House is a classic, haunted residence story from 1986. William Katt stars as a struggling writer who revisits his Aunt's home, after she mysteriously commits suicide. While staying there, he's tortured by memories of his missing son and his personal experiences during the Vietnam War.

It's not long before the house begins to feed off his guilt and sadness. Strange and frightful things are happening, and it all seems to be related to the disappearance of a young boy. This is a fun, dark-humored ride of a ghost story that deals with one man's need to face and conquer his personal demons.

The film is produced by Sean Cunningham, directed by Steve Miner and written by Ethan Wiley, from a story by Fred Dekker. As is usually the case, please listen for my preemptive countdown before beginning the movie on your DVD.

Happy Halloween everyone!

With John currently unable to post new episodes, Stu retires to the archives to dig up and finish editing a long forgotten episode. Well, long forgotten in the sense that it was recorded in September this year. Okay, so maybe just forgotten then.

For this episode we port the Last 3 Movies blueprint over to the TV world. Here are the picks:

Stu	Gary
The IT Crowd	The IT Crowd
Traveler	Dexter
Raines	Family Guy

Note: The episode is obviously a little behind the times, so when we talk about upcoming stuff it's clearly not so upcoming any more. Also, turns out that the IT Crowd season 2 was only 6 episodes long, as opposed to the 8 episodes Gary mentions here.

Promos:
OzPod
The 9th

Jim Caviezel stars in Highwaymen, the unofficial companion piece to Robert Harmon's cult classic, The Hitcher. Rennie Cray (Caviezel) is a broken man following the murderous exploits of another broken man, Fargo (Colm Feore). Caught in the middle of this personal vendetta is Fargo's latest pretty, but scarred target, Molly (Rhona Mitra). Meanwhile, a State Traffic Investigator named Macklin (Frankie Faison), is trying to piece together the nature of this particular cat and mouse game between Cray and Fargo.

It's a loud, furious thriller where cars get mangled and destroyed because two men are way past the point of being able to "hug it out". In this commentary, I talk about the importance of rhythm and pacing in a thriller, balancing the ratio between action set pieces and character back story, all the while getting the most out of your sound mixing and editing. As is usually the case, please listen for my preemptive countdown before starting your DVD.

NOTE: This is a Region 2 disc, so there might be a slight synchronization issue for those of you with Stateside DVDs. However, this looks to be a simple port of the American release, so perhaps playback will run at the same speeds. Please let me know if this is not the case.

Ever wonder how those seedy, desolate roadside motels across America manage to stay in business? Well, Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale find out the hard way in Vacancy. This eerie little gem concerns an estranged married couple, forced to spend the night in a rundown motel after their car breaks down.

They soon realize something twisted may be in store for them, when they discover hidden cameras are watching them and the windows are nailed shut. With solid suspense and a lean, well paced running time, Vacancy delivers mature, classical horror in the tradition of Hitchcock, with a modern sensibility in visual storytelling.

Please join me as I discuss claustrophobia, home video technology and Frank Whaley's sinister mustache. As always, please listen for my preemptive countdown before starting the movie on your DVD.

Technically, the shows discussed in this segment don't hit the airwaves until the start of 2008, but whatever. At least we're early this time. Concluding our Fall Preview podcast of the new TV season, Stu and I take a look at the genre offerings from the trigger-happy Fox Network: New Amsterdam and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Time travel, immortality, killer robots, forbidden love and Summer Glau kicking really high (hopefully). It's all here, or at least it will be, a few months from now.

New Amsterdam official site
Sarah Connor Chronicles preview site

SciFi Smackdown