Send us a text

In this episode, we discuss Guillermo del Toro’s gorgeous and gothic adaptation of Frankenstein, an epic, operatic exploration of creation, obsession, abandonment, and the horror of living after being rejected by the world. We discuss our own life goals and the hollowness that can follow achieving your greatest ambition, before diving into this reimagining of Mary Shelley’s ground-breaking novel. We unpack the cinematic devices, symbolism, use of light and colour, as well as each character and what motivates them. We explore themes of immortality as a curse, intergenerational trauma, scientific overreach, colonialism, class violence, and what happens when society decides someone is a monster.

Content & Spoiler Warning:

We spoil Frankenstein (the novel and film), and the film and our dicussion has body horror, animal death (wolves), child abuse, death during childbirth, toxic father–son relationships, and corpse desecration.

Palate cleanser:

Star Wars (Original Trilogy) – Caroline is revisiting the entire Star Wars universe in timeline order, and despite some CGI should never have happened, these movies hold up.

Recommendations:

• Little Shop of Horrors – mad science, creation, and unintended consequences
• My Cousin Vinny – for unexpected tonal callbacks
• Marvel films (Frankenstein connects to Captain America, Ultron, and Hulk lore)
• Inglourious Basterds, Indiana Jones, The Sound of Music – confronting Nazi violence and persecution
• Death Becomes Her and Vampire lore– immortality is its own horror
• Alice in Wonderland and Beetlejuice – embracing the strange and unusual
• Little Women (2019) – the dance scenes are similar.
• Dr. Death (podcast) – psychotic doctors and medical hubris
• Book Cheat (podcast) – a comic shortcut to classic literature
• Epistolary horror: Dracula, Carrie
• “The Monkey’s Paw” – the danger of subverting death
• Jurassic Park, Terminator, M3GAN, Oppenheimer, Edward Scissorhands – losing control of creation
• Guillermo del Toro’s other works: Pan’s Labyrinth, Crimson Peak, The Shape of Water, Pinocchio, Hellboy, Blade II

Homework:

Watch Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers (Netflix)
A documentary that continues exploring how society punishes those it deems monstrous.

Special thanks to Nancy Azano for the podcast cover art (Instagram: @nancyazano) and Harry Kidd for the opening and closing score (Instagram: @harryjkidd, Spotify).

Send us a text

In this Christmas special of Drawn To Darkness, we swap favourite festive films (from Die Hard and It’s a Wonderful Life to The Muppet Christmas Carol and Scrooged) before diving into Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. We’ll discuss the plot and characters (Scrooge, Marley, the three spirits, Fezziwig, Tiny Tim, Fred), unpack life in Victorian London with its filth, disease, child labour, workhouses, debtor’s prisons and ghost-obsessed spiritualism, and trace how Dickens wrote this “ghostly little book” as a sledgehammer blow against capitalism, greed and cruelty. Along the way we’ll call out Dickens’ own contradictions (social critic, but a terrible husband), compare Bob Cratchit’s wages to modern minimum wage debates, talk through the horror of dying unmourned and unnoticed, and discuss whether Ignorance is more dangerous than Want.

Content & Spoiler Warning:

This episode includes spoilers for A Christmas Carol (book and major adaptations), and discussion of child death, Victorian poverty and disease, eternal damnation, bad bosses and workplace exploitation, and references to body parts/sexual topics.

Palate Cleanser:

The Office – “Dinner Party” (US) and Thor: Ragnarok

Recommendations:

Muppet Christmas Carol, Scrooged – Bill Murray’s ‘80s TV-exec Scrooge, Mickey’s Christmas Carol (Marley's door-knocker and Scrooge’s hellfire grave are seared into our brains)

Other Christmas movies like It’s a Wonderful Life and Elf because like Scrooge, Walter Hobbes needs some Christmas spirit.

Newsies – A musical that reflects Dickens’ views on child labor.

Parasite – For a contemporary look at the horrors of the class divide.

The Castle – Australian working class family cult favourite that’s giving Bob Cratchit.

Home for the Holidays – Caroline’s favourite holiday movie with a cast including Holly Hunter, Robert Downey Jr., Dylan McDermott, and Claire Danes

Christmas specials! Look up your favourite 80s or 90s TV show and find their Christmas special (Caroline recommends Roseanne & 90210)

The Haunting of Bly Manor – For “ghost stories at Christmas” vibes

Time Bandits (TV) – jokes about how gross and diseased Victorian London was

Hugh Grant’s narration of A Christmas Carol (though his soothing voice might put you to sleep) which dovetails with Dickens’ descriptions of cholera-era filth.

The Signalman –A lesser-known Dickens ghost story

The Phantom Tollbooth – Audiobook family favourite for Caroline

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl – Structurally similar morality lessons

The podcast Scared To Death –annual Christmas readings of classic ghost stories,

Dark Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal -if you want to know more about Dickens’ fascination with spiritualism and the paranormal.

Black Mirror "White Christmas” – another Christmas special featuring eternal torment

Homework:

Watch: Frankenstein (Guillermo del Toro) on Netflix.

Special thanks to Nancy Azano for our cover art (Instagram: @nancyazano) and to Harry Kidd for our opening score (Instagram: @harryjkidd)

Send us a text

In this episode we unpack the history and ethics of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (1932–1972), guided by Michael Hobbes and Sarah Marshall’s reporting in You’re Wrong About. We recount how U.S. Public Health Service researchers recruited 600 Black men in Macon County, Alabama under the promise of treatment for “bad blood,” then withheld effective care, even after penicillin became a simple cure, so they could watch the disease progress. We explore why the study was “bad science” as well as immoral; the racist assumptions baked into its design (e.g., claims that syphilis affects Black bodies differently); and why it kept running long after penicillin was a viable option because the participants as “more valuable” as cadavers).

Content & Spoiler Warning:

This episode includes spoilers for the You’re Wrong About two-parter on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and discussion of: medical racism, eugenics, unethical human experimentation, government misconduct, venereal disease symptoms and treatment (e.g., spinal taps, mercury “rubs”), lynchings, sterilisation without consent, infection of prisoners, intergenerational trauma, and mental-health impacts.

Palate Cleanser

Max Rebo Productions (TikTok): Classic Star Wars toys lip-sync famous ‘90s movie scenes (Karate Kid, Home Alone, My Cousin Vinny). Pure delight between heavy topics.

Recommendations:
Podcasts & Episodes

• You’re Wrong About — Tuskegee two-parter; plus episodes on Anita Hill, eugenics, Reagan/Trump, DARE, Satanic Panic/D&D.
• Distrust & Disparities — Two-parter on Tuskegee and broader medical inequities.
• Black History for White People — Discussion including hospital perspectives.
• 1619 — “How the Bad Blood Started.”
• The Breakdown (Sean King) — Context for vaccine hesitancy vs. Tuskegee.
• This Podcast Will Kill You — Syphilis overview and history.
• The Dollop — Syphilis episode (history).
• American Scandal (Wondery) — Tuskegee season (Ep. 1 free).
• Sounds Like a Cult — Humanitarian/aid-adjacent critique.
• Seeing White - Episodes 1 & 2

Books & Articles:

• Medical Apartheid — On systemic medical exploitation and its legacy.
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
• Works by Dale Huey and Ta Nehisi Coates

Films & TV:

• The Fall of the House of Usher (Mike Flanagan) — Sackler-like family and “bad drugs.”
• Westworld — How people treat “less-than-human” beings.
• Stranger Things — Dr. Brenner as “greater good” rationaliser.
• The Pitt — Representation matters in diagnosis (sickle cell storyline).
• Sinners (set in Mississippi sharecropping milieu) and Weapons. Both flagged for future episodes for sure!

Contacts:

• Makeda Pennycooke, Life Coach & Chance Strategist for anti-racism coaching makeda@makedapennycooke.com

Homework:
Watch: Frankenstein (Guillermo del Toro) on Netflix to explore the ethics of creation. and it includes a syphilis line: “A night with Venus, a lifetime with mercury.”

But before that, it’s our Christmas special! So read, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

Special thanks to Nancy Azano for our cover art (Instagram: @nancyazano) and to Harry Kidd for our opening score (Instagram: @harryjkidd)