Still Scared: Talking Children's Horror

Still Scared: Talking Children's Horror

Children's Horror Games

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In this episode, Still Scared finally venture into the genre of video games! In this round-up episode, Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray chat about children's horror in games over the last thirty years, contemplate the inherent eerieness of early 3D, and do a quick deep-dive into Psy High, a supernatural mystery text game from 2014.

A transcript of the episode is available at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/49-horror-games

Creeped Out Season Two

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In this episode, Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray finally dive in to Creeped Out season two, from back in 2019. Exploring this collection of curious tales, they detour into creepypastas and garmonbozia, and discuss the importance of checking the reviews to see if an app will steal your face.

As full transcript of this episode is available at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/48-creepedout-seasontwo

Grinny and Monster Maker

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In this episode, Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray talk about two books by English writer Nicholas Fisk - Grinny from 1974 and Monster Maker from 1979. In this episode, your brave and bionic co-hosts chat about slurks and ultragorgons, wimshursts machines and UFOs and ask the question: what kind of English family have their own swimming pool??

Nightbooks

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In today's episode, Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray are reconnecting with the modern era of children's horror, to discuss Netflix's 2021 film Nightbooks, which they think is alright!
Ren and Adam chat intergenerational horror, squeecore and gunge, and of course, reveal their favourite textures from the film in the Texture of the Week segment.

Watership Down

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In this episode, Still Scared tackle one of the heavy-hitters of children's horror: Watership Down! Ren and Adam are very excited to be joined by Catherine Lester, an academic who has published a book on children's horror films and is editing a forthcoming collection on Watership Down, and is consequently way over-qualified for the podcast! Together they talk about defining children's hororr as a genre, Watership Down's place in animation history and of course, take a break to discuss some textures.

Wilder Girls

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In this episode, Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray welcome in a new year of children's horror with Wilder Girls, a Young Adult novel by Rory Power, from 2019 (but not before going on a diversion about forgotten children's TV oddity Whizziwig).

Topics include The Blob, Playstation 2-era Japanese survival horror games and body horror, and Ren experiences a monent of visceral terror at the idea of attending a boarding school.

Content note:
-Extract with grisly body horror.
- Covid chat.

Burton's Hansel and Gretel & Selick's Slow Bob In The Lower Dimensions

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In this casual, end of the year episode your co-hosts Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray chat about two short films from early in the careers of Tim Burton and Henry Selick, respectively Hansel and Gretel from 1983, and Slow Bob in the Lower Dimensions from 1991.

Topics include the candy equivalent of offal, curious oranges, and cookie-cutter shuriken, and your co-hosts once again apolgoise for their incredibly erratic recording schedule but thank you all for listening anyway!

The Drifting Classroom

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Get settled in, spooky kids, because we're going on a trek across the desert wasteland into the wild and winding world of Kazu Umezu's epic manga The Drifting Classroom (and the even stranger associated film!). In this sprawling episode Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray discuss everything from climate doom to mother issues, with enough body horror, crab-aliens and random senseless death to fill your horror boots. Plus a cameo from 'Chicken George'.

This episode contains spoiler for The Drifting Classroom and Fourteen by Kazuo Umezu.

Content note: Descriptions of interpersonal violence.

A full transcript of this episode is available at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/42-drifting-classroom

The Tulip Touch and The Devil Walks

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Tread carefully, spooky kids, because today Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray are discussing one of the most memorably disturbing books of their childhoods' - The Tulip Touch, by Anne Fine, and finding out that as adults... well, it's even darker. We talk about the trend in the '90s for gritty realism in children's books, ambiguous childhood games and prison abolition (yep), and end the episode with some slightly less intense discussion of Anne Fine's later gothic horror children's novel, The Devil Walks.

Content warnings: prolonged discussion of child abuse, including csa (which is given an extra warning in the episode before being discussed), and discussion of famous cases of child murder; reference to suicide.

The Haunting of Cassie Palmer and The Monster Garden

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Gather up your tendrils, creepy creatures, and join Adam Whybray and Ren Wednesday in the desaturated '80s for some low-key but charming horror from prolific British author Vivien Alcock. This week we meet spirits, scientists and low-down male chauvinist pigs, and digress about whether you can accuratly identify ghosts with cats.

A full transcript is available at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/40-vivien-alcock

About this podcast

A podcast in which one film lecturer and one scaredy-cat discuss creepy, spooky and disturbing children's books, films and tv.

by Ren Wednesday, Adam Whybray

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