Not a Bomb

This week on Not A Bomb, Troy and Brad descend into a waking nightmare with 1990's Jacob's Ladder. Starring Tim Robbins and directed by Adrian Lyne, this psychological mind-bender blurs the lines between reality, hallucination, and pure terror. While Jacob's Ladder might not fit the traditional definition of a horror film, make no mistake — this is one of the most unsettling and nightmarish cinematic experiences you'll ever encounter. With disturbing imagery, an overwhelming sense of dread, and a story that keeps you questioning everything, Jacob's Ladder proves that sometimes the scariest things aren't monsters lurking in the shadows, but the horrors hiding inside our own minds.Join Troy and Brad as they attempt to make sense of this haunting film and decide whether Jacob's Ladder is truly a bomb!Want to help support the show? Head over to the Not A Bomb Tee Public store and check our merchandise. Special thanks to Ted Blair for the amazing designs!Cinova - The future of Movie and TVWe're committed to hearing your feedback and suggestions. If there's a cinematic flop you'd like us to delve into, please reach out to us at [email protected] or through our contact page. Your reviews and feedback are what drive us. If you enjoy our content, consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.Cast: Brad, Troy

Welcome back to Not A Bomb, the podcast where we dig through Hollywood's cinematic disasters to find out if there's a hidden gem buried beneath the rubble. This week, Troy and Brad are saying goodbye to the Resident Evil series with it’s first attempt at a reboot with 2021's Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, Written and directed by Johannes Roberts, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City abandons the increasingly ridiculous, action-heavy adventures of Alice and attempts to return the franchise to its horror roots. Set in 1998, the film follows Claire Redfield, Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Leon S. Kennedy, and a handful of other unfortunate souls as they uncover the sinister secrets of the Umbrella Corporation. Unlike the previous films, Welcome to Raccoon City desperately wants you to know that the filmmakers actually played the video games. The Spencer Mansion? Check. The Raccoon City Police Department? Check. The orphanage, secret passages, familiar puzzles, iconic camera angles, and enough Easter eggs to fill an entire inventory box? Absolutely.This week, Troy and Brad dive into the film's attempts to capture the atmosphere of the original games, its impressive attention to certain visual details, the questionable treatment of fan-favorite characters, and the baffling decision to combine two beloved survival horror stories into one overcrowded movie. Does Welcome to Raccoon City finally deliver the faithful Resident Evil adaptation fans have wanted for decades? Is it an underrated horror film unfairly punished by impossible expectations? Or does it prove that simply recreating memorable moments from a video game isn't the same thing as understanding what made those moments memorable in the first place?Grab your green herbs, combine those ink ribbons, and make sure you've got enough inventory space for that oddly shaped key. Listen and find out if Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is truly a bomb!Want to help support the show? Head over to the Not A Bomb Tee Public store and check our merchandise. Special thanks to Ted Blair for the amazing designs!Cinova - The future of Movie and TVWe're committed to hearing your feedback and suggestions. If there's a cinematic flop you'd like us to delve into, please reach out to us at [email protected] or through our contact page. Your reviews and feedback are what drive us. If you enjoy our content, consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.Cast: Brad, Troy

It's another week of undead madness here at Not A Bomb, and Troy and Brad are diving headfirst into the fourth installment of a franchise that apparently refuses to stay dead. This week, we're tackling Resident Evil: Afterlife, the 2010 action-horror sequel that asks the important question: Written and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, Resident Evil: Afterlife picks up where Extinction left off, with Alice (Milla Jovovich) launching an all-out assault on the Umbrella Corporation's Tokyo headquarters alongside an army of her own clones. Yes, clones. Because apparently one superpowered Alice wasn't enough to keep this increasingly ridiculous franchise moving forward. And did we mention this movie is in 3D?Oh yes, Resident Evil: Afterlife arrived during Hollywood's great 3D obsession, and Paul W. S. Anderson was absolutely determined to make sure audiences got their money's worth. Bullets fly toward the screen, weapons launch directly at the audience, water droplets float through the air, and nearly every action sequence unfolds in enough slow motion to make you wonder if someone accidentally bumped the playback speed down to 50 percent. This week, Troy and Brad dive into the franchise's increasingly bizarre mythology, the return of Paul W. S. Anderson to the director's chair, the film's aggressive use of 3D technology, and the introduction of Chris Redfield and Albert Wesker as major players in the cinematic universe. Does Afterlife represent a stylish evolution of the series, or has Resident Evil officially become a collection of video game references loosely connected by increasingly ridiculous action sequences? Can a movie this committed to spectacle still deliver genuine horror? And, perhaps most importantly, how many times can Alice dramatically remove her sunglasses before the franchise finally runs out of ideas? Listen and find out!Want to help support the show? Head over to the Not A Bomb Tee Public store and check our merchandise. Special thanks to Ted Blair for the amazing designs!Cinova - The future of Movie and TVWe're committed to hearing your feedback and suggestions. If there's a cinematic flop you'd like us to delve into, please reach out to us at [email protected] or through our contact page. Your reviews and feedback are what drive us. If you enjoy our content, consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.Cast: Brad, Troy

It's another week of undead insanity here at Not A Bomb, and Troy and Brad are leaving the zombie-infested streets of Raccoon City behind for the sun-scorched wastelands of he 2007 sequel - Resident Evil: Extinction.Directed by Russell Mulcahy, the man responsible for Highlander, Resident Evil: Extinction takes place several years after the events of Apocalypse. The T-virus has officially gone global, civilization has collapsed, and the entire planet is apparently turning into a giant desert. Yes, Resident Evil: Extinction features an enormous flock of infected birds attacking our heroes in what might be the most expensive advertisement for staying indoors ever filmed. It's one of several moments when the movie completely abandons logic in favor of glorious B-movie spectacle. Between the desert convoys, superpowered Alice, underground laboratories, and increasingly ridiculous mutations, the franchise has officially entered its "anything goes" era.This week, Troy and Brad dive into the film's bizarre decision to turn the entire world into a desert, the introduction of Claire Redfield, the increasingly absurd mythology surrounding Alice, and the franchise's continuing struggle to remember what made Resident Evil popular in the first place. Does Extinction breathe new life into a series that desperately needed a change of scenery? Is it an underrated slice of post-apocalyptic action-horror? Grab your green herbs, fill up the gas tank, and don't forget your sunscreen, because the zombie apocalypse has never looked quite this dusty.Want to help support the show? Head over to the Not A Bomb Tee Public store and check our merchandise. Special thanks to Ted Blair for the amazing designs!Cinova - The future of Movie and TVWe're committed to hearing your feedback and suggestions. If there's a cinematic flop you'd like us to delve into, please reach out to us at [email protected] or through our contact page. Your reviews and feedback are what drive us. If you enjoy our content, consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.Cast: Brad, Troy

It's another week of horror here at Not A Bomb, and Troy and Brad are heading straight into the zombie-infested streets of Raccoon City for Resident Evil: Apocalypse, the 2004 sequel to the original Alice film. - 2002s Resident Evil. Directed by Alexander Witt, Resident Evil: Apocalypse picks up right where the first film left off. The Umbrella Corporation has once again demonstrated that corporate accountability is completely optional, unleashing the deadly T-virus upon the unsuspecting citizens of Raccoon City. And then there's Nemesis.One of the most iconic monsters in video game history finally makes his big-screen debut, complete with a rocket launcher, an enormous mutated body, and the unfortunate responsibility of participating in one of the most ridiculous climactic showdowns in early-2000s cinema. Is Nemesis terrifying? Sometimes. Is he intimidating? Absolutely. Does the movie eventually turn him into something that feels suspiciously like a professional wrestling storyline? You better believe it.Resident Evil: Apocalypse is a fascinating time capsule of an era when Hollywood believed every video game adaptation needed more leather, more industrial rock, more shaky editing, and enough slow motion to make Zack Snyder jealous. The film borrows characters, locations, and creatures from Capcom's beloved games, particularly Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, while continuing to build its own increasingly absurd mythology around Alice.Grab your green herbs, conserve your ammunition, and make sure you've got a typewriter ribbon handy, because we're heading back to Raccoon City.Want to help support the show? Head over to the Not A Bomb Tee Public store and check our merchandise. Special thanks to Ted Blair for the amazing designs!Cinova - The future of Movie and TVWe're committed to hearing your feedback and suggestions. If there's a cinematic flop you'd like us to delve into, please reach out to us at [email protected] or through our contact page. Your reviews and feedback are what drive us. If you enjoy our content, consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.Cast: Brad, Troy

To prep for October and spooky movies, Not A Bomb is heading into spooky territory, and this week Troy and Brad are traveling all the way to Japan for Sweet Home, the 1989 horror film that proves haunted houses are significantly more dangerous when nobody in the group has enough sense to simply leave.Bodies melt, faces distort, and the Mamiya mansion becomes increasingly hostile to anyone unfortunate enough to still be wandering its hallways. The effects were overseen by legendary makeup artist Dick Smith, whose résumé includes The Exorcist, Scanners, and Amadeus, and the movie gives him plenty of opportunities to get disgusting.But Sweet Home has another fascinating legacy.The film was released alongside Capcom's Sweet Home RPG for the Famicom, which adapted the movie while introducing gameplay ideas involving exploration, inventory management, puzzles, limited resources, multiple characters, and permanent death. Years later, Capcom would begin developing another horror game influenced by some of those concepts.That game eventually became Resident Evil.The guys are joined by friend of the show and host of And Now For Something a Little Bit Different - John N, Mr. Korean Kool himself, to discuss the amazing weekend the guys had at the Baltimore Comic-Con. Money was spend, memories were made, and comics were purchased.Want to help support the show? Head over to the Not A Bomb Tee Public store and check our merchandise. Special thanks to Ted Blair for the amazing designs!Cinova - The future of Movie and TVWe're committed to hearing your feedback and suggestions. If there's a cinematic flop you'd like us to delve into, please reach out to us at [email protected] or through our contact page. Your reviews and feedback are what drive us. If you enjoy our content, consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.Cast: Brad, TroyGuest: John N

Welcome back to Not A Bomb, the podcast where we resurrect cinema’s most infamous box office disasters and ask the burning question: is it a bomb? This week, Troy and Brad put on their finest trench coats, grab some unnecessarily large pistols, and discover exactly who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men as they dive into 1994’s superhero adventure, The Shadow.And the answer is apparently Alec Baldwin.Based on the legendary pulp character, The Shadow stars Baldwin as Lamont Cranston, a former criminal who has reinvented himself as a mysterious vigilante capable of clouding the minds of men. When the wonderfully named Shiwan Khan arrives in New York with plans for world domination, Cranston must use his psychic abilities, network of loyal agents, and incredible collection of scarves to stop him.On paper, The Shadow sounds awesome.And sometimes it absolutely is.Troy and Brad dig into a movie that might be one of the most aggressively middling films ever made. The Shadow is never particularly terrible, but it rarely becomes as exciting as its premise suggests. It exists in that strange cinematic middle ground where almost everything is perfectly competent, occasionally something really cool happens, and then the movie immediately settles back into being...fine.Troy and Brad are heading into the shadows to find out whether one of the most perfectly middling superhero movies of the 1990s has enough standout moments to save it from being a bomb.Want to help support the show? Head over to the Not A Bomb Tee Public store and check our merchandise. Special thanks to Ted Blair for the amazing designs!Cinova - The future of Movie and TVWe're committed to hearing your feedback and suggestions. If there's a cinematic flop you'd like us to delve into, please reach out to us at [email protected] or through our contact page. Your reviews and feedback are what drive us. If you enjoy our content, consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.Cast: Brad, Troy

Welcome back to Not A Bomb, the podcast where we resurrect cinema’s most infamous box office disasters and ask the burning question: is it a bomb? This week, Troy and Brad grab their autograph books, practice their monologues, and desperately try to get booked on late-night television as they dive into Martin Scorsese’s painfully uncomfortable 1982 dark comedy, The King of Comedy. Joining the guys for the first time is Dylan, creator of the Cinova Movie and TV ranking app!Troy, Brad, and Dylan dig into a film that might be even more uncomfortable today than it was when it was released. The King of Comedy takes celebrity obsession, fame, parasocial relationships, and the desperate desire to be noticed and turns them into a comedy where you're never quite sure if you should be laughing or slowly backing away from Rupert.And that's what makes The King of Comedy so fascinating. This is a movie about fame made decades before social media gave everyone a camera, an audience, and the ability to chase attention 24 hours a day. Rupert Pupkin desperately wants people to know his name, and he doesn't particularly care how that happens.So practice your monologue, ignore every restraining order placed in your path, and remember Rupert Pupkin's philosophy: better to be king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime.Troy, Brad, and Dylan are stepping into the spotlight with The King of Comedy.Want to help support the show? Head over to the Not A Bomb Tee Public store and check our merchandise. Special thanks to Ted Blair for the amazing designs!Check out the trailer for The 80s: A Motion Picture SpecialCinova - The future of Movie and TVWe're committed to hearing your feedback and suggestions. If there's a cinematic flop you'd like us to delve into, please reach out to us at [email protected] or through our contact page. Your reviews and feedback are what drive us. If you enjoy our content, consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.Cast: Brad, TroyGuest: Dylan

Welcome back to Not A Bomb, the podcast where we resurrect cinema’s most infamous box office disasters and ask the burning question: is it a bomb? This week, Troy and Brad strap themselves into the Animus, sharpen their hidden blades, and attempt a leap of faith into one of Hollywood’s most ambitious attempts to turn a massive video game franchise into a movie. It’s time to talk about 2016’s Assassin’s Creed.And if you have absolutely no idea what an Animus, Apple of Eden, Assassin, Templar, or Abstergo is, don't worry. The movie will explain all of it to you.Repeatedly.Troy and Brad dive into a movie that had almost everything going for it. Michael Fassbender leads an absurdly talented cast that includes Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, Michael K. Williams, and Charlotte Rampling. The film has a huge budget, impressive production design, some genuinely exciting action sequences, and a director in Justin Kurzel who clearly isn't treating the material like disposable video game nonsense.Unfortunately, Assassin's Creed suffers from one enormous problem. It is absolutely drowning in Assassin's Creed lore.Want to help support the show? Head over to the Not A Bomb Tee Public store and check our merchandise. Special thanks to Ted Blair for the amazing designs!Check out the trailer for The 80s: A Motion Picture SpecialCinova - The future of Movie and TVWe're committed to hearing your feedback and suggestions. If there's a cinematic flop you'd like us to delve into, please reach out to us at [email protected] or through our contact page. Your reviews and feedback are what drive us. If you enjoy our content, consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.Cast: Brad, Troy

Welcome back to Not A Bomb, the podcast where we resurrect cinema’s most infamous box office disasters and ask the burning question: is it a bomb? This week, Troy and Brad leave the real world behind and venture into a prehistoric fantasy landscape where warriors have muscles the size of tree trunks, women have significantly less clothing than is probably practical for the Ice Age, and absolutely everything looks like a metal album cover. This week, the guys are diving into the 1983 animated fantasy adventure Fire and Ice.Directed by Ralph Bakshi and heavily inspired by the artwork of legendary fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta, Fire and Ice is a movie that feels less like a traditional animated feature and more like somebody plugged a heavy metal album directly into a television. Every mountain, warrior, monster, sword, and scantily clad barbarian looks like it could have been ripped straight off the cover of an album you would find in the back of a record store.The guys explore how Fire and Ice combines sword-and-sorcery fantasy with Bakshi's distinctive animation style, creating something that feels completely different from the animated movies audiences were used to seeing in the early 1980s. This isn't Disney. There are no singing animals, no adorable sidekicks, and absolutely nobody is learning an important lesson about friendship.Instead, we get warriors beating the hell out of each other.It's glorious.Want to help support the show? Head over to the Not A Bomb Tee Public store and check our merchandise. Special thanks to Ted Blair for the amazing designs!Check out the trailer for The 80s: A Motion Picture SpecialCinova - The future of Movie and TV We're committed to hearing your feedback and suggestions. If there's a cinematic flop you'd like us to delve into, please reach out to us at [email protected] or through our contact page. Your reviews and feedback are what drive us. If you enjoy our content, consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.Cast: Brad, Troy