Movie Oubliette

Let's get small! Dan and Conrad are injected into the butt of the 1987 Spielberg-produced summer blockbuster with the incredible shrinking box office: Joe Dante's Innerspace. Starring Dennis Quaid, Martin Short and Meg Ryan, this sci-fi comedy adventure about an Ant-Man style miniaturisation experiment gone awry has all the ingredients of a crowd-pleasing hit but vanished without trace. Did it deserve its fate, or should Innerspace be re-enlarged for all to see?

Dan and Conrad venture into the lair of Guillermo Del Toro and George R. R. Martin's favourite dragon: Vermithrax Pejorative, the undisputed star of Disney's 1981 fantasy adventure, Dragonslayer. It has everything you want in a family movie: full-frontal male nudity, Emperor Palpatine being torched to a cinder, and a Disney Princess getting her foot gnawed off by a sock puppet. But does it deserve to escape from its lair to terrorise small villages, or should it be felled by an exploding wizard?

For our first anniversary, we invite back our first ever guest – writer/director Serge Bodnarchuk. He comes in from the cold with a tall tale about Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle and David Arquette being out there somewhere in a forgotten western/horror cannibalism movie called 'Ravenous' (1999), so Dan and Conrad follow him into the icy wilderness after obediently smothering themselves in hot sauce. Will they find it tasty or will it leave them famished?

Dan and Conrad tear up some paperback covers and assemble a map to John Carpenter's "last good film", 1994's 'In the Mouth of Madness'. It's got Sam Neill, Charlton Heston, a naked old man handcuffed to his wife's ankle, and more Lovecraftian cosmic horror than you could shake a tentacle at. But, crucially, is it actually any good?

Dan and Conrad review listener's choice 90s horror 'Disturbing Behavior', in which twentysomething teenager James Marsden moves to a new town and discovers a Stepford Wives-style conspiracy against delinquent high schoolers. With the help of his new friends, post-Dawson's Creek Katie Holmes and pre-Terminator Nick Stahl, can he avoid becoming one of the squeaky clean Blue Ribbon Group of 50s throwbacks? Dan gets nostalgic over 90s grunge, while Conrad finds the most disturbing thing is the movie's spelling of the word 'behaviour'. Will they deem GoT veteran director David Nutter's first major movie worthy of release from the oubliette?

Dan and Conrad celebrate the 30th anniversary of Dead Calm: the first movie in which Billy Zane was unpleasant on a boat. He terrorises a 19-year-old Nicole Kidman and hubby Sam Neill in Phillip Noyce's nautical thriller. Does it hold water or is it a wash out?

Dan and Conrad gaze long into the oubliette, and 'The Hole' gazes back at them! It all gets a bit meta as they revisit Joe Dante's sprightly 3D horror extravaganza, which disappeared without a trace in 2009. Do they conquer their worst fears?

Dan and Conrad are pushed into watching Push (2009), the first ever listener's choice movie from the Oubliette Roulette! It features Chris Evans in his second superhero role as a telekinetic on the run in Hong Kong. Is the film pushing it or are our hosts a pushover?

Only two British horror films were released in theatres in the 80s. The second was the seminal classic Hellraiser (1987). Alas, the oubliette presents Dan and Conrad with the first: Xtro (1982). It has a shocking alien birth scene, a black panther and a future Bond girl. But is it worth saving from obscurity?

Writer/director Jacob Gentry introduces Conrad and Dan to Brian De Palma's The Fury (1978) and tries to convince them that the world needs to see 61-year-old Kirk Douglas's shirtless parkour and Amy Irving exploding people with her mind. Will he win the movie's freedom from the oubliette?

Conrad and Dan venture into Don Coscarelli's dream-like Phantasm (1979) and find themselves dodging flying balls and homicidal jawas in the Tall Man's mausoleum. Is it genre-bending genius or a shaggy gopher-on-heat story?

Dan and Conrad Return... to Oz! Disney's belated and berated sequel to the beloved musical classic bombed in 1985, but does it deserve a re-evaluation?

Happy New Year! In this special end-of-year episode, we take a look back over our first year of podcasting and answer all of your #AskMeAnything questions. Have a great 2019, everyone!

Star Trek: Voyager's Manu Intiraymi joins us for our Christmas special to discuss Space Station 76, a retro-70s sci-fi comedy drama starring Liv Tyler and Patrick Wilson in which a meteor strike threatens to break up the most awkward office Christmas party ever. Do they deserve to escape certain doom and the oubliette?

Catherine Mary Stewart brings Melancholia to the Oublietteers... that is, the Lars von Trier apocalyptic sci-fi drama, not a case of the blues. The gang have more fun talking about depression and the end of the world than one might reasonably expect, but does the film deserve to be set free or should it be set on a planetary collision course with oblivion?

Dan and Conrad venture into 80s fantasy Ladyhawke to discover a medieval Ferris Bueller monologuing to God, Rutger Hauer brooding on a dressage horse and Michelle Pfeiffer morphing into a bird of prey. Will they break the curse?

Conrad and Dan are joined by director David Bruckner (The Ritual), who resurrects Cemetery Man: a surreal horror comedy gothic romantic fantasy from 1993 starring Rupert Everett. Should it be released from the graveyard?

Happy Halloween! We celebrate the season and our 13th episode by revisiting Halloween H20. Does Jamie Lee Curtis's (first) final battle with Michael Myers stand the test of time, or did it deserve to be retconned?

Dan and Conrad dig up The Vanishing (1993), the scorned Hollywood remake of a dark psychological thriller, and re-appraise it with writer/director Travis Milloy.

Dan takes Conrad on a visit to his home country, but the duo is surrounded by flesh-eating bundles of wool! Will they let the Kiwi horror comedy Black Sheep (2006) back into the fold?