Pete Wright

Richard Matheson’s 1954 vampire horror novel “I Am Legend” helped influence the zombie genre (it was the inspiration for the ‘68 George Romero film “Night of the Living Dead”) and popularized the concept of a worldwide apocalypse due to disease. Yet for some reason, filmmakers haven’t been able to crack the story. It’s been made into three different films, and it doesn’t seem like any of them have gotten it right. Join us – Pete Wright and Andy Nelson – as we kick off our disease series with the second of these adaptations, Boris Sagal’s 1971 film, “The Omega Man.”

Stanley Kubrick didn’t do comedy often which is a shame because “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” is arguably one of the funniest films ever made. What’s interesting is that Kubrick intended on making a serious film about one of his greatest fears at the time: the threat of nuclear war. But after several attempts at finding the right way to tell the story seriously (including one involving aliens watching us from above, discussing our penchant for destruction), he hit on the idea of making it funny. And his dark comedy classic was born. Join us – Andy Nelson and Pete Wright – as we wrap up our brief vacation challenge with Andy’s choice of his favorite end-of-the-world comedy, Kubrick’s 1964 film “Dr. Strangelove.”

Stop-motion animation has been a part of film since nearly the beginning, starting with a toy circus coming to life in 1898’s “The Humpty Dumpty Circus.” Since then, it’s undergone many critical changes and improvements as filmmakers have experimented with what they could do with it, and in 2012, Laika released the first stop-motion animated feature film to use a 3D color printer to create the character faces. The movie, “ParaNorman,” was a comedy horror for kids and certainly seemed to find its audience while also creating quite a bit of controversy. Join us – Pete Wright and Andy Nelson – as we start off our brief vacation challenge series with Chris Butler’s and Sam Bell’s horror comedy for the kids, “ParaNorman.”