For the second part of my ongoing series about Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Clara from Angura Research Center was kind enough to return to the show. You might remember her from the episode we did together on Shuji Terayama, but she’s also a huge Kurosawa fan. We had a lot to say about the horror films and thrillers he made at the beginning of the 2000s: Séance (2000), Pulse (2001), Bright Future (2002), Doppelganger (2003), and the short film Matasaburo the Wind Imp (2003). I think you can tell from the episode that we could truly have just kept talking about Kurosawa forever and are both dazzled by him. There are also some shout outs to Seijun Suzuki, Koji Wakamatsu, Masao Adachi, and a free Palestine. You can find Clara’s important work as a writer and translator at her Angura Research Center site and YouTube channel! Here’s a direct link to the interview she mentions where Terayama discusses the influence of Surrealist Rene Magritte. And I say this in the very end of the episode, but Kurosawa’s new film, The Samurai and the Prisoner, will be out in select theaters in the US on July 31!

This April was the great Roger Corman’s centennial, so what better time to finally discuss his work on Eros + Massacre. Writer, artist, programmer, and friend of the show Klon Waldrip joined me for an epic conversation about Corman’s 8-film series loosely based on the stories of Edgar Allan Poe. In this episode we discuss: House of Usher (1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Premature Burial (1962), Tales of Terror (1962), The Raven (1963), Lovecraft adaptation The Haunted Palace (1963), The Masque of the Red Death (1964), and The Tomb of Ligeia (1964), and a handful of related films. We talk a lot about the overlapping plots and themes in these narratives, the distinctly American use of gothic tropes, Vincent Price, evil redheads, being obsessed with death, Vincent Price with a side of Peter Lorre, sinister doubles, doomed romance, and so much more. Be sure to check out Klon’s new solo podcast, Late List, which you can find on YouTube (with a really cool video component), Apple, or Spotify. The first episode is all about Something Weird Video!

The greatest of all time, Meiko Kaji, recently came to NYC for a retrospective of her work at Japan Society, so naturally I had to celebrate with a podcast episode in her honor. This is a solo outing, where I discuss the Stray Cat Rock series, which Kaji made for Nikkatsu. It launched her to countercultural stardom and was her last major project for the studio before departing for Toei in 1972 where she went on to greater heights with a series of crime and revenge films. I discuss the five film series: Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girl Boss (1970), Stray Cat Rock: Wild Jumbo (1970), Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter (1970), Stray Cat Rock: Machine Animal (1970), and Stray Cat Rock: Beat ’71 (1971). These are incredibly stylish and often whimsical, though only loosely connected stories of girl gangs, their battles with rival male gangs, racism, the American occupation in Japan, drug use, the Tokyo nightclub scene, and freewheeling hippies. Kaji doesn’t play a recurring character (as in the better known Female Prisoner Scorpion series), but different iterations of a cool, charismatic gang boss and juvenile delinquent with a heart of gold. In the episode, I mention that my live interview with Kaji from March 28 will hopefully be up on Japan Society’s YouTube page soon (but there is a ton of great Japanese cinema content there already). I also mentioned this Meiko Kaji-inspired playlist which you can find here; I made this a few months ago for my Patreon, but it is a public playlist and perfect for spring weather.

I haven’t yet had a chance to talk about New German Cinema on Eros + Massacre, though episodes on Rainer Werner Fassbinder and key figures from his group of collaborators have been high on my list. I could never pick a single favorite director, but Fassbinder is at least in the top five. And Kurt Raab—the actor, set designer, art director, screenwriter, and producer who was among Fassbinder’s most loyal, brilliant, and beleaguered collaborators—is among my favorite Germans to ever exist, so it seemed like a good idea to start with him. Film programmer and projectionist Adrianna Gober is the only person I know who loves Raab as much as I do, and we’ve been planning this episode for… years now. We decided to focus on three of Raab’s films, though we do give a lengthy intro about Fassbinder himself and how he set the creative tone for much of Raab’s career. First up is Tenderness of the Wolves (1973), a bleak serial killer thriller officially directed by Ulli Lommel, but it’s essentially a collaborative effort between Lommel and Raab, made with Fassbinder’s assistance. The center piece of the episode is Fassbinder’s Bolwieser aka The Stationmaster’s Wife (1977), a two-part made for TV series that has primarily been available in a truncated, feature-length version. A kind Discord user tracked down the complete version for us, not knowing we had already recorded, but we HAD TO go back and say more. And we end with a shorter discussion about Barbet Schroeder’s Cheaters (1984), a gambling drama with one of Raab’s wildest character actor roles. If you have trouble locating The Stationamaster’s Wife, you should be able to download it here. You can find Adrianna at the Gap Theater in Wind Gap, PA, which has some truly incredible programming, tons of 35mm screenings, and some of the best programmers working on the East Coast. If you’ve ever heard me wax poetic about Harry Guerro from Exhumed Films, this theater is one of his many labors of love and is an easy drive from the Mahoning Drive In (and is about two hours from both Philadelphia and NYC). I am a bad person and still have not yet been there, but it’s on my list of resolutions for this spring!

I missed this podcast so much, but finishing a book while keeping on top of my commentary deadlines has been brutal. The episode title — as some of you have probably guessed — is a bit deceptive. This is all about my favorite new-to-me films of 2025 and it skews heavily towards East Asian cinema and towards crime thrillers. There are actually more contemporary films on here than I would have guessed, as well as some real wild cards (especially in the runners up section), but they are ALL BANGERS. Fair warning that a number of them are heavy on the violence, sexual violence, and/or gore. Some show notes! As mentioned in the episode, here is Kevin’s incredible list of all movies mentioned on Eros + Massacre. And in case you missed the news that there’s a new Discord, here is another invite (these links are only good for 24 hours, but just comment if you need a new one or email me at samm.deighan at gmail). Americans, please join in the nationwide general strike tomorrow (no work, no school, no shopping) to stop ICE. If you aren’t American, you can help by not buying from any US companies tomorrow.

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

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

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

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

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