Slasher Digest FM | Slasher Digest FM | 2025 Spooky Season Wrap Up

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Greetings and salutations, and don't touch that dial. You're now listening to Slasher Digest FM. It is I, your friendly neighborhood, Slasher Enthusiast Chris. As always, we're also joined by our contributor and our demonic darling Chell.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

It creeps, it leaps, it glides and slides across the floor.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

If you're not in the loop on Slasher Digest, it's our free newsletter where our listeners can have a one-chop shop to find the latest on Hacker Slash, from the content that we produce to discourse in our community to behind the scenes perspective on the show and even some of our upcoming attractions. Now, this episode though takes things a little bit further and actually gives us a deeper look at what's happened on the show, going behind the scenes and what awaits us in the month ahead. Now, normally this episode is available for our patrons exclusively, but as a graduation present for all of our new Hackerslash University alumni, we wanted to include everyone in as we just recap what magic our spooky season was.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Yes, it was a fantastic few weeks of expanding our horizons, coming together as a community, and a lot of learning and connecting, and ultimately just having a damn good time in the run-up to Halloween.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

It honestly was a lot of magic. And as Nicole's Kidman likes to say, we come to this place for magic because heartbreak feels good in a place like this.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

There was definitely a busy, busy year, a busy season for us here at Hackerslash University. Again, we all went back to school and we all learned a few things, Chris, along the way, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

We absolutely did. Now let's actually just take a second to look back on what we did this entire month. Starting with just how on fire and electric our community was. Really, our Discord server is where the best of our community kind of comes to life. And it's a really a place for connection. Now, we had a few things that were happening hosted actually by our community and even Nathan and Meet and the you know the mystery meet double feature that we get every month. Now, when we think about those things coming to life, those are things that were kind of ancillary to the original spooky season plan, but they brought more life to the party, which was really special.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Yes, like any good uh college campus, you gotta have your student clubs, your extracurriculars. And really, we had some fantastic folks and community members really step up. Uh yeah, we had Nathan, which every week uh Nathan was bringing us a different watch party for a different installment of the Paranormal Activity series. And let me tell you, Chris, this was something I did not know I needed until it started happening every week. And just how much fun I was having revisiting these movies that I think I kind of only half watched the first time around, most part.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Yeah, those movies are fantastic. I have zero objections to them. Now, when I say they're fantastic, I'm not saying that I'm not saying they're all great, but they are a fun time, and that's really what counts.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Yes, and the commentary and the observations, it was it was just awesome because it was a lot of the same people showing up every week to to check in with this new uh installment, a lot of memory from the last movies. So it was it was just a lot of fun, and it I did gain a greater appreciation for the paranormal activity movies that I didn't before. Again, they were not all gems, but they were they were fun watches, and it I didn't realize how much they could bring people together.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

And really, nothing is more fun than experiencing something awful with friends. So really that's where the magic is.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Something that was not awful though, uh was the meet, mystery meet double feature this spooky season. Chris, did you kind of do you see the lead up happening for this?

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Wow, let me tell you that this spooky season was such an occasion for me. I had a lot happening inside of work, outside of work, in my life, outside of my life, a lot of things. But one thing that cracked me the fuck up was seeing the absolute commitment to the bit that Meat was exhibiting because there was a lot of mystery. It was there was a plot going on. And Meat, I believe, even got his wife in on it, and she joined the Discord and was reporting him as a missing person. It was phenomenal. I would love for you to share a little more detail.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Yes, it was he started right around probably the end of September, first of October, and he starts talking about this mysterious number and this guy that he met and encouraging us to call this number and kind of popping in and out, kind of like, hey, that's kind of weird. And then, yes, his wife comes in a few days before the actual watch party and mentions, hey, you don't know me, but I'm Meet's wife and he's missing, and he sent me this video. Chris, there were videos, handheld found footage level videos that were being shared throughout, and it was just the amount of theatricality and planning that went into this. And yes, of course, we did find out kind of you know what happened, whether or not Meat came out on top before the watch party. But gosh, it was fun, it was fun to be in the Discord those days.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

There was drama, there was flair between this and Meat's commitment to the Rocky Horror watch along that we had and actually throwing toast and rice. I honestly feel like Meat's gotta be a great theater kid, and and honestly, I applaud him for it.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Yes, thank you. Please do not stop coming up with these fun and imaginative ways to get us all engaged. And there were there were there were a few people that jumped in just out of the sheer curiosity to see what this watch party was gonna be about. And yeah, it was a great time. So bravo meet, and we're excited to see how you scare us and engage us again. It was awesome and we all appreciated it. And like we kind of talked about, there were these people in our community that they have their own niche and they want to bring that and share that with the horror community. And people come in kind of just checking it out, and like, oh my god, I am all about this. Or they're saying, you know what, I'm gonna check in once a month with you because I I I can do it in small doses. So we're lucky to have such an active community where on any given week there's at least a watch party or two to jump into, watch a movie you haven't seen, maybe one you haven't seen in a while, and if nothing else, get some good commentary.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

For sure. And something that I want to share is I am bad at social media. I'm very much an introvert. I too feel uncomfortable in crowded spaces where I don't know anybody. I promise. But what I will say is that our Discord is a super safe space to just pop in and you will receive no judgment. We're here with open arms awaiting you. You can join as much or as little of the conversation as you like. But this is honestly a place where I feel like I have found my people, and I'm just so excited to see how it continues to grow. And obviously, one of the biggest ways that it grew this year was through that 31 days of horror challenge that you put together, Chell.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Yes, it was this was a banner year for 31 days of horror. Let me tell you, I mean, it's always been a thing in the horror community for as long as I've been around it. But this year, it was it was just great, especially just having, again, the level of engagement. Yes, we came up with those categories, God, in August, September. We were rolling it out. But really, our community is really what drove it, picked it up. They were talking about recommendations every day and debating their favorite decades because we had a lot of decades this time around, which decade is the best horror, and kind of seeing how people had their takes on the different themes and categories. So it was, I always loved checking in to see what people were watching and questions about, hey, what do we think of this? There were a lot of fun times where you'd kind of mention, oh, well, this one also fits here, and they'd be so excited, like, oh great, you know, I can do this on another day. And if they were between a couple choices. So it really rallied around. We had a lot of people come into the Discord, and we'll talk a little bit more about that later. But they came into the Discord for the 31 Days of Horror Challenge, and they did not disappoint. They were coming in hot and ready to roll. And I think it was a great way for them to all really jump in and get, you know, get connected really quick and really easily over the shared excitement and challenge.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Yeah, one of the things that I loved even more was just seeing how many people were exchanging ideas and exchanging recommendations. And when you have that like free-flowing exchange of just sheer joy, really, it's something really, really special. And I think that is what made us really good soil for growth in this last month and these last two months, really, through the spooky season. Because this was a place where people came together. And I want to actually just highlight some takeaways here from our 31 days data. Now, obviously, we had our tracker in the last spooky season. Last year we did like a Google sheet, and I actually found a few people who actually reached out to me asking for that again, just so they can keep a personal copy with like their boyfriend or their girlfriend or their spouse, etc. So that's something I think a good note for next year. I'm making like an offline version available so that people can track it. But then a lot of folks actually gravitated over to our new tracker, which was a survey that you could track and fill out throughout the day. Shell, are you ready to learn how many visits we had this?

SPEAKER_01 10:06

I am I am so excited. Lay it on me.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

We had 1,175 unique visitors. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

What? That is that is crazy, Chris. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

I thought it would be cool if we got even 50.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

That is wow, that is numbers, Chris. And that is just a testament. I mean, we talked a lot about kind of planning the calendar. Chris, you did that survey. You were a madman with that survey and coming up with the ideas and beta testing it. Thank you to those in our community that helped beta test it, by the way. Yeah. But that is just a testament to you giving the people what they want and finding such a great platform for people to do what we do a lot. And when we watch movies and we rate them and we talk about them, you gave them that platform. And clearly they loved it.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I mean, I think it's still like a it was a 1.0 version for sure. Something that I would love to see, something that like sends them back their summarized view and like their own data and insights as they as they wrap up. But that's something that is going on the drawing board for next year. Like, how do we take something that is easy to use and also really, really insightful for the person who's using it without even maybe necessarily having to submit it? But I just was blown away by the way that you all approached this with open arms and just like really wanting to navigate a space where, like, hey, I'm here to log my movies. Yeah, I want some recommendations. What do you have for me? I think what's also really cool was you doing the work of also looking back on our episodes. And we actually built collections on our website, which is something that's been on my to-do list for I think a few years now, and I've never been able to like carve the time and space protected to do it, but to collect similar groups of episodes or themes, etc., to share on our website. So it's like a one-click, and here's a bunch of movies that we recommend. So I was really, really excited to see that happen.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

We love a good category, we love a good theme here. And I'll tell you, Chris, I used those recommendations for a lot to kind of help me fill in some of the gaps of movies I hadn't seen that the pod covered. So that was usually my first look of what where are my blind spots? What have I not watched yet that I still need to watch? So they were super helpful.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Yeah, I think the other aspect of this that was pretty cool is that it actually helped our people find us more and find new people find us. We had, by your crafting, very specific dedicated host days. And on those host days, we did Instagram takeovers where we answered some questions, shared some of what we're up to. Sean's host day was on the day that we went to horror Halloween Horror Nights. So his wife was really doing the most for us, like really like sharing a lot. It was fantastic. Mine was a little bit more boring because I was pooped from coming back from Halloween Horror Nights and I was asked to share the tale of the Jimmy John's lettuce. But a lot of that activity on Instagram and thinking about the things that were shared, we also did 31 days of horror movie recommendations on social media. So each day, my either myself or Binks or Sean actually looked at the category for the day and we picked out one that we recommended. And we also set up an automation to so that if you wanted, if you're watching the video and you wanted the tracker and you wanted some recommendations, we could send it to you. And I think that in come in combination with everything that we're doing within our community was just so huge for helping having new people find us and really discover the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Yeah, Chris, we talked a lot um in the pre-Spooky preseason about how do we bridge that gap? Because we had a fantastic community in the Discord. There's a really strong community on Instagram, there's a cute pod community in Patreon. We really wanted to figure out ways to build bridges to all of those different places. And yeah, the Instagram was on absolute fire this year. And I do think that helped a lot of folks jump over to the tracker, to the Discord. So I think I think we are just one or two steps closer to us all becoming one big happy family no matter where we come from in the hackerslash community.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Yeah, and I would personally love to see it. Now, one thing that's also really exciting to me, and we'll share more about like the types of content that we did, but we wanted to do the same or more with less this year in a very specific way, not in a way of less of just doing less overall, but how do we be more intentional and find ways to welcome new people in? And what are the things that we can do to make space for that? So, for example, this year we accumulated between September and October over 51,000 downloads. So we it's good, it's great. It's very similar to what we did last year, but here's the difference in what we did last year. Last year we did two movie reviews per week. This year we didn't do that. This year we did something every single day to engage and meet people where they were on the platforms where they were. We still had our core curriculum, so our movie reviews on Fridays, and then we also did bonus episodes that were more thematic and in keeping with the spooky season to support that, right? So we still have more, but we have more but with intention. We have over 400 episodes, 99.9% of which are actual movie reviews, right? So odds are if you're watching a movie The Spooky Season, we've probably already done an episode on it. However, what we wanted to do is be more intentional and more uh uh strategic in terms of what are we doing that actually adds value to the folks who are dedicating their time to listen to us? So, how do we have a bonus episode that explores maybe some a more curated list of movies? What are some ways that we can celebrate and commemorate the spooky season? And in addition to that, what are the ways that we can meet people where they are, where they are? So Instagram, TikTok, etc., so that we can help them discover the joys of Hackerslash and our family.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Yeah, and I again the 51,000 downloads, like that that speaks for itself, Chris. Just the amount of work that everybody put in. I mean, everyone was hopping on different, you know, different lives and different watch parties and different bonus episodes. It was really, it was a lot of fun. Just, you know, the flurry of activity we had these last couple months. It was just a lot of fun and to be thinking about horror in really different ways instead of just the formulaic whatever hackerslash movie episode is. It was really fun to kind of play around a little bit more and lean into some of those expertise and those experiences that uh we have in addition to watching movies. Now, one way a lot of people ended up engaging during the spooky season was through our website, which has slowly been growing. It's been a great place for us to connect people to, especially with old episodes. Like you said, Chris, we had some categories for recommendations of movies. So we had a lot of people coming to our website in September and October. So September, we had 515 users, which is pretty good. We had quite a bit of buzz with the be true to your ghoul promos and getting people kind of excited, but not quite there yet in the spooky season. It was just kind of laying the groundwork. Chris, we doubled that in October. We had 1,058 users in October. That is unique people that went to our site in October.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

That is banana show. What do you mean? What do you mean? This is fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

It's huge. And that includes over 6,000 events, which is Google Analytics speak for engagement in some way. That meant they were, they were clicking on links, they were scrolling, they were pausing and reading something, they were listening to an episode, they were reading a blog, you know, they were they were saving a blog, bookmarking. So 6,000 events, which means people were getting on and they were getting busy on there. They were connecting, they were exploring, and it was it was great to see, absolutely, especially because while yes, it was the hub, we didn't have really any blog posts that were new or running, but we did keep referring people back to that for the the 31 Days Guide and the episodes. And so there were a lot of great connective tissue to our website without, again, necessarily having a ton of new stuff, but just really putting on display all the great stuff that's already there.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Yeah, it's honestly wild to me that I think it's very much like to the expectation, okay. Yes, there's a lot of intentionality here. Yes, there's the expectation that something like this might happen, but to see it come to really life and and to come to fruition here is absolutely fantastic. I'm so blown away that we got that much activity.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Yeah, and we had some popular pages. There's always some that topped the list. So our number one was the 2025 31 days guide. So it was our tips, our tricks of how to make the most of the 31 days season, just which a lot of people I think were touching base with to make sure they kind of knew how to set themselves up for success at Hackerslash University. The second was our episodes page, Chris, which again goes back to us connecting, doing those categories and being really deliberate about encouraging them. If you want to listen to an old episode, come to our website, check it out there, which is huge. But then what's topped one of one of our top, I'd say, five or six pages was one of our genre recommendation pages. Chris, you wanna you wanna take a guess which genre people were most seeking out our advice and input on?

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Wow, what a great question. And I have a feeling it's gonna be something absolutely fucking bananas and absurd. I would want to think that it's something like slasher or holiday horror or something like that, maybe some 80s horror. But uh, I have a feeling something a little bit more silly.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

No, it was it was actually gore porn.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

You know why. You know why.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

You know why. It was it was just so funny to see. So clearly, people, you know, they were looking for the splatter and they were looking for for the recommendations of Hackerslash to to get them through the gore. So thank you to everyone who clicked on that, looked up gore porn, looked it up on our website instead of Googling it. We did have some people in the Discord say they Googled it and got very different movie recommendations. So thank you to everyone who hopped on our website. Hopefully, just keep coming back because we will, now that we're out of the spooky season, we will be creating new content. We will have some new blog posts up. Keep checking back, make that kind of your main touch point. It's a great place, kind of the center of the hub and spoke, to uh keep you connected and keep you in the loop. Even if you come out for a while and you come back, there's gonna be something new waiting there for you, probably.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Listen, if you're out here looking for gore porn, welcome to cornhub.com. That's all I gotta say on that. But I'm excited to see how we continue that activity moving forward. What I'm also excited about is how many folks we welcomed into the community show. Let's just break this down. We got with our new blood drive. 14 new patrons. Welcome to the family patrons. Welcome, welcome. We also got 24 newcomers to the Discord server in October alone.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

That is that is huge. That's almost one a day, Chris.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

Almost, almost. We also, between the two months, had 41 new members of our Discord. 41.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

That is outstanding. And as one of the people who usually welcomes them in, uh, I didn't even realize I'd welcomed 41 people in. But I do know that quite a few of those folks, again, they came for the 31 days. They jumped right in, but they were finding their niches. They were finding people, you know, they they found for perfect organism who's talking about creature features and Godzilla. You know, you had people connecting with Nathan about paranormal activity and Nathan's Twilight Love and Spooky Bitch with her her female, you know, Scream Queen's good for her horror. It was it was just really cool that I I can only imagine those folks coming in and it could be really overwhelming, but being able to have those categories is really exciting.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

100%. And now that's the thing here, right? This again is a space where you can come in as much or as little as you want without the pressure of having to commit and talk in a big way, right? It's about participating in the dose that feels right to you. And what's also interesting to me is obviously we had this influx of folks. Some of that naturally comes throughout what we see in terms of our episodes, right? Sometimes we do movies that are brand new, that are that are hot topics, and people are like really, really focused on talking about. The other side of this, though, are the movies that are like hidden gems. So one of my favorite things to do is like look back on the month or the two months that we had and think about which episodes were the best. Cho we had The Conjuring Last Rights, Hellhouse LLC Lineage, L-O-L, Sinners, and Rocky Horror, the Rocky Horror Picture Show in September. Which of those episodes would you expect would be the most popular?

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Oh boy. I mean, Rocky Horror is pretty widely known. It's probably the most accessible. So I would I would have thought that, but we did have a couple new releases that I can imagine topping Rocky Horror.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

We had one iconic longstanding film and three new movies, one of which came out earlier this year. So we were late on it, but that was Sinners, 2.6,000 downloads. Wow. On its own. That in the first few days.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

That is impressive. That is impressive. You did time it right though, because you guys did do that around the time it dropped on streaming and was widely accessible. So a plus on that timing, I'll say.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Now when we shift into October, we had Candy Corn, The Stranger Chapter 2, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Blackbone 2, and Halloween. H2O, 20 years later from 1998. Which of those would you expect to be the most popular?

SPEAKER_01 24:54

I bet uh I mean Halloween H2O, it's it's a beloved one in the Discord community. It's Halloween. So I I would think that that would be one of the doing numbers.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Yeah, it would be. Now it did come out on October 31st. So what is impressive is that it got 1.4k, even just in that first little tiny bit that it was available. So I think in terms of trending, that would that would probably pace to be the most popular episode. However, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, 1.8,000.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

You know, Chris, I I need to revisit this one because I remember watching it. And, you know, as a demonic darling, I do love my possession movies. I do not remember being that riveted. I was very shocked at how excited people were that we were doing it because I remember it being just, you know, another exorcism movie. So I think I'm going to have to re-watch it. I know I missed the watch party of it, but I think I'm gonna have to re-watch it with new eyes and just see what I was missing the first time around.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Yeah, there's really something special about this movie, and it's one of those that we've even still gotten uh comments on as of late because folks are just still saying, wow, she did and they're talking about the true story behind the film. Wow, this woman was failed in so many spectacular ways. Like at every level, she was failed, and she deserved better. So I think it's one of those things where there's a lot to appreciate in the movie in terms of it's like true crime or courtroom drama stuff, but there's a lot more when you think about the humanity behind it and think about the actual lives are affected and impacted throughout this entire thing. So I think that's that's a special lens to view the movie through. Yeah, that makes sense. Now, in addition to all of that, we had several bonus episodes. So just to quickly recap, we had our welcome to spooky season, we had our spooky season bucket list episode, uh, we had how to train your scaredy cats, we had a starter guide for the 31 Days of Horror, we had October previews where we looked ahead at what was coming up, we had a review between Sean and I about our Halloween Horror Nights 2025 experience, we had an bonus episode where we untangled the Halloween franchise and looked at all the different ways that you could watch this franchise and which through lines, which plot lines to follow. And we also had our favorite horror movies that are set on Halloween night. All of these continue to do as well as they did throughout the month. But one of them that really stands out, so really no one's surprised, is the I think the correlation from what you saw on our blog. The 31 Days of Horror Starter Guide continue to be a very popular one. So I think that's something that we're gonna have to bring back for sure next year.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

Yeah, absolutely. The best part about a lot of this content is uh, you know, we may be mentioning certain things that happen right here, right now in 2025, but the conversations are really timeless. So absolutely, and I'm sure we will find a fresh new way to talk about the starter guide. But this is gonna be a great thing to draw on to just make your your bucket list and your starter guide even better. So I love that. I love that people came to us uh wanting to really make the most of 31 Days and that they trusted us enough to at least heed our advice, whether or not they took it is another thing, but I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

Absolutely. One of the things when we consider looking back, we look at the wide variety of content that we had, but let's look forward for just a moment and what we have coming up. So, in terms of episodes, we have a movie that is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, and that is the original The Phantom of the Opera. Yeah, I'm also really excited because Sean found the NECA ultimate figure of the Phantom, and then I found a sick shirt for the Phantom of the Opera at Spooky Empire. I'm just sad that we both didn't have those things at the time of recording the episode, but we'll get there. In addition to that, we have a couple others. So we have Frankenstein. This will be coming out, I believe, on November 7th. Our review will come out on the 14th. We also have a patron pick, and the options are looking pretty good, but we're gonna reveal that as a surprise once the voting is complete. And then we have the Puneverse making a comeback, it's the Bambi The Reckoning.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

I am so here for the Puneverse. You know I love it. I'm so excited. This it's such a wild combination of new and old classics. I mean, Phantom of the Opera is probably one of my favorite silent horror films. I love Nosferatu, but Phantom of the Opera is really what what's up with me. So I'm so excited to hear you guys talk about that one.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

It's honestly such an enduring tale, and I cannot wait to even continue unpacking this. And what I want you all to do is consider how many variations of the Phantom of the Opera that you have seen. I shared my personal list in the episode, but I want to hear what you all think.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Yes, for sure. And going along with that, there will be some blog posts coming up. You know, Chris the holiday season is is fast approaching. Miranda Carey and Michael Buble are nearly thawed. Holiday shopping is gonna be is gonna be big on everyone's mind. So keep an eye out for some uh for some blog posts, some suggestions of how to how to shop for the horror lovers in your life, sir. Maybe your your mother, like mine, is already asking me for my Christmas list, and I have no idea. Mom, I don't know what I want for Christmas. I I'm a grown woman with a house full of pots and pans. I don't need another PJ set. So maybe this can also help you if you need to fill out your Christmas list for a mom or Santa Claus.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

I think that is such a brilliant idea. I know myself as a horror fan, this is something where I'm very fortunate to have people in my life who want to provide horror-specific gifts. So let's help you curate what you're looking for and what you can get for each other. I think that's really, really special.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

Again, just because the 31 Days of Horror is behind us does not mean, Chris, that we are slowing down any. We are not going dark. We are a year-round horror-loving podcast.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

In fact, we might be speeding up.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

We might we might be picking up again, getting that new blood. We are revitalized, we are refreshed, and we are so excited to have a couple of ongoing community events, and we're gonna be introducing one new one this month, Chris. You want to talk about that?

SPEAKER_00 31:16

I legitimately cannot wait to experience for myself the magic, the mystery, the intrigue, the mystique, the experience that is Drew, Drew Baca's cocaine theater. Shell, you've told me a little bit about what cocaine theater was for what you've seen, what you've experienced in the past with Drew and other servers. Folks, if it's even a fraction of as magical as an experience as it was promised to be, I think we're gonna have a lot of fucking fun.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Yes, Drew Baca in the in the Discord. Drew is a personal friend of mine. So we have been going around in the horror community for a long time. And yes, Drew used to do cocaine theater as it started as a small friend group thing back in the day where Drew would put on a playlist of just absolutely bananas movies. I saw some wild movies at that time. It's the first time I saw C No Evil, the one you guys did. I saw that in cocaine theater. That's how there was one called Venom. It's not the Venom from Marvel, but it was about a snake monster, some bananas movies that I would never think to seek out myself, but Drew has his finger on the pulse of what, again, we lovingly call cocaine theater. No substances needed. It's just you can understand, once you watch some of those movies, you can understand the inspiration on it, but it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of commentary, laughing at how crazy the plot holes are and the campiness. So I'm so excited to see it make a comeback. Again, Drew is a fantastic friend of mine. And I think you guys are gonna be really excited at this new introduction to a world of horror, maybe that you're not familiar with, or you didn't realize other people loved as well.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Yeah, and I think what is even more special about this is this is a member of our community who's bringing more horror to our community. So if you have an idea of something you'd like to see happen, yeah, hop into the Discord and let's have some freaking fun. I'm even thinking about y'all, it's been on my mind how much I want to do Jeopardy again. These are the kind of things that I think we need to do to keep this horror love alive. Now, in addition to cocaine theater, we have two other events coming up. Well, one we certainly hope, right? Our mystery meet double feature, our boy never misses, so we'll see what he has in store for us. But we also had the final watch party with Nathan for the Paranormal Activity franchise.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Yes, that will be next of kin. Stay tuned in the Discord for Nathan dropping the date there. But again, what a journey it has been with the paranormal activity. Thank you for everyone who's come along on this journey. Thank you for Nathan for opening up that door, that ghost dimension, that that world to us once again.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Absolutely. It's pure magic. Now, we've talked a little bit about just theaters and things that are happening, things that are going on. But there are things that haven't been happening behind the scenes that I think is really important for us to share. One, obviously, we always do in these episodes a not featured. So we talk about a movie that we've watched that was not covered on the podcast in some capacity. So I would love to hear what you had.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

Yes. So I jumped in and was able to watch The Blob, which I'd never seen before this year. And I got to watch the 1958 version and the 1988 version. Uh, it was a blind spot for years, uh, much to the amazement of many people. And it was a lot of fun. Even the the campy 1958 one really it was a fun watch. I'll put it on again in the background of a you know, of a party. And the 1988 one took that camp, took that fun to an extra level. And I mean, you don't think in the 80s that an amorphous blob, you know, of jelly could be scary and entertaining, but god damn it was.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Yeah, if you uh put that into the early 2000s, it's gonna be a lot of I don't think you're ready, phone this jelly.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

God help us if we get another blob remake.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

If we do and that song isn't featured, I'm gonna riot a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Just walk out.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

One of the things that I got to do, which is really exciting, I think it actually kind of blends really well into what the rest of my spooky season spirit experience was like. And I really we're gonna talk about it more in another platform, in another way, in another time. But I got to see two movies in theaters, one of which was my second time watching this movie in theaters, but it was really special. The other one was my first time seeing it on the big screen because it hasn't been released on the big screen, widely available for the first time on the big screen was Terrifier from 2016. The original getting to see that and Art the Clown's debut. Absolutely well, debut in his own feature film independently, exclusively, not all Hollows Eve for a short film. And what an incredible experience that was. Allie has become such a huge fan of Arthur Clown and Terrifier, and I remember showing this movie to her a few months ago, and she was kind of like, I don't know. And then we watched Terrifier 2, and she's like, Oh, I'm starting to get it. And by Terrifier 3, she loved him, so it had become such a great thing for us to bond over. But to get to see him on the big screen was honestly so, so, so special. And just hours before that, I was actually up visiting Sean, where he lives, and we got to see Halloween, the original from 1978, in theaters, and it was his first time ever seeing it on the big screen. And when I tell you that there's just something so special about being able to do that, things hit differently. You see things differently, you hear things differently. The same movie that you watch a thousand times over in your life, you're going to hear new things. Like for me, I don't know that I've ever once heard Bob say out loud that he's gonna take the phone off the hook. I always thought he just kind of like looked at her playfully and then just took it off the hook. I never once heard that that was happening. I also think it's hilarious if you listen to Linda and she's obviously at this point being choked by Michael Myers with the phone cord. There gets a point where she's like down on the ground, she's out of the frame, and you still hear uh and it's just the funniest thing just to hear. So I highly recommend it. Isn't an honestly a magical experience.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

That is fantastic. The magic of the big screen, I love that for you guys. Honestly, that's that's so awesome.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

Yeah. Now, speaking of magic of big screens and that terrifier event in particular, one of the other things I got to do this spooky season was go to Spooky Empire. And this is where I want to ask a question of the people. One of the most special things that happened, and uh probably post about this sometime soon, but I got to meet Josh Rubin, the director of Hard Eyes, as someone who has followed us for a little bit on Instagram. I think believe since we covered Hard Eyes, he has interacted and and like some things, etc. But what was incredible, Allie went with me and she uh she mentioned to him while I was just like totally being bashful, modest, and starstruck, like, oh yeah, they reviewed you on the podcast. And he actually remembered the show and he shared that he loves the show, and he shared what a fan he is, and that he like was like listening into the shower and like just listening to the review and stuff like that. And it's like it was just such a really great and incredible moment to realize that, oh man, yeah, this this actually does reach people. In addition to that, though, before I met Josh Rubin, there was a gentleman in the Discord who the username is Cheers for Fears, and he was at Spooky Empire, and I was just walking in Spooky Empire, and I hear nice hacker slash jacket, and I turned around like, oh, thanks. And then I'm thinking, like, oh, this is just a compliment. And then I realized, wait, they're being specific. Wait, you know the show? That's crazy. And it was like honestly, such a great moment. He had his own film in the festival, so that was really special and like a really cool thing to get to see and just connect over. But meeting people out in the wild, honestly, what it gave me the taste of again is how badly I want to do another live show or a meetup for our community and get even more people in. So here's my thought, and I want to hear from the listeners how down would you be to have a meetup at Spooky Empire in Orlando in 2026? When it's happening is gonna be in October around Halloween weekend. So it'd be the 30th, the 31st, and the first. The hurricane messed that up, so it got canceled. But I would love to do that again. I would love to get a booth, and I would love to see if I can work something out to do some kind of live show, if not a recording or a presentation at Spooky Empire, then maybe something off of the hotel property and in, you know, similar to what we did for our last live show. So that's what I would love to see. I would love to hear some input on that from the community.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

Wow. I mean, I I'm so jazzed at the thought of that. I mean, I had my own first Hackerslash meetup uh this past month when Nathan and I got to finally meet up, a little Midwest faculty connection. So consider me there, Chris. I would love to finally connect with more of our community. I remember getting FOMO the first time around, so count me in.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

Mm-hmm. I love that. And maybe what I'll do is, I don't know, maybe I'll put up some kind of survey or something where y'all can express express some interest. We'll see what happens. I can't wait to share more about Spooky Empire. There's so much other cool stuff that we absolutely have to unpack. Maybe we'll do a whole bonus episode unpacking it soon. But for now, there you have it, folks. That wraps up this edition of Slasher Digest FM. And we've covered a lot here for sure, but there's always a lot more lurking beneath the surface.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

If you want to dive deeper into the stories we've covered, uh make sure you're subscribed to the Slasher Digest newsletter. You'll get all the links, updates, horror highlights delivered straight to your inbox. So you can sign up now by clicking in the link in our show notes.

SPEAKER_00 41:12

And if you're one of our patrons, new or old, thank you. Your support is what actually keeps this whole thing alive and able to run. Now, for everyone else, consider this your invitation to the family. We have historically unlocked Slasher Digest FM for everyone during that spooky season, and this is kind of the end cap of that. So if you've been curious about what happens behind the scenes, what's going on behind the curtain, now's the perfect time to really jump in to be a patron to see what our community is all about on an even deeper level. But for now, we'll see you next time, folks. And remember, punctuality is the thief of time, dear.

SPEAKER_02 41:50

As long as the Arctic stays cold, we've got nothing to worry about.