TOTAL MASSACRE

Get ready to run up a wall and kick a zombie dog in joy, as this week Madi Emenheiser joins us to close out Schlockuary with Paul W. S. Anderson’s RESIDENT EVIL! Is this cinema’s most memorable death laser grid? Is it possible to tell all the brawny white guys apart? Should Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez have kissed? Answers to all these questions and more in our latest episode! 

What is the nature of memory, and how fuckin' rad is it to have a swordfight with two metal baseball bats? These are the deep philosophical questions asked by the magnificent DTV action schlockfest UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING. We invite number one Jean-Claude Van Damme superscholar Abby Waysdorf on board to join Kev, Rowan, and Carli in dissecting a surprisingly great and influential action movie.

Number one NEMESIS superfan Joe Gibson joins Rowan, Carli, and Kev to talk about Albert Pyun's 1992 cyberpunk action film, as the first installment of our SCIFI ACTION SCHLOCK month. Is NEMESIS an underrated cult classic? 66.6% of our panel is down for that! There's action mudslides, improvised bullet elevators, and heads that open up to shoot guns, like come on. There's also a plot or something. It's messy. 

TOTAL MASSACRE REQUEST LIVE month concludes with our friend Ryan Swen returning to JE T'AIME JE T'AIME, our first French movie! Our first science fiction movie from prior to the 80s! It's about science fiction and time travel through film editing, and it's a fascinating examination of one man's messed-up life, what it's like dating depressed girls, post-war trauma, and hilariously dry humor. It will always be three o'clock. 

TOTAL REQUEST MASSACRE month continues with our good friend Brian Smawley's pick CASSHERN, billed as the first live-action anime adaptation! It's, uh, a lot, as Rowan and Kev join Chef Lu Bu to talk about cool masks, genocide, WWII guilt, adapting massive stories, and really cool hair!

It's a Patreon request special as TOTAL MASSACRE takes on 1998's DARK CITY! Is this the most 90s film in existence? Who is even the protagonist here? Is it even really science fiction? Wait, that leading man isn't a time-traveling Oscar Isaac? Carli, Kev, and Rowan are joined by special guest, artist David Bednar, to discuss!

All these episodes....like tears in the rain. Rowan, Kev, and special guest Jon Arthur check out the programming of the seminal science fiction BLADE RUNNER for Dickcember. It's a film we all respect but none of us truly love, which we try to puzzle out on the show. Is Ridley Scott just a cold director? Is the odd tinge of 80s anti-Asian paranoia part of it? Also, what is the nature of criticism? Is Harrison Ford the coolest person to ever sip whiskey depressedly? There's a lot going on here, okay!

Dickcember opens with a nasty little 1990s b-movie that leaves the our panelists a bit torn up: SCREAMERS, starring Peter Weller. Rowan, Carli, Kev, and special guest Jack McDonald (also the creator of our intro!) get a lil' rowdy talking matte paintings, Canadian acting chops, not-that-Jennifer Rubin, what makes P.K. Dick such a useful guy for adaptation, scary sing-song children, and the most terrifying thing a science fiction film can have: an opening crawl gone horribly wrong.

Steven Spielberg month on TOTAL MASSACRE concludes with MINORITY REPORT, which also kicks off Philip K Dickcember -- it's a double whammy! It's also a double whammy for Steven Spielberg, who manages to balance a taut sci-fi thriller with a bouncy, almost comic, group of set pieces. Join Rowan, Carli, and Kev as we talk about runaway eyeballs, weird little guys, Colin Farrell's moustache, and whether this film deserves to be placed with the top tier of Spielberg films.

Spielberg month continues with one of the most divisive films we've seen, Spielberg and Kubrick's ambitious, wildly atonal, mesmerizing 2001 film AI. Good? Bad? Treacly? Cynical? Hard science fiction? Metaphor for love? Herald of the robot apocalypse? Defender of the downtrodden mecha? One thing Rowan, Kev, Carli, and special guest Ryan Swen can all agree on: Jude Law's sexbot rules. 

Alien Invasion month concludes, and Spielberg November begins, with CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, an incredibly influential film for several of our most beloved Fox shows of the 1990s, although not Melrose Place. Is this a dry run at other films Spielberg would do better later? How much awe can be shown in a single movie? What happens when Dad meets a sexy widow with the same hyperfixations as he does? Those practical effects! That music! A synth that saves mankind! All this and more, discussed by Rowan, Kev, and returning guest Ellie Warren.

Alien Invasion month continues with TOTAL MASSACRE heading to Scotland for a little sexy creepiness with Scarlett Johansson and 2013's acclaimed science fiction film UNDER THE SKIN. "This whole thing smacks of gender!" Rowan Kaiser proclaims, and yeah, she sort of always does that but it's hard to disagree this time. Esther Rosenfield and Carli Velocci also have many thoughts on Scotland's ugly-beauty, Johansson's fantastic performance, who is the threat and who isn't from scene to scene, relationships to 2001 and other SF films, and more!

TOTAL MASSACRE is back! In science fiction form! We've rebranded to a science fiction podcast, promoted Carli and Kev to co-host/regular panelist/organizers, gotten a new intro and art, and decided to explore a derelict spaceship in order to make sure we get our shares! What could possibly go wrong?

Joining us on this expedition is freelance writer and jury-rigged flamethrower expert Zack Handlen. We talk Hawaiian work shirts, proper first contact protocol, the worst-fitting underwear of all time, casting a creepy android, and what it's liking "knowing" ALIEN through pop-culture osmosis without having actually seen ALIEN!

TOTAL MASSACRE checks out ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL, Robert Rodriguez and James Cameron's 2019 anime/manga adaptation, with guests Kev Koeser, Brian Smawley, and Esther Rosenfield. We talk about mean mommy Jennifer Connolly, double jump-kicks, whether audiences were ready for earnestness, and gender euphoria. I guess it's a pretty wide-ranging conversation.

Netflix month continues (ends?) with the small-scale action thriller KATE, Mary Elizabeth Winstead's attempt to do her JOHN WICK. Does it work? Why is it set in Japan? Remember that moment when she breaks the bottles to get herself claws, that was so sweet! Rowan is joined by Kev and new guest Jon Arthur to break down what works and what doesn't and also more bottles.

We've finally done it! After a year of attempts our RRR show has come to fruition, with Carli and Ellie rejoining Rowan to talk about the power of friendship! The power of tigers! The power of nationalism! The power of dance! The power of tigers on fire! We also talk seriously about whether the right-wing politics get in the way of the film, characters who simply disappear, and if the closest Hollywood equivalent is...Zack Snyder?

TOTAL MASSACRE kicks off Netflix Month in anticipation of Rowan canceling Netflix with THE NIGHT COMES FOR US, an utterly brutal Indonesian action film from Timo Tjahjanto starring Joe Taslim and Iko Uwais of THE RAID. We talk meat hooks, fast punches, broke bones (human), grenades, sniper rifles, broken bones (inhuman), lesbians, kukri, pool balls, and also like, emotions and structure and how this film should be playing in hotel rooms late at night but can't because Netflix. 

TOTAL MASSACRE's science fiction month concludes with the biggest space marine story of them all, James Cameron's ALIENS. Rowan is joined by Carli Velocci and Ellie Warren to talk about James Cameron, Sigourney Weaver, production design, James Cameron's obsession with Titanic, trauma, cats, and Jim Cameron's career! Game over, man!

It is a glorious day full of joy-joy at TOTAL MASSACRE, as Rowan Kaiser, Carli Velocci, and Brian Smawley engage in a discussion of DEMOLITION MAN! Is our trio of panelists a match for Sandra Bullock, Sylvester Stallone, and Wesley Snipes? Is this three films in one that somehow all work? Could we live in a world where the only restaurant is Taco Bell? And did someone in the production owe Denis Leary money? All this and more, only on TOTAL MASSACRE!