You take Carpenter's filmography and put it in a giant 1,500 lb blender, mix with some green goo, and hit puree. The result? Prince of Darkness (1987), a supernatural quantum physics siege film that has as many high minded science fiction ideas as it does characters. But can a director who's worked his way to major studio projects go back to a puny 3 million dollar budget? Can you slow burn an entire movie? And where does Alice Cooper fit in?

Final Destination 2 (2002) got the formula just right, a rare modern horror franchise primarily concerned with subverting and fucking with audience expectations, culminating in an approach that combines horror and slapstick comedy in ways that hadn't been seen in Hollywood in nearly 20 years.  On the latest episode of Tracks of the Damned, the horror film commentary track podcast, Patrick and Jim discuss FD2, the subsequent entries in the series, and the logistics of high speed freeway pile-ups.

So while now we can look back on Duel (1971) as a no-brainer, the 20th century's preeminent film entertainer being handed a story full of car chases, the reality that this movie exists at all, let alone this good, is actually absolutely insane. So what happened? How did Spielberg pull it out? And how did he almost never end up collaborating with John Williams? On the latest episode of Tracks of the Damned, the horror film commentary podcast, Patrick answers all this and asks the question: Where did all the country bumpkins go in Steven Spielberg movies?

Here's your wake-up call. Tobe Hooper is only ever gonna do what Tobe Hooper wants to do. He doesn't just follow his own drummer, he IS his own drummer (listen to the TCM score if you don't believe me) and while you may think you're going to get a quick cheap slasher movie out of a film like The Funhouse (1981), what actually turns out is much much stranger.

For the season 2 premiere of Tracks of the Damned, the horror film commentary track podcast, Patrick is joined by author Christopher Olson (Possessed Women, Haunted States: Cultural Tensions in Exorcism Cinema) as they both watch The Haunting and wonder: Is there really a ghost here? Is there really a house? How did Wise and screenwriter Nelson Gidding go about adapting Shirley Jackson's classic horror novel? Is there a scientific rational way to measure hauntings?

Patrick's already started recording Season 2. There will be 5 or 6 episodes already complete by the time July 7th rolls around. So if you'd like access to Season 2 episodes before they air, all you need to do is send a one-time donation of 20 dollars to one of the charities listed below and send proof to tracksofthedamned@gmail.com

In 2016 the streets of Chicago are full of celebrations but in 1963 the streets of Miami were full of blood. Anyone can walk into a nudist camp and point a Bolex at some breasts, but it took a mad professor (Herschell Gordon Lewis) and his carny friend (David F. Friedman) to think of ripping a sheep's tongue out of a Swedish model's face in screaming color. Enter Blood Feast.

New decade, new cast, new blood, new rules? Well wait, let's pump our brakes a sec here, what are the rules of remakes? What do the remakes of The Fog and A Nightmare on Elm Street share, other than the fact that they both suck? So maybe the whole "someone's trying to remake the events of the original" angle is a bit clumsy, and maybe there's no actual reason for this movie to exist. But the Final Chapter (until the New Beginning) of this seminal slasher series does have some merit to it. At least, that's what Patrick would have you believe. Tessa Racked of Consistent Panda Bear Shape, on the other hand, remains unconvinced. And with no Parker Posey teeth-acting to admire, will they see eye to eye on anything?

Scream once, Scream twice, Scream as loud as you can, but you've got an episode about Scream 3 (2000) in your red right hand. Reviled by many, defended by a few, Scream 3 was the death knell for the new slasher boom. With an assist from Tessa Racked of Consistent Panda Bear Shape, Patrick dives into a movie that dares to ask: are two Gale Weatherses better than one?

Is there no justice in the world? There is no justice, there's just us. And what we have for you this week is a dive into the most frenzied shoot of Wes Craven's career, a movie with a tortured production that nonetheless managed to win over crowds and critics alike. A movie that dared to ask: Can a sequel be better than the original? The answer is: Yes, it's especially common in the horror genre, but not this time.