Fear Feasts: Food in Horror

Eating disorders are no joke, and when you combine one with a philandering husband, a haunted house, and living in upstate New York in the dead of winter - pun intended - it's no wonder you'd go off food entirely. We discuss the terrors of family dysfunction and eating, memory and fear, the nastiness of protein shakes, the importance of salad when avoiding "real" food, infidelity and Catholicism, and the angelic realms of Emanuel Swedenborg, as we analyze the connection between food and horror in the 2021 film Things Heard and Seen, and the book it's based on, All Things Cease To Appear, so don't forget your ax and that Thanksgiving turkey when you tune in.

It's Halloween, Fear Feast listeners, and we couldn't let the day pass us by without paying homage to the ultimate holiday horror film and book - Halloween! Yes, we're taking on that bad boy Michael Myers, his creepy white mask, his weird obsession with young topless women, his love of cookies and milk after murdering his sister, and trying to figure out why spilled butter from popcorn would require a babysitter to strip naked while washing her clothes. Join us as we analyze the connection between food and horror in this bonus episode, and watch out for strange men waving their zucchini at you. Happy Halloween!

As though life isn't hard enough without having to live in a run-down council flat strewn with maggot-ridden pizza boxes, it's made even worse in this case by a witch spirit running round in the walls and scaring the holy hell out of you and your poor spouse. All you want to do is assimilate, eat some good food whether on the rug or at the dining room table, and try to forget the horrors of the war in your home country that forced you to relocate to a place where kids run around insulting you and eating - horror of horrors - soggy chips! And when you start being haunted by the ghost of a night witch from your home country, it's it's anyone's guess where things will end up. Will you survive the haunting of your flat? Will you live through your husband singing football songs? Will you launch a random piece of fruit at him to try and alleviate your terror? Join us as we analyze the connection between food in horror in the terrifying 2020 film His House, but please don't aggravate the apeth!

We all have mommy issues, and at the Allardyce House, there is one mother of a problem up in the attic. Still, if you got the chance to spend the summer in your dream (albeit a bit run-down) house and all you had to do was cook for a creepy old lady, fend off your horny husband's never-ending advances by the pool, rescue your kid from drowning a few times, and serve martinis to your lush of a great aunt, you'd do it and never turn a gray hair, right? Join us as we discuss the joys of motherhood, the wonders of constant cooking, cleaning and hair coloring, that terrifying chauffeur in black sunglasses, and the connections between food and horror in the extremely creepy book Burnt Offerings and the film of the same name.

Being Goths, we are totally down with black clothing in every instance. However, the solicitor at the heart of our episode will soon grow to hate the color black, particularly as he is constantly running into this terrifying woman dressed in our favorite color. It's bad enough he is sent to a house named after eels, it's difficult enough that he has to bring along his own brandy, and it's even harder when a ghostly spirit begins appearing around every corner. How can you possibly enjoy your beer and cheese and bread, or your roast pheasant and apple-raisin tart if you're constantly being haunted by a spooky revenant in black? Join us as we analyze the connections between food and horror in Susan Hill's classic ghost story The Woman in Black and the two films of the same name, so head out to Eel Marsh House now!

Growing up is hard enough without some pesky psychic ability rearing its ugly head, but when you're stuck in a haunted hotel over the winter with your neurotic mother and alcoholic father, enough ghosts to make you into a thumb-sucking terror, with no fresh fruit and with (oh the horror!) CANNED soup, why, it's enough to make you want to shine a light into every room to see what else you can find. After all, you might discover a decomposing body in a bathtub, a creepy pair of twin girls in ugly blue dresses, a pantry full of Triscuits, Oreo cookies, prune juice and other tasty goodies, or you just might get a whiff of oranges and realize you're about to receive a mental message from some kid in Colorado. We discuss these culinary conundrums and analyze the connection between food and horror in Stephen King's classic and masterpiece The Shining and the Stanley Kubrick film of the same name, so please join us but we promise not to make you play with us......forever and ever and ever.

There's something to be said for being an only child who's also an heiress to a large fortune and an aspiring writer, but in this case, the truth turns out to be far stranger than any fictional Gothic tale. If you appreciate terrifying, blood-dripping ghosts and big, eerie mansions with holes in the roof, if you are partial to your afternoon tea served with a lovely dose of firethorn berries, and if you thought Roderick and Madeline Usher were a lot closer than your average brother and sister, you'll appreciate this episode in which we discuss tea and porridge (again), the wide variety of breakfast foods that can be used as weapons, incestuous sibling relationships, and how the pen can literally be mightier than the sword, as we analyze the connections between food and horror in the gorgeously frightening 2015 masterpiece Crimson Peak. But don't be frightened......the ghosts are only metaphors.

Wouldn't you like to be stuck on a British island in a big, eerie house with only your two bratty kids for company? You might want to kill them, but that's totally normal. What's not normal is when your daughter insists there is an invisible boy living in the house, when your son hears ghostly breathing, and when all you want to do is relax with your afternoon tea but you keep hearing spooky footsteps in the empty rooms above? We'll be discussing these fascinating issues, as well as the importance of bread in post-WWII Great Britain, how religion can sometimes negate spirituality (literally!), and the wide variety of ways one can eat porridge as we analyze the connections between food and horror in 2001's terrifying film The Others, so please join us!

Nothing is scarier than the spirit of a child, wouldn't you say? In this particular house, bells go off for no reason, the phone rings and there is no one on the other line, mothers get mysteriously locked in the nursery with the ghost of their dead daughter, and worst of all, there's no money for good food. There's a strange family doctor who is oddly obsessed with the house itself and once the family members start being picked off one by one, the action really gets going. We're heading to Hundreds Hall in post-WWII Great Britain to hang out with the Ayres family as they navigate teatime with no scones, miniature smidges of fruitcake, spiked party punch that leads to one of the stranger trysts in literature, and a dog who mysteriously eats the face off a bratty child......or does he? So please join us as we analyze the connection between food and horror in the novel The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters and the film of the same name.

Do you believe in haunted houses? 'Cause this haunted house sure believes in you, especially if your name is Nell and you're a little on the edge. We're tagging along with four slightly neurotic individuals this summer as they enjoy creature comforts, and eat delicious peach shortcake and cheese soufflé courtesy of the world's creepiest housekeeper, and we're talking with our first guest! The talented, accomplished and very funny Jamieson Ridenhour joins us as we analyze the connections between food and horror in Shirley Jackson's iconic book The Haunting of Hill House.

Jamieson is the writer, co-producer and co-creator of the fantastic horror podcast Palimpsest, which features a rather eerie house that seems to slip the bonds of time and space in some very weird and scary ways. Highly recommended, and available on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts or anywhere you get your podcast fix. #embracewhathauntsyou

Allie and Vanessa introduce Season 2 of Fear Feasts, focusing on food and haunted house horror, and briefly discuss the films and books they will cover this season, including classics such as The Haunting of Hill House and Rebecca, and newer horror like His House and Things Heard and Seen. It's going to be a fun-filled, terrifying and hunger-inducing season so stay with us!

All parents know that their children can be little devils at times, but Ambassador Thorne and his slightly neurotic wife Kate literally have the Antichrist on their hands. Talk about growing pains! And they can't even find good help for their little fallen angel Damien, what with the first nanny hanging herself from the top of the house, the second nanny feeding Damien demonic strawberries, and that damn photographer capturing everything on film. So join us as we discuss Satanic peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, jackals and goats (yes, goats AGAIN!), chin-dribbling strawberries, the edible properties of scrotums, and the other connections between food and horror in the 1976 film The Omen, as well as the book and the 2006 version of the movie. Just watch out for those big black dogs and don't water your hanging plants on the third-floor balcony when your demonic kid is running around you on his scooter!

The Straker family is one that puts the "fun" in dysfunction as they manage life on the farm, now that it's been infiltrated by the devil.....with a little "D." Goats drop dead (sorry, no goat cheese!), Dad's in a coma, Mom starts chopping vegetables frantically including her own fingers, and siblings are told constantly that they shouldn't have come. Well, since Mom's cooking dropped off a bit and since Dad's nurse went and did that crazy thing with her knitting needles, we're inclined to agree as we talk carrots, devils, onions, family, cigarettes in coffee, breakfast cereal, beer, the Allie and Vanessa scream-o-meter, and we analyze the connections between food and horror in Bryan Bertino's oh-so-cheerful 2020 film The Dark and the Wicked. Join us, won't you? Just keep the goats at a safe distance and watch out for floating Mom corpses!

Ever heard the saying that the Devil is in the details? In this case, he's giving us Daddy issues as well as influencing what we eat, so if you enjoy your Popeyes chicken with a nice helping of demonic influence, if you've ever dreamed of being made love to by a devilish Keanu Reeves in the flames of hell, or if you simply want to enjoy seeing a nice piece of veal put on the stand as a piece of legal evidence, you'll enjoy our discussion about the 1997 film The Devil's Advocate and the book it's based on by the same name. So pour a bourbon or a tequila shot, munch down on a burger and some fries, and get ready to quote some scripture with us!

What's a girl to do when she's trying to get a promotion and ends up getting cursed? Make a harvest cake? Consult a goat at a séance? We're talking baking, gender inequality, turkey club sandwiches with spicy mustard, Gypsy curses, body image and fat shaming, and most importantly, goats and harvest cake as we analyze the connection between food and horror in Sam Raimi's campy horror classic Drag Me To Hell.

Did you know that Satanic rituals require a cheese pizza along with a virgin and a blood sacrifice? No, it's true. We're heading once again into demonic territory as we discuss the weirdly lo-fi, devilishly cheesy The House of the Devil, favorite pizza toppings, lunar eclipses, hard candy, witches, chocolate bars, and of course, the Devil, so join us but if you pull over to listen beside a cemetery, don't roll down your window.

We are taking on the big bad granddad of horror - the movie and the book - as we dissect The Exorcist in all its pea-green glory, so please join us for a discussion on parenting, Pazuzu, and pea soup. Just don't forget your crucifix, and stay away from those stairs outside your window. The power of Christ compels you!

Motherhood is hard and children can be demons at times, can't they? In Rosemary Woodhouse's case, her kid literally is the Devil's spawn! Allie and Vanessa dissect the classic book Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin and the iconic film by the same name directed by the notorious Roman Polanski, analyzing how food plays a significant role in both, as well as the significance of food in the context of domesticity, parenthood and Satanic rituals, so please join in for a devilishly good time!

What came first, the chicken or the egg.....or the horror? Vanessa and Allie take on the classic 80s horror film Angel Heart and the book it's based on, Falling Angel. There's a discussion about the nature of evil, Lucifer himself, voodoo, chickens, gumbo, and other fun and terrifying concepts. Because here, it's not just the cops that are hard-boiled....the eggs are, too! 

Vanessa Baca, a food blogger and podcaster, and Allie Pino, a cookbook author with a doctorate in food literature, introduce their new podcast Fear Feasts and talk about the connections between horror and food. The podcast will analyze a variety of horror films and horror literature through the lens of food, cooking, the kitchen and more culinary themes so come along into the kitchen with us!