Kevin and James have a chat, then sink their teeth into the first three episodes of the '69 Troughton serial The War Games. Note: this was recorded just prior to the Omicron variant catching people's notice, immediately making it helplessly dated. Good talk! 

Elliot, George, and I are back to talk about William Peter Blatty's fascinating, flawed, ambitious, sometimes brilliant 1990 oddity, Exorcist III (AKA Legion)... with digressions into the other Exorcist movies and books, plus Christopher Lee, Hannibal, Theodicy, mythology, etc etc etc.  Once again, my patrons got advance access.

The plan is for us to do The Omen next and release it on Christmas Day.

@_Jack_Graham_

@E11iotChapman

@EnigmaticElegy / http://www.strangeplaygrounds.com/ / https://www.youtube.com/user/ExaggeratedElegy

Elliot rejoins and the original IITSL gang assays Peter Strickland's 2012 triumph Berberian Sound Studio, a masterclass of aesthetics and irresolvably ambiguous, mysterious, gripping hauntological cinema.

Berberian Sound Studio - Wikipedia

My own piece from a few years ago, written immediately after my first viewing of this film: Carry On Screaming – Eruditorum Press

Movie Soundtrack 

@_Jack_Graham_

@E11iotChapman

@EnigmaticElegy / http://www.strangeplaygrounds.com/ / https://www.youtube.com/user/ExaggeratedElegy

Another podcast excursion into the Media Hauntological, this time focusing on The Shining, the 1980 masterpiece by... well, by several people, including but not limited to Stanley Kubrick.  (See also a triumvirate of brilliant women: Diane Johnson, Wendy Carlos, and Shelley Duvall.)

This time George and I are joined by Kit Power.  Because we've decided we hate Elliot.  No, no, no.  I kid.  If the Joker ever tries to corrupt one of us, it'll be Elliot, because he's the best of us.  Truth is, George and Kit and I have long been planning a Shiningcast, since long before George, Elliot and I launched the project that I, to the silent embarrassment of everyone else involved, insist on calling It *IS* The Same Log.  

Luckily, it fits very well into the running thread of IITSL.  By agreement with Elliot, George and I went ahead with Kit, and this episode slots nicely into the series.

It's a long, long episode in which we mostly talk about the film but also talk a lot about the novel, some about the TV miniseries, and even a little bit about Doctor Sleep (book and movie).  As well as the usual manifold digressions.

Content warnings for discussion of very difficult subjects, and also for gushing because this is very very my favourite movie.

The longest Shabcast ever - both in terms of its total running time and of how long it has taken to release - draws to a close.  

In this final fantastic episode, Holly offers some closing remarks about texts, fan art, fan fiction, fantasy and its relationship to real action, play, etc.  

As you might expect by now, these remarks are complex, thought-provoking, and challenging.  They take in matters of great delicacy, and even darkness and danger.  Touched upon in our final discussion are: the nature of fantasy, the line between the pornographic and non-pornographic, unregulated fan spaces, attempts to regulate them through community pressure, accusations and abuse in fandom, the safety of children to think through their development through fiction and gameplay, possible exploitation of young fans, good and bad faith in discussions of what is or isn't appropriate, the complexity of moral judgement and legality re representations of criminal and immoral acts, realism as ideology, the tension between exploration and normalisation, etc, etc.

Some of this is knotty stuff so content warnings abound.

Elliot, George, and Jack continue their podcasting odyssey into the Media Hauntological, branching off into a related but new direction with Robert Eggers' 2015 masterpiece The Witch. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witch_(2015_film)  

Content warnings abound.

@_Jack_Graham_

@E11iotChapman

@EnigmaticElegy / http://www.strangeplaygrounds.com/ / https://www.youtube.com/user/ExaggeratedElegy

A little extra.  George, Elliot and I don't consider, let alone take a course of action as drastic as 'stop talking' lightly.  Our Blair Witch conversation continued for another near 40 minutes after the point where I ended the episode.  And here it is.

Come one, come all! Elliot Chapman, master performer and one of the finest storytellers of our Internet Age, is on Human Bondage. He witnesses strange things, like Christopher Lee's third nipple, Kit's defense of Fleming's novel, a shoutout to Wrong With Authority fans, and James bodying Christine near the end.

Welcome back to the loooong discussion between myself, Jack Graham, and the excellent Holly Boson (@fireh9lly) in which Holly explains Final Fantasy VII to me, a total novice, in pitiless detail.

Sorry for the looooooong gap between this and the last installment.

So here, at last, is Part 4

This episode is mainly about why the remake is amazing.  Even so, some possibly disturbing subjects are mentioned, so I must again attach a content warning.

The series will conclude with a fifth part, probably next month.  Or possibly in eight months, knowing me.