Episode 13: Techno Horror, feat. Jim Laczkowski of Director’s Club Podcast

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Enter the Matrix! Or, rather, what early ‘90s Hollywood thought virtual reality would look like, before movies like The Matrix offered a more nuanced alternative. Gabe and special guest, Now Playing Network head honcho Jim Laczkowski, take a look at Techno Horror. More specifically, Techno Horror movies about haunted and evil computers, video games, and internets. They begin with Michael Fischa’s filmed in the early ‘80s, released in the late ‘80s possessed electronic gym classic, Death Spa. Then, the discussion moves on to a, um, unique 1993 double-feature in Albert Pyun’s Arcade and Rachel Talalay’s Ghost in the Machine. Things end on a more somber and serious note with Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s fantastically melancholic Pulse (Japanese: Kairo, 2001) and a quick wrap-up of some other Techno Horror titles.

00:00 – Intro 05:01 – Death Spa

24:25 – Arcade

42:00 – Ghost in the Machine

1:08:23 – Pulse 1:36:10 – Outros