Forgotten Fiction

Ep. 7 - Mimic & Mapping the Interior

Paris brings the movie that almost ended Guillermo del Toro's career. Mimic. 1997. Bugs genetically engineered to save New York City evolve to mimic humans. A great concept challenged by the Weinsteins. Bob Weinstein barged onto the set. The film flopped. But the new Director's Cut is worth streaming. Then Tommy brings the book Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones. A 12 year old named Junior sees a figure in his trailer one night in full fancy dancer regalia. His father never danced. That was his dream that didn't happen. Deciding this thing is his Father, back to protect him, is where the horror starts. A Bram Stoker Award winning novella most people skipped on their way to The Only Good Indians. Don't overlook it.

Ep. 6 - Eerie, Indiana & Nightmare Seasons

Paris brings a show NBC didn't know what to do with. Eerie, Indiana aired in 1991, ran 19 episodes, and disappeared. A 13 year old moves from New Jersey to the strangest town in America and spends one season investigating it with his only normal friend. It's YA Twin Peaks shot on film. The episode about a humanoid ATM named Mr. Wilson giving a kid free money hits differently in the age of AI. Then Tommy brings a book with Stephen King's name on the cover, but King didn't write it. Charles L. Grant did. The man who invented quiet horror, won two Nebula Awards, three World Fantasy Awards, and the title of World Horror Convention Grandmaster wrote the same book as Stephen King in the same year. Four novellas. Four seasons. 1982. They went head to head at the 1983 World Fantasy Award for Best Collection.

Ep. 5 - Riverbend & The Phantom Tollbooth

Paris brings a 1989 film that almost nobody has seen and yet somehow Tommy has. Riverbend follows a Black Vietnam veteran and his men who hide out in a Georgia town being terrorized by a racist sheriff and decide to fight back. Shot in Texas, buried on VHS, and rescued from obscurity by a filmmaker who put it on YouTube. It is Red Dawn meets The Color Purple run through an 80s action filter and it is a wild ride. Then Tommy concludes his series on books Ella really dug. The Phantom Tollbooth. A father daughter road trip. A surprise audiobook. A kid who was already in chapter two and did not want him to turn it off. Narrated by Rainn Wilson. Written by Norton Juster who violated his Ford Foundation grant by doing so. Publishers said the wordplay was too much for kids. They were wrong.

Ep. 4 - The Dark Half & The Cricket in Times Square

Paris brings Tommy a Stephen King adaptation some constant readers haven't even seen, The Dark Half, directed by George A. Romero in 1993. Two horror legends. One forgotten film. Then Tommy brings a book his daughter Ella called one of her favorites she's ever read... after it sat on her shelf for over a year. George Selden's Cricket in Times Square belongs in the same conversation as Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little. Most people have forgotten it exists. And almost nobody knows about the six sequels.

Ep. 3 - Murder Party

Before Blue Ruin. Before Green Room. Before anyone knew who Jeremy Saulnier was, he made a micro-budget horror comedy in Brooklyn with his friends about a lonely meter maid who finds a Halloween party invitation on the sidewalk and really should have stayed home.