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In this episode, we descend into Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s 2020 bestselling novel set in 1950s Mexico. When glamorous socialite Noemí Taboada receives a disturbing letter from her cousin Catalina, who claims she’s being poisoned in her new husband’s remote mountain mansion, she travels to High Place to investigate. There she finds a crumbling English manor transplanted into the Mexican countryside, steeped in decay, silence, and red flags. Catalina is wasting away under the watchful eye of her sinister husband Virgil, his ancient patriarch Howard, and the sanctimonious housekeeper Florence. The house reeks of rot, the wallpaper pulses, and mushrooms bloom in the foggy graveyard. Mexican Gothic explores inherited trauma, the stain of colonialism, eugenics, and the horror of being reduced to a vessel. We discuss gothic tropes, gaslighting, fetishisation, how we feel about dream sequences and complicity v. victimhood.

Content & Spoiler Warning:

This novel and our episode includes discussion of sexual assault, incest, coercion, eugenics, racism, fetishisation of women of colour, colonial exploitation, gaslighting, medical abuse, cannibalism, body horror (including bile and vomiting), disturbing dream sequences, and reproductive coercion. We also fully spoil Mexican Gothic.

Palate Cleansers

After all that bile, we recommend:

• The new Muppet Show (Disney+) - joyful chaos, nostalgia, and Seth Rogen involvement.
• Encanto – also explores intergenerational trauma and a characters repeats, “Open your eyes.”

Recommendations

• Talking Scared - Interview with Silvia Moreno Garcia (the novels include Certain Dark Things & The Bewitching)
• The Yellow Wallpaper (episode 15) - a big inspiration
• Rebecca - all the gothic tropes
• Rosemary’s Baby - for gaslighting, reproductive horror
• The Shining - isolation and atmosphere of dread
• The Others – sheets over furniture in unused rooms
• The Skeleton Key - no spoilers, just watch it
• Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough – quite a twist
• Venom, Stranger Things, The Last of Us, The Girl with All the Gifts, What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher – fungal and hive mind horror
• Midnight Mass - corrupted communion ritual
• Get Out - fetishisation & bodily appropriation
• The Portrait of Dorian Gray - immortality and decay
• The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter- gothic fairytale retellings
• Wuthering Heights & Jane Eyre – gothic classics
• Ghostbusters - When someone asks if you’re a god, you say yes.”
• The Crow - “It can’t rain all the time.”
• The Fall of the House of Usher - a creepy crypt
• Starling House by Alix E. Harrow &Old Gods of Appalachia (podcast) - mining horror
• Always Mean Girls, Blue, Andor, and Arrested Development

Homework”

Watch: Sugarcane (National Geographic documentary, available on Disney+)

We’ll be examining residential schools, colonisation, cultural erasure, and the lingering trauma of eugenic ideology, continuing our discussion of how history haunts the present.

Until next time: clean your black mould, trust your red flags, and when someone warns you to leave while you still can… take the hint and GTFO.

Special thanks to Nancy Azano for our cover art (Instagram: @nancyazano) and Harry Kidd for our music (Instagram: @harryjkidd, Spotify).

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In this episode of Drawn to Darkness, we pivot back to true crime with Captive Audience: A Real American Horror Story, a three-part docuseries about the kidnapping of Steven Stayner and the traumatic ripple effect. We’ll discuss Steven’s story, how he was abducted at age seven while walking home from school and held captive for seven years by Kenneth Parnell. What makes the story even more unsettling is how “normal” his life appeared from the outside. Steven attended school, played sport, and yet could not free himself from his abuser until Parnell kidnapped five-year-old Timmy White. Refusing to let another boy endure what he survived. Steven heroically escaped, saving Timmy and himself. We discuss the psychological barriers that kept him from escaping sooner, the media’s obsession with a “happy ending” and its impact on Steven’s recovery, and the tragic fatal motorcycle accident that ended Steven’s life. Just when you think the story must be over, the Stayner curse delivers one more twist: Steven’s older brother Cary becomes the Yosemite Killer, turning this into a story not only about captivity, but about generational trauma and murder.

Content & Spoiler Warning:

This episode includes discussion of child abduction, pedophilia and child sexual assault, intergenerational trauma, serial murder, and a fatal motorcycle accident. We also spoil Captive Audience and the made-for-TV miniseries I Know My First Name Is Steven.

Palate Cleanser:

After something this bleak, we recommend something more fun: Derry Girls, Caroline’s comfort-watch of choice, Heated Rivalry, and The Mummy, because Evie and Rick are adorable.

Recommendations:

Adolescence - mandatory viewing if you’re raising a boy

Wild Crime -another national park–focused docuseries

Park Predators -for more on crime in wilderness spaces

Murdoch Murders: A Southern Scandal - another cursed-family true crime saga

Six Schizophrenic Brothers - a different kind of family horror

Bloodline and The Perfect Couple - fictional family darkness

My Favorite Murder Episode 30 - their early coverage of this case

Media Pressure (Julie Murray’s podcast) -on family tragedy and public obsession

I Know My First Name Is Steven — the original 1989 miniseries that shaped the family’s story

Untamed with Eric Bana for a Yosemite murder mystery. Also Free Solo and The Dawn Wall for that stunning Yosemite setting.

Stephen King’s The Dead Zone because Parnell is giving Greg Stillson as a Bible salesman.

The 1990s The Stand mini-series, with Corin Nemec as Harold

All Around The Town by Mary Higgins Clark

Weapons because of a scary gas station scene and a child keeping a secret at school

California True Crime, Timesuck, Casefile, and Last Podcast on the Left if you want to know more about these crimes.

Homework:

Next episode, we continue our run of cursed families, but through gothic fiction rather than documentary. Read Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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

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In this episode, we dive into Trainwreck: Poop Cruise, Netflix’s lowbrow, sensational documentary about the 2013 Carnival Triumph disaster, when an engine room fire left more than 4,200 passengers and crew stranded in the Gulf of Mexico with no power, no air conditioning, no refrigeration, and, most importantly, no functioning toilets.

We begin with discussion about losing power during floods, blizzards, hurricanes, and honeymoons gone wrong, but end up discussing human behaviour under extreme stress. As we discuss the "characters", we unpack how quickly civility can erode when basic systems fail, why some people balk at the the red biohazard bags, and how entitlement, privilege, and desperation collide in confined spaces.

We also discuss the heroism and exploitation of cruise ship staff, the cruise industry’s fine print and lack of accountability, the shift from news to spectacle in media coverage, and how this situation never quite tips into Lord of the Flies, but comes disturbingly close. Along the way, we link Poop Cruise to other maritime disasters, cruise ship disappearances, and the deeper horrors lurking beneath the glossy promise of “all-inclusive” leisure.

Content & Spoiler Warning:

Bodily waste, unsanitary conditions, vomiting, public urination, extreme hangovers, fire at sea, societal breakdown, hoarding, cruise ship disasters, corporate negligence, environmental harm, assault risks, disappearances, and capitalism behaving exactly as expected. We also spoil Trainwreck: Poop Cruise and briefly discuss Amy Bradley Is Missing.

Palate Cleanser:

• TikTok trends including a man attempting (and failing) to learn how to Dougie
• Museums pairing classical art with modern film and TV audio
• People doing owl impressions in regional accents (including Moira Rose as an owl)

Recommendations:

• Wine & Crime – “Cruise Ship Disappearances” (Episode 7) for an unsettling overview of nightmares at sea
• Other episodes of Netflix’s Trainwreck, especially Astroworld, Balloon Boy, and Mayor of Mayhem
• Amy Bradley Is Missing (Netflix) – watch with a critical eye
• Titanic and the Titanic: Ship of Dreams podcast for deep dives into hubris at sea
• The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
• Yellowjackets, FantasticLand, The Platform, Under the Dome, The Mist, and The Shining for enclosed-space psychological breakdowns
• Better Call Saul for class-action lawsuits and legal cynicism
• Sudden Storm, about the Galveston hurricane
• The 30 Rock episode “Double-Edged Sword” for plane-based claustrophobic comedy
• And, always, Andor

Homework:

Next episode, we pivot back into true crime cursed family, with Captive Audience: The Abduction of Steven Stayner, examining his kidnapping and the devastating ripple effects on his family.

Coming up soon:
Start reading Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

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