Category: Blog

The Podcast Macabre is now available via Google Play Music

by Joe Meyers

As of today we can be heard via Google Play Music! When we decided to move to our own website after the retirement of Geek Planet Online, one of our main goals was to expand our reach. This is, hopefully, the first of several announcements in the coming months regarding various platform availability. Until then, thanks for listening and help spread the love by ranking and reviewing the show.

“Do These Guys Even Know What They Are Doing?!?”

Hey there, Fright Fans! Chris here. Just another update on where we are with the change over from GeekPlanetOnline.com.

We can now openly say that the move to Libsyn and here is solely due to the fact that GPO will be shutting down in the near future. We wish nothing but the best for Matt Dillon and his soon-to-be expanding family (congrats again to you and the Mrs. on the bundle of joy arriving in the Spring), and we again want to thank him for being a very gracious, supportive, and generally awesome host for the short time we were part of the GPO family.

Now for the updates!

  • iTunes subscribers: You may need to refresh your subscription to the show. I noted my own account had me resubscribe after the RSS feed was refreshed. We would hate for you to miss any episodes!
  • The Libsyn library and the iTunes Store: Subscribers might have noted random older episodes popping up in their iTune feeds. As I add old episodes to the library for archiving, I sometimes forget to backdate the release date, and the iTunes store thinks it’s a new episode. I will do my best to remember to prevent that in the future as we go, but I’m far from perfect (as any of our listeners know).
  • Our webpage: Please be sure to follow us here and to share us with your friends! Take a look at our various postings, including “Voices From The Vault” with our old episodes archived here until the Libsyn archive is built, Joe’s recent review of “To Hell And Back: The Kane Hodder Story”, and all sorts of other stuff that is in the works!

So again, thank you for your patience and your patronage as we continue to gain our footing here, and keep an eye out for new content!

“To Hell and Back: The Kane Hodder Story” [Film Review]

by Joe Meyers

“To Hell and Back: The Kane Hodder Story” is a documentary directed by Derek Dennis Herbert about the journey of stuntman Kane Hodder’s life overcoming several challenges to become the stunt coordinator, actor, director, producer, and man he is today.

Kane

I was lucky enough to attend the Los Angeles premiere of the film at the TCL Chinese Theatre on 10/17/17 during Screamfest, which included a post-screening Q&A with the director and Kane himself moderated by Brian Collins of Birth.Movies.Death. Kane Hodder has been my favorite Jason Voorhees for years, but that honestly may be one of the least interesting things about him after seeing this movie.

This is less of a documentary about a horror icon, and way more of a tale about the human condition and the power of perseverance. I highly recommend it to horror fans and non-horror lovers alike. I identified quite a bit with Kane’s stories regarding being bullied as a child growing up in Sparks, Nevada. While I didn’t have any life experiences to identify with his horrible, near fatal, burn accident, Derek Dennis Herbert did a fantastic job giving the audience just enough information to empathize with the absolute Hell Kane endured as a burn victim without overwhelming them. The recounting of his accident, and his struggles during his lengthy and traumatic recovery process, was chilling.

Throughout the documentary we’re treated to Kane’s own words about his life, as well as interviews with his friends and coworkers (including Bruce Campbell, Cassandra Peterson, Robert Englund, Danielle Harris, Adam Green, Felissa Rose, and Bill Moseley) as well as his wife and children. They all do a wonderful job painting us a portrait of an incredible, complex, and compelling individual. Kane Hodder may have been shaped and molded by near insurmountable obstacles during his life, but this films proves he refused to be 100% defined by them.

As of the Q&A after this screening back in October, distribution rights had not been settled. As soon as they are, and this film becomes available, this documentary will be a worthy addition to anyone’s movie collection. It’s a must own for Friday the 13th fans for sure. Until then, check out the official theatrical trailer to this inspiring film below.

 

“Get Out” scores a hat-trick at The Gotham Independent Film Awards

by Joe Meyers

Yet again we’ve gotten proof that 2017 really is “The Year of Horror Movies.” Last night writer/director Jordan Peele, and his debut feature film “Get Out”, won big at The Gotham Independent Film Awards.

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Jordan Peele took home the award for Best Screenplay as well as the Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award. Although “Get Out” lost Best Feature to “Call Me By Your Name” it did receive the Gotham Audience Award. Sadly, the Best Actor Award went to James Franco for his turn as Tommy Wiseau in the upcoming “The Disaster Artist” over Daniel Kaluuya for his brilliant performance as Chris Washington.

However, a horror film just being nominated for five awards is amazing much less it winning three of the five categories. The genre has long been dismisses and forgotten, with rare exception, during award season. Last night firmly put “Get Out” in the spotlight as we approach more award ceremonies over the next few months, and that’s nothing but great news for the horror genre, horror filmmakers and horror fans.

“Get Out” poster art by Francesco Francavilla

 

Changes Don’t Have To Be . . . Uncomfortable.

Hey there, Fright Fans! Chris here. Time to provide you with a bit of a status update with regards to our show. No, no, don’t worry. We aren’t going anywhere. We are just evolving once again.

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As of this week, we are setting up with our fourth hosting site in just under 3 years. The moves have been prompted for different reasons each time, but this one feels like it will be a permanent one and for the best.

Starting with Episode 117 (our latest), we will be using Libsyn as our hosting site and linking episodes to our new WordPress created web page that you are probably reading this very post on! For those of you subscribing to us through iTunes, a redirect will be in place so that the transition of hosting duties from GeekPlanetOnline.com to our new host should be seamless.

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So, the pros and the cons of this change? Let me line it out for everyone.

Pros:

  • We will have full control of all of our content within the boundaries of WordPress and Libsyn’s ToS and UAs.
  • We will now have an outlet other than our Facebook page to share blog posts, give reviews of films and shows, and whatever else floats our boats.
  • We now have the ability to get our show out to numerous platforms thanks to Libsyn. Look for us (potentially) in the future on Android apps and other locations as we sort it out.

Cons:

  • We will be paying a few dollars more each month for these services but feel it is worth it.
  • The back catalog of episodes will have to be slowly rebuilt due to our current data usage plan on Libsyn. For those that want the numbers, we get 600MB of storage per 30 days. Any files over 30 days old will be archived after that. On average, a 2 hour episode of our show is 115MB. So 4 episodes a month = 460MB. That allows for 1 or 2 other episode to be posted for archiving each month on a rotating basis as older files get archived. There may be a way around this or speed it up, but we are learning as we go here.

That sums it up in a nutshell. The thing that we truly are loving out of this is that we now have our own domain name! Be sure to share with all your friends: podcastmacabre.com.

In closing as we have our new beginning, thank you to all of you listeners and followers for taking the journey with us. And thanks also to Brian Maxwell and Matt Dillon for hosting us in the past on Bad Boardie and GeekPlanetOnline respectively. You both have been great assets to us as we continue to improve and expand what started out as a group of friends just chatting about the genre they love. Catch ya next time, Fright Fans!

UPDATE (11/22/2017): It’s going to take some time to fully rebuild our back catalog over on Libsyn. In the meantime, look for the our blog series “Voices From The Vault.” Each volume of this series will contain several of our previous episodes, and they will available for streaming here on the page and/or for direct download for future listening. Once an episode has been added to the Libsyn archive, will be removed from here to save us space.Thanks again for your patience and patronage!