Parallax Views w/ J.G. Michael

👉 Pitch in on Patreon and fuel the future of free-thinking conversations. https://www.patreon.com/parallaxviews Also visit our returning sponsor Mike Swanson's Wall Street Window for the best financial and trading newsletter around:https://wallstreetwindow.com/ On this edition of Parallax Views, film writer and critic Nathan Wardinski, author of Dissecting Cannibal Holocaust, joins me for a spooky season deep dive into one of the most infamous, controversial, and, perhaps, critically misunderstood films in horror history. We explore how Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust defies easy categorization within either progressive or conservative politics — a film that seeks to explode racist hierarchies even as it offers a bleak, reactionary view of human nature. For Deodato’s jungle nightmare, civilization itself is just a thin facade: whether “modern” or “primitive,” we are all savages beneath the surface. Wardinski and I also unpack the film’s unique structure, the enduring myth that Deodato and his crew were tried for murder due to the film’s realism, and the strange, lifelong relationship the director had with his most notorious work. In the final portion of the conversation, we tackle one of the film’s most controversial aspects — the onscreen animal slaughter — clarifying the difference between slaughter and cruelty, and placing Cannibal Holocaust within a larger cinematic and cultural context where animals have been killed on camera, from ethnographic films to even mainstream television. Some of the portion of the discussion is in the earlier part of the conversation, but most of it is back-ended to the final 10 or so minutes for the benefit of listeners who may not want to hear about that aspect of the film due to the subject matter. It’s a challenging conversation — one that asks uncomfortable questions about art, exploitation, and our own complicity as viewers. Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio - Track: "Exorcism"

👉 Pitch in on Patreon and fuel the future of free-thinking conversations. https://www.patreon.com/parallaxviews Also visit our returning sponsor Mike Swanson's Wall Street Window for the best financial and trading newsletter around:https://wallstreetwindow.com/ On this edition of the Parallax Views spooky season series, we dive into the world of Ed and Lorraine Warren, the infamous paranormal investigators whose cases inspired the Conjuring films. The Warrens became household names for claiming to confront ghostly hauntings, demonic possession, and other supernatural phenomena—including their involvement in the notorious Amityville haunting—but their legacy is controversial, blending storytelling, spectacle, and a heavy dose of sensationalism. They have also faced accusations of exploiting vulnerable people for fame and profit. Nonetheless, The Conjuring series has become a Hollywood juggernaut, captivating audiences and shaping pop culture’s view of the paranormal. With the release of The Conjuring: Last Rites, the final film in the franchise, interest in the Warrens is hotter than ever. In this episode, skeptical paranormal investigator Benjamin Radford of the Skeptical Inquirer offers a dissenting take, unpacking the problems with the Warrens’ cases and explaining how their work intersects with Satanic Panic-era hysteria. We also explore how these patterns of belief and fear echo in modern conspiracy cultures like QAnon. Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio - Track: "Exorcism"

👉 Pitch in on Patreon and fuel the future of free-thinking conversations. https://www.patreon.com/parallaxviews Also visit our returning sponsor Mike Swanson's Wall Street Window for the best financial and trading newsletter around:https://wallstreetwindow.com/ This spooky season on Parallax Views, we venture behind the Iron Curtain with historian Alexander Herbert, author of Fear Before the Fall: Horror Films in the Late Soviet Union. Herbert uncovers a hidden world of Soviet horror cinema — films that reflected the fears, contradictions, and collapsing certainties of late socialism. We talk about Viy (1967), the first officially Soviet horror movie and a chilling adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s tale about a terrified seminarian forced to pray over a witch’s corpse. From there, Herbert explores how later Soviet filmmakers created movies that were either horror or horror-adjacent. It's an exploration of a rather unexplored topic. It’s a conversation about horror, history, and ideology — and how the Soviet Union’s final decades produced some of the most fascinating and overlooked genre films ever made. Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio - Track: "Exorcism"

👉 Pitch in on Patreon and fuel the future of free-thinking conversations. https://www.patreon.com/parallaxviews Also visit our returning sponsor Mike Swanson's Wall Street Window for the best financial and trading newsletter around:https://wallstreetwindow.com/ On this edition of Parallax Views, we continue our annual Spooky Season series with a chilling deep dive into one of Hollywood’s most infamous real-life tragedies — the Twilight Zone: The Movie helicopter crash. Journalist Steve Chain, author of Fly By Night: The Secret Story of Steven Spielberg, Warner Bros., and the Twilight Zone Deaths, joins the show to uncover the haunting true story that forever changed the film industry. Chain’s explosive investigation revisits the 1982 disaster that claimed the lives of actor Vic Morrow and two children on set — and the five-year legal battle that followed. Was it a tragic accident, or was there a cover-up to protect some of Hollywood’s most powerful names, including John Landis and Steven Spielberg? Chain pulls back the curtain on the shocking evidence, courtroom drama, and corporate maneuvering behind one of Tinseltown’s darkest chapters. As part of Parallax Views’ spooky season lineup, this episode isn’t about ghosts or monsters — it’s about real-life horror: power, negligence, and the human cost of spectacle. If you’re fascinated by true crime, Hollywood scandals, media history, or the eerie intersection of fame and tragedy, you won’t want to miss this one. Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio - Track: "Exorcism"

👉 Pitch in on Patreon and fuel the future of free-thinking conversations. https://www.patreon.com/parallaxviews Also visit our returning sponsor Mike Swanson's Wall Street Window for the best financial and trading newsletter around:https://wallstreetwindow.com/ On this edition of Parallax Views, we continue our Halloween “spooky season” series with an episode exploring how true crime stories—particularly those involving serial killers—are brought to life on screen. Screenwriter Stephen Johnston joins the show to discuss the process of writing films about notorious figures like Ed Gein, Ted Bundy, and The Hillside Stranglers (Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi). Johnston’s screenwriting credits include Chuck Parello’s Ed Gein (2000; aka In the Light of the Moon), starring Steve Railsback (known for his portrayal of Charles Manson in the 1976 TV film Helter Skelter) and Carrie Snodgress (Diary of a Mad Housewife); Matthew Bright’s darkly comic and controversial Ted Bundy (2002); and Parello’s The Hillside Strangler (2004), featuring C. Thomas Howell (Red Dawn) and Nicolas Turturro (NYPD Blue). Most recently, Johnston wrote the screenplay for Chad Ferrin’s Ed Kemper, a biopic about “The Co-Ed Killer” that received its video-on-demand (VOD) release earlier this year. Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio - Track: "Exorcism"