The Introverted Obelisk
The Introverted Obelisk is a sardonic stroll through the graveyard of classic horror cinema, where monsters are rubber, dialogue is stilted, and logic is optional. Join us as we unravel the plots (and seams) of horror films from the 1930s to the 1960s — the golden age of fog machines, mad scientists, and questionable acting choices. Each episode serves up a dry-witted recap, thematic commentary, and trivia morsels about the strange, charming, and sometimes laughably earnest world of vintage horror. It’s film history with a smirk — perfect for fans of cult classics, spooky nostalgia, and undead absurdity.
Episodes
52 episodes
Next Stop: Paranoia
This week on The Introverted Obelisk, Obie Knox climbs aboard one of Alfred Hitchcock's finest suspense films, The Lady Vanishes. What begins as an ordinary train ride across Europe quickly transforms into a twisting mystery w...
The Day Los Angeles Lost to Pudding
Heatwave Horror Month continues as Obie Knox descends beneath the streets of Los Angeles to revisit one of the strangest creature features of the 1960s: The Slime People. This low-budget sci-fi horror oddity wastes absolutely no time i...
Beach, Please... Also There's a Monster
This month, The Introverted Obelisk kicks off Heatwave Horror Month with the 1964 drive-in cult classic The Horror of Party Beach. What starts as a carefree day of sun, surf, and dancing quickly turns into chaos when a ...
The Atomic Ghost of Japan
In this episode of The Introverted Obelisk, we travel back to 1954 and descend into the radioactive nightmare of Godzilla — the film that didn’t just create a monster, but transformed grief, fear, and national trauma into one of the most enduri...
What the Cat Brought Back
In this episode of The Introverted Obelisk, we wander into the moonlit nightmare world of Kuroneko, Kaneto Shindō’s hypnotic ghost story about war, grief, vengeance, and the terrible persistence of love. Released just a few years after his mast...
Everybody Falls Into the Hole Eventually
In this episode of The Introverted Obelisk, we descend into the sweltering nightmare world of Onibaba, Kaneto Shindō’s haunting masterpiece of war, hunger, jealousy, and survival. Set during the chaos of civil war in medieval Japan, the film fo...
The Corridor With No Door
In this episode of The Introverted Obelisk, we step into the fog-covered streets of Paris and unravel the eerie mystery of So Long at the Fair, a psychological thriller that turns one missing person into a waking nightmare. Set during the 1889 ...
Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss
In this episode of The Introverted Obelisk, Obie descends into the quiet, suffocating paranoia of My Name Is Julia Ross, a Gothic psychological thriller where the greatest danger isn’t violence, but the terrifying realization that ever...
Whispers, Lies, and Southern Gothic Vibes
In this episode of The Introverted Obelisk, Obie heads deep into the collapsing world of Southern Gothic horror with Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, a film where the hallways are long, the family grudges are longer, and absolutely nobody...
Ghosts With Theatrical Lighting and Emotional Damage
In this episode of The Introverted Obelisk, Obie descends into the painted nightmare world of Kwaidan — a haunting anthology film directed by Masaki Kobayashi that transforms traditional Japanese ghost stories into one of the most visu...
Denial in a Lab Coat
Tonight on The Introverted Obelisk, we confront a familiar fantasy: the belief that science can fix grief if we just push it hard enough.The Colossus of New York begins with tragedy — a brilliant scientist dies far too ...
Forever Young, Briefly Human
Tonight on The Introverted Obelisk, science puts on a lab coat, sharpens its scalpel, and decides that ethics are optional.In Atomic Age Vampire, a brilliant but broken scientist sets out to save the woman he loves from...
Love Is Not a Medical Procedure
Tonight on The Introverted Obelisk, love refuses to let go, science refuses to listen, and a severed head develops opinions.This episode dives into The Brain That Wouldn’t Die — a film that asks the eternal question:
The Greenhouse Demands a Sacrifice
Tonight on The Introverted Obelisk, science takes a long, thoughtful look at ethics… and then feeds them to a plant.This episode tackles The Woman Eater, a British oddity where love, desperation, and very bad research h...
Science, But Make It a Relapse
Tonight on The Introverted Obelisk, science proves once again that it does not understand the meaning of the word “enough.”This episode dives into The Return of Doctor X — a late-1930s cocktail of mad science, ...
Murder Wears a Lab Coat
Tonight on The Introverted Obelisk, we slip into a laboratory where the lights are low, the morals are flexible, and science has absolutely lost the plot.This is a pre-Code nightmare where mad doctors wear tuxedos, murder invest...
The Ghost You Ordered Is on the Line
Tonight, The Introverted Obelisk invites you to dim the lights, quiet your doubts, and listen closely — because the dead have something to sell.This is a story about love, loss, and the fine art of pretending you can hear the ot...
Step Right Up for Salvation
This is a story about ambition — the kind that starts with applause and ends in a bottle. We follow a drifter who learns the carny trade, masters the con, and mistakes deceit for destiny. He climbs the ladder of showmanship one lie at ...
A Light Going Out Upstairs
Tonight on The Introverted Obelisk, we step into a house that’s both a home and a trap — where love whispers, doubt grows, and every flickering lamp feels like an accusation.In this story, sanity isn’t lost — it’s stolen
Last Call for the Afterlife
Tonight, The Introverted Obelisk rings in the New Year with a hangover, a curse, and a carriage that never misses a pickup.We’re heading back to 1921 for Victor Sjöström’s The Phantom Carriage — a Swedish morality tale ...
A Face Only Terror Could Love
Tonight, The Introverted Obelisk trades the crypt for the catwalks of the Paris Opera House — where chandeliers fall, music swells, and romance dies screaming in the wings.Lon Chaney — the man of a thousand faces — delivers his ...
The Death Ship Has a New Captain
Tonight on The Introverted Obelisk, we sail back to 1922 for a film that gave vampires their cinematic passport — Nosferatu. It’s the story of Count Orlok, a man who looks like a plague rat in formalwear, and poor Hutter, the ...
Paris, 1482: Now with Extra Judgment
This week on The Introverted Obelisk, we scale the heights of tragedy and stone with The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)—the film that gave Lon Chaney the keys to cinematic immortality and taught audiences that monsters aren’t ...
Matango: The Fungus Among Us
Stranded on an isolated island with nothing to eat except a suspicious buffet of oversized mushrooms, a group of wealthy socialites slowly discovers that hunger isn’t the only thing gnawing at them. In this episode of The Introverted Obelis...
The Night We Checked In and Nearly Didn’t Check Out
In this episode of The Introverted Obelisk, your host Obie Knox takes you on a rain-soaked detour into James Whale’s The Old Dark House (1932), the pre-code classic that accidentally invented an entire horror subgenre by asking ...