Halloween Guide to Glitterjaw’s Spooky Podcasts

Written By Glitterjaw .

A look back at our celebrations of scary content. And of course, what’s been going on all month with our podcast roundup!

Whether it’s a cool chill in the air that catches you unaware, the warmth of harvest celebrations, or being hauntingly overwhelmed by the presence of Halloween celebrations, it’s clear that October and autumn are here! In that spirit, we’re cutting holes in our bedsheets to join in by highlighting some of the sinister and uncanny topics our podcasts have covered in the past.

Ghosts

Combining the uncertainty of what comes after death and the rules that come with their ectoplasmic existence, ghosts have been part of some of the greatest scary stories. Sometimes they are corporeal and can interact with the world, and sometimes their very existence is a curse to be resolved. No matter what, ghosts definitely can be creepy, but it’s interesting how often their stories help us remember and reconcile our past.

There are ghosts everywhere! We reconcile with learning about a child who can see them in the Are You My Mother? episode on Lynn Sear from The Sixth Sense, sing alongside them in a Gimmicks episode about So Weird, and even make house calls — ghost house calls that is! — with Super Mario Moment’s coverage of Super Mario World. The ghosts are just a fraction of the scares when Novel Gaming! did a book club episode on The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglas, and Skreeonk! braved the time Godzilla was full of vengeful ghosts in the film GMK. To wrap it up, consider ghosts on screen as The Mixed Reviews covered Ghosts on Film.

Possession

Things really start to cross the line when something — whatever it is — takes over our bodies. The combination of being out of control combined with the base horror of whatever entity is causing our possession can really ramp up the circumstances for horror (or comedy!). And possessors can truly take on all sorts of shapes and sizes.

Is something inside you compelling you to listen more about possession? You can get started with some tales of scary possessions from the past! Maybe consider the possessive powers of kaiju in Skreeonk!’s coverage of Ghidorah and the Space Amoeba! Possession might also reveal something about ourselves like in the subject of a Walloping Websnappers! episode on the recurring villain, Venom! Or you might think about possession in a more classic sense, involving devils like in Fear Coded’s coverage of The Exorcist or the Gimmicks discussion of an arc on the soap opera Days of Our Lives. Maybe the possession looks like repeating words, like in the bottle episode “Midnight” from Doctor Who that Gimmicks covered. Finally, does it count as possession when a little rat runs under your toque and controls your body? Find out in the episode of Falling with Style that covers Ratatouille. 

Space

Not everything from space invokes a possessive force, but that doesn’t mean that the giant vacuum that separates us from everything else is horror-free. There’s so much out there to give you wonder or terror as we push past into galaxies very close and far, far away. 

If you are brave enough to go there, you may end up derelict like the Fear Coded podcast discussed for Event Horizon, or Gimmicks discussed with the Power Rangers Lost Galaxy episode "The Rescue Mission.” If you’re very unlucky, you may be hunted by a Xenomorph, like discussed on Are You My Mother? across the Alien franchise to cover Ellen Ripley. That’s just one of many aliens on film you can hear about on The Mixed Reviews! Go even further, and you might find yourself with the Bad Batch or maybe in some of the best Star Wars horror moments as detailed on Distant Echoes: A Star Wars Podcast. What starts in space may end up right back here on Earth, but luckily Bart Simpson is on the case and Lee Carvallo’s Podding Challenge tells us all about it.

Body Horror

Then again, you don’t need to reach escape velocity for horror, especially when it can really end up being just skin deep. When you stop to think about just what it means to be a body, you can really start to understand why this kind of horror is so personal and so evocative!

We can’t wait to get inside you as you consider some of our episodes that are about body horror! Maybe you’ll have nightmares about the heads of babies on fully grown adults, like discussed on Gimmicks about the Rugrats episode “What the Big People Do.” In addition to being a bureaucratic horror, Shin Godzilla tapped into the power of body horror with an extremely large body, as discussed on Skreeonk!. A slight misuse of The Substance may change Elisabeth as discussed on Fear Coded, while a strategic (and humiliating) use of treasures may change Wario as talked about on Super Mario Moment. And why just pick one? Explore the spectrum of body horror from the 90s Spider-Man show with Walloping Websnappers!. 

Iconic

But beyond the individual things that may scare us, there are some truly iconic parts of Halloween and being scared that resonate beyond October and keep us connected to horror all year long. This set of iconic parts of the season are just some in a greater list of the absolute iconography that may excite, frighten, or delight you!

Celebrate your favorite monsters with Novel Gaming! or look at the templates that inform what we think of as monsters today with The Mixed Reviews coverage of Universal Monsters. Maybe slip into something less comfortable with the discussion of Morticia Addams and her creepy/kooky The Addams Family on Are You My Mother? Or look at the Walloping Websnappers! episodes on the team-up of Dracula, Wolfman, and Frankenstein’s Monster in Spider-Woman or the mash-up of homages to The Terminator and Phantom of the Opera in Spider-Man: The Animated Series. You don’t get much more iconic than the 1990s Scream and ghostface, covered earnestly on Fear Coded and as part of discussing Boy Meets World on Gimmicks. Or dive into the long-standing Simpsons Halloween by discussing Night of the Living Treehouse of Horror and the related episodes of the same name on Lee Carvallo’s Podding Challenge! And iconography meets vivid colors as Falling with Style covers Coco and the Dia de los Muertes.

More episodes happening around Glitterjaw this month:

The Q Division let us in on a secret covering the 1977 The Spy Who Loved Me with special agent Sophia Ciminello. There’s great music (disco!) and an infamous ski jump. And Roger Moore set the standard for looking sexy in a naval uniform and Chels declared a favorite Bond film!

Walloping Websnappers! swung across Season 2 of The Spectacular Spider-Man’s criminology arc, through its masterful foray into opera, all the way to Hollywood in Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends with guest Russ (Kaiju ComicCast). And members of the Walloping Websnappers! Patreon can join Robbie Sherman (Conversations with Robbie Sherman) to hear a discussion on The Amazing Spider-Man #246 comic.

Lee Carvallo’s Podding Challenge schooled the Carvallo boys on skateboarding as they were joined by James (Marsh Land Media) to shred across Springfield with The Simpsons Skateboarding. Whether you kickflip, ollie, or grind, you will certainly enjoy this discussion more than you’d enjoy the infamous game itself.

The Mixed Reviews continued their annual tradition, with Louie and Gavin diving into a mini-genre that works for the season. This year, you can have a close encounter looking back on where this mini-genre came from and what’s happening now with Aliens on Film. And The Mixed Reviews Patreon members can hear Gavin and Louie go to the movies with reviews of Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein (2025) and films from the New York Film Festival and Independent Film Festival Boston.

Super Mario Moment came back up the warp pipe! The celebration of our favorite mustaachio’d plumber is now in World 2 - well season 2! - kicking off episodes on the Super Nintendo World attractions with Rory Steele (Games on Film). Hamish followed-up with a particularly relevant seasonal offering with Merrilee form Fear Coded joining to discuss Luigi’s Mansion 3.

Novel Gaming! started the month by playing Alan Wake Remastered before discussing the novel Escaping Exodus by Nicky Drayden. And as always, the crew shared what they were playing, reading, watching, and thinking about, including Donkey Kong Bananza, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the 1992 film!), Everything She Does is Magic by Bridget Morrissey, and journaling. And if you haven’t checked it out yet, the Novel Gaming YouTube channel has Doug and Katie’s latest video “Talking about Date Everything (2025)”.

And then there was a crossover event between Novel Gaming! and Distant Echoes: A Star Wars Podcast to cover the Star Wars: Ronin - A Visions Novel by Emma Mieko Candon. 

Distant Echoes: A Star Wars Podcast concluded their series “Hindsight is 20/20: Looking Back at Star Wars: Visions!” With “The Elder,” “Lop & Ochō,” and “Akakiri.” In addition to the crossover with Novel Gaming! the Distant Echoes folks also discussed the on-shot comic "Visions - Peach Momoko.”

Skreeonk! cleared the air to talk about a smog monster for a beloved and divisive Godzilla vs. Hedorah with guest Andy Vanderbilt and special appearances from Chris Cummins (Sci-Fi Explosion), Russ (Kaiju ComicCast), and Hamish Steele from Super Mario Moment. For folks who are members of the Walloping Websnappers! Patreon there was a bonus on Ishirō Honda's classic horror film, Matango from 1963. 

Gimmicks got into the spirit by talking about the horrors of vampires and the even greater horrors of home renovation programs when covering the episode “Go Flip Yourself” from What We Do in the Shadows with Matt Bruneau-Richardson (Tiny Siren Animation). David and Derek also discussed the final episode’s unique way of paying homage with alternate scenes in a bonus episode. Then: ante up! The Batman: The Animated Series villains all swapped tales on how they “Almost Got ‘Im” and Lan Pitts joined to discuss each and every vignette.

Fear Coded sunk their teeth into a month-long exploration of the most iconic vampire of them all, Dracula, beginning with the original novel by Bram Stoker, the 1931 film, and then a more recent entry by looking at the episode “Buffy vs. Dracula” from Buffy the Vampire Slayer with Derek B. Gayle. Plus, a special Halloween Q&A episode drops on Halloween day, as well as a trailer for something truly devious?

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