The Desire of Horror

We get exercised about exorcism! "The Exorcism of Emily Rose," both the movie and the actual case of Anneliese Michel upon which the movie is based, provide the perfect content for us to discuss the "problematics" of the long history of the essential, human institution of exorcism. "Possession" has been with us seemingly since the beginning of human being, and it seems that it'll remain with us for the foreseeable future because it outlines the quintessential, human experience of not being in control of one's "own" faculties. There has recently been a huge surge of "possessions" and corresponding "exorcisms" according to Religious Studies statistical data. What's going on with all of these so called "demonic attacks?" Hopefully "Emily Rose" can offer us some clues as to why we are less and less in control of ourselves.Follow us @thedesireofhorrorpodcast: Instagram

Let's get into a discussion of S&M's relation to Clive Barker's 1987 "Hellraiser." The "S" part of S&M comes from the infamous Marquis de Sade's masochism, which is the "M" part of S&M. Seems like Sade's lurid tales would be full of endlessly enthralling perversions, but in actuality Sade's debauchery becomes mundane through endless repetitions of the same, and this is the problem with pleasure, even please in pain. Desire's ultimate outcome, as the Buddha once famously noted, is disappointment, which is where Barker's dissatisfied Frank has found himself. Join us to find out if Frank is able to find the ultimate pleasure beyond any other possible fleshly pleasure, which is the sort of excessive pleasure in pain that Freud called "Death Drive" and Lacan called "Jouissance."https://youtu.be/Xs7SIFTSn_wFollow us @thedesireofhorrorpodcast: Instagram

Rust has a near-death experience in which he travels to the ultimate darkness from which this fallen world arose, but he finds in this void not-nothing but love, a love which he recognizes as that of his deceased daughter and father. This darkness is the twice negated darkness of the Fifth Century mystic Dionysus the Areopagite rather than the pure darkness of absolute nothing. Is Nic Pizzolatto able to pull off the sort of unsentimental, yet hopeful ending that he sought? Join us to find out.https://youtu.be/i8RpssoHStMFollow us @thedesireofhorrorpodcast: Instagram

The Devil's Grimoires are the best. To get a signed copy of one of them is every occult book dealer's ultimate fantasy. This movie includes "Easter Eggs" in which Roman Polanski pokes fun at some of his more benighted occult followers. From the time that he made "Rosemary's Baby, many assumed that he was into the occult, a charge which he has always vehemently denied. The general plot and scene structure of the Ninth Gate, as well as its characterization, is clearly to expose the sort of cults that were responsible for the murder of his wife Sharon Tate as both weak and misguided. It's not too difficult to see in the ultimate impotents of this movies cult leadership, Polanski's hitting back at the fatuousness of Charlie Manson, a fatuousness which nonetheless was the cause of his wife's death. If only he would have turned his critical lens on his own life of malfeasance, in particular, his abduction, drugging, and rape of a thirteen year old girl. How easy it is to be smart about other people's moral turpitude.https://youtu.be/5OosCj4bT6oFollow us @thedesireofhorrorpodcast: Instagram

What if there really was a secret cabal behind it all? Conspiracy has always been a part of American paranoia since the beginning, but it's gotten out of control lately. Perhaps, it always was. In this penultimate episode of Season One, Pizzolatto goes all in with the ultimate conspiracy theorist's dream. He depicts both the paranoid's nightmare and most cherished dream. Join us as the boys put all of the sordid, yet tantalizing, pieces together.https://youtu.be/dlywM6OR5R0Follow us @thedesireofhorrorpodcast: Instagram

Who is Azazel, and why does he love Rolling Stones songs so much? Apparently he thinks that time is on his side, but why? There seems to always be time for Azazel's shenanigans because his special powers are rapid possession and mayhem. He has but one limitation, which can only be understood in terms of "cubits" and one's last, dying breath. Let's see if Denzel Washington and a theology profession can out smart this mad demon.Follow us @thedesireofhorrorpodcast: Instagram

Marty may have pushed things beyond any possible redemption arch. He continues to cheat on his wife with an very young woman whom he previously sought to protect as an underaged sex worker, beats up his daughter's two teenage "boy-friends," and in an extreme rage, threateningly puts his hands on his wife's throat. What would redemption look like for him? What does redemption look like at this point in the story for any of its characters given the fallen state of the world as depicted by Nick Pizzolatto? Perhaps, this is a narrative arch that doesn't tend towards justice, nor redemption of any sort, but towards indifference, pointless suffering, and moral turpitude. Is it true that any "true" detective will only ever uncover sin and endless horror in this dark night? Or is there something else in the darkness of this fallen place that is luring us to the light?Follow us @thedesireofhorrorpodcast: Instagram

"Hyperstition" is a word invented by Nick Land to describe when something that doesn't exist yet, intervenes from the future in the past to bring itself into being. Land uses "Terminator 2" as an example of how this might happen. In Terminator 2, robots from a future time travel to the past to realize their future selves by effecting the timeline of their creation. Closer to John Carpenter's "In the Mouth of Madness" is Land's example of HP Lovecraft's "Necronomicon," which appeared in Lovecraft's fiction in the early 1900s as if real until it actually became real as a published book in the late 1970s, even though it contained "fake" incantations and supernatural beings, perhaps. And, the characters in Sam Raimy's film "Evil Dead," covered in an earlier episode, use the Necronomicon's necromancy to bring evil spirits into the unsuspecting bodies of the movies characters. In this episode of the "Desire of Horror," come join us unpack how the fictive author of the book "In the Mouth of Madness," Sutter Cane, a reference to HP Lovecraft's "In the Mountains of Madness," becomes all too real when he is able to effect the "real" world with his authorial intentions, or perhaps, they aren't his intentions at all. Perhaps, they are the hyperstitional intentions of the "Old Ones" themselves.Follow us @thedesireofhorrorpodcast: Instagram

Nietzsche never said that "Life is a flat circle." But the quote sort of gets attributed to him in this episode. Would Nietzsche have agreed with this sort of pessimism? Nope, but it is illuminative to consider how the misuse of his "Myth of the Eternal Return," demonstrates the shows most basic themes, which seem to align more with the extreme pessimism or even nihilism of Thomas Ligotti and Eugene Thacker.Follow us @thedesireofhorrorpodcast: Instagram

In a political environment in which racial and cultural stereotypes have been weaponized against our Haitian brothers and sisters, this movie hits a little different. However, it provides a good talking point about how Haiti is imagined in the US. Wes Craven's "The Serpent and the Rainbow," based on the book of the same name by "Wade Davis," hits on two of any of our worse fears, one, being buried alive, and two, losing control over our own bodies. Zombies have long been a metaphor for involuntary servitude, which had its worst expression in chattel slavery, so it is no wonder that Zombies are so closely associated with Haiti and its origins in the domination of the French plantation system over the lives of enslaved Africans. Voodoo is an African derived religion that can both liberate and/or captivate its adherents. It is paradoxically both a symbol of freedom in the Haitian revolution as well as of control from an outside force.Follow us @thedesireofhorrorpodcast: Instagram