Podcasts
A Pornstar Slasher, An Oddball Murder Mystery and More in this Month’s Horror Bytes [Safe Room Podcast]
Before diving into this week’s discussion on Horror Bytes, listen to last month’s edition of The Inventory: Safe Room’s review show, in which we discuss Dredge, Diablo IV Beta, Resident Evil 4 remake, and more!
Welcome back to Horror Bytes, our monthly indie horror showcase, in which Neil and I each highlight four bite-sized indie titles; we have a new bevy of horror titles to chat about that can typically be completed in less than an hour.
And while some of these titles may be free, we believe it’s important to support the developer’s hard work: So if you can, please support them through their itch.io, steam, or Patreon pages.
This month’s selections!
There has been a murder a Mingus Manor! What is Mingus Manor? Who knows, but it’s filled with monsters that must be interviewed before the killer strikes again!
A pornstar and their crew have been kidnapped by the famed serial killer The Lacerator! Escape the hideout with all your limbs in this VHS survival horror homage!
Isolated and alone in a remote construction site, you awake to the power going out and must venture into the night to uncover the source of the outage. Everything’s probably fine out there. Right?
Bite-Sized Terrors: See No Fear
Separated from their girlfriend after a car crash, the player must make their way through the wilderness without their glasses and just their cell phone as a light source. And then the strange sightings begin.
Most things in life are usually too good to be true. So when your promised night out to see your favorite band ends up being a trap, and you’re kidnapped and offered up as a blood sacrifice for vampires, maybe think twice before being social.
Note to self: Ignore any and all strange phone calls about distant family members in this exploration of a strange unground world.
Awaking to discover a put has formed in your living room is not exactly an ideal start to one’s day. So naturally, you descend into that pit in all its cosmic horror glory in this text-based adventure.
“Say Nice Things” is easier said than done in this blending of The Typing of the Dead with a hometown hero aesthetic.
Safe Room is a weekly horror video game discussion podcast with new episodes every Monday on
iTunes/Apple, Sticher, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Linktree for additional streaming services.
Feel free to follow the show and hosts on Twitter:
Aaliyah Innocent.
May was a busy subgenre-switching month. After kicking things off with disaster “slasher” The Poseidon Adventure (listen), we watched American Giallo The Fan (listen), then wrapped things up with Vincent Price’s horror comedy Theater of Blood (listen).
Now, in honor of Pride Month and the return of AMC’s Interview with the Vampire (renamed The Vampire Lestat for S03), Trace and I had to check out the straight-washed second attempt to bring Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles to life.
Back in 2002, director Michael Rymer pitched Hollywood on his vision for Rice’s second Chronicle book, The Vampire Lestat. Instead, the suits opted to adapt the third book, Queen of the Damned (likely due to the ancillary opportunities of the soundtrack, written entirely by Korn frontman Jonathan Davis).
In the film, Lestat (Stuart Townsend) awakens from slumber to reinvent himself as a leather-pant-wearing rocker. Lestat’s very public vampire persona attracts the attention of Talamasca novice Jesse (Marguerite Moreau), as well as the vampire’s maker Marius (Vincent Perez). But the nu-metal has the greatest impact on Akasha (Aaliyah), who awakens and promises to take over the world if her old foe Maharet (Lena Olin) doesn’t stop her.
Whose side will Lestat join? Will Marius help his fledgling or abandon him to public sacrifice? And does anyone actually care about Jesse? (Please note: that last question is rhetorical.)
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, TuneIn, Amazon Music, and RSS.
Episode 389: Queen of the Damned (2002)
Practice your Egyptian accent and bare that midriff because we are talking the troubled “adaptation” of Anne Rice’s Queen of the Damned (2002).
Directed by Australian Michael Rymer, this one was doomed by the suits before it was even greenlit (which happened AFTER all of the songs were written by Korn frontman Jonathan Davis). It’s a bit of a clusterfuck.
Plus: praising everything Aaliyah (RIP); critiquing everything Stuart Townsend (aside from his abs and leather pants); a soft queer reading of Marius; and bemoaning boring protagonist/audience surrogate JESSE.
Cross out Queen of the Damned!
Coming Up Next: We’re tackling Ben Stiller’s horror-adjacent dark comedy The Cable Guy (1996), in anticipation of its 30th anniversary!
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for over 495 hours of Patreon content including this month’s new episodes on Hannibal Season 3 Episodes 5 & 6, Backrooms, Passenger, Leviticus, an audio commentary on the original Scary Movie (2000), and the return of our Requel Tier as we begin our episode coverage of AMC’s The Vampire Lestat.