Tonight I talk about the nature of horror/true crime books and movies to ask: what makes a story truly frightening, instead of just entertaining? What kinds of movies or books, or ways of storytelling, take us beyond entertainment to true horror, to actual fear? How does the disturbing story of Ed Gein end up, filtered through convention and expectation, as “standard” (even if classic) movies like Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs?

Discussed along the way: Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now, the new Netflix series on Jeffrey Dahmer, the movie The Exorcist, Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, the use of crime scene photos for advertising TV shows, and the unavoidable re-traumatization of victims and their families with each new show, book, movie (or, indeed, podcast).

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