Certified Forgotten

Was it Billy Joel who once said that working too hard could give you a shark attack-ack-ack-ack-ack? Probably not! But in this episode of Certified Forgotten, you will hear Matt Monagle and Matt Donato wax poetic about their love of Sean Byrne's new film, Dangerous Animals. Byrne, the director of modern classics The Loved One and The Devil's Candy, directs Nick Lepard's shark-slash-serial killer movie, and both genres are rarely this fun onscreen.

When your first feature is a J-horror-inspired found footage film, audiences might expect a movie like Noroi: The Curse to be a prime influence. But here's the fun truth: one-half of our guests had not even seen Koji Shiraishi's horror masterpiece until a day before this podcast recording. In this episode, writer-director duo Paul Gandersman and Peter Hall join Certified Forgotten to discuss Noroi: The Curse and Man Finds Tape, their debut feature that premieres this weekend at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Before 2023's masterfully wicked When Evil Lurks, Argentine filmmaker Demián Rugna terrified horror audiences with ... well, Terrified. We're joined on the podcast by composer, DJ, and longtime horror advocate Dorina — known to her followers as "DJ Bruja" — to discuss the film that came before Rugna's When Evil Lurks. Dorina channels her Mexican roots to talk about American horror versus Spanish-language horror, with a magnifying glass on Terrified. Evil's been lurking throughout Rugna's entire catalog, and someone on the podcast might even think Terrified has a leg up on When Evil Lurks.

You couldn't find two different breeds of horror fans than Certified Forgotten hosts Matt Donato and Matt Monagle. So, how did they end up giving Final Destination Bloodlines the same score? In this week's Uncertified episode, the Matts talk about their vastly different experiences with the Final Destination franchise and how that informed their Bloodlines reactions. People are saying it's one of the best in the franchise ... [whispers] and people are right.

Welcome to the 3-timers club, B.J. Colangelo! The intrepid co-host of This Ends At Prom and /Film staple returns with a 2000s horror comedy that is, for better and worse, a cultural time capsule: Monster Man. Misogyny runs rampant in this wannabe direct-to-video American Pie sequel, but to a comically exaggerated degree that shines a light on social norms of the period. Then the Joy Ride and Texas Chain Saw vibes take over, with eyeball chili and corpses crushed into ground beef. It's a raunchy caricature sure to give 2000s kids PTSD, but weirdly enough, and because behaviors are so significantly overstated, that's ultimately the film's "charm."

Think you've seen every possible version of the Cinderella story? Think again. In this episode of the Uncertified podcast series, Matt Donato and Matthew Monagle discuss Emilie Blichfeldt's The Ugly Stepsister, a mashup of regency tropes and body horror that has earned comparisons to The Substance. But whereas Coralie Fargeat's film leans into the grotesque, you may just find that The Ugly Stepsister is a surprisingly gentle take on unachievable body standards.

Direct-to-video. Erotic thriller. Nineties vampires. Wings Hauser. These are just a few phrases we could use to describe Pale Blood, V. V. Dachin Hsu and Michael W. Leighton's underground vampire movie. Some of these descriptions — or maybe even all of them — would be enough to get the average horror fan to add Pale Blood to their watchlist. But is there more to the movie than nineties nostalgia? That, and so much more, is the focus of this episode with film critic and The Scares That Shaped Us host Matthew Jackson.

It's Sinners time, baby. Ryan Coogler's 1930s vampire flick is one of the year's buzziest horror movies for a reason, but does it live up to the hype? The answer is yes, to varying degrees. Monagle loves it. Donato likes it. This episode discusses what the film does so tremendously right (musical themes) and where it might drag for some (Donato has pacing issues). Listen to this episode to hear the Matts give their flowers to Sinners, which are all absolutely deserved.

Is there anything more tantalizing than time loop horror? In this episode of Certified Forgotten, our hosts are joined by Megan Norman, Events Coordinator and host with Crypticon Seattle, to discuss the fun of being a later-in-life horror fan, the importance of regional conventions, and the heady horror-comedy of Madellaine Paxson's Blood Punch. 

This week's Uncertified episode tackles Flying Lotus' new sci-fi horror freakout, Ash. In theaters now, and coming to Shudder soon enough, the multi-hyphenate creator tells a cosmic horror tale heavily influenced by genre video games. Donato's a harder sell on space-set scariness, while Monagle couldn't be more of an Alien slash Event Horizon fanboy. Where will they land on Flying Lotus' "smaller budget, big idea" thriller starring Eiza González and Aaron Paul?