The Substance (2024)

It's never truly over when it comes to the world of horror franchises, so even though Ellen Ripley took a swan dive into a blast furnace she's still back for Part Four! How? Why? What does it have to do with disgraced sex pest Joss Whedon?All the answers are in this week's episode!

The most inaccurate summary of this movie would be to say that sometimes the real treasure was the friends we made along the way. And for a much more accurate summary, and to understand that joke, you'll need to listen to the latest episode of Half Price Horror!

You could instead call it "Alien 3", or "Alien Cubed", or "Alien^3"... but I think what you could mainly call it is 'troubled', as everyone who took a crack at this script over the course of the late 1980s eventually did. That's right, we are tackling the Assembly Cut of a movie whose director disowns it, and why? Well, you'll find out when you listen and get the wild, bizarre story behind the production of the third movie in the 'Alien' franchise.

Gotta admit, this was one of those movies that looked like it would never wind up on the show. But Christmas came and brought a free copy right into my lap, and I'm not going to turn down the chance to find out what happened to Sarah and Juno after what seemed like their certain death at the end of Part One. So join me for another deep dive into caves and crawlers as HPH tackles 'The Descent: Part 2'!

The 80s were the decade of the sequel in many ways, but 1990 was just past the end of an era when it came to launching big sci-fi horror franchises. So when 'Predator 2' came along, offering its audiences no Schwarzenegger and no John McTiernan, a lot of people wrote it off sight unseen... but as a reflection of a very important transition in American culture, it's got a lot to offer for film scholars. And all you need to do to find out what is to press 'Play'!

2025 brought us a lot of horror, only some of which was cinematic, and one of the biggest hits of that year was Zach Cregger's follow-up to 'Barbarian'. But does 'Weapons' hold up to repeat viewings? What makes it so fascinating? Why don't we ever see a reporter in this town that's supposedly so full of media? It's a lot of questions, and lucky for you Half Price Horror has the answers!

Get to the choppah, everybody, because we don't have time to bleed--there's just too much to talk about in this episode! That's right, it's time to tackle one of the biggest triumphs for one of the biggest stars of the 80s, Arnold Schwarzenegger and his action-horror-science-fiction movie 'Predator'! So everybody give your buddy a big sweaty handclasp, because here we go!

It looks like a low-budget Predator ripoff. It sounds like a low-budget Predator ripoff. But 'Without Warning' came out a full seven years before 'Predator', and it's got Jack Palance and Martin Landau in the cast! Two Academy Award winners dealing with an alien big-game hunter played by Kevin Peter Hall years before his biggest role (and wearing a Rick Baker mask instead of a Stan Winston one) make this an experience you just have to hear about. And lucky you, HPH is ready to talk!

Time to finally dive back into the franchise I've been waiting to cover for almost five years now, as we take a look at the sequel to Ridley Scott and Dan O'Bannon's groundbreaking sci-fi horror film and all the ways it made James Cameron a legend. It's a movie that had a real cultural impact, one might say, and we're going to get into each and every detail of it!

Time to conclude the 'Exorcist' franchise... for now... with a look at the controversial, poorly-received legacy sequel helmed by David Gordon Green. Is this a misunderstood masterpiece, or another 'Halloween Ends'? For that matter, was 'Halloween Ends' a misunderstood masterpiece? It's hard to get a handle on Green--but that doesn't mean we're not going to try.