For almost a decade, a podcast made by a small group of friends, “Murky Waters”, accumulated hundreds of thousands of listeners. The matter they dealt with, week after week, was horror movies, cult, strange… shady. What earned them the appreciation of those who listened to and downloaded their programs was a very particular combination between an extreme rigor in the documentation about the specific topics or films they dissected, and the hilarious game of subjectivities that came when discussing the work or works in question. After listening to them for several years, you knew perfectly the various hobbies and obsessions of each of the members of the shady staff, and you even ended up becoming fond of the tarantula that one of them had as a pet.
On September 19, 2022, because everything must end one day, they announced their end. For moviegoers interested in such surprising and, from the right point of view, exciting subjects such as French New Extremism, German ultragore, Korean thriller, the evolution of Italian giallo, the most notable titles of Japanese cyberpunk, or even the best video games of terror in history, an enormous sound legacy remains on the Ivoox platform. However, from the ashes of that defunct podcast, has been created “We are dead…or what?”. Those responsible for the invention are the two survivors of “Murky Waters” (although as the name they have chosen indicates, an homage to the funny homonymous horror comedy from 1988, perhaps they are not very convinced of having achieved it), David and Snuff. Every fortnight, with the relaxed tone of two colleagues who simply love cinema, they meet to chat about whatever they fancy.
This could be a detailed review, title by title, of the programming of the last Sitges festival; the unique career of one of the filmmakers with the most personality on the current scene, the Danish Nicolas Widing Refn; a wonderful jewel of European fanterror as it is “Operation Fear” (66) of the great Mario Bava; what we could consider as the Japanese response “Wild bull” of Scorsese, the harsh and electric “Tokyo Fist” (95) by Shinya Tsukamoto; an absolute classic of suspense as “The collector” (65) by William Wyler; or a forgotten sequel that went unnoticed by a few theaters like “The Strangers 2: Night Hunt” (18), but which David and Snuff clearly claim. The opinions that are poured out are, of course, fiercely personal; and, nevertheless, this does not prevent us from learning, for example, why Sir Alec Guinness’s last film was released a couple of years after his death (and under what disconcerting circumstances his participation in it occurred) or the very diverse hardships suffered in Italy a very young Jennifer Connelly while filming “Phenomena” (85) by Dario Argento.
It should be noted, finally, that both David and Snuff (the alias in the podcast of the writer Pablo Pelluch) have their side projects, like the members of any very veteran band. Snuff is the sole author of “Normal Podcast For Normal People”in which the creepypasta, urban legends and, in general, the darkest folklore of our time becomes the raw material for horrifying audio stories; and every week David is one of the protagonists of “La cola del escorpión”, a program that is defined by its motto: life is what happens between movies.