SHRINK CHAT: The Babysitter: Killer Queen, Fade to Black & Followed

What happens when an influencer chasing 50,000 followers checks into a haunted hotel, and a lonely film obsessive starts becoming the movie monsters he loves?

⚠️ Trigger warning: This episode includes a brief description of a sexual assault scene in Re-Animator (1:38 to 3:58). Listener discretion is advised.

It’s Shrink Chat, our weekly horror roundup. Cathy reveals why Chucky’s real name is Charles Lee Ray, we react to Neve Campbell returning as Sidney Prescott, and we review three films: the found footage chiller Followed, the 1980 cult classic Fade to Black, and Netflix’s The Babysitter: Killer Queen.

Therapists Shannon and Cathy take a clinical look at obsession, psychosis and emotional connection in horror, and talk about why some horror fans start as kids while others find the genre as adults.

Covered in this episode:

• Re-Animator (1985), Jeffrey Combs and the In Search of Darkness documentary
• Child’s Play (1988): the Charles Manson, Lee Harvey Oswald and James Earl Ray name origin
• Scream 5: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette return
• Followed (2020): DropTheMike, 50,000 followers and the Hotel Lennox. With Matthew Solomon, Sam Valentine and Caitlin Grace

• Fade to Black (1980): Dennis Christopher, Mickey Rourke, Marilyn Monroe and White Heat
• The Babysitter (2017) and The Babysitter: Killer Queen (2020), directed by McG, with Samara Weaving
• Lovecraft Country and weekly-release streaming

Clinical concepts: psychosis, delusions and hallucinations, identity fragmentation, childhood abuse and violence, social media validation, emotional connection to characters, and how early exposure shapes horror fandom.

Disclosure: we received a free screener of Followed. We were not paid for this review, and we never take paid reviews.

A correction: In Horror Facts we called Charles Manson, Lee Harvey Oswald and James Earl Ray “three real-life serial killers.” Chucky’s name does come from those three men, but none of them was a serial killer. Oswald and Ray were assassins, and Manson was a cult leader convicted of murder conspiracy.

Related episodes:

• SHRINK CHAT: Host, In Search of Darkness, Tom Savini & Lucio Fulci
• PSYCHOLOGY: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer & Henry Lee Lucas
• PSYCHOLOGY: Mental Illness in Horror, Joker, Hereditary & The Babadook

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Two licensed therapists, one forensic psychologist, one clinical LMFT, take apart the minds behind the crimes.

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