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PODCAST

The Desire of Horror

Charla Ferguson and Martin Essig

Charla"s love of horror movies combine with Marty"s love of psychoanalysis and history of religions. This is a review and analysis of horror movies and what they say about desire. You can purchase a t-shirt here: http://tee.pub/lic/tN64T8XLATU

tv & film film reviews

All Episodes

45:12

14. Vampires Wrap-up

The Desire of Horror ·

2025/11/04

Here we go with the vampire wrap up! It's been a bloody first season at the Desire of Horror podcast, and that's how we like it! Blood has always had a central place in the History of Religions. Almost every form of sacrifice, pact, and praise has involved either literal or figurative blood as the primary representative of the mysterious life force that courses through our veins but somehow doesn't seem to belong to us. Its mysterious doings are beyond us because blood, like life, is somethin...

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63:21

13. Halloween (1978)

The Desire of Horror ·

2025/10/31

We are in heaven with this little slice of hell. Charla loves the "pure evil" of the criminally insane. And I love the interior design and clothing choices of the late 1970's. But why does Michael Myers do it? He doesn't ever seem to be satisfied after he murders someone. His Death Drive is an endless repetition of the same. What do psychopaths want out of life? His psychiatrist Dr. Loomis diagnosis him with his professional proclamation that he is "Pure evil!", but what does pure evil want? ...

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69:45

12. Sinners

The Desire of Horror ·

2025/10/25

We had the great pleasure of welcoming Charla's daughter Michelle on this one. She brought a lot of great insights into this instant classic. Music is a hellava drug. In the last film Queen of the Damned it woke up the first vampire from back in the days of Mesopotamian Uruk. And in this one it wakes up all kinds of stuff both good and bad. The music industry has been known to have vampiric relations with artists, especially Black musicians. The story of Black music in America...

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57:16

11. Queen of the Damned

The Desire of Horror ·

2025/10/07

This Vampire's origins go all the way back in the Ancient Mesopotamia City of Uruk. And Akasha (Aaliyah) like Lestat (Stuart Townsend) loves music. Lestat had decided the world was too boring to live in any longer, so he laid in a tomb to see if he could die. But then in the late 90's Nu Metal broke through the walls of his sarcophagus and into his heart, and he thought that the world had become cool again. He immediately formed a Nu Metal band of his own. A band so devastatingly good that he...

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46:49

10. Shadow of the Vampire

The Desire of Horror ·

2025/09/25

What is more real than real? Why it's the "Hyper-Real" of the cinema. Jean Baudrillard formulated his theory of the Hyper-Real, which is actually the death of "the Real" by simulacrum, in part from a quote from Clockwork Orange, in which the protagonist Alex reflects on how the blood in the screen is better than real blood because its "redder than red," or realer than real in Baudrillard's way of thinking about similacrum. And the contradiction of real, cinematic blood is a useful way to thin...

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53:24

9. I Am Legend

The Desire of Horror ·

2025/09/09

Are these f**king things vampires or infected? Around this time in the early aughts there was a slue of horror movies that straddled the line with science fiction because the monsters no longer had supernatural origins but virological ones. 28 Days Later comes to mind because it featured a zombie apocalypse without any paranormal activity. Vampires have always been liminal creatures, having emerged at the end of the late Middle Ages and the beginning of the Enlightenment. The witch trails wer...

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61:24

8. 30 Days of Night

The Desire of Horror ·

2025/08/26

In the small oil town of Barrow in the northern-most region of Alaska there are thirty days of night in the middle of winter. Sounds like a vampire's dream vacation. All the cellphones have mysteriously gone missing, all the dogs have been mercilessly murdered, and someone has destroyed the radio antenna. With no flights in or out for thirty days, it would seem that the residents of Barrow are like fish in a barrel for hungry vampires. And what's even worse is that these vampires are straight...

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52:31

7. Bela Lugosi vs. Christopher Lee

The Desire of Horror ·

2025/08/12

Both the 1931 Bela Lugosi version of Dracula and the 1970 Christoper Lee version claim to be sticking to Bram Stoker's original vision. When most of us think of Dracula, we either think of Lugosi or Lee, or their images switch back and forth in our minds. Join us as we discuss how each of them approached Stoker's Transylvanian aristocrat. Stoker's Dracula was an alchemist ubermensch of sorts, who through the dark arts and his undying will managed to unlock the secrets of eternal life, but it ...

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68:02

6. Salem's Lot (1979)

The Desire of Horror ·

2025/07/31

A late 70s miniseries has many features to recommend it. They are normally full of odd bowl haircuts, unnecessarily long establishing shots, and sweat, but this one also includes multiple commercial-break, freeze-frame cuts, long, meaningful stares, and a battle between two mages in a tight 1970's kitchen! Come join us for Tobe Hooper's adaptation of the Stephen King classic "Salem's Lot." The desire of this vampire is to turn a whole town evil. But the house from which he chooses to launch h...

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67:41

5. Let the Right One In / Let Me In

The Desire of Horror ·

2025/07/15

This was a difficult but rewarding episode to do. Some less brave, or possible less foolhardy, commentators might've stayed away from the Swedish, modern-day classic Let the Right One In and its American remake, Let Me In, because of the complexity of the topics it raises, especially around Queer and Trans matters, but we dove right in. Join us as we ask the question of the desire of the Trans Vampire. Perhaps, Vampires are by nature Queer and Trans figures? Let's discuss. Follow us @the...

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71:33

4. The Lost Boys

The Desire of Horror ·

2025/06/29

One of Charla's top five of all time! We got to lighten up and have a little fun on this one. It's got the two Coreys, a town split between punks and deadbeat hippies, and lots of pastel shirts with shoulder pads! Come and reminisce the 80's with us while we discuss what the Lost Boys desire besides never growing up. Follow us @thedesireofhorrorpodcast: Instagram

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38:16

3. Bram Stoker's Dracula

The Desire of Horror ·

2025/06/16

One of my favorites of all time! Coppola's over the top extravagance at its best. Charla likes it okay. Join us as we discuss Coppola's lush depiction of vampiric desire. Follow us @thedesireofhorrorpodcast: Instagram

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35:47

2. Where can I learn to be a vampire? - Interview...

The Desire of Horror ·

2025/06/07

Louis doesn't know how to be a vampire, so he goes to Paris to find out. What can we learn about the desire of the vampire from Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire? Anne Rice portrayed the difficulty of being a vampire as the all too familiar dilemma of human desire, whether mortal or undead, nobody seems to know what to do with themselves. Join Charla and Marty as they dive even deeper into vampires.

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65:05

1. What does Nosferatu desire?

The Desire of Horror ·

2025/06/07

Nosferatu 1922 originally came into being because Bram Stoker wouldn't come off the rights to Dracula. Dracula's aristocratic suavity was transmuted into Count Orlok's impish vulgarity to avoid a lawsuit. But the desire of both were for the blood of the living. When Orlok recently returned in 2024's, he appeared as the transmuted, self-consuming desire of a fourteen year old girl. What could this guy possibly want? Charla and Marty will figure it out together.

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14 results

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