Episode Details

Greetings creatures, and welcome back to Horror Business, the podcast that comes from a dying planet to rob all men, seduce all women, and learn the peppermint twist. Thank you as always for checking us out and we have got one heck of an episode for you guys.

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This episode we take a look at two films that involve killer aliens but aren’t Alien: 1980’s Without Warning and 1983’s Xtro. If you remember we were supposed to do these films last episode but ended not being to get ahold of them, so we’re doing them now.

We begin by giving a shout out to Chris and LVAC, and then talking about what we’ve seen recently. Liam talks about how he decided to go ahead and see The Girl With All The Gifts without Justin because he hates Justin. We briefly talk about looking forward to seeing the upcoming Jordan Peele horror film Get Out. Liam talks about seeing The Devils for an upcoming episode of Cinepunx and sings praises to the glory of Oliver Reed. Justin talks about starting the final book in Justin Cronin’s The Passage trilogy and his disappointment with the horror film Abattoir. We briefly hype the Mahoning Drive In’s upcoming Zombiefest in May (May 26-28) and the upcoming Exhumed Films Empire Pictures Triple Feature at International House on Saturday February 25^th.

Up first is 1980s Without Warning. We are not very kind or gentle with this move. We start with Liam admonishing Justin about his fear of aliens (and sharks) and we briefly discuss some upcoming episodes we may or may not do about aliens. Liam brings up that most people might already know about Without Warning just based on how awesome the poster was.

Justin and Liam discuss the plot similarities with 1987’s classic Predator and Justin makes a horrible joke about ‘predating’ and how this movie is so bad it really highlights how good Predator is. Liam points out that despite the differences in quality both movies feature the talents of Kevin Peter Hall, who played both the aliens in both films. The weird opening sequence featuring a man hunting with his strange hippie adult son is discussed, as is the lack of clarity as to who the antagonists of the film are, because despite the main alien being prominently featured in all of the advertising most of the conflict involves the living weapons the alien uses. The lack of any real interesting characters, the repeated use of horror movie tropes, and the excess of pointless plots threads are discussed. Martin Landau’s offensive portrayal of a vet suffering from PTSD is briefly touched upon, Jack Palance’s character as the sole voice of reason, and Landau’s characters insanity are all talked about. More plot details are discussed, more 80s horror tropes are examined, the long dragged out scene in an isolated house in which we finally see the main alien is dissected, and Liam and Justin almost get into an argument over whether or not the alien is a Tall White or a Gray (spoiler: Liam’s wrong it’s a Gray).

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