Podcasts
‘Dying Light 2’ Spoilercast: Traversing the Highs and Lows of Techland’s Zombie Epic [Safe Room Podcast]
Dying Light 2 has been out just over a week now, and it’s clearly found a sizable audience. One that connects with its open-world parkour and zombie-smashing. Why wouldn’t people like that? It’s a bigger, bolder sequel to Techland’s 2015 title, and as my review for Bloody Disgusting shows, I am among those that enjoyed my time with it.
I wanted to really dig deeper into the game beyond my review though. Crack its undead noggin open and sift through the goo to inspect what makes it appealing and where it goes wrong. So a Dying Light 2 spoilercast episode of Safe Room was inevitable.
As Jay hadn’t yet played the game, I brought in Gamespot, Polygon, and Bloody Disgusting writer Andrew King to delve into horror gaming’s first big title of 2022. Andrew has reviewed the sequel for Wireframe magazine, and came into it with quite different expectations from me.
Together, we look at how Techland’s ambitions provided Dying Light 2 with its highs and lows. Does a bigger world help the game’s parkour? Is the progression too drawn out? Can a more human-focused story still bring the monster horror? These are the sort of questions we look to answer in this episode. We also discuss the choice-based story and how differently it impacted our own journey through it, with notable set-piece moments discussed along the way.
As this is a Dying Light 2 spoilercast, hold fire on listening if you’re still playing and want to discover late-game things for yourself. That includes the game’s finale and its revelations.
Safe Room is a weekly horror video game discussion podcast, premiering on all major platforms every Monday. Feel free to browse our LinkTree for a complete list of services here.
Feel free to follow the show and hosts on Twitter:
Safe Room – @SafeRoomPod
Neil – @Nezzko
Jay – @NotFunnyJ
Guest: Andrew King – @funnelchest94
After winding down June with discussions of our vey first William Castle film Homicidal (listen) and queer director Roland Emmerich’s summer tentpole Independence Day (listen), we’re heading back to 1981 to check out Joe Dante‘s seminal werewolf film The Howling.
The Howling sees television journalist Karen White (Dee Wallace) attend a psychiatric retreat with her husband Bill (Christopher Stone) after being attacked and traumatized by local serial killer Eddie Quist (Robert Picardo). It isn’t long before Karen realizes that the retreat is actually a secret cult of werewolves, and they’ve already got their sights set on Bill.
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 394: The Howling (1981)
Make note of that smiley face sticker and snag that conveniently-placed jar of acid because we’re talking Joe Dante’s stealth werewolf classic The Howling (1981)!
Join us as we discuss the film’s deviations from its source material before doing a deep dive into this very tongue-in-cheek, self-aware horror film. It honestly feels like a precursor to Scream, in many ways!
Plus: Roger Corman (again!) those incredible special effects, differentiating “color movies” from “movies in color,” and why queer icon Elisabeth Brooks has us going “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!”
Cross out The Howling!
Coming Up Next: We’re tackling our very first Ken Russell film with a look at his controversial 1984 erotic thriller Crimes of Passion!
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for over 508 hours of Patreon content including this month’s new episodes on Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Forbidden Fruits, Saccharine, Evil Dead Burn, an audio commentary on Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (aka Howling II: Stirba – Werewolf Bitch), and the conclusion of our coverage of AMC’s The Vampire Lestat on the Requel Tier.