Twitch of the Death Nerve

Our dear friend Erica Schultz is back on the show — coincidentally right around Mother’s Day — to talk about her book, The Sweetest Taboo: An Unapologetic Guide To Child Kills In Film (which you can still buy through that link if you haven’t ordered it yet, though get on it because it’s selling like hot cakes). We talk about how the book came to be, what it was like to watch A THOUSAND movies where kids get killed on screen, the parameters of the book (no true crime!), and the ins and outs of self-publishing. We also forced Erica to help us come up with a collective list of our five favorite movies featuring child death, truly an impossible task. And at this point many of you know Erica and her work already, but you should also listen to her podcast, Unsung Horrors. As always, pretty please rate, review, and share. You can also find us on Apple and Spotify and please follow us on Instagram and drop us a line if you want to join our Discord. Also check out Essex Coffee Roasters (enter code CINEPUNX for 10% off). We can’t thank all of you enough for your support.

What force on earth could compel us to the suburbs of New Jersey and Staten Island to watch movies? Learn more by following us on Patreon to unlock this full episode and instantly access our entire back catalogue of bonus episodes, video essays, written essays, and several of Samm’s ongoing solo podcasts. Support Twitch of the Death Nerve and help us keep the show ad free and on the airwaves forever!

We’ve gotten a lot of requests to do an episode on the great Stalked By My Doctor series, starring the absolute king Eric Roberts, and we finally delivered. Lifetime Channel thriller enthusiast Rob Weychert joined Charles and Samm to talk about this wild trend in made for TV movies and we honestly had the best time. We discuss everything from historical origins for this subgenre, how these films should be seen as modern day exploitation movies, the ins and outs of stalking, the career of mastermind director Doug Campbell, and much more. There’s even a special surprise segment at the end engineered by Rob! Read Rob’s amazing blog post about how and why he created a bonkers game based on Lifetime Channel movies. As always, pretty please rate, review, and share. You can also find us on Apple and Spotify and please follow us on Instagram and drop us a line if you want to join our Discord. Also check out Essex Coffee Roasters (enter code CINEPUNX for 10% off). We can’t thank all of you enough for your support.

The latest Death Nerve is here, and it’s a real throwback! Acting as a spiritual successor to our Texas Psychorama episode from a couple years back, Death Nerve founding member and true dyed in the wool freakshow Jon Dzwonar is back with a fiendish 6 movie marathon! Unfortunately, Samm got stuck in the hospital visiting her catatonic friend Patrick, so she’s sitting this one out. Don’t worry, friends, Patrick still lives, and Samm will be back on Death Nerve next week. Also featured on this episode is Erica Shultz, host of the Unsung Horrors podcast and author of The Sweetest Taboo: An Unapologetic Guide to Child Kills in Film. She helps us work through an insane line up of mystery movies that include a hicksploitation film, a castrationsploitation Category-III flick, and a sleazy NY movie just to name a few! The episode is a fun and breezy walk down Cult Cinema Lane, hope y’all dig it! As always, pretty please rate, review, and share. You can also find us on Apple and Spotify and please follow us on Instagram and drop us a line if you want to join our Discord. Also check out Essex Coffee Roasters (enter code CINEPUNX for 10% off). We can’t thank all of you enough for your support.

In this episode, Samm gives an impassioned argument for why you should watch as many Kenji Misumi movies as possible and Charles dons a tinfoil hat to explore the connection between the death drive and ’00s disaster movies. What the hell does that mean? Learn more by following us on Patreon to unlock this full episode and instantly access our entire back catalogue of bonus episodes, video essays, written essays, and several of Samm’s ongoing solo podcasts. Support Twitch of the Death Nerve and help us keep the show ad free and on the airwaves forever!

How am I supposed to relate to a character who has CGI blood coursing through their veins? Find out the answer to this question for the ages by following us on Patreon to unlock this full episode and instantly access our entire back catalogue of bonus episodes, video essays, written essays, and several of Samm’s ongoing solo podcasts. Support Twitch of the Death Nerve and help us keep the show ad free and on the airwaves forever!

Dune has been one of Samm’s favorite books since childhood and Charles has become similarly obsessed (maybe even more so), so it was inevitable that we were going to do cover it at some point, because… the spice must flow. For this episode — which covers everything from Herbert’s first few books to David Lynch’s adaptation and the two Villeneuve films — we knew we had to get Mike White as our co-host. Most of you are already familiar with his work as the relentlessly prolific host of The Projection Booth, where he’s already done several Dune-related episodes, but he also contributed a commentary for the Arrow blu-ray of David Lynch’s Dune. This is a pretty wild discussion that covers a lot of ground, but it might help to go in with at least a basic knowledge of Dune’s plot and some of the key terms. As always, pretty please rate, review, and share. You can also find us on Apple and Spotify and please follow us on Instagram and drop us a line if you want to join our Discord. Also check out Essex Coffee Roasters (enter code CINEPUNX for 10% off). We can’t thank all of you enough for your support.

From the inception of Twitch of the Death Nerve, an episode on Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) seemed inevitable. It’s a film that has had an incredible influence on Samm’s life, plus we got to see it on 35mm recently at a sold out screening in NYC. Luckily we found the perfect guest, Annie Rose Malamet, who shares Samm’s deep love of and admiration for the Marquis de Sade. Many of you are already familiar with Annie’s work, especially her wonderful podcast Girls, Guts & Giallo, but please follow her on Patreon if you aren’t already! If you’re unfamiliar with Salò, you might want to watch the film and come back to this episode, which doesn’t cover a lot of introductory material, but is a rich discussion that ranges from Italian fascism to WWII trauma, political violence in the ’70s, Pasolini’s sexuality and its potential impact as a queer film, how it remains relevant, and how its lessons can help us grapple with genocide unfolding in front of the world today. As always, pretty please rate, review, and share. You can also find us on Apple and Spotify and please follow us on Instagram and drop us a line if you want to join our Discord. Also check out Essex Coffee Roasters (enter code CINEPUNX for 10% off). We can’t thank all of you enough for your support.

Follow us on Patreon to unlock this full episode and instantly access our entire back catalogue of bonus episodes, video essays, written essays, and several of Samm’s ongoing solo podcasts. Support Twitch of the Death Nerve and help us keep the show ad free and on the airwaves forever!

For this episode, we’re diving in to the Hong Kong New Wave through the work of underrated auteur Patrick Tam. Dear Death Nerve friend Bobby Rodriguez joins to help break down the history of political turmoil in Hong Kong in the ’60s as it relates to the birth of the New Wave. We talk about its origins in television, how the Hong Kong New Wave is different from other arthouse movements, and how it reimagines popular and cult genre tropes. We also share our love for Tam’s Love Massacre (1981) and My Heart is That Eternal Rose (1989) and talk about his influence on Wong Kar-wai. Bobby was kind enough to share her extensive notes here — and she made us a Cantopop playlist of cover songs! As always, pretty please rate, review, and share. You can also find us on Apple and Spotify and please follow us on Instagram and drop us a line if you want to join our Discord. Also check out Essex Coffee Roasters (enter code CINEPUNX for 10% off). We can’t thank all of you enough for your support.