Nicole catches a break, sitting out the majority of this episode before the A-Z of Horror season comes to consume her! Brother Brian sits in as guest co-host, to talk some video games. Stories from our youth, including some unusual choices for games that scared him, for a number of somewhat irrational reasons. We also try our best to come up with a top five of our favorite horror video games. But this is us, so if you're expecting your favorite title to make the top five, you're probably out of luck.
This is a movie podcast, though! So I couldn't let Brother Brian get away without making him suffer through a really odd video game movie adaptation for the second time in his life. The Mushroom Kingdom from the games already seems like it emerged from a drug-fueled haze. But what the hell were the writers on when they came up with this script? The main characters don't even wear their proper attire from the games until the movie is halfway over! And Goombas are large reptilian humanoids with tiny heads? Huh? And yes, that is the proper response after watching Super Mario Bros. (1993). Huh?
At least the next movie kind of sticks to the basics of the gameplay from the source material. Kicking. Punching. Martial arts action. Robert Patrick is no longer a Terminator, but he's still a villain, and he really wants the two pieces of this shiny golden medallion. Why? I don't know. Brother Brian tries to explain it, so just listen to the episode. Billy (no, not Bimmy) and Jimmy Lee are the brothers in futuristic 2007 New Angeles, who must save not only the medallion, but also local viewers from being subjected to Vanna White and George Hamilton as newscasters! And New Angeles is actually just Cleveland, in Double Dragon (1994).