Still Scared: Talking Children's Horror: Recent Episodes
Ren Wednesday, Adam Whybray
A podcast in which one film lecturer and one scaredy-cat discuss creepy, spooky and disturbing children's books, films and tv.
In this episode, Still Scared tackle one of the heavy-hitters of children's horror: Watership Down! Ren and Adam are very excited to be joined by Catherine Lester, an academic who has published a book on children's horror films and is editing a forthcoming collection on Watership Down, and is consequently way over-qualified for the podcast! Together they talk about defining children's hororr as a genre, Watership Down's place in animation history and of course, take a break to discuss some textures.
In this episode, Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray welcome in a new year of children's horror with Wilder Girls, a Young Adult novel by Rory Power, from 2019 (but not before going on a diversion about forgotten children's TV oddity Whizziwig).
Topics include The Blob, Playstation 2-era Japanese survival horror games and body horror, and Ren experiences a monent of visceral terror at the idea of attending a boarding school.
Content note: -Extract with grisly body horror. - Covid chat.
In this casual, end of the year episode your co-hosts Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray chat about two short films from early in the careers of Tim Burton and Henry Selick, respectively Hansel and Gretel from 1983, and Slow Bob in the Lower Dimensions from 1991.
Topics include the candy equivalent of offal, curious oranges, and cookie-cutter shuriken, and your co-hosts once again apolgoise for their incredibly erratic recording schedule but thank you all for listening anyway!
Get settled in, spooky kids, because we're going on a trek across the desert wasteland into the wild and winding world of Kazu Umezu's epic manga The Drifting Classroom (and the even stranger associated film!). In this sprawling episode Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray discuss everything from climate doom to mother issues, with enough body horror, crab-aliens and random senseless death to fill your horror boots. Plus a cameo from 'Chicken George'.
This episode contains spoiler for The Drifting Classroom and Fourteen by Kazuo Umezu.
Content note: Descriptions of interpersonal violence.
A full transcript of this episode is available at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/42-drifting-classroom
Tread carefully, spooky kids, because today Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray are discussing one of the most memorably disturbing books of their childhoods' - The Tulip Touch, by Anne Fine, and finding out that as adults... well, it's even darker. We talk about the trend in the '90s for gritty realism in children's books, ambiguous childhood games and prison abolition (yep), and end the episode with some slightly less intense discussion of Anne Fine's later gothic horror children's novel, The Devil Walks.
Content warnings: prolonged discussion of child abuse, including csa (which is given an extra warning in the episode before being discussed), and discussion of famous cases of child murder; reference to suicide.
Gather up your tendrils, creepy creatures, and join Adam Whybray and Ren Wednesday in the desaturated '80s for some low-key but charming horror from prolific British author Vivien Alcock. This week we meet spirits, scientists and low-down male chauvinist pigs, and digress about whether you can accuratly identify ghosts with cats.
A full transcript is available at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/40-vivien-alcock
In this episode, your millennial hosts Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray chat about a recent book, Out of Salem by Hal Schrieve (although it's still set in the 90s so don't worry). We discuss queer representation, body horror and imaginary zines, and one of us comes out as a zombie??
Content notes for this episode are family death, bullying, homophobia and bigotry and police violence.
You can find the full transcript at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/39-outofsalem
Happy Halloween, spooky kids, and happy three years podcast anniversary to Still Scared! In this episode, Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray grab their oversized props and delve into the fishbowl lensed world of early 90s TV series Eerie Indiana.
We chat ever-fresh tupperware, fourth-wall breaking and just how dang adorable Simon is, and of course add some more textures to our podcast vault. Thank you so much to everyone who's listened to the podcast over the last three years, we're still having a lot of fun making it, however slowly!
The transcript is available in the show notes at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/38-eerie-indiana
Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray are back to discuss the 2006 animated film Monster House and be floored by the progression of time. Talking about a film that has been described as 'Shirely Jackson for kids', your co-hosts discuss concrete entombed skeletons, smelly carpet tongues and digress more times than you can shake a rotten floorboard at.
Content note: Some discussion of police violence and racism in the context of recent events and the portrayal of police in this film.
If you prefer to read your podcasts, or read along, a full transcript of this episode is available here: https://stillscared.podigee.io/37-monster-house
This time Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray are safely ensconced in their respective houses to chat about the 2019 reboot (or possibly sequel?) of The Demon Headmaster.
In full-spoiler detail for the 10 episode season we talk resistance and hypnotism, and hypothesise the existence of a super-being who creates Demon Headmasters.
And as always, texture fans will be glad to catch the latest instalment of our Texture of the Week feature, this time featuring sparkly holograms.
Content notes: Mentions of coronavirus, and allusions to fascist and eugenicist perspectives.
A full transcript of this episode is available at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/36-demonheadmaster2019
Well, it's no Return to Oz, but 1980's The Watcher in the Woods is an interesting if flawed curio from Disney's dark-fantasy live-action back-catalogue that hosts Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray are keen to dip their fingers into in this episode.
Featuring a brooding Bette Davis, a dog called Nerak and the spectral dancing of ominous mist, this episode leans intensely into your ear and asks: 'are you sensitive? do you sense things?'.
A full transcript is available at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/35-watcherinthewoods
Blood and thunder! It's a showdown for the ages. Join Ren Wednesday, Adam Whybray and Ava Foxfort as they discuss the final part of The Final Reckoning, the last book in the Deptford Mice series by Robin Jarvis.
Your hardy crew discuss ice textures, brutal character deaths and mouse-based metal concept albums, as they dive into the icy waters of this most epic of endings.
Content note for gory and disturbing descriptions in this episode, and some British politics chat, both of which some listeners might find hard to stomach.
A full transcript of this episode is available at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/34-finalreckoningpart2
Hang onto your mouse-knees, spooky kids! In this episode Ren Wednesday, Adam Whybray and Ava Foxfort discuss the first part of The Final Reckoning, the last book in Robin Jarvis's sublimely horrifying Deptford Mice series.
Your co-hosts talk star-milking, blood-frenzies and of course, textures, as they travel with mice into the dangerous sewers below London, and with the bats to the rooftops above.
Speed to the green, because you're not going to want to miss this!
A full transcript of this episode is available at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/33-final-reckoning-part1
Mouselets and Corn Dolllies! Join Adam Whybray, Ren Wednesday and Ava Foxfort as they discuss Robin Jarvis's The Crystal Prison from 1989, the second in his Deptford Mice series.
Featuring Green Mouse fundamentalists, gods of the fields and Starwife the astrology squirrel, The Crystal Prison takes our characters on a peril-drenched trip to the countryside where there's a new threat around every corn stalk.
Shout 'Fenny' if it gets too much, but even that might not save you.
A full transcript is available in the shownotes at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/29-crystal-prison
Be aware this episode contains grisly character deaths and a subplot of an abusive father.
Put on your welly boots, spooky kids and join Adam Whybray, Ren Wednesday and returning guest Ava Foxfort as they go beyond the Grill into the murky sewers of Robin Jarvis's novel The Dark Portal from 1989.
Featuring jerk-ass bats, dad mice and notable hazards of the murdering profession, fans of rodent ultra-violence and Lovecraftian deities will find plenty to gnaw their teeth into in this episode.
A full transcript of this episode is available in the show notes at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/32-darkportal
Join us this time for a mini-episode, as Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray gleefully chomp on a monstrous spread of picture books from Maurice Sendak, David McKee, Beatrix Potter and Neil Gaiman.
Featuring undulating midnight oceans, trembling patchwork elephants and the existential crisis of a monster who finds himself treated as a boy, it's a zippy tour around the creepiest picture books of our childhoods.
A full transcript of the episode is available at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/31-picturebooks
Once again, spooky kids, Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray are here to take you into the world of children's horror literature with Room 13 from 1989 and Nightmare Stairs from 1997, both by Robert Swindells.
This time, Ren and Adam are at the seaside, enjoying the fresh air, the pier treats, and the sound of the Dracula in the next room gnawing on his latest victim. Join us for stakes, sleepwalking, stairs and a special guest interview with a fictional teenager.
A full transcript is available at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/30-room13
What's that haunted tune whistling through the calliope? Find out with Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray as they take a tour of Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Circus and explore the whirlingly evocative, if admittedly morally confusing world of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes.
We talk Dust Witches, balloon funerals and masculinity, in a rollickingly ghoulish episode filled with plenty of children's horror to get your panic-coloured teeth into.
A full transcript of this episode is available at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/28-somethingwicked
In this episode Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray talk about the post-apocalyptic Young Adult novel The Garden of Darkness by Gillian Murray Kendall from 2014.
We discuss what makes a horror, look at the early modern influences on the book, and despair of our own chances in a post-apocalyptic setting.
Plus we discover the natural source of morale.*
Content notes, there are a few: Discussion of an adult character preying on children, including in a sexually-loaded way, discussion of eugenics and mention of Nazis in relation to the same character.
Also apologies also for the slightly poorer sound quality than usual on this episode, we had some mic volume issues!
A full transcript of this episode is available at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/27-gardenofdarkness
- It's toucans.
Happy day, spooky kids! In this episode Ren Wednesday, Adam Whybray and returning guest Ali Kay delve into the brain-washing, time-looping world of the 1977 BBC TV series Children of the Stones.
Join us for Morris dancing, Solar Serpents and educational asides into the history of surgery, as we try to untangle the plot of this creepy and atmospheric seventies classic.
A full transcript of this episode is available at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/26-childrenofthestones
What's up, spooky kids? Join Still Scared for their Christmas-or-thereabouts episode about the 1984 TV series, The Box of Delights.
This time, Ren Wednesday, Adam Whybray and special guest Willow discuss whimsical kidnapping, dolphin chariots and 1930s slang, and Willow really gets some #teachervibes going.
All this and more from a podcast that can proudly say that it's not in the pocket of Big Posset.
A full transcript of the episode is available at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/25-boxofdelights
In their most squamous, writhing, goopy and tendril-filled episode yet, Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray explore the vibrant landscape of 1982's dark fantasy puppet film, The Dark Crystal.
Join us for this wallow in a many-textured world, featuring a special guest appearance from Adam's unattached false front tooth.
A full transcript of this episode is available in the show notes, here: https://stillscared.podigee.io/24-dark-crystal
This episode we invite you to join Ren Wednesday, Adam Whybray and a cast of geese, scamps and orphans in the Dickensian horror-romp that is The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken.
Featuring shipwreck, secret passageways and a villainous governess, this book delivers the thrills and chills, and a plethora of Textures of the Week.
Content note: description of a child's death by drowning.
A full transcript of this episode is available at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/23-wolves
In this episode, Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray celebrate one year of Still Scared with a ghost story graphic novella, Malevolents: Click Click, by Thom Burgess and Joe Becci.
We huddle in front of our campfire to discuss mental illness in horror, ghosts in our hometowns, and take a look back on what we've learned about children's horror over the year of our podcast.
A full transcript of this episode is available at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/22-malevolents
In this episode, Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray alliterate themselves into a particularly gothic gloomy ghost story, 2017's Thornhill by Pam Smy.
We discuss fibrous drawings, ambivalent endings and the powerlessness of childhood, as we talk about this uniquely told modern horror.
This episode also features a particularly crunchy and unanimous Texture of the Week that all you creepy puppet fans won't want to miss!
A full transcript of this episode is available at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/21-thornhill
Content note: Descriptions of school bullying, allusions to suicide, and death by fire.
In this episode, Adam Whybray, Ren Wednesday and returning guest Alex Ava discuss 'one of the cursed books of childhood', Roald Dahl's The Witches.
Together they discuss monstrous femininity, death positivity and the horror of the English seaside hotel, and Alex mounts a passionate defence of being turned into a mouse.
A full transcript of this episode is available at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/20-witches
Get yourself a flask of bilberry wine, and join Ren and Adam as they talk about the 1965 stop-motion animation series The Pogles, by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin.
In this episode we reminisce about what Postgate and Firmin's work has meant to us, chat about folk horror, and do more voices than might be strictly necessary.
Cosy horror has never been more charming.
A full transcript of this episode is available in the show notes at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/19-pogles
Strange things happen when you're going round the twist, and this week Ren and Adam re-discover this childhood favourite and it's particular brand of gross-out horror.
We talk shaggy-dog stories and pushing the boundaries of children's horror, and decide that it's probably for the best not to dress up in those dead clown's clothes that wash ashore in an old trunk.
Content note: Scatological humour, pregnancy storyline.
A full transcript of this episode is in the shownotes at: https://stillscared.podigee.io/18-roundthetwist
In this episode, your hosts Adam Whybray and Ren Wednesday go way back to 1863 for their discussion of the bizarre and 'nearly unreadable' Victorian morality tale The Water-Babies, by Charles Kingsley.
Join us for an underwater spectacular of whimsy, heavy-handed moralising and offhand bigotry, that'll have you saying: 'I'm glad I didn't have to read this book!'
A full transcript of this episode is available at: http://stillscared.podigee.io/17-waterbabies
Content note for discussion of a part of the novel that features anti-black racism.
In this week's podcast, your hosts Ren and Adam discuss the 1955 novel The Crysalids by John Wyndham in an unusually disciplined 45 minute episode!
This episode we chat about the implications of a telepathic society, enjoy descriptions of mutant flora, and congratulate Wyndham on his refreshing lack of misogyny, as well as try a little bit of telepathy of our own.
A loving hand-crafted transcript of this episode is available at: http://stillscared.podigee.io/16-crysalids
Content note for references to suicide and torture.
Trees made of people, skeletons dressed in pumpkins, and a paddle steamer of holidaying frogs distraught at not getting to hear a bassoon - it can only be Over the Garden Wall! Join Ren Wednesday, Adam Whybray and special guest Alex Ava as they journey into The Unknown and discuss the charming, bizarre, and assuredly disturbing things they discover there.
A full transcript of this episode is available at: http://stillscared.podigee.io/15-over-the-garden-wall
City kids, moonlight dudes and pearly queens, welcome to Philip Ridley week on Still Scared!
In this episode Ren and Adam discuss the urban fairy tales Mercedes Ice and Kasper in the Glitter and chat about imperfect parents, gender performativity and whether marmalade would taste good on banoffee pie.
Join us in the curious worlds that Ridley offers to get lost in.
A transcript of this episode is available at: http://stillscared.podigee.io/14-mercedeskasper
What's up, fellow kids? Ren and Adam put on their backwards baseball caps, throw a skateboard over their shoulders, and show up to talk about the 2017 CBBC children's horror anthology series Creeped Out!
We talk spooks both high and low-tech, from Machiavellian puppets, to possessive AIs, body-swapping parasites to plants allergic to heavy metal, and are reminded of the the horrors of being a teenager.
Content note for discussion of emotionally abusive relationships in the context of the episode 'Marti'.
A full transcript of this episode is available at http://stillscared.podigee.io/13-creepedout.
Ren, Adam and special guest Ali Kay delve into Catherine Storr's 1958 novel Marianne Dreams, and the 1990 film based upon it, Paperhouse.
We go full children's horror this week, as we encounter a not-father brandishing a hammer, a pencil that makes your drawings come to life, and a sinister company of cyclopian standing stones.
The popular 'Texture of the Week' feature also returns, with some memorably unpalatable ice-cream.
Heads up for discussion of the father as a threatening and potentially abusive figure, and description of physical assault by a father figure in the context of the dream world.
A full transcript of this episode is available at: http://stillscared.podigee.io/12-paperhouse
This episode your co-hosts go back to one of Ren's childhood favourites, Witch Week by Dianna Wynne Jones.
Adam and Ren discuss ad-lib approaches to magic, the horror of not being able to escape your classmates and exactly how difficult it would actually be to ride a broomstick, as they talk about this decidedly chilly and unsettling boarding school story.
Heads up for discussion of bullying and an extract from the book in which a character deliberately burns themselves.
A full transcript of this episode is available at: http://stillscared.podigee.io/11-witchweek
Five teenage orphans are subject to an alarming test of both their morality and balance, in William Sleator's 1974 novel House of Stairs.
Adam and Ren discuss queer subtexts, classical conditioning and what on earth William Sleator's problem is with Blossom, and bring back their popular 'Texture of the Week' segment, for all you tactile fans.
Content notes: Discussion of fat-shaming in reference to one of the characters, allusions to sexual threat, mentions of a fascistic dystopian regime.
A full transcript of this episode is available at: http://stillscared.podigee.io/10-houseofstairs
Enter into the board game with Ren and Adam as they begin a two-parter into William Sleator novels, starting with 1984's Interstellar Pig.
Laugh nervously, as they discuss gelatinous, slug-like invertebrates, and the '80s preoccupation with windsurfing. Have your hackles raised as they describe the creepy backstory of the captain's cottage. Ask yourself: will Barney's parents ever return?
A full transcript of this episode is available in the show notes at http://stillscared.podigee.io/9-interstellarpig.
Adam yearns for the sweet release of the void and Ren goes googly-eyed over Shelley Duval as Still Scared discusses Tim Burton's Beetlejuice, and the short films Frankenweenie and Vincent.
Your co-hosts discuss childhood home movies, and their love of stop-motion, as well as going a bit deeper with some chat about racial and class anxiety in Tim Burton's films.
A full transcript of this episode is available at: http://stillscared.podigee.io/8-beetlejuice
Ren and Adam start their journey into Goosebumps in this episode with a trifecta of werewolf stories: Werewolf of Fever Swamp, Werewolf Skin and the choose-your-own style Night in Werewolf Woods.
They discuss the phenomenon that is Goosebumps, contemplate the '90s obsession with gunge, and fall down a bottomless pit and are rescued by a pterodactyl.
Will nostalgia win out, or will the outlandish cliffhangers prove too much? Find out in this episode of Still Scared.
A full transcript of this episode is available at: http://stillscared.podigee.io/7-goosebumps-werewolves
Sneaking in under the wire on the 12th day of Christmas, it's Still Scared's holiday season catch-up!
Ren and Adam recap the show so far, tell stories from their anxious childhoods, and delve a little bit into what makes children's horror special. Let's be monsters in a good way.
cn for references to transphobia and transmisogyny in recap clip.
A full transcript of this episode is available at:http://stillscared.podigee.io/6-mini-episode
Still Scared takes a ramble into the world of the 1985 children's horror classic 'Return to Oz' and the two Oz books it's based on.
In this episode Ren Wednesday and Adam Whybray discuss gender play in the Oz books, the tragic fate of Jack Pumpkinhead, and enforced happiness in the original musical, as they get their teeth into the many strange and uncanny aspects of the world of Oz.
Content note: mentions of enforced electric shock treatment in the context of the story.
A full transcript of this episode is available at http://stillscared.podigee.io/5-return-to-oz
Still Scared talks over 'The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray' by Chris Wooding, and finds that the podcast title has never been more appropriate.
In this episode we discuss the romanticisation of Jack the Ripper, chat about plotting a novel like a D&D campaign, lament the fact that we never became goths, and stop our discussion in the middle to read the creepiest extracts out loud to each other.
The subject matter does also get a bit dark at times, so heads up for references to murder (including one reference to child murder), violence against women, disease, and some grisly monsters.
A full transcript of this episode is available at http://stillscared.podigee.io/4-alaizabel_cray
Tropes abound in this discussion of two children's horror/fantasty films that just could have been better, to be honest.
We get critical in this one, as we discuss transmisogyny and appearance-based morality in The Boxtrolls, and mixed messages and dodgy jokes in Paranorman, but at least people who use electric toothbrushes are represented.
A full transcript of this episode is available athttps://stillscared.podigee.io/3-paranorman
In our very first episode, we try and work out what we're doing with this whole podcast thing, and discuss a creepy fixture of both our childhoods!
We talk about programming in Basic, sentient spaghetti and Czechoslovakian state-surveillance as we take a look at 'The Demon Headmaster'.
A full transcript of this episode is available at https://stillscared.podigee.io/2-pilotepisode