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Grave Tone: Horror Podcast

Grave Tone: Horror Podcast

By: Grave Tone
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Grave Tone is a horror podcast covering the genre across books, film, TV, and games. From cult classics to fresh nightmares, we dig into the stories that scare us — and why we can’t stop coming back for more. Whether it’s a blood-soaked slasher, a slow-burn psychological thriller, or the horror novel everyone’s talking about, we cover it all. If it bleeds, reads, streams, or screams… it’s on Grave Tone.© Grave Tone Podcast Art
Episodes
  • Best Canadian Horror Movies: Killer Picks for Canada Day

    Best Canadian Horror Movies: Killer Picks for Canada Day
    Jul 3 2026

    The best Canadian horror movies don't get talked about enough, so for Canada Day we counted down ten we genuinely love (killer jeans included). This is Grave Tone doing what it does when there's no new release to chase: pulling from the deep, weird catalog of Canadian horror films and arguing about them.

    Canadian Horror Comedy That Actually Lands
    • Slaxx (2020) is Elza Kephart's killer-jeans satire skewering fast fashion and sweatshop labor, and the kills are great.
    • Suck (2009), Rob Stefaniuk's vampire rock 'n' roll road movie, somehow got Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, Henry Rollins, Moby, Alex Lifeson, and Malcolm McDowell into one cast.
    • Vicious Fun (2020) traps a horror-mag critic in a support group for serial killers; high energy, fun from start to finish.
    • Buffet Infinity (2025) tells a full cosmic-horror story entirely through fake TV commercials, SCTV style. Weird, and it works.
    Werewolves, Zombies & Body Horror
    • Ginger Snaps (2000) is still the definitive werewolf-as-puberty coming-of-age film, carried by Katharine Isabelle and Emily Perkins.
    • Pontypool (2008), based on Tony Burgess's novel Pontypool Changes Everything, is a zombie movie where the virus lives in language. Stephen McHattie is perfect.
    • Possessor (2020), Brandon Cronenberg's body-swap assassin nightmare, sits at 94% on Rotten Tomatoes for a reason.
    • Les Affames (2017), Robin Aubert's French-Canadian zombie film, took Best Canadian Feature at TIFF.
    Psychological Dread & Dark Web Terror
    • Red Rooms (2023), Pascal Plante's dark web true-crime thriller, barely shows violence and stays unbearably tense. Juliette Gariepy is the whole movie.
    • Come True (2020), Anthony Scott Burns's sleep-study descent, is nonlinear, strange, and impossible to shake.
    • Undertone (2025) is audio horror about a cursed podcast; turn the lights off and let it get to you.
    Cult Classics & Deadly Labyrinths
    • Cube (1997), Vincenzo Natali's deadly-labyrinth cult classic, was made for roughly $350K and arguably paved the way for Saw. A 4K restoration hit Fantasia in 2024.
    • Kryptic (2024), Kourtney Roy's strange, goopy creature study, is our sleeper honorable mention.
    • Screamers (1995) is the fully sci-fi one that scared Arthur as a kid; we covered it in our Childhood Trauma series.
    What's Next: Fantasia 2026 & In a Violent Nature 2
    • Fantasia's 30th edition runs July 16 to August 2, 2026 in Montreal, and will be covering it in full!
    • In a Violent Nature 2 moves Johnny to a summer camp; Chris Nash writes, Nathaniel Wilson directs, expected 2026.

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    45 mins
  • Evil Dead Deep Dive: Deadites, Lore & The Franchise Future - Childhood Trauma With Nightmare Echoes

    Evil Dead Deep Dive: Deadites, Lore & The Franchise Future - Childhood Trauma With Nightmare Echoes
    Jun 26 2026
    Meaghan and Arthur welcome Eleazar for a Childhood Trauma episode that doubles as one of the deepest Evil Dead franchise dives we've done. They cover the full arc — from Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell's proof-of-concept short film Within the Woods, through the legal chaos that forced Evil Dead II to basically remake the first twenty minutes of its own predecessor, through Army of Darkness and its cursed rights issues, through Ash vs Evil Dead and the weird, wonderful lore that keeps expanding with every entry. 🎙 About Our Guest: Eleazar of Nightmare Echoes Eleazar is the host of Nightmare Echoes Podcast, a horror podcast exploring classic and modern genre films with a rotating roster of co-hosts.The show has covered every film in the Evil Dead franchise — and has been running for 120+ episodes across multiple seasons.Meaghan and Arthur appeared on Nightmare Echoes earlier this year to discuss The Substance.Follow Nightmare Echoes: Instagram & Threads @nightmareechoespod 🎬 The Evil Dead & Evil Dead II: Origins & Chaos Within the Woods (1978) — Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell's proof-of-concept short film, used to secure the $90,000 needed to make the original. The same bootstrapped-short-to-feature pipeline Curry Barker used decades later with YouTube.The original Evil Dead (1981) was shot in extreme cold in a Tennessee cabin that was slowly falling apart — the fireplace was their only heat source, power tools were stolen off the set, and the crew's housing was converted into a brothel mid-production.Evil Dead II (1987) couldn't use footage from the first film due to a multi-studio rights dispute — so it re-created the first twenty minutes, quietly altering character counts and relationships to sidestep the issue.Linda is played by a different actress in every film in the series. Same with the character count: Evil Dead has five friends; Evil Dead II drops it to just Ash and Linda. Rights issues explain both.Ted Raimi (Sam's younger brother) wore a full latex suit in Evil Dead II during the extreme Tennessee summer heat. Buckets of sweat were reportedly dumped out of the suit between takes — and the perspiration is visible in the film. 📖 The Necronomicon: Franchise Lore Explained The Necronomicon (Book of the Dead) evolves in detail and design across every Evil Dead film — each entry adds new layers of mythology and expands what the book can do.Evil Dead II introduces a crucial detail: pages from the Necronomicon can function independently of the book, which becomes a plot point involving Jake throwing them into the fireplace — a decision the hosts describe as one of the franchise's most frustrating character choices.Army of Darkness introduces three Necronomicons on a pedestal — two fakes and one real — and Ash picks the wrong one (partly) because he can't say the words correctly either.Evil Dead Rise confirms that all three books across the franchise's history are separate Necronomicons, placing every film in a shared universe. Evil Dead Burn appears to introduce a fourth. 🪓 Ash Williams: Character Arc Across the Franchise In The Evil Dead (1981), Ash is almost passive — nearly self-effacing, not the commanding presence he becomes later. The hosts note how strikingly different he is between films one and two.Bruce Campbell's physical comedy and willingness to be repeatedly destroyed is the engine of Evil Dead II. The hand-severing sequence remains one of the franchise's most iconic (and genuinely terrifying) moments.Sam Raimi originally intended to go straight from Evil Dead into what became Army of Darkness (working title: Medieval Dead). Stephen King's rave review of the first film helped secure funding for a sequel — but the studio wanted more of the same, not a medieval adventure.Evil Dead II was ultimately designed as setup for Army of Darkness — a bridge film Raimi made funnier because he knew where the story was going. 🔥 Evil Dead Burn & The Franchise Future Evil Dead Burn hits theaters July 10, 2026. Directed by Sébastien Vaniček (Infested), produced by Sam Raimi and Robert G. Tapert, executive produced by Bruce Campbell and Lee Cronin.The crew discuss the fan theory that a voice heard in Evil Dead Rise's vinyl record sequence is Bruce Campbell's — suggesting Ash is still time-traveling through the franchise timeline, trying (and failing) to prevent Deadite uprisings.A Deadite glimpsed in the Evil Dead Burn trailer appears to match the lake woman from Evil Dead Rise — potentially linking the two films and suggesting the franchise's shared universe is tighter than any official confirmation has stated.Evil Dead Wrath (directed by Francis Galluppi) is also in development, marking the first time two Evil Dead films have been in production simultaneously. Follow us & Subscribe:SpotifyApple PodcastTikTokInstagramThreadsGrave Tone Horror Podcast Website Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use ...
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    45 mins
  • Hold the Fort Is the Horror Comedy You Need This Summer (And It's Finally on VOD)

    Hold the Fort Is the Horror Comedy You Need This Summer (And It's Finally on VOD)
    Jun 22 2026

    Arthur and Meaghan dig into William Bagley's Hold the Fort (2025), now available on VOD. They saw it first at its world premiere at the 2025 Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, loved it enough to re-watch it the second it hit digital, and they're still laughing. This is that kind of movie.

    HOLD THE FORT — EPISODE SHOWNOTES

    ABOUT THE FILM

    ▸ Hold the Fort (2025): written and directed by William Bagley, co-written by Scott Hawkins

    ▸ Distributed by Sunrise Films (North America); available on Digital HD via Apple TV, Prime Video, and Fandango at Home as of June 23, 2026

    ▸ Runtime: 74 minutes · Genre: Horror Comedy

    ▸ World premiere: Fantasia International Film Festival, Montreal, July 2025, also screened at FrightFest London, Sitges, Beyond Fest, and Toronto After Dark

    THE CAST

    ▸ Chris Mayers (Ozark) as Lucas, the new homeowner who definitely did not read the HOA contract

    ▸ Haley Leary as Jenny, the more sensible half of the couple, and yes, also a nurse

    ▸ Julian Smith (social media comedian and producer) as Jerry, HOA president, keeper of the lore, cheese stick casualty

    ▸ Levi Burdick as Ted and Michelle Lamb as Annette, the neighborhood veterans who've been doing this for years

    ▸ Tordy Clark as Leslie, the neighborhood's better-living-through-chemistry advocate

    ▸ Hamid-Reza Benjamin Thompson as McScruffy, the hired weapons expert who gets taken out of commission early

    ▸ Luke Michael Williams as Marcus, the mechanic who changes everyone's oil for free (this is genuinely nice)

    THE MONSTERS

    ▸ Witches, recurring annual visitors; killable with bullets (magic doesn't stop bullets — remember that)

    ▸ Spirit Ninjas, possession-based entities that reanimate corpses as kung fu experts; require a peachwood sword to kill

    ▸ Kamikaze Bats, bats that fly into people and explode. Yes, really. Arthur loves these the most.

    ▸ The Werewolf, big, campy, old-school practical suit. Excellent snout.

    ▸ The Stick Man, the final boss. Blue. Gooey. Genuinely unsettling.

    THE SHARED UNIVERSE

    ▸ Hold the Fort is the second feature from William Bagley, following The Murder Podcast (2021)

    ▸ The films share a universe: a character from The Murder Podcast appears at the very end of Hold the Fort, moving into the neighborhood

    ▸ The line 'magic doesn't stop bullets' originates in The Murder Podcast as a TV commercial gag; it becomes a recurring rule in Hold the Fort

    ▸ Arthur and Meaghan watched both films back-to-back, recommended viewing order: Hold the Fort first, then The Murder Podcast

    WHAT WE LIKED / WHAT WE DIDN'T

    ▸ The creature variety is unlike most horror comedies; you're never dealing with just one type of monster

    ▸ Fight choreography is clean and well-shot for a crowdfunded indie production

    ▸ Jerry is the MVP, and Julian Smith plays the character with incredible comic timing

    ▸ The film has genuine emotional moments you won't expect, given how goofy everything else is

    ▸ McScruffy lands slightly over-the-top compared to the rest of the cast, the writing for that character pushed just past the line

    ▸ Final ratings: both Arthur and Meaghan sitting around 6.5/10, fun, not perfect, absolutely worth watching

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    30 mins
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