're not gonna talk about anything important, like we don't even have good ideas, and then we just start talking and it turns into a whole d a whole another direction.

SPEAKER_04 4:14

I'm pretty sure that's how we got the Cob Gobbler.

SPEAKER_07 4:16

That is how we got the Cobble Gob Gobbler. Give us a little bit of free space to start talking about bullshit, and then it goes downhill real fast. That's all we need.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

So total hacks this year was 67. When you think about it, we've done 66 episodes, 53 movies. So there was there was some bloodbath going on, I feel like, this year.

SPEAKER_04 4:38

You know, you think that, and then you'd also see that we were, by comparison in just a moment, much nicer than we were mean.

SPEAKER_07 4:48

Very true. Yes. I think all those hacks were Binks.

SPEAKER_04 4:51

I wasn't gonna say it, but yeah, I think so. I think only like two of them were mine. I have to double check. Oh my god, no way. No, there had to have been at least three.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

So that's right. So we had three universal hacks this year. Pop quiz guide. Do you remember which ones this year those were?

SPEAKER_07 5:08

Hellhouse.

SPEAKER_04 5:08

Candy corn.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_07 5:10

Oh yeah, candy corn for sure. Wow. Uh, what is the third one?

SPEAKER_06 5:14

So I just listened to I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer. And I'm pretty sure that was a universal hack. First of all, that's a crime. I believe that.

SPEAKER_04 5:24

But wow. Whoa. Whoa.

SPEAKER_06 5:28

That may be number three.

SPEAKER_04 5:29

That is undoubtedly number three. Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_07 5:31

That sounds that sounds right. I guess we didn't always know.

SPEAKER_04 5:34

I'll always know what you did in Colorado. Completely unrelated to Southport, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_06 5:41

Please know what you hacked this summer.

SPEAKER_04 5:44

There it is.

SPEAKER_06 5:44

There it is.

SPEAKER_04 5:45

There it is. Thank God Nathan's here to correct the history books.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Alright, so total slashes that were given this year is 126. So, yes, you guys were pretty generous this year.

SPEAKER_07 5:58

We were having a good time this year's, is how I like to see it, you know?

SPEAKER_02 6:03

I like to think we were open.

SPEAKER_07 6:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Open open and vulnerable. I love that. Meanwhile, my entire year is falling apart and it reflects in my hacks. I'm so sorry. It's a lot.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

And this year we also had 28 universal slashes. So that's pretty good. That's that's over one-third.

SPEAKER_07 6:22

Is this a record for slashes and universal slashes?

SPEAKER_04 6:26

I think I need to go back and double check the history books. We'll start out in early next year when we do a follow-up episode. We will absolutely write the ship and write the records and reveal whether or not this was a record. I think it is though.

SPEAKER_07 6:39

It feels like one.

SPEAKER_04 6:41

We just had a good time and we liked a bunch of shit this year. You know, we were choosing joy, we were choosing peace. We were in our lane, moisturized, thriving.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Moisturized and speaking of lanes, uh on sort of my lane and Nathan's lane. You know, we love coming up here on the podcast, but what we do a lot is kind of on the back side, on the written side. So wanted to give you guys a peek on our website visitors for the year to date. We have had over 7,600 visitors to the hackerslash website this year.

SPEAKER_04 7:13

That feels like 7,600 more than there's ever been.

SPEAKER_07 7:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Amen. Well, incredible. Over 7,000 of those were new users, which means they were people that were either brand new to the site or hadn't done it, hadn't come probably since you guys launched it, maybe looked at it once. So a lot of new users this year. And part of that is probably due in part to the fact that we wrote 25 blogs this year.

SPEAKER_07 7:38

Listen, the work that you two did this year was absolutely incredible. It was awesome, very well written stuff, really cool, really engaging. Couldn't have done it without you. I think that's a huge part of this increased traffic to our website. So we appreciate you both.

SPEAKER_04 7:55

And also just the quality of what you both have written. Nathan curated so many fun journeys for us on the blog. Like there was an incredible activity of things that you could do leading up to I know what you did last summer. I'm so sorry that he wants to forget what he did this summer, but here we are.

SPEAKER_06 8:12

Yeah, I curated some of I don't know if I'd say the best, but some of the more memorable episodes that Sean and Binks did over the course of the show. And those come out every couple months. Hopefully, I'm hoping to get Max out next.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

And we'd be remiss if we didn't give credit to Chris as well. She also had quite a few things on there that she input a lot with the Friday the 13th franchise this year. She helped us unravel the Halloween timelines. So Chris was also doing a lot of the Lorge work using her slasher expertise. Some of her reminders of that's what you missed before the Fierce Street Prom Queen came out. So Chris was making sure we were caught up. And to reference back to be true to your ghoul, we were up on the curriculum so that we could all excel this year.

SPEAKER_04 8:58

You know, I did just remember now that this was the year of the rom com to horror movie pipeline. So that that is that does hold a special place in my heart. Thank God. Wow, it feels like it's been quite a year.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

It it sure has, and it's been a lot of fun, and I share Nathan's sentiment, excited for what we can do with the blog in 2026.

SPEAKER_04 9:16

Excellent. Well, those data points are only half the story because while we are hosted on many different platforms, the world has absolutely fallen into fascination with a little bit of something called Spotify Wrapped.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

So we're gonna unwrap it. Let's do that. Now, we know famously I love Mia Spotify Wrapped, but we're gonna unwrap this one and kind of unpack what our stats were. Starting off with our top episode, which was episode 405, Weapons 2025, a great one. I would say that was a good, good time, and one that a lot of people were looking forward to, you know, to listen to.

SPEAKER_07 9:51

Weapons was crazy. One, great movie, two, a great episode. Three, we actually debated doing a bonus episode because we just couldn't stop fucking talking about this movie.

SPEAKER_04 10:02

Yeah, there was so much that went into it, and I also just want to call attention to the fact that Nathan is wearing the sickest weapon shirt I've ever seen. It also is like in the styling of Season of the Witch.

SPEAKER_07 10:13

It's so cool, actually.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

I need to know where he got it. Wait, that's crazy. I was seconds from wearing my weapons shirt. It's not that cool though. It's just the white t-shirt with the doodles, but that's like you win on the weapons shirts. Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 10:27

Yeah, honestly, I can't remember. It's either fright racks or terror threads or one of the more mainstream horror shirt places.

SPEAKER_02 10:35

It looks incredible. And again, weapons was clearly beloved by many of our listeners. It was played 226% more than the average episode. So we had a lot to say, and people wanted to keep hearing it time and time again. So we appreciate that. But speaking of our listeners, the listener growth this year has been incredible. We have 6.5,000 new audience members. So that's plus 308%. That's those are crazy stats.

SPEAKER_07 11:03

Wild growth right there.

SPEAKER_04 11:04

Yeah, and just remember that's Spotify only. So when you think about this and then compare that to the insane growth that we had, we had like over 20,000 new folks under like our regular download. So it it's wild.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Business was booming this year. Business was booming with 3.9 million minutes of listening. Okay, break that down. That's 65.6,000 hours of listening.

SPEAKER_05 11:27

My God.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

All right. Let's take it a step further with 2.7,000 days of listening.

SPEAKER_05 11:32

Whoa.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Do we want to hear weeks? 390 folks. 390 weeks later. 390 weeks later. And they didn't do this. They didn't do 89 months later. No, but they did do it 89 inches later. Oh, you win on that one. That was real good. We have 89 months of listening. Not 89 inches, though. Now, seven inches, just kidding. Seven years of listening. That's what it comes down to, folks. Seven years.

SPEAKER_07 11:57

That's a lot. That's crazy to think about.

SPEAKER_02 12:00

Now, with countries reached, okay, this one's kind of cool. We've reached 86 countries.

SPEAKER_05 12:06

Damn.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

Could I name 86 countries off the top of my head? I can't. Sure can't.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Nope.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

If you watched the Animaniacs growing up, you'd be able to.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

I was just about to say, where's the 80 maniacs video?

SPEAKER_02 12:16

No, I can't. I can't. But I can name the top five countries that we reached, which I'm sure this isn't going to surprise anyone with United States. Second, United Kingdom. Then we have Canada, Australia, and Ireland. Mac would be so proud. He would. Ah, he would. He would. Now some really cool facts in terms of top podcasts for listeners, right? So top 10 for 3,000 or 3.1,000 fans. So that means we were the top podcast.

SPEAKER_05 12:49

We're up there.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

Or at least the top 10 for 3.1,000 people. That's pretty cool. They could have listened to a lot of other podcasts, but we made it to their top 10. And I love that. And taking it a step further now, okay. Fans listen to us 99% more than other shows. We received more comments than 99% of other shows. In particular, funny that we were making our 28 years later jokes because episode 397, that was our 28 years later episode, it got the most comments. And I'm sure because of the debauchery that we were talking.

SPEAKER_04 13:21

Probably coming in. Don't worry, we have Bone Temple coming in. So it's gonna be great. We sure do.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

A lot of boning. We sure do. A lot of boning. We did receive more shares than 97% of other shows. So that just goes to show you that when you're a top, top fan of ours, you really are listening in, you're commenting, you're engaged, and we appreciate that. I love it.

SPEAKER_07 13:42

You know what's wild about some of these stats, at least when we were breaking it down from Spotify, was the fact that they were doing like top shows and they were giving us our stats, and then there was like the stat that like also threw in like Taylor Swift. And it's like, what are you trying to say? Are you trying to say that like there's a portion of people that are listening to Taylor Swift that are also listening to Hacker Slash? And is there some kind of weird pipeline from Hacker Slash to Taylor Swift here?

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Now, listen, technically, if we want to be real technical here, we do have a dedicated Discord channel for the Swifties. So there is an overlap.

SPEAKER_07 14:20

There's so many Swifties in the world that it's bound to be some Hacker Slash fans out there, so I don't doubt it.

SPEAKER_04 14:26

It's a circle. It's probably because we keep talking about Twilight and Taylor Loppner, and Taylor Lautner dated Taylor Swift, and Taylor Swift started with Taylor Loppner in Valentine's Day. Good job with that pipeline.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

Again, it's the wrong pipeline. Mm-hmm. But that's that's our Spotify wrapped unwrapped, and I can't wait for next year to kind of unpack our stats.

SPEAKER_04 14:48

I also can't wait to keep these numbers going because Sean has the absolute insane task of listing how many deaths we accumulated this year in memoriam.

SPEAKER_07 14:59

Listen, it's no easy feat to really track down all of the kills, right, for this end of year. We're calling it the sleigh by sleigh now. Look, we talked about Spotify wrapped, unwrapped, a lot of people. It was a wrap for a lot of people this year because one million six hundred and fifty thousand one hundred and twenty-one and a half deaths this year. And if anyone can remember where that half came from, you get a little extra point.

SPEAKER_04 15:38

It was a fetus.

SPEAKER_07 15:40

It sure was a fetus, but whose fetus was it?

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Damn, I don't know. Wait! I think I do? Or did she give birth? Was it was it 28 years later?

SPEAKER_07 15:51

It wasn't 28 years later.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

No, no, because that was a weird scene when they say, oh no, man, where was it? I don't remember. Shang's really out here saying, find that fetus.

SPEAKER_07 16:02

Find that fetus. It was Anna's unborn child from Nasferatu.

SPEAKER_03 16:09

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 16:11

Yeah, we started off the year with a 0.5 in terms of the body count. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_07 16:15

Yeah, we started with a 0.5 and we never evened it out. Is there all the fuck them kids moments that we've had? We didn't get a whole lot of fetus action. You know what I mean? Just the one. Just the one. But what movie had the most kills?

SPEAKER_04 16:29

Well, we know it wasn't Silent Night Fucking Deadly Night.

SPEAKER_07 16:32

It definitely wasn't Silent Night, Deadly Night.

SPEAKER_04 16:34

I'm tempted to say 28 Years Later if you're counting all the bones.

SPEAKER_07 16:39

I will say we didn't get to a million just because we had a lot of movies watched. It's really one particular movie that pushed us into that category.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

I'm gonna throw my bone in the 28 years later pool too. Because I can't remember if you did count all of those bones. No, I don't even think Final Destination bloodlines. Or maybe? No, not really.

SPEAKER_07 17:01

The next highest was Jason X with 19,815 deaths.

SPEAKER_04 17:07

Sean. Fucking Cloverfield.

SPEAKER_07 17:10

Cloverfield! It put us over the edge. There was a million plus in just that movie alone. I literally was calculating this back. I think Cloverfield was an episode that I didn't get to join, unfortunately, but I was going through it and I'm like, yeah, Jason X, 19,000, almost 20,000, that's gonna be the one. And then I got to Cloverfield and I'm like, holy shit! We got to a million something on that episode? Wild. I forgot how many deaths occur in that in that movie. Absolutely nuts. We do have a tie for least kills though. Can we take some guesses at to where the uh least kills were? It's one kill, so that's you break it down. There's just there's two movies with one kill each.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Exorcism of Emily Rose?

SPEAKER_04 17:52

No, that movie had two kills. Exorcism of Emily Rose.

SPEAKER_07 17:55

Yeah, that's close.

SPEAKER_04 17:57

I feel like no, Honeydew feels like it had multiple kills.

SPEAKER_07 18:02

No, you it had one.

SPEAKER_04 18:04

Oh, motherfucker, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 18:06

It only had one, all the shit that went down. We only see one death. The other one was conjuring last rites.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

Wow. Wow, that's very disappointing.

SPEAKER_07 18:15

But listen, kills are kills. We gotta track them.

SPEAKER_04 18:18

Well, I can't wait for another year to slay by sleigh. But Banks, you also had the task of leading us through incredible trigger warnings for all those animal lovers out there. Give us the best in show.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

It was tough. We had some challenging and a lot of actually fishy, you know, some sus movies. So we were really on the line here. Some movies was very on the fence about because it was insects or one of the movies was like, it was a mosquito. I think we're gonna be alright. I think we can objectively say that we're gonna be alright. But in total, we had 36 safe episodes, completely safe. That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_07 18:59

That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 18:59

I gotta I gotta admit, that's pretty good. Now, that being said, I would have to admit in the past we've had like a really bad animal report, and I'm talking to you, ginger snaps, but this year we're actually gonna have a tie for the worst animal report, and we've got a lot of contenders that really just are at that line, second place, just by a hair. But for first place, we're we're tied with two very important films, I'd say, that we were we reviewed. One being Nosferatu.

SPEAKER_04 19:32

Yes, a very classic, regular, important film, Nosferatu.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

Look, there were a lot of rats. And actually, funny that I bring that up because we've talked about there being a lot of rats in a lot of the movies that we were we've reviewed this year, okay? There's the rats have made their presence. But in this movie in particular, we have it right in front of our face. Some very disgusting eating. We'll leave it at that. So not very pleasant, not one bit, but the one that it tied with is a heartbreaking one for me, at least, and that was Bambi the Reckoning.

SPEAKER_04 20:08

I love how this is the one time in your life you're ever gonna put those two movies in the same category as in the important movies we've reviewed.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

I s I said what I said, and you're very welcome, folks. I've warned you about two very critical pieces of cinema, okay? In terms of animal report and warning. Now, for different reasons, right? I would say that both are pretty violent in terms of what they do to animals, but Bambi the Reckoning takes it a step further by making you cry about it.

SPEAKER_07 20:39

So hits you in the fields.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

Heed that warning. It gets you in the fields for sure.

SPEAKER_04 20:43

It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to. Cry if I want to, cry if I want to. You would cry too if Bambi happened to you. It's time to move on to the most fun part of the night. It is the Slasher's Choice Awards. Folks, we at Hackerslash made our picks, made our nominations for several awards categories, and you had the audacity to vote them in to the finals. Now, let's start off with our first category of Best Survivor.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

In the category of Best Survivor, the nominees are Sammy from Sinners, 2025, Oliver, aka Ollie, aka Connor from Bring Her Back, 2025, Iris from Companion, 2025, and Justine Gandhi from Weapons, 2025. And the winner for the 2025 Best Survivor is Sammy from Sinners 2025.

SPEAKER_04 21:44

Hell yeah. How could there be anybody else?

SPEAKER_07 21:46

I mean, it was so good, you know?

SPEAKER_01 21:49

A true hero's journey.

SPEAKER_07 21:51

Yeah. I mean, we were all rooting for Sammy. There were some good contenders, but let's face it Sammy, best survivor. One of the best endings that we've gotten all year. Like, just so good.

SPEAKER_04 22:04

Well, for every survivor, there's also an antagonist, and that's hunting them down. Let's move on to Best Villain.

SPEAKER_06 22:11

In the category of Best Villain, the nominees are Mr. Reed, or Organized Religion Itself, from Heretic, 2024, Count Orlock from Nosferatu, 2025, Laura from Bring Her Back, 2025, Frank Inferter, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1975, Aunt Gladys from Weapons, 2025. And The Lady from Strange Darling 2024. The winner for the 2025 Best Villain is Aunt Gladys from Weapons 2025.

SPEAKER_05 22:46

An icon. So good.

SPEAKER_06 22:48

So good we're getting an origin story.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

I definitely think that I I was okay not knowing her backstory, but the more I've I've watched Weapons a couple times, now I'm like, you know what? I kind of do want to know what this lady's deal is.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

You know, I just I just wish that I could walk around with such confidence with that crazy ass wig. Okay? She just struts her stuff and is absolutely a horrendous human being, to be very clear. No doubt about it. And a scary one. And a very scary one, but dang. Clutching that purse, girl, you keep at it.

SPEAKER_07 23:21

I still can't get over the fact that I literally saw Gladys's doppelganger at work.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

What?

SPEAKER_07 23:27

Yeah, I brought this up in an episode this year. We talked about it. We I literally was at work, and some older lady comes in, same hair color, bangs, horrible colored makeup, looked exactly like Aunt Gladys, and I turned around and I walked away.

SPEAKER_04 23:46

If you would have snapped a twig, you would have been fucked. One thing that I appreciate about Aunt Gladys is how she's absolutely skyrocketed to Halloween costume fame.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

I think the scariest part about her is that up until basically she sees the pack of children running after her, she is so sure in her success. Like there's not like any sort of moment until that point that she realizes, like, oh man, I think I may have fucked up and I may actually, you know, get get defeated. Like she walks around that whole movie knowing she's untouchable. I think that's the scariest part about it. Like, there's no caution. She just knows that she has that power to do evil and try her, try her.

SPEAKER_04 24:29

Yeah, she is the terror that flaps in the night.

SPEAKER_07 24:32

We don't know how long she's been doing this. Could be centuries. Could literally be centuries.

SPEAKER_04 24:36

Now, Sean, you did mention that she has an origin story that's coming up. Of course, we predicted this just as we predicted with when we found out the the pearl of it all. But for our next category, we have to really explore the origin stories that we saw this year. So in the category of best origin story, the nominees are Bloodworth, Final Destination Bloodlines, 2025. The Graber, Black Phone 2, 2025. The Creature, Frankenstein, 2025, Wolfman, Wolfman, 2025, Brendo the Clown, Clown in a Cornfield, 2025. The Bride, Bride of Frankenstein, 1935, and the winner for the 2025 Best Origin Story is Bloodworth. Final Destination's Bloodlines 2025. And how could there be any other winning option than Tony Todd in his final role to us? R.I.P.

SPEAKER_07 25:38

We love a good Tony Todd story, you know? It just has a special place in our heart.

SPEAKER_02 25:43

It sure does. Sure does. And it was also just like well done. I think that I mean, if you're gonna do a whole bloodlines movie and you're not gonna pay homage to the king, you'd be doing it wrong otherwise.

SPEAKER_06 25:57

Yeah. He's been such a cryptic part of so many of the movies that to finally, in his last one, find a way to tie it all together and put a bow on on his story, it's really nice. We love it.

SPEAKER_07 26:10

Well, listen, with every great beginning, there's an even better end. And we can't go without talking about the best kills. So in the category of best kill, the nominees are the cough explosion in Tell Dawn, 2025, the decapitated Hibachi Kill, The Monkey, 2025, Death by Children, Weapons, 2025, the AC unit in the pool leads to an exploded diver, The Monkey, 2025, and the Liquid Nitrogen Face Smash from Jason X 2001. Great kills, only one winner, and the winner for the 2025 Best Kill is Liquid Nitrogen Face Smash Jason X 2001. Ah, we know it's a good one. We know it's a good one.

SPEAKER_04 27:07

Nathan, how does it feel for your first Slasher's Choice Awards to be on this panel and to have your first win?

SPEAKER_06 27:13

You know, when you think about this movie next year, two years from now, if you remember one thing, it's gonna be this death scene. And that was my experience within the past couple years. I watched Jason X for the first time since maybe a decade ago, and I remembered that scene.

SPEAKER_07 27:35

It's classic. It's like it's the best kill probably in the whole franchise, I would say. It's like one, it's up there. It's up there for sure. And we had a lot of great kills this year, a lot of great contenders, but it's tough to go against something as iconic as the liquid nitrogen face smash.

SPEAKER_02 27:52

And listen, I know that I famously don't like a lot of the Friday the 13th movies, okay? That's that's fair to say. But I too remember this particular kill since the first time I watched this movie when I was much, much younger and probably too young to see it. And I think it is very iconic. But speaking of Friday the 13th and the amount of sequels and not remakes yet, technique well, we did get that one with Jared Padelaki. That one was nice, but probably because it had him in it, let's be honest. But we reviewed a couple of sequels and remakes this year, and so want to get into the category for best sequel or remake. And the nominees are Final Destination Bloodlines, 2025, Nosferatu, 2024, The Conjuring Last Rights, 2025, Happy Death Day to You, 2019, and the winner for the 2025 Best Sequel or Remake is Final Destination Bloodlines 2025.

SPEAKER_04 28:56

Listen, that damn penny was putting in work.

SPEAKER_07 28:58

Damn, I'm actually a little bit shocked, but all great contenders, but I am really, really shocked about that one.

SPEAKER_04 29:05

Listen, this was such a great return to form for Final Destination.

SPEAKER_07 29:09

It was. They're almost all shite. Okay, so the fact that we had a year where we had Nosferatu and Frankenstein, and they were both pretty fucking solid, that's a feat.

SPEAKER_04 29:32

Listen, you could have nominated one of them. Well, you did nominate Nasferatu. You could have nominated Frankenstein.

SPEAKER_07 29:37

Well, Nosferatu is better.

SPEAKER_04 29:39

There you go. We had to say goodbye to Tony Todd. And also, let's just be clear, what is Nosferatu coming back from? Other good movies that are just historically old. What is Frankenstein coming back from? An incredible novel and a million adaptations. What is Final Destination coming back from? Arguably some of the lowest points of its franchise.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Final Destination V.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

Yeah, yeah. No, it's it's a pretty tough revival. It's there is a big difference there.

SPEAKER_07 30:08

You know, if we're getting a most improved franchise, I can give them that credit.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

I mean, it's there. Listen.

SPEAKER_07 30:14

You know.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

Sean, also, let's talk about you know, Chris, you said the penny thing, and it made me realize that Final Destination was working so overtime and that penny really put in the work in that movie that pennies are no longer made anymore. Okay? That's it.

SPEAKER_07 30:30

Oh no, you're giving credit to this franchise for the penny going out of circulation.

SPEAKER_04 30:35

It for it foreshadowed its own death. Okay. That's hilarious. But not only that, remember that there was also after at a showing of Final Destination, a movie theater had its own accident.

SPEAKER_07 30:49

That is true. That is true. You gotta give it credit. There was some Final Destination shit happening at the theater.

SPEAKER_04 30:55

Well, listen, we love a good tale. And what is a good tale if not just ample soil for a great plot?

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Absolutely. We've got all these kills and all these villains, but even some of those best characters can really fall apart if you don't have a solid plot. So, in the category of best plot, the nominees are Sinners from 2025, Bring Her Back from 2025, Nosferatu from 2024, Weapons from 2025, Heretic from 2024, and Strange Darling from 2024. A lot of stories here, a lot of interesting approaches to writing out plots and keeping the watcher engaged. But the winner for 2025 in the category of best plot is Sinners 2025.

SPEAKER_04 31:51

To no one's fucking surprise.

SPEAKER_07 31:53

I mean, we called a lot of this when we saw Sinners, you know? Before we even recorded this, we called how fucking great this movie was. You just can't argue it.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

I'd be curious to see the matchup with Sinners and Weapons, because those were the two movies this year that after I walked out of them, I could not stop thinking about them for weeks afterwards. I mean, yeah, TikTok kind of helped with that, but those were two movies that lived rent-free in my brain for months, probably. So absolutely both are both are fantastic. Sinners definitely coming out on top, but I'm curious to see how it matched up with some of the others.

SPEAKER_04 32:31

I want you to know that it wasn't even close. Sinners won 50% of the vote, and Weapons was in second place with only 15.2% of the vote. The others were split evenly between Heretic, Strange Darling, and Bring Her Back, and then Nosferatu only got 2.2% of the vote. Y'all don't see the vision. Y'all don't want a dead corpse to be fucking a girl. That's what you don't want. You don't want a vampire to sacrifice himself for the nookie.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

You don't see the vision. No, honestly, though, I mean, sure, I nominated Nosferatu, but I definitely agree with sinners. A1 with that one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:11

While we've talked about so many great moments and some highlights of our year, it's time to kick off our hack awards category. Starting with the stalk of shame. They should be ashamed of themselves.

SPEAKER_06 33:25

Believe it or not, the stalk of shame is not a cornhub reference. It pop probably should have been.

SPEAKER_04 33:30

Brought to you by the Cob Gobbler.

SPEAKER_06 33:32

The nominees are The Red Ball and everything else, from Hellhouse LLC Lineage, 2025, Peter Pan from Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare, 2025, the Ginger Dead Man from Ginger Dead Man Passion of the Crust, 2008, Donald Harris from 28 Weeks Later, 2007, and The Hooded Killer from Fear Street Prom Queen 2025. And the winner for the 2025 worst antagonist is the Red Ball and everything else from Hellhouse LLC Lineage.

SPEAKER_04 34:09

I just want to say I'm on a fucking roll tonight.

SPEAKER_07 34:12

And everything else. It's the and everything else.

SPEAKER_04 34:14

Listen, the whole movie was bullshit. Every force of evil in that movie was bullshit. And the fact that they tried to have the red ball be the next penny. Nah, get the fuck out of here.

SPEAKER_07 34:27

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 34:28

Honestly, the worst antagonist actually of that movie, aside from the red ball, is the director. For having the audacity to take my money and have me go to the theater to see this movie.

SPEAKER_04 34:39

You know, I don't even take umbrage with the director, I take umbrage with the producer.

SPEAKER_02 34:42

You know what? You're right. That's a misdirection on my hate. There we go.

SPEAKER_07 34:46

Yeah, it is the fact that we were forced to pay and go out of our way to watch this movie when we literally could have had it streaming and would have been slightly less upset and we would have saved some money. So it is what it is, but yes, Hellhouse, terrible. Just terrible. And what's worse than a bad antagonist is a survivor you just can't get behind. Because in the category of absolute worst survivor, the nominees are Vanessa from Hellhouse LLC Lineage 2025, Harriet, from Bambi the Reckoning 2025, Clover, from Until Dawn 2025, Mike, from Five Nights at Freddy's 2, 2025, Sam Lawton, Final Destination 5, 2011, and Danica. I know what you did last summer, 2025. And listen, the fact that we have this many nominees for Worst Survivor tells you something here.

SPEAKER_04 35:54

I also think it's significant that Harriet didn't even survive the movie, but you hate her so much you had to nominate her anyway.

SPEAKER_07 36:02

Terrible. Absolutely terrible. She survived long enough, and it was bad. It was just bad. But the winner for the 2025 Worst Survivor is Vanessa Hellhouse LLC Lineage 2025.

SPEAKER_04 36:18

Thank you. Yeah, I can't believe there isn't a nomination in this next category. But let's move on to Worst Kill. In the category of Worst Kill, the nominees are PJ, the asshole who Tony Hawk Pro skatered himself to death in I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, 2006, Marvin the Dog, The Advent Calendar, 2021, Cindy's Grandma, Scary Movie, 2000. Isaac, killed by the falling Buddha statue, Final Destination 5, 2011. Everyone in the NASCAR Premonition, the Final Destination, 2009, which was not the final destination after. Oh, Jesus. The winner for the 2025 worst kill is everyone in the NASCAR Premonition, the final destination 2009, that wasn't the final destination after all.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

Okay, I take great umbrage to this because I am on the record stating that I enjoyed the final destination much more than the final destination five. And I would say, aside from the log truck in Final Destination 2, this is up there as one of the best premonition death scenes.

SPEAKER_04 37:43

So Nathan, what do you have to say for yourself?

SPEAKER_06 37:45

On record and say I like this more than Final Destination V as well. But it's the CGI and this entire opening that pulls you out of it.

SPEAKER_02 37:55

I must speak because Paris is not here. And so I have I'm going to speak for both of us as the Final Destination fanatics that we are. First of all, I'm so not well in the brain that both times that you guys said that you liked this movie more than Final Destination V, I heard that you didn't like this movie more than Final Destination V, which would have been the correct answer. And that's okay. You know what? That's fine. But I I will agree with Chell that this kill is actually really good. It's fun and also pretty realistic. I don't know. I feel like it was gnarly.

SPEAKER_07 38:31

There were some gnarly ones in there.

SPEAKER_02 38:33

Yeah, those tires could just flop out of those cars at any moment.

SPEAKER_07 38:36

But the but you know, there was some bad I get it. There's some bad CGI in there. You gotta have fun with it though. I am the voice of the users. They're on my side. Yeah. The people spoke. Yeah. There it is. That is true. You got the votes. This the people have spoken.

SPEAKER_02 38:54

That's true. And speaking of, I guess, because I will admit, regardless of our takes on Final Destination and Final Destination V, that is a franchise that didn't quite, you know, do so great towards the end until we got to bloodlines, as we saw earlier. But for this category, we're gonna talk about the least improved franchise. Okay? So in the category, least improved franchise, the nominees are Fear Street Prom Queen, 2025. I Know What You Did Last Summer, 2025, The Strangers, Chapter 2, 2025, Hell House LLC Lineage, 2025, and 28 Years Later, 2025. So the winner for the 2025 least improved franchise is I think we all know it's Hellhouse LLC Lineage 2025.

SPEAKER_04 39:48

Fuck that movie.

SPEAKER_01 39:49

Oh my god. So bad. I will say, though, I mean, props to to Nathan. He hosted a Hellhouse LLC watch party leading up to Lineage. And we were, you know, we were able to kind of trauma bond prior to that, and I was able to cuss out some of my least favorite characters there, but lineage really brought us all together with quite the dynamant of looking at each other like, well, what what do we do now? What now?

SPEAKER_06 40:18

Yeah, I think part of my residual affection for this not great movie.

SPEAKER_04 40:24

I think the reality is the horrors persist, but so do we with friends. The real lineage was the Hell House we made along the Oh, I couldn't even say that with a straight fucking face. Don't worry, folks. This movie is nominated in yet even more categories. Let's talk about the nominees for the most disappointing ending.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

In the category of most disappointing ending, the nominees are Vanessa's Bullshit in Hellhouse LLC Lineage 2025, Bambi the Reckoning, 2025, 28 Years Later, 2025, The Advent Calendar, 2021, Until Dawn, 2025, and I Know What You Did Last Summer, 2025. Diva's up, and the winner for the 2025 most disappointing ending is Vanessa's bullshit, Hellhouse LLC Lineage 2025.

SPEAKER_07 41:21

There it is again. Hell House LLC. Just terrible. I mean, what else is there to say? Look at all these categories. Worst movie, worst whatever, most disappointing ending. What it's just bad, folks. It's just bad.

SPEAKER_01 41:38

I think we need to tag the whole Hellhouse LLC team. Cognetti, all of them. He was pretty active. He was the one that was pretty active on social media trying to defend the movie after it came out. Yeah. I think we need to tag them. Let them know how we feel, how the people feel.

SPEAKER_02 41:54

It's just a severe audacity. It's really what it is. It's what it comes down to. And listen, for those of you listening that maybe didn't see how House LLC lineage and you're like, what am I missing out on? Nothing. Nothing. Let's start there. Save yourself from watching this quite literally. And know that if this movie wasn't reviewed this year, then I'm sure the results would maybe be different. But that just goes to tell you the strength of how bad this movie is. That we all like, even though we nominated several like different things, right? Several different things, we all can come together in our consensus about this movie in particular. Yeah, you can't mask it.

SPEAKER_04 42:31

Yeah, and I think you can I think you can also tell I get angrier about this movie with every time I nominate it because I said Vanessa's bullshit specifically. Yeah. And that's still not a spoiler for how bad that ending gets. But I think it also classifies itself as yet another nominee in another category. Let's take a look at all of our options for worst sequel or remake.

SPEAKER_06 42:57

In the category of worst sequel or remake, the nominees are The Strangers Chapter 2, 2025, Wolfman, 2025, 28 Years Later, 2025. I'll always know what you did last summer, 2006, Hellhouse LLC Lineage, 2025, Hello Again. And I know what you did last summer, 2025. Fuck that movie.

SPEAKER_05 43:26

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_06 43:27

The winner for the 2025 worst sequel or remake is The Strangers Chapter 2, 2025.

SPEAKER_04 43:36

I'd argue that two of the nominees don't even belong on this list.

SPEAKER_02 43:42

And I have an inkling that I know which those are, and I said what I said. Is it 28 years later you think? Yeah, that doesn't belong on this list. For su for sure. No, it does. That's fine. No, I said what I said. But listen, this is a testament though. Hold on. Because this is a testament. Now, like I just finished saying, right? If Hellhouse LLC was Wasn't in the mix, it would be something else. And this is an example of it's in the mix, but we actually found a film that reminded other people like, wait a minute now, let's really think about how trash this movie is. Strange as Chapter 2 is pretty up there in pretty fucking bad.

SPEAKER_04 44:17

Okay, but it's pretty fucking bad because it is the worst of its two movies in its retelling. However, Hellhouse LLC Lineage also had Lake of Fire, Lake of Bullshit that came before it. So it's like, is it that bad comparatively when the franchise was already going downhill?

SPEAKER_07 44:36

It actually is because what happened here wasn't that the Strangers Chapter 2 was actually the worst remake or sequel for this year. It was that people got tired of choosing Hellhouse because they're sick of talking about Hell House because Hell House fucking sucked. So they had to choose something else. So that's just what that is. The Strangers Chapter 2, love it or hate it. I don't know if it deserves worst sequel or remake.

SPEAKER_04 45:05

Well, don't worry, because there's still more options to go.

SPEAKER_02 45:08

The fall from Grace, though, from something as incredible as The Strangers to what was given in Strangers Chapter 2 is pretty nuts. But you bring up a very good point. I think that maybe there could have been another option here, and Sean's right, they were just getting tired of clicking the same thing.

SPEAKER_04 45:23

It's kind of like when you take a test and on the Scantron, all the answers are C, and you just start feeling suspicious about yourself. Don't worry, there are still more options. Because in the category of worst plot, what the fuck was the point even of this movie? The nominees are Hellhouse LLC Lineage 2025. I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, 2006. The Strangers Chapter 2, 2025, Heretic, 2024, Final Destination 5, 2011. Be Your Street Prom Queen, 2025. And the winner for the 2025 Worst Plot is You Bet Yeshan, Hellhouse LLC Lineage 2025.

SPEAKER_07 46:09

Taking another one. Hellhouse is raking them in, folks. Wow. We really we really need to tag the creators of this movie.

SPEAKER_04 46:19

It's gonna be so misleading if we do that. Slash's Choice Award with just the the the teary-eyed clown.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

We should send him a plaque with all of their wins on it. The most winningest. And then that'd be one of like three reviews probably for that movie.

SPEAKER_07 46:34

The most winningest, worst movie ever reviewed on Hacker Slash.

SPEAKER_01 46:39

On Hacker Slash. Hey, this could be our one-way ticket to infamy.

SPEAKER_07 46:44

Oh my god. Absolutely ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. But look, we're back on track. Bad plots, they lead to bad movies. And the worst movie of the year in the category of worst movie of the year, the nominees are I'll always know what you did last summer, 2006. Hellhouse LLC Lineage 2025. So bad you had to say it twice. Hellhouse LLC Lineage 2025 again. Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare 2025. Scary Movie 2000. And I know what you did last summer, 2025. That's not the same movie, but the same franchise. So we've got some interesting nominees here, but to no one's surprise. The winner for the 2025 worst movie of the year is Hellhouse LLC Lineage 2025. Fuck this movie.

SPEAKER_02 47:46

Nathan.

SPEAKER_07 47:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 47:48

Go ahead, Nathan, because we're gonna we've talked a lot about Hellhouse LLC Lineage, and maybe we can we're gonna take a break on that just to kind of talk about the insane take that you gave at the opening of this episode with I'll always know what you did last summer. Go ahead, Nathan. Let us know your thoughts.

SPEAKER_06 48:06

First off, I'll always know what you did last summer. You know, it's low budget, it's straight to video, but it's got some cool cinematography and you like the mountain scenes. I like the mountains. Haters Gonna Hate. I know what you did last summer, the remake. It was worse. What can I say? But listen, uh let me just say something real quick about Hellhouse LLC Lineage because my man, Steven Cognett, has been raked under I don't even know how to say it, squashed under your boots, but I got some new tea. Tell me what you think of this. The original drafts of the script called the movie Hellhouse LLC Lineage Part One.

SPEAKER_01 48:47

So makes my stomach turn.

SPEAKER_06 48:49

How do you feel about this movie if you bear in mind that it's kind of half a movie?

SPEAKER_04 48:54

I feel exactly the same, and I'd love to tell you why, Nathan.

SPEAKER_07 48:57

Still it's still bad, but it makes it makes the ending make a little bit more sense.

SPEAKER_04 49:02

No, no, here's here's the thing. I I feel no difference with this movie because I also read some interviews with Steven Cognetti around the time this movie came out, and he was like, Yeah, there was so much more to the story. And then he found out that there wasn't gonna be a second movie. He had the opportunity to simplify, re-strategize, put some things on pause, make a better movie, and yet here we are.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

I don't know about you guys, but part one sounds more like a threat than anything.

SPEAKER_04 49:34

I don't know. Nathan said, Don't tempt me with a good time.

SPEAKER_02 49:37

Yeah, that's crazy. That is crazy. He he really is something else, that man. He must be, because I agree with you, Chris. You had the opportunity to change the movie, and the producer as well didn't push him to go back to the drawing board, reconfigure your life a little bit. Nope. He said this is gonna be a great conclusion to this franchise, and it's really for the fans. Really for the fans, and uh and please don't rate us badly. You're so right. Well, sir, I really hope you don't listen to this episode. Still make bad movies. But I just want to quickly highlight as well scary movie 2000.

SPEAKER_07 50:13

That's a hot take.

SPEAKER_02 50:15

That's a hot take, child.

SPEAKER_07 50:16

That's a hot take.

SPEAKER_02 50:17

I know.

SPEAKER_01 50:18

I'll own it. I I again, on record, I'm not a big fan of the parody movies, and it just hurts. So yes, I I another hill I will die on with my trash taste.

SPEAKER_07 50:29

We respect it.

SPEAKER_04 50:30

As we close this chapter on our pack category, it's time to slip into something a little bit more comfortable.

SPEAKER_07 50:37

Yeah, slipping into something.

SPEAKER_04 50:39

The audacity that this is my category to read.

SPEAKER_02 50:41

And speaking of slipping in, we are gonna get into the nookie of it all. Alright? And who better to announce this category than me? I have to say that we've experienced a lot, we've seen a lot, it's been a little interesting, but in the category of worst nookie sacrifice, and to clarify, if you're curious, we've been saying a lot throughout this year, you know, he did it all for the nookie like that, you know? So keep that in mind. The nominees are Count Orlock, Nasferatu, 2024, Josh, from Companion, 2025, The Demon, Strange Darling, 2024, The Society, In Society, 1989, The Virgin Orgy Party in Cherry Falls, 1999. The winner for 2025's worst nookie sacrifice is Count Orlock, Nosfratu, 2024.

SPEAKER_04 51:37

The man himself who inspired this category.

SPEAKER_07 51:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:41

It's only fitting.

SPEAKER_07 51:42

It is only fitting.

SPEAKER_04 51:43

I just love that there's so much opportunity for people to fuck around and find out.

SPEAKER_07 51:47

It's the ultimate it was the ultimate sacrifice. You have to respect it.

SPEAKER_02 51:52

I do want to mention, uh, honorable mention here that isn't in the nominations is Silent Knight, Deadly Knight, our boy Billy.

SPEAKER_07 51:58

That is.

SPEAKER_02 51:59

We talked about that, and that's a pretty bad did it all for the nookie.

SPEAKER_07 52:02

Actually, it it could have been one of the stronger contenders. We just we watched it too late. Which is kind of what happened. Well, Nasferatu ended up being at the turn of the year anyway, but sometimes these movies we watch just a little too late to really get them into these categories, and what a contender it could have been. I wonder. I wonder actually.

SPEAKER_01 52:34

So now that we have slipped into something comfortable, let's talk nip slips, guys. So in the category of most unnecessary nudity for 2025 slasher nominations, the nominees are Alpha's 28 inches, and 28 years later, 2025, Count Orlock's Ancient Dong from Nosferatu 2024, the Society from Society 1989, and Android Nips from Jason X 2001. And the winner for 2025's most unnecessary nudity is Android Nips from Jason X 2001.

SPEAKER_02 53:13

I have a few things to say, okay? Let's start off with number one. I love that we're being really clear with our most unnecessary nudity. It's not just tits, y'all. It's all the things. It's all the things. It's all the genitalia, okay? So I really appreciate that. But number two, and this is important to highlight, okay? It says most unnecessary nudity. And the reality of the situation is, is that both of the dongs referenced here in the nominations, the public found it to be necessary, to be studied, to be fascinated by, to be at one point teabagged by, because I felt that way when I watched 21 years ago.

SPEAKER_07 53:55

Not the teabag. It's true.

SPEAKER_06 53:56

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 53:57

It's huge. So that's why I think it didn't win.

SPEAKER_06 54:00

Let me speak out in defense of Android NIFs. They're unnecessary nudity in the sense that definitionally they're not necessary because this is a fake person. They're still cool, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 54:13

So you won on a technicality. You won on English language. Yes. And I respect that. That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_04 54:19

Bless you, Nathan. Bless you. You really just saw this for the scientific study it was.

SPEAKER_02 54:24

And one could argue that literally, actually, Alpha's Dong was being studied. Well, not literally the penis, but you know, just in general, you know, like he was kind of being studied. So scientific.

SPEAKER_04 54:37

By you. Well, listen, there's a lot of exposure in the Nookie sacrifices in the unnecessary nudity. But let's give a shout out to those who covered it up with Wiggiest Wigs. In the category of Wiggiest Wig, the nominees are Thrasher, The Monkey, 2025. Cindy Campbell, Scary Movie, 2000. The Lady, Strange Darling, 2024. Aunt Gladys Weapons 2025. And the winner for 2025's Wickiest Wig is the one, the only Aunt Gladys Weapons 2025.

SPEAKER_02 55:12

The wig was wiggin'. I mean, actually, we had two red wigs in this nomination pool. It's not bad. It's a good time for redheads.

SPEAKER_04 55:19

Oh, and this epic conclusion of Welcome to Dairy? Well, Aunt Gladys sure popped up out of nowhere in that movie. There were some other movies that really blew us away this year, for better or for worse. Let's move on to Biggest Surprise.

SPEAKER_06 55:34

The category of biggest surprise. The nominees are Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare, 2025, Frankenstein 2025, Sinners 2025, Weapons 2025, Presence 2025, and Hard Eyes 2025. The winner for 2025's biggest surprise is Hard Eyes 2025. And I can see why, because you look you take a look at this movie concept, you're like an emoji killer, really. But then you watch it and you're like, ooh, okay, this is really good.

SPEAKER_04 56:13

I really, really, really enjoyed that movie. And I really enjoyed getting to meet its director, Josh Rubin, at Spooky Empire. Shout out to him. He actually listens to the show. And that was such a nice pleasant surprise.

SPEAKER_07 56:25

Well, look at that. Winning a category already. Love it.

SPEAKER_04 56:28

And winning our hearts. But that did not influence the people's votes. They didn't know about this at the time of this voting.

SPEAKER_07 56:34

A lot of good surprises this year, though. You know, hard eyes definitely deserving for sure it was a good surprise, but even when you look at some of these other nominations, probably a I I mean, I don't know what the what the actual voting percentage was on these. Doesn't really matter. The fact is is we had a lot of really great surprises this year. Like we had some solid movies that came out. But biggest surprise, solid movies, there's always gonna be that movie that you like to watch when no other people do. You know, you might be the only one watching, but you just it's that guilty pleasure. And so in the category of guilty pleasure, the nominees are Popeye the Slayer Man, 2025, Jason X, 2001, Scary Movie, 2000, Halloween, H2O, H20, 20 years later, 1998, The Final Destination, 2009, Hellhouse LLC Lineage, 2025, and the winner of 2025's Guilty Pleasure is Halloween H2O, 20 years later, 1998.

SPEAKER_04 57:49

Um, what is there to feel guilty about?

SPEAKER_01 57:52

I see no guilt.

SPEAKER_07 57:53

I think it's a it's a fun movie, but listen, it's probably not the strongest in the franchise. You know, we have that one, like, you know, I'm just trying to justify it, but we have that one, you know, Michael moment, the eyes are really popping out of the mask, it's looking a little goofy, you know. What we I don't know. I don't know. I'm just I'm reaching here. I'm reaching.

SPEAKER_04 58:14

It's one of the stronger in the franchise, and it has the one and only LL Ghoul J.

SPEAKER_07 58:20

Oh, yeah. LL Cool J's in this one. Yeah, it's true. I mean, it's not bad. It's not bad. I like it. I like it for what it is. It's fun.

SPEAKER_06 58:28

You know, shout out to the one positive category that Hell House LLC lineage could be put in. Some people, when it comes to guilty pleasures, have skeletons in their closet, but I don't. I just have that fucking clown outfit.

SPEAKER_02 58:44

It's funny that you say that because we're talking about guilty pleasures, and I feel like in the case of having a Hellhouse LLC lineage as your guilty pleasure, that's like having that whole saying where it's like only a mother could love, like a face that only a mother could love. Like that's kind of how I feel about Hell LC lineage, right?

SPEAKER_04 59:03

When I said Halloween 5 is the son that only a mother could love and I love, but even though it's really not worth loving.

SPEAKER_02 59:10

Absolutely. Also, like that time that someone thought that the Michael Myers tattoo on your arm was your son. That was also wild. That was all of the things, all of the motherly love. And speaking of, we've definitely had some really great moms this year in our films, okay, that we've been reviewing. So in the category of best mom, the nominees are Hope from Blackphone 2, 2025, Lorraine Warren, The Conjuring Last Rights, 2025, Lori Strode, Halloween H2O, 20 Years Later, 1998, and Isla, 28 Years Later, 2025. So the winner and our 2025 Mom of the Year is none other than, of course, Lori Strode, Halloween H2O, 20 years later, 1998.

SPEAKER_04 59:57

You know, I'd like to say I love Halloween, I love Lori. But even I could acknowledge that Isla should have won this category. But it's really because why?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:08

Speak about it. Is it the son?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:10

Is that Lori Strode's son? No, it's literally I just think Isla was a great mom. Like she really fucking went ham and she had that whole beautiful moment. I was being very genuine here.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:19

Well, we also don't know what happened to Lori's son. He just kind of disappeared off the face of the planet. You know? Got he got he got saved by his mom and rode off into the sunset.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:29

Chris, I was just gonna say before you start talking about Lori, I hope that Josh Hardnett doesn't catch any strays in this nomination.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:37

I want you to know that even though he's catching strays, he's right here on my shelf with the photo that you sent me of him and LL Gul Jay.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:44

Constant reminder of his greatness.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:47

Well, you know what they say? Behind every great mom, there's often a trash dad. Fucking it up for the rest of us. So this year, we have several nominees in the category of worst dad. And those nominees are Victor from Frankenstein, 2025, Simon from Bambi The Reckoning in 2025, Donald Harris, 28 weeks later, in 2007, Jim Whitney from Society, 1989, Donald Harris, on tw from 28 weeks later, 2007, and Dan Falconer from Fierce Street Prom Queen, 2025. God, Donald Harris taking strays twice.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:29

No strays, intentional shots. Fuck that guy. He was terrible.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:33

He was bad, he was a bad dad.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:34

And he wasn't even a good villain. He kind of just like, oh, we're gonna be great after, and then he got bit and just useless. Like, couldn't even commit to the bit. I digress. The winner and our 2025 trash dad of the year, aka the dad, we wish went out for cigarettes and didn't come back, is Victor from Frankenstein 2025.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:56

Went out for cigarettes and never came back is phenomenal. That was great, chell. And really, yeah, Victor is that one. Is that one?

SPEAKER_07 1:02:06

Literally created something and then disowned it right away.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:10

And then only really apologized when he was too broken to do anything about it.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:15

Yeah, when it was convenient for him.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:17

Fucking narcissist. Okay. Frankenstein was still a glorious movie, and Oscar Isaac was phenomenal in it. But let's move on to our major category here the Slasher's Choice Awards. Now, these are moments where we actually solicited nominations from our patrons and our listeners who got to vote on some of our best episodes.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:38

Yeah, our patrons nominated several episodes they felt best represented our show this year. And it was a tight race, but the top three episodes were Episode 391, Final Destination Bloodlines 2025, Episode 411, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1975, and Episode 410, Sinners 2025. And the winner of the Patrons Choice Award for Best Episode of the Year is Episode 411, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1975.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:11

Which is honestly shocking to me because this was not our most highly downloaded episode. And it wasn't Sinners either. So where did this come from? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:21

I think it really has to come from the experience and kind of the culture we had around Rocky Horror this year. We had our own little screening and a lot of talks and references to it. So I think when you ask people which show which episode best represented the show, I mean there was a lot of engagement and involvement with it, more than just a podcast episode. So I think that's really why it resonated with people so much.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:48

That's right. I completely forgot I did lose my Rocky Horror virginity on that episode.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:53

Yeah, there was a there was a milestone there. It's it's incredible. Anytime we can go further than the show, right? Just the episode, when we do the engaging like watch parties where we're coming together and and having fun, I think that just speaks to you know what the people like and it and it made you know it made it a little bit more special.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:15

It was a special time, but the other dose of special we had this year was when our patrons chose the best new release of the year. So obviously we covered a bunch of freshly released movies in 2025. This was actually the most new releases we ever jam-packed into one single year. Our patrons voted for the ones that they enjoyed the most, and the top three new releases were Weapons 2025, Sinners 2025, and Final Destination Bloodlines 2025. The winner of the Patrons Choice Award for the 2025 best new release is Sinners 2025.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:55

Rightfully so, rightfully so. A great new release. We said it when we watched it. One of the best movies of the year, period. You know? Just a great story, great acting, a fresh take on some vampires. Come on. The blues. It's so good. It's so good. But listen, not all of the new releases were as good as Sinners, let's face it. There were some pretty bad ones, and so, you know, the top nominations for the worst new releases were, to no one's surprise, Hellhouse LLC Lineage 2025, Fear Street Prom Queen 2025, The Strangers Chapter 2, 2025, Popeye the Slayer Man, 2025, and the winner of the Patrons Choice Award for the 2025 Worst New Release is. You probably guessed it. Hell House LL fucking C Lineage 2025. If we haven't hammered it in enough, this is all you need right here. Just this category.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:10

I just really want to say like, have we hated on a movie this much during an end-of-year episode before? Like, that really just speaks volumes. I don't know. I really hope we don't have another Hellhouse LLC lineage in 2026, but this movie is gonna live out an infamy.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:28

Every time I think about Hellhouse LLC, is I just imagine the meme of Tyra Banks yelling, we were rooting for you, because we went into this open mind, open heart, you know, hoping that Hellhouse Lineage, they were going away from the found footage, that we'd still enjoy it, and they they let us down. And I think that's why we're all still smarting from it, is like I f we kind of feel betrayed. You know, we were rooting for for all of them to give us a halfway decent movie, and we showed up and they served us shit on a plate.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:00

Yeah, I mean the reality is that movie franchise just started to tank, and then it came back with one really good movie, and then it went right back down. It really felt like I was lulled into a false sense of stuff.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:15

I sent you all a red ball for Christmas.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:18

Oh my god, actually it's hilarious because I did get a red ball in my work white elephant gift exchange. I'll show it to you later. But one of the most regrettable things, actually, about that movie is the fact that it took a spot from any number of other great horror movies that came out this year. So it's time for our honorable mentions. I want to kick off with two. One I'm not gonna try to say a lot about, but I'm just going to acknowledge and help help you help you rest assured, dear listener. We're covering it in January, and that is Good Boy. Holy shit, Good Boy was such a journey emotionally. It's a great movie, absolutely incredible. We also hosted a watch party for it in our Discord server last month. And honestly, the one that I really want to encourage all of you to watch is Bone Lake. Bone Link was fucking hilarious. I mentioned this to Chell in a slasher digest FM earlier this year. I can't remember the last time I saw a movie that was so horny, but also so funny, and also so fucky, but like not in a gross sexual way, but like in a it is a twisted mindfuck kind of way.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:25

Hornier than the ginger dead man.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:27

Hornier than the ginger dead man. Actually, about as horny as the ginger dead man.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:34

I was gonna say that's some horny dough right there, you know?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:37

Yeah. It's literally called bone lake. And Chell reminded me that the R on the poster, the R rating was placed right next to the word bone to be boner lake.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:48

Oh, perfect. Perfect. I do have to catch both of those, admittedly. I haven't watched either of those. Good boys definitely been on my raider. I'm glad we're getting to watch it in January, so that'll be good. But I I do want to highlight Together from 2025. This one definitely got to see it. We didn't get to talk about it on the podcast yet, but it is a solid, solid film, folks. If you haven't seen it, it's definitely worth watching. You know, Dave Franco and Allison Bree, real life couple, really blending that genuine kind of relationship struggle that you deal with. There's a lot of dark humor, there's some unsettling body horror. It's it's got this, it's it's just really this weird, it's codependency at its absolute worst. There's a lot of craziness happening, and it's a it was a pretty fucking good movie. So I think it's worth mentioning for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:47

Absolutely. I saw that one. It that one was definitely fun. Good boy, can't wait for us to review it. I am so ready and so not. It's just a lot of things. For me, I watched, I mean, one of my favorite horror movies of the year, maybe in the last two years. Bring her back for me personally takes the number one spot, but a close second, I mean, maybe by a hair, was Keeper.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:15

It's been on my radar. It it's that good, huh?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:18

It is, it is that good. I fear that it is that good. And it's pretty divisive, which is so interesting. I mean, it's Osgood Perkins. He is really just throwing him out every few weeks. He's already uh at it with another script, but Keeper did something to me, man. It was incredible. It's so good. It's very like slow burn, but fun, and it has this Peggy Lee song that is so haunting. I think about it constantly and how eerie it is, even though Peggy Lee is usually just like she's such a beautiful singer, right? I can't recommend it enough.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:54

But I think Nathan, you also keep her well. I think there was a creature, I would say, in the trailer. So I don't know if people went in expecting a monster movie. And you know, this is really an emotional journey. There isn't, you know, there isn't a ton of dialogue. There's a lot of cool imagery. I think some people find that boring, other people find it psychologically psychologically engaging. And you know, one of the things I like about a movie with so much emotional investment is so much of what you get out of it is what you put into it based on your own experiences and thinking about how you would relate or react in certain situations. And, you know, sometimes the monsters are just people in our life.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:42

Nathan, I could not have said it better. Honestly, you spoke for me with that one because I couldn't agree more. It's definitely that kind of movie. I left that theater like not feeling well, but feeling fantastic. It was it's definitely one where if you really want to buy in and let yourself go, and I don't know, it feels like my kind of movie. Oh yeah. If you can relate, it's gonna be pretty brutal.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:05

While y'all were really thinking deep this year with a lot of your movies and reflecting, I was diving into a lot of the the fun, almost candy coated offerings in the horror genre. One of my favorites this year was VHS Halloween. It is the 2025 installment of the VHS series, which is an anthology, usually featuring films from some pretty well-known directors. So this was this one was a lot of fun. Did any of you guys see this one? Hell yes, I did.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:37

Definitely watched it. Oh, yeah. There were some fun moments in this. The candy of it all, definitely. Don't want to spoil it. If you haven't seen it, don't want to spoil too much. But yeah, the candy of it all. The last, I forget who was the director for the last bit that we got, but that was also pretty wild, like the local haunt type thing that was. Yeah, that was kind of fun. There was some really fun stuff in there for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:58

And I've been wary. I mean, every year they're coming out with one. So almost out of obligation, I was tuning into them to see what it was, but they weren't really I'd watch them and nod. Oh yeah, that was that was nice, that was good. I kind of liked this one, but this one just had me jazzed. It's the first one in quite a few years that I was really excited to revisit and rewatch because again, it was it was scary. There was some really clever imagery, some really iconic. There's a few things in there that I'm like, I bet those could be some good iconography and some good Halloween costumes. But it was just, it was fun. It kind of reminded me because yes, we have the good boys and the togethers and the keepers and even the sinners and the weapons that are they're they're a little bit heavy. You walk out kind of chewing on something. So it was really nice to have something a little bit more bubblegum, a little more fun during the Halloween season to remind me, like, oh, horror is and can still be fun and still be done well. So if you're unsure about the VHS series or maybe you haven't loved the past few, definitely give Halloween a try because I think it will bring you back into the fold, and I'm excited to see them build on this momentum.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:05

Absolutely love that. I haven't watched a single VHS movie since the first VHS, but you are making it sound a little bit more compelling. Maybe I can find myself a moment to to trust that in this next year. But it is now time for us to digress into some human time. Where we get to discuss a little bit of uh the positive personal stuff that's been going on. I think personally for me. Yeah. Uh a couple things. One, I got the most use out of my AMC A list that I have ever gotten this year. Just I I completely forgot. Like Binks, Nathan, you were both talking about Keeper, and I'm like, Keeper, keeper, keeper. Oh yeah, that's that movie that when I sat in the theater, I was like, well, this is giving bone lake in the beginning. I don't I don't take away anything that was uh particularly good about that movie. Don't don't worry. It's I'm not I'm not throwing shade at it. But I think being able to just disconnect and watch a lot more this year was very therapeutic. Last year in this episode, I announced that I was getting my own place. I didn't have the keys yet at that point. Now I made my house a home, so I feel very settled in here. I got my office all set up. This is the most like dedicated space I've ever had to the podcast, so that feels really, really special. And uh actually, this was a huge surprise. I got a fucking cat. I got a cat this year, and the cat's name is Jingle because that's her default name. That's the name that she came with, and I took too long to debate between Blair and Nos Puratu. So here we are.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:33

Dang. Tough choice.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:35

And I have a very holiday festive kitty.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:38

You know, yes. I like to think about it as like I don't know, some kind of demonic bell jingling. She's gotten into this habit of like punching doors, so that's what we're into. I wanted her to be a little spooky girl.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:49

That's punching doors. That's wild. Man, uh, this year, there's been there's been a lot of ups and downs for me this year, but I will say I did finally have the opportunity to close the gap between where I work and where I live. So for those that don't know, I was driving probably three to three and a half, maybe four hours a day in just travel time just to get to work and back commute-wise, over 140 miles a day. I put over 50,000 miles on my car over the last couple years. Like it has been absolutely gnarly to deal with that full-time job, also all the time that goes obviously into the podcast. Like, it's hard to find the balance, you know what I mean? And so this year I finally was able to shorten that gap, and my commute is luckily now just like 35 minutes. So feel really good about that.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:50

I love that for you, Sean. I also just want to point out I got to go visit Sean this year, and that felt really fucking great. I gotta see him a couple times.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:58

Couple times. It was great. I had a blast.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:00

Man, that commute journey though is brutal, so I'm so happy that it is cut drastically. Yeah. Because that is too much time out of your life. That's for sure. Similarly, this year's definitely been quite the ride, but a mega highlight I'd say was that I went to Japan. That's like my dream trip since I was a kid. I've always wanted to go to Japan. I was there for 10 days with some of my best friends, so that was fun. I learned a lot. Uh I learned that the videos that you see of people being crammed into those subway trains is very real. I got caught in one. That was scary. But everyone is so nice and it's so clean over there and polite, and I can't wait to go back. It was really nice. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:47

I didn't travel very much this year. It was a pretty busy year for me. And one of the reasons being that I started my master's program. So I put it off. I've been out of academia for about 10 years and decided it was about time for me to go back and get my master's. So I'm getting my master's in public administration. Good for you. At Purdue University.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:06

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:07

Nice. Hell yeah. That's awesome. What a scholar.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:10

Myself, a positive personal thing that happened this year is that I was able to visit Chell for the first time. It's something that we had been talking about for a year or two. We only live like four hours apart.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:28

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:29

Uh Chell's schedule is way busier than mine. So I was like, you know what? I'm gonna get in wherever I fit in. And we just made it work. We went to a vampire themed circus, and it was great. And you know, for the most part that day It was great. She just kind of showed me around her town, and it was a good time. Whoa, that sounds fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:53

Yep. He got to meet horror novice husband Evan at dinner, and yeah, we we saw the show, which ironically it kind of worked out coincidentally. It was Vampire Day on for the 31 Days of Horror when we went to see it, which we hadn't planned at the time, but it worked out that way. So counted that. But it was it was a great time. I got to show Nathan around my hometown or where I live currently, Wabash, Indiana. And Nathan, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think you realized how much walking we'd be doing.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:22

I mean, it wasn't that bad.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:23

It wasn't bad, but you I think I don't think you realized how much everything was in walking distance.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:28

Oh, that's fair. Yeah, you know what? It's it's a small enough place that like every everywhere you want to go is just like down the street. Nice. We went we went like to four or five different places and they were all within like five minutes of each other. That's awesome. Little small town vibe.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:46

Exactly. And he got to meet a lot of my friends, a lot of people I'm close with and work alongside. So he got the full Wabash experience, and I'm really excited. Hopefully, we can make this a regular thing, maybe get a Midwest, Midwest mixer going, because Mickey Mac, he lives probably right between me and Nathan and all that good stuff. There's quite a few of us, so we're hoping to expand it into maybe a Midwest meetup sometime.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:10

Yeah, I love that a lot of our DMs are also the creeping reminder that I too could just live out in the Midwest and I'd be among friends.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:17

Oh, we send her we send her stuff all the time.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:19

Well, and yet another Hackerslash tradition, and as we get towards the end of our Slasher's Choice Awards, it's time to really reflect on some of the goal setting that we set for last year and what we wanted 2025 to look like, and then also set our sights for we want 2026 to look like. So, in terms of those goals, I know Mac isn't here, just knock his out real quick. His goal was to fire up the book club again. He had 12 books selected, the picks had more manageable read times, and let me tell you, Mac was on it. He was in there like swimwear, getting the people to read, and we love literacy. Chell, I know that you were also very active in the book club.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:00

Yes, I had a great time being a part of that, and we have a lot of readers in our Discord in the Hackerslash community, so it was a ton of fun. We read some stuff that I wasn't familiar with, like Night of the Living Trekes, uh, but also we, of course, keeping with the theme with the big premiere, we had Clown in a Cornfield be one of our books, and we had a great book discussion, and we even took it a little further. Chris, you, me and Mac hopped on a bonus episode to talk about the book versus the movie. So it was a great way to connect in a different way because yeah, we've got a lot of avid readers, and even between books, people are swapping suggestions, having their own little book discussions. So thank you to Mac for opening that up. And he already, I know, has our our schedule for 2026, so I'm really excited to start figuring those in. And I I think we're really excited, and thank you to everyone who's been showing up to the book club, who's been reading the books and being a part of it, because it's a really cool way to experience horror.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:03

Absolutely. I'm so excited to get in there. I did just get Lent a copy of House of Leaves from a friend, so I just started that, and I think I gotta finish it before I jump into any of Mac's books, but it's already pretty fucking trippy.

SPEAKER_07 1:22:16

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:17

So that one you may need a break from reading after.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:20

Yeah, yeah, maybe. I have to figure out how to read it. It seems very puzzle-like. But my goal for 2025 had a couple things we wanted to do. One, wanted to land a vendor spot as Spooky Empire without a hurricane canceling our plans. And this was something that would have been very achievable until Spooky Empire selected Halloween as the dates, and that was not something that I this year was willing to compromise on. I did go, I did attend Spooky Empire, but I wanted to have Halloween down here specifically. So I went up Saturday and Sunday, which was so much fun. I got to hang out with Ali. We met so many great people, got to meet Josh Rubin from Hard Eyes, got to attend the Terrifier panel, and that was an awesome, awesome time. But I'm very sad to say that next year Spooky Empire is also on Halloween weekend. So I think I'm just gonna have to buck up and just you know do it. But the other goal was to expand our video content to drive social media presence and help broaden our reach, and that was a big old check, check, check, check, check. So we had our YouTube channel that was kind of reactivated this year, had a few long form pieces of content on there that tried out, tried and experimented with. We also had a video every single day in October, which was pretty fun. We got a few other reels out there, so we did it, you know, we did the damn thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:48

We sure did. We sure did. You did a great job with that, and thanks for like your ideas, everyone's ideas and everyone's like contribution to that. And it it was great. It was awesome. I loved seeing our like social media pop up on my feed and like the YouTube alert and all that. It was what a good time. So that's awesome.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:06

Absolutely, absolutely. My goal over this last year was just in general to help grow the show in any way, in any capacity, and that was the goal. And you know, in some ways, I think we were able to. I think we definitely it's one of those things that like we never want to stop growing, so we always want to continue finding new ways to innovate and engage our audience and see where we can take this uh this show, right? But you know, we did a lot of things. I know Chris and I were we're really working together pretty closely to figure out like, is there different ways that we can engage? We changed some of our call to actions, we did a whole lot of different stuff on the show, right? Like, uh, how are we you know engaging the audience? Like, are there different bonus episodes we can be doing that can be really fun for the spooky season? We were really diving in deep in some of that stuff, and you know, in in some ways we did see some pretty good growth. And uh, but listen, there's always more opportunities, so we'll see where it takes us.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:09

That's true, that's very true. For my 2025 goal, it was just to kind of continue to build partnerships with like local film lovers and others around the country, just like the film community in general. And in a way, it was very difficult to do so with such a difficult year that I had and just not being able to be as active as I wanted to be. But, you know, it's the small things that you can do, I've realized. Like every movie that I went to, if I went to like an early screening or something, I always bring my hackerslash notebook and my hacker slash tote bag, or sometimes I'll bring my jacket and my notebook. Like I try to always bring something hacker/slash related, even if the movie I'm going to see isn't even horror, because you just never know. And I did have some people would take a picture of me and just like ask, I'd get to talk to them about it. And it's just the small things. I think also being in South Florida in general, like the film scene here is a little tough. And so it's kind of like what can you do like physically while we're here to grow the show in a way? And you know, I tried, but definitely room for improvement to try to build those connections and continuing to meet other film lovers and tell them about the show.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:14

Now, one thing that I absolutely loved this year was just how much we got to welcome in Nathan and Shelly even more. So both of you were really stepping up and doing a lot of incredible things. Now, I know that neither of you set like a specific goal for me on this episode last year, but I would love to hear some of your reflections on some of the things that you're really proud of from the past year.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:34

I don't. I'm really proud of being able to engage in a in a more meaningful way through the slasher FM. You know, I wasn't super, I it's kind of the first time I was ever really being recorded was on that. So I'm really proud of myself that I kind of stepped out of that shell from behind my my computer and my keyboard to kind of talk and you know connect with our listeners in a different way. So I'm pretty proud of that this year. And I appreciate Chris and all of you guys for kind of letting me jump in on that bonus episode content.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:05

I'm coming out of my cage and I'm doing just fine. I forgot the fucking words, but you know, you got the vibe.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:11

So would you say you you stepped out of the shell shell?

SPEAKER_04 1:27:15

The chell shell. I like that one. Nathan never misses, son of a bitch.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:19

Yeah, so I think looking back on this year, I think I'm just glad that I've been more spontaneous, I guess. Like my birthday was December 11th and and the 10th, depending on who you ask. Exactly. There we go. And the week before I just flew out to Texas to enjoy myself the weekends. I would say in the middle of the year, around June, I went to a Walking Dead convention in Georgia, and I've done a bunch of stuff kind of in states surrounding me, like Wisconsin, Indiana, visiting Chell, uh, Missouri. Mostly I've just been traveling more. Have a new car, so just been trying to get out there. It's been great.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:03

I love that. He can't be stopped. He's on the road and he's on his way.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:07

I hope that travel brings you around these parts because it's time to set our 2026 goals. And there's two big things that I want to focus in on. One is just another year of connection. And what I really want to do is just refine our whole approach. We used to do follow-up in each episode and have like the hackerslash hotline. But I want to bring that back, but more so in the style of like listener feedback episodes. So that's something I want to try out for the first couple months of the year and just see how that feels. Where we actually get to go through our comments on Spotify, on Instagram, etc., and just respond and have some of that conversation with you all. But then the other side of that is I really want to do another live show. And my preference would be for this live show to occur at Spooky Empire this year. Because listen, there's another podcast who did it, and it just seems very attainable to do. It seems very achievable.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:03

Listen, if we're gonna spend Halloween at Spooky Empire, let's do it big and let's do it together. I think that that could be really cute, actually.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:11

Yes. It would be so much fun. We can have the whole horror community there. We could do a whole nother show. You just pay to go to Spooky Empire, and then we just happen to be there, so it's not like a separate thing. The Spooky Empire rate at the hotel is already super, super affordable. So I feel like it could be a really solid thing to do. Hopefully it works out as a live show there, if not there. Because I know that there's a lot of work and intentionality they put into their schedule of events, but I want to do a live show somewhere, either here or somewhere attainable.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:45

The live show was fun, it was epic, so we definitely want to try to do that for sure. And listen, I want to get a little bit more granular, I think, this year. I think just really honing in on how we can develop even more content. So whether that is helping you develop some of the stuff you want to bring back on the episodes, whether that's figuring out how we can get some other content going, we can really start engaging with some of these interviews with some of the people that are involved with the movies. Uh, we have opportunities. We just need to go actually hone in on them and make them happen. And I know it's super obtainable. We just need to, we just need to work together to get it done. So my goal is to try to make sure that that stuff happens this year and get those bonus episodes in. So, you know, we're giving you a little bit of uh extra content, not just talking about the movies, but talking about the movies with the people that are making the movies, you know?

SPEAKER_02 1:30:44

That would be great. I love it. I love it. For me, I'm gonna keep it pretty basic because I feel like your guys' goals are certainly mine. Like I'm so bought in. I think that that's like the cool thing about us having done this, you know, together for a few years now. Like I I feel like it's like so much teamwork, right? But for me, it's like just sticking to the basics of I have had such a wild ride in terms of my time commitment. I've had to change job jobs twice. Like, you know, it's it's been tough, but I'm now working from home, which means that my health is getting better, which means I have more time to be present. And so I just want to be like around more. I feel like I love spending time with listeners, jumping into the watch parties. I feel like every now and then, you know, Chris and I will say something crazy about an idea that we have, and we live so close together that like I never get to see her. So I'm like, we need to do like the Sims stuff and you know, do the watch parties. And now I actually have the time to do it again. So I'm really looking forward to better time management next year, which means sillier stuff coming along the way.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:49

Isn't it wild that I've seen you less this year and I live closer to you than I ever have?

SPEAKER_02 1:31:53

It but you know, it it usually and weirdly enough, like that happens, you know. Like I saw my mom less and she lives right down the block, well, used to live right down the block from you. When it I don't know why that happens, but it's changing this year because folks, I gotta tell you, when you don't have a commute like Sean's, and mine wasn't as bad, but it was almost just as bad, actually, for a majority of the year, it makes a big difference when you cut that commute and your mental health and physical well-being will change for the better.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:24

Oh, speaking of of silly stuff and engaging with the listeners, my goal is I would like to take the fun and momentum of Monster Madness 2025, and I want to turn it up. I want it to go to 11 and really amp up Monster Madness 2026 this year. For those of you who maybe are are still new to the show, this is something we do in March. As March Madness is going on, we decided to take a horror twist on it with Monster Madness. Chris and I have been cooking up some ideas since Monster Madness last year. So I'm really excited to kind of put pen to paper, really get some really cool ideas out there to make it even more fun. Because last year was kind of just something we we did, wouldn't it be cool? But now that uh you know it's kind of caught fire a little bit. I I'd like to see how far we can take it and uh how much we can amp it up this year.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:17

I hope you are prepared because there will be a reaping.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:19

There will be a reaping.

unknown 1:33:21

Mr.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:21

Madness is always fun, definitely was fun this year. And it was fun to see you attempt to do 31 days of Scooby-Doo, was it?

SPEAKER_01 1:33:31

Yes, I did try to do 30 days of Scooby-Doo in September. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. So it next year. There's always next year. I think I got about halfway. But yes, I did attempt 30 days of Scooby-Doo in September.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:43

All right, I'm gonna add to my goal some Scooby-Doo content for September.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:47

Oh my god, yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:49

Love that. So I think for this coming year, I am going to leave the country for the first time. Not too far, Canada. But yeah, I've never left America before. I just renewed my license. I'm about to get a passport. I'm gonna meet my friend Alice, who I've known online for 20 years. And Binks, we're gonna go to the Final Fantasy convention in Vancouver. So that's definitely gonna be fun. That's next November.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:21

Wait, can I crash? Yeah, you want to let's all just go to Canada and make the live show over there. Britt and Tony are there.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:27

Yeah, it'll be great to see everybody. You know, just a like a small goal. Let's get keeper on this lineup for 2026. You know, that's not up to me, but I'm gonna manifest it right here. Last, I just want to see all you guys again, because it's been two years since I saw Chris, Sean, Binks, Mac, Ryan, and Vera. So that would be it's been too long. I say one year is too long, and it's been two years. So the next time that I see Binks, I can say, where the hell have you been, Loca? Because it's been two years.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:02

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:03

So yeah, that's mine.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:04

Absolutely love it. And listen, I I it sounds like all of these goals go together. It seems like there's a lot of synergy here. It seems like it's gonna work out, and I'm so excited to see what 2026 has in store for us. It's giving gonna be the best year yet. But for now, there you have it, folks. We've had a terrific year, and next year promises to be just as bloody.

SPEAKER_07 1:35:27

Oh yes, definitely. And if you had fun with us this year and you want to find out how you can keep this party going, consider becoming one of our patrons. Visit patreon.com slash hackerslash to enjoy even more of the show with early access, extended episodes, bonus content like this show, and live shows.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:47

We'll see you next time, folks, and remember when you keep dancing with the devil, one day he's gonna follow you home.

SPEAKER_07 1:35:54

What the hell do you know about the blues?