Strange Days, Here We Come: Pop Culture, Dystopia & Collapse23 Okt 2025

NIGHTBREED and A QUIET PLACE: Surviving the Horror of Fascism

Horror has always mirrored our real-world fears—and important socio-political issues. In this Halloween double feature, host The Pop Mythologist and special guest Sapient, from the blackened death metal band Abomnium, explore NIGHTBREED (1990) and A QUIET PLACE (2018) as dystopian allegories of fascism, oppression, survival, and strategic resistance. From Clive Barker's underground outcasts of Midian to John Krasinski’s silent survivors, the two films reveal how horror can expose the machinery of fascism—and the courage and ingenuity it takes to survive and resist it.

⚠️ Spoiler Warning⚠️

*Spoilers for: Nightbreed (1990), A Quiet Place (2018)

Lyrics for excerpt of "The Machine Awakens" by Abomnium:

Broken Cratered Impact scarred Eon dust layers Hidden

Photon cascade Electron displacement Sensors flicker The machine awakens [...] For the rest of the song, go find Abomnium on Bandcamp or the streaming service of your choice!

Links:

10/27 EDIT: Congratulations to Sapient / Abomnium for winning Metallica's #GetTheLoadOut cover song contest this week! https://www.instagram.com/p/DQSI3BBj4Sh/

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Episoder(23)

RoboCop, ICE, and the Capitalist Machinery of Fascism

The Pop Mythologist and his guest, author and psychology professor Alex Langley, revisit RoboCop (1987) as a political, mythical, and psychological parable about how capitalism privatizes everything, ...

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10 Des 20252h 7min

BLADE RUNNER 2049 and ELYSIUM: AI, Technology, Oppression, and the Fight to Stay Human

SFX makeup artist & creative influencer Aleena Averly joins me to discuss two films that portray dystopian futures against a backdrop of ecological collapse, Blade Runner 2049 and Elysium. We talk abo...

18 Nov 20251h 39min

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In this episode of Strange Days, Here We Come, we dive into SHIN GODZILLA and GODZILLA MINUS ONE to explore their themes of collapse by way of bureaucracy, inaction, war, and failed leadership—compari...

8 Okt 20251h 18min

STRANGE DAYS: Police Brutality, Altered History, and AI Fake Memories

We discuss Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days (1995) to explore its chillingly relevant themes of police brutality, surveillance, and AI-created fake memories. Drawing parallels to our real world — from t...

6 Aug 20251h 9min

Strange Days, Here We Come: A New Title and a New Start

(This podcast was formerly titled THIS IS THE END: POP CULTURE & COLLAPSE.) Well, it's been... a while. In this, the first new episode in over two years, I share a bit of the personal story behind w...

22 Jul 202529min

10 Films About Societal Collapse - Part 2

(Note: This episode was originally released under the old podcast title "This is the End: Pop Culture & Collapse." As of July 2025 the show is now titled, "Strange Days, Here We Come: Pop Culture, Dys...

21 Feb 20231h 50min