I say, did you know that the English Isles aren’t all Doctor Who and the original Office? Well, Rhias Hall and Jennifer Lovely are here to help round out your knowledge of UK horror with what they’ve enjoyed. Rhias gets historical, Jennifer gets modern, so no matter your preference they have you covered. Pip pip and cheerio, and whatnot!

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With a punny title like that, I feel like the opening here should be, “Hello, kiddies, welcome to another episode of Tales From The Crypt Don’t Read The Latin!”

This time, Jennifer Lovely and Rhias Hall are joined by Jillian Venters of Gothic Charm School to talk about their favorite books turned into movies. Spoiler: A fair number of them are vampire ones for some reason *cough*Jillian*cough*

And check out Rhias’ and Jillian’s podcast The Night Library for more book-related content!

(Note: the pun in the title wasn’t me, for once. It was Rhias.)

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If you think that those dolls are staring at you, or your reflection in that one mirror is just a little off, then you might need this Don’t Read the Latin! Your hosts Jennifer and Rhias talk about their favorite cursed items, and a few of their least favorites. And watch out for that… lamp?

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If you’re a regular listener of Don’t Read the Latin, you’re probably pretty well versed in horror movies — you know your classics backwards and forwards. But if you’re a new listener, or if you have friends you would like to help get into horror, then we’ve got you covered with our latest episode — Horror Movies 101! Your horror hosts Jennifer Lovely and Michael Montoure walk you through the most significant movies in horror history to give you a solid grounding in all the basics. Check it out and let us know what you think! And be sure to let us know if there’s anything you think we missed!

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Welcome back! Joining us for another episode of Don’t Read the Latin is Jillian Venters from Gothic Charm School! This time, in the wake of election results that are arguably more terrifying than any movie we’ve ever discussed, we decided to get our feminist rant on and sat down to talk about The Monstrous Feminine — the idea of women as monsters in horror movies and pop culture.

Along the way, we discuss Gothic romance novels, Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios, the role that Mad Max: Fury Road played in the beginning of Jen’s relationship with Handsome Boyfriend Jim, and we wonder why the hell Marvel keeps burying pretty actors under way too much prosthetic makeup, and we wrap it all up with the topic of older women having a voice and taking up space in our society. We don’t necessarily do a great job of sticking rigidly to our topic in this episode, but we sure hope you’ll think it’s an interesting conversation. Check it out.

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Bibliography
Books we mention in this episode:

• The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis, by Barbara Creed
• Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, by Carol J. Clover
• Monstrous Bodies: Feminine Power in Young Adult Horror Fiction, by June Pulliam
• Bad Dreams, by Kim Newman
• Angels of Music, by Kim Newman

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Mister Babadook
As mentioned in this episode, Jen’s copy of the crowdfunded prop replica/movie tie-in book from The Babadook has finally arrived! Here are some pictures of just how gorgeous it is. Click to embiggen:

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“Let’s make this bullshit happen!”

” …. Is that going to be our new motto from now on? Actually, that might look good on stickers, now that I think about it.”

So hey, check us out! Fifty episodes! That’s kind of a lot! And to celebrate, we are counting down the TOP FIFTY HORROR MOVIES OF ALL TIME!

Okay, well, no. We’re not going to pretend that we’re being at all objective. What we’re actually doing is our Our Top Fifty Favorite Horror Movies! You’re actually getting more than fifty, because Jennifer and Michael have each brought their own lists, so listen in as they compare the movies they love the most. (Presented in chronological order, so as not to descend into complete chaos.) Just in time for you to figure out what you want to watch for Halloween!

All this and more, as Jen tells us about a recent unpleasant incident in a movie theater, a documentary on the murder of Kitty Genovese, and completely spoils the ending of “The Changeling!”

We also talk about movies we’ve seen recently, including Blair Witch. If you just want to skip directly ahead to the Top Fifty goodness, you will find it at the 27-minutes-and-15-seconds mark.

Hope you enjoy this one!

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Please rate our podcast on iTunes!

The more reviews and ratings we have, the easier it is for people to find us. If you’d like to hear another fifty episodes of Don’t Read the Latin and would like to help us reach more people, please click here to rate our podcast on iTunes and leave your comments. It will only take a few minutes out of your day, but your feedback can make a huge difference to us. Thanks for everything, you guys.

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“I’ve never seen the 50’s Vincent Price version . . . or, now that I stop to think about it, I don’t think I’ve seen the 60’s version, either . . . and I’m not sure I saw I Am Legend . . . . “

“Oh, my God — move on!”

Welcome to our only slightly late episode! This time, we’re exploring that strange territory where the silver screen and your local bookstore collide. That’s right, this episode is all about horror movies based on books! Bad movies based on good novels, good movies based on bad novels, and everything in between. Did we miss any of your favorites? Let us know!

Worthy of Note: Hopefully you will notice a big improvement in the sound quality over previous episodes. We’re trying a totally new audio set-up, and we think it sounds a lot better. Let us know what you think of that, too. We’re still experimenting and learning, and after two years of doing this, we’re finally making a little progress! Eventually, we catch on.

Speaking of which, also Worthy of Note — we’ve missed it by just a few days, but May 9th was the second anniversary of our very first episode! I know, we can’t believe it, either! For those who have been with us from the beginning, thank you so much for listening and for your comments and support, and for telling your friends about us. For those of you just joining — welcome! Grab some popcorn and settle in, because we’re not going to stop watching horror movies any time soon. See you in two weeks!

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…. And once again after slightly too long a hiatus, we return once more with another episode of Don’t Read the Latin!

This time out, we’re talking about heroines in horror. Horror movies tend to have more female protagonists than practically any other genre, which is something we both love about them. At some point, we plan on having a Feminism in Horror episode where we’ll delve into why we think that is and examine just how horror treats its female characters. But for now, we just want to talk about some scream queens we’ve known and loved, from our favorite classic final girls all the way to, well, The Final Girls. Give it a listen, tell your friends, and as always, we look forward to your comments.

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Listen! What’s that sound? Does that eerie pulsing synthesizer music mean that there’s a killer lurking in the shadows? No — it’s just the latest episode of Don’t Read the Latin!

This time out, we’re talking about horror soundtracks and scores that we love — even when they’re from films we don’t.

Montoure goes all film-school on us and starts talking about diegetic vs. non-diegetic music, Jennifer carefully side-steps around the subject of a mysterious competition in her youth, and so much more!

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Stuff We Mentioned

At one point, Montoure mentions that the film He Never Died (he couldn’t remember the title at the time, but that’s the one) reminded him of a novel called Sandman Slim, by Richard Kadrey, so here’s a link to that book on Amazon. (Or click on the cover image, here, if you’re more visually inclined.) It’s a fun read and you should check it out!

He also mentioned the unused soundtrack for Hellraiser by the band Coil, and said that the whole thing was probably on YouTube. It is! You can give it a listen here. It’s very different from the soundtrack that actually got used!

And finally, he also also mentioned a haunting little comic by Ehud Lavski about a mysterious radio station. He reblogged that one on his Tumblr. You can click on the thumbnail below to read the whole comic.

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Wooo-hooo, look at us! We swore we would have a new episode ready in two weeks and by God we actually did it.

Inspired by our recent viewing of Crimson Peak, this time we’re taking a look at Horror Romances! Even though the course of true love never quite runs smooth in a horror movie — it’s hard to give someone your heart when they really do want your heart, and they’re willing to use their sharpest knives to get it — we’re cuddling up as close to this topic as we can get. Do join us, won’t you, dear?

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