It’s difficult to say why Cinema Diabolica is even listenable. It’s lengthy (episodes at least an hour long), it’s presented by a couple of aggressive, intermittently racist nerds who call themselves F13 and DZ but whose real names are probably Lance and Earl, and it deals with films I shall never in a million years go to see – obscure horror, Euro-crime, exploitation and giallo films. Giallo? That’s Italian eroto-horror, exemplified by such titles as What Are Those Strange Drops of Blood Doing on Jennifer’s Body?

But even those of us whose experience of horror is spending entire films with our hands over our eyes going “What’s happening now? Who’s screaming?” can get something from Cinema Diabolica, even if it’s only a couple of outré names to drop into a dinner-party conversation.

Much time is spent going through the voicemails that F13 and DZ are sent, in which the message – sometimes of interminable length (“keep it down to two minutes, guys, some of them are like an hour long”) – is played and the hosts talk back to it, as though the mailer can hear. Big Willy (tee hee), for example, had been to see a slasher flick called Inside, starring Béatrice Dalle, in which a pregnant woman is hacked to death.

Willy admitted to a certain trepidation beforehand – his own wife, he divulged, was pregnant – but what the hell, he had gone along and been impressed. He admired the lighting in particular. However, his enjoyment had been spoilt by the rest of the audience “hooting and hollering” during the hackfest. Note to self: don’t go to see movies in Toronto.

Another podcast got closer to Geek Paradise in that the gruesome twosome and their friend Metal Mickey (aka Michael) came up with their favourite guilty pleasures (among them The House on Haunted Hill – “a cast of totally f***ing shitheads”, which is succinct but doesn’t tell you much – and Howard the Duck. Of course they like Howard the Duck; everyone else hated it.

When it came to the most disturbing film they had seen, the Japanese horror flick All Night Long 2 was nominated, for being “so mean f***ing-spirited” in its mistreatment of nerds. They can dish it out, but etc, etc.

cinemadiabolica.com

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