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Trauma Box

Tyler Stevens, Shawn O'Sullivan

Cheaper than therapy. Let the healing begin.

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28 episodes
weekly
Avg 1 hr 2 min
English

Episodes 28

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Counted on this page — what you have heard stays on this device, so it is not something the list can be paged by.

#8
June 22 · 57 min
008: Summer Job
Trauma Box goes bawdy this week, as Tyler and Shawn get tackled by Summer Job, Paul Madden's neon-swathed sex comedy from 1989. An unremarkable but admirably good-humored cast slog through third rate gags pulled from Police Academy and Porky's, and we're right there slogging through it with them. As if that wasn't decadent enough, we even get a performance from former ELO members moonlighting as OrKestra, and it's as middling and feeble as you might possibly imagine. You may well spend the film
#7
June 15 · 1 hr 45 min
007: Killer Klowns from Outer Space
Our Boxketeers become three this week, as artist Arthur Peña joins Tyler and Shawn to discuss one of his childhood video traumas: Killer Klowns from Outer Space. We dive deep into this foundational classic of VHS terror, covering oft-neglected topics like klown physics, confetti ontology, and, of course, alien sex. Inevitably, we will raise more questions than we can answer, but that's the name of the game here on Trauma Box. Scope Arthur's awesome work at https://www.arthurdpena.com/
#6
June 8 · 45 min
006: Breeders
This week, our intrepid Trauma Boxers brave Breeders, erotic auteur Tim Kincaid's 1986 direct-to-video grime-fest.The man behind Mutant Hunt, Robot Holocaust, and LA Tool & Die brings us seventy-odd minutes of unhinged post-C.H.U.D. NYC nightmare. It's a gross and grim affair, but oddly joyous in a Brecht-meets-Waters kind of way. At Trauma Box, we brave the bottom of the trash bin so you, dear listener, don't have to.
#5
June 1 · 47 min
005: Tomboy
Tyler and Shawn explore a different corner of the Trauma Box this week with 1985's Tomboy. A staple of video store shelves of yore, Tomboy's iconic cover had wedged itself in the psyches of both hosts. What did we discover upon viewing? It's Flashdance with none of the heart meets Porky's with half the wit - that is to say: it's pretty good! Join us this week for a bawdier-than-usual breeze through the Trauma Box.
#4
May 25 · 54 min
004: Xtro
The Trauma Box bites back this week with Xtro, Harry Bromley Davenport's offering from 1982, an impossibly grim and upsettingly British ode to ooze. Why do we keep watching horrific films with dead/absent fathers and animated toys? What the hell is our problem? And, more pressingly, what drugs was Harry Bromley Davenport on?
#3
May 18 · 52 min
003: Making Contact
Once again Tyler and Shawn open up the Trauma Box to investigate one of the great sources of childhood horror: the Ventriloquist Dummy. Is there anything scarier than an evil talking puppet? With 1985's Making Contact, Roland Emmerich (yes - the director of Independence Day) answers that question in a truly chilling fashion: by presenting us with a *German* evil talking puppet. A nightmarish perversion of Spielbergian childhood wonder-terror, Making Contact will haunt you for years to come.
#2
May 11 · 46 min
002: Squirm
This week, Tyler and Shawn writhe their way through the Trauma Box with Squirm! Jeff Lieberman's proto-Lynchian 1976 horror flick is a puzzling, downbeat musing on Georgian small-town affairs (think spaghetti-swilling sheriffs, worm farms managed by yokels, arch Southern belles, etc) that winds its way heck of a slithery payoff. Your intrepid Trauma Boxers should help this one go down as smooth as an egg cream.
#1
April 3 · 1 hr
001: The Exterminator
In our inaugural episode, Tyler and Shawn open up the TraumaBox with The Exterminator, James Glickenhaus’s 1980 opus horrificus. This grim viewing prompts us to explore post-’Nam generational trauma, Reagan-era projections of Big Apple deviancy, and our own relationships to depictions of masculinity in the Video Store of yore.

Showing 21–28 of 28 episodes