Cinema Yūgen

When the CGI giants sleep, a handful of stubborn artists crawled back into the dungeon to resurrect a blood‑stained kind of fantasy. In this episode Kent Hill sits down with Richard Pate — the unforgettable, self‑styled King Gerind — and trades stories of Scottish moors, giant spiders, practical effects, and the fierce, ridiculous joy of making movies on a shoestring.

Listen as laughter and nostalgia peel back the curta...

Step behind the velvet ropes with Matthew "Matty" Greenberg — the mind behind Reign of Fire, 1408 and Pet Sematary — as he tells the story of a life lived inside Hollywood’s beautiful madness.

Kent and Matty trade outrageous set anecdotes, heartbreaking moments like Wilson drifting away, run-ins with legends, and the brutal, hilarious craft of rewrites, lost projects and improbable comebacks. It’s an intimat...

Step into a late-night conversation where two friends-turned-filmmakers unpack how a quiet, bullied teenager became the centerpiece of a fiercely original horror film. On this episode, Cinema Yugen welcomes back Quinton “Q” Macari and his co-director and writer Nat Brehmer to tell the story of Julie: a movie born from a decade of obsession, shot in just eleven relentless days, and polished into something both beautiful ...

Step into a torchlit kingdom where ambition becomes a plague and a single gaze can summon destiny. In this episode, host Kent Hill sits down with Megan Tremethick — the hypnotic queen at the heart of The Reign of Queen Ginnarra — to unravel a film that feels like an operatic dream of blood, dragons and dark sorcery.

Through breezy anecdotes and sharp behind-the-scenes detail, Megan reveals how Lawrie Brewster and Britis...

G'day, Earthlings — a warning siren sounds and the aliens have arrived. In this episode, we ride shotgun with Scott Bateman, the dry-humored auteur behind the cult phenomenon 5000 Space Aliens, as he unveils a new, stranger wave: 5002 Space Aliens. Born from rotoscoped found footage, hand-drawn oddities, and a narrator so deadpan it could dehydrate a cactus, the film refuses to be just watched — it must be experienced. ...

Lock the doors and pull up a chair: this episode peels back the wallpaper on Rich Interior Lives, a claustrophobic, sweaty indie thriller that starts with an awkward car ride and detonates into the dinner party from hell. An eccentric woman invites her childhood crush—now an arrogant megachurch pastor—into a cramped living room and a darker belief: that his power is sexually contagious.

Director Ken Whiting and writer A...

The sky goes dark, the sirens wail, and Anthony C. Ferrante is right in the middle of the storm — not by accident but by design. This episode drops you into the ragged, electric world that forged Sharknado: a small‑town kid turned Fangoria scribe, special effects maverick, and relentless problem‑solver who learned to make movies with whatever he could beg, borrow, or jury‑rig. Listen as Ferrante recounts the scrappy, seat‑of‑...

Having known Alexander Nevsky now for nearly a decade, I know him to be a perfectionist for quality indie action cinema. But though he may not appear in Prey of Wrath, his professional fingerprints are all over it as he now lets his lady love and leading lady, Tatiana Neva (who co-writes, produces and edits) take center stage in an explosive tale of revenge and redemption that refuses to let budgetary limitations restrain either it...

Step into a tense, shadowed Oregon town where a man named Jake tries to outrun his past—only to be pulled into a private investigation that unravels his grip on reality. In this episode, filmmaker and actor Patrick D. Green guides listeners through the making of Beau Ideal, revealing how childhood trauma, real-life CPS experience, and a haunting location near Mount Hood shaped a film that creeps up like a warning siren.

Throu...

Smoke and sun paint the town into legend as a lone dark man follows a trail of footsteps across broken boards and barren streets. In a half-ruined room of maps and dried blood he finds the echoes of a last hope, then watches the place burn—waiting for one last prey to flee into the desert.

A tense, relentless chase unfolds across days and dunes: a cat-and-mouse of cunning and will, where tracks run hot and the hunter tests hi...

Kent Hill might have been a poet in another life, but here he crafts the whispered reason a man finally broke. Burt Benton narrates the landscape, a world stripped bare by violence, one cold-eyed killer rides a volcanic mule across an endless, dusty road — until he meets Chet the Firewalker, whose last breath and stolen sandals mark a grim turning.

As night falls, the killer feasts, sleeps, and is haunted by small, hurried fo...

In a sleepy North Queensland town, a young geology enthusiast sees a dormant mountain stir while everyone else looks the other way. When the volcano finally blows, lava, collapse and sentimental chaos sweep through an unlikely ensemble of townspeople — men’s shed legends, feuding twins, a retired science teacher and a stubborn nursing‑home resident — in a relentless old‑school disaster story with heart and humour.

Board Cinema Yugen for a crackling time with Ozploitation icon Roger Ward, who spills dirty, funny and unforgettable stories from Mad Max, Man From Hong Kong and the riotous sets of 1970s–80s Australian cinema. He remembers the rough camaraderie, on-set chaos and the fierce pride of actors who built an industry with grit, petrol and sheer nerve.

Then feel the heat as Travis Bain’s Cradle of Flame erupts: a small North Q...

A glance turns into an unfixable collision: Carter and Lisa’s illicit spark blooms into a dangerous, irresistible entanglement that forces everyone around them to choose sides. In this episode Kent Hill sits down with writer/director Deborah Markowitz to unpack Wait list: A Love-ish Story — a daring indie that balances razor-sharp dialogue, slow-burning longing, and the messy cost of wanting what the world insists you s...

When Anthony Frith signs on to make Mockbuster, he doesn’t just accept a job—he volunteers for a war. Six days, no safety net, a tiny budget and an impossible studio clock: this episode follows a filmmaker who bets everything on one chaotic, brilliant shot.

Through blown costumes, last-minute rewrites and actors pushed to the edge, the documentary becomes a survival story. From Herzog-taught confidence to the salvation ...

Step into a world where a quest for clicks becomes a descent into something far older and far darker. In this episode of Cinema Yugen, host Kent Hill sits down with writer-director Jerry Artukovich and star-producer Scott Hamm Duenas to unravel Kat Crime: Tales of the Occult — a taut, single-location horror about a true-crime YouTuber chasing relevance until a missing girl, a whispered secret, and a coven change everything.

T...

G'day — Kent Hill drags listeners into the wild heart of indie cinema with Chris Grega, the gritty filmmaker behind Red Night at Skye's. From a decade-long grind and personal loss to a pandemic-forced pivot, Chris reveals how a small pawn-shop score explodes into a brutal siege, where alliances crumble, bullets tear through walls, and something far darker waits below.

They unpack the film’s wild genesis — a 16-day...

Step into a neon-soaked VHS dream where rival aerobics queens chase fame—and something far deadlier—through sweat, spandex, and synth. In this episode, cult filmmaker Paul Ragsdale pulls back the curtain on Murdercize, the outrageous slasher that wears its 80s obsessions as a badge of honor.

Ragsdale traces the film from dusty video-store inspirations and mafia-funded workout tapes to the challenge of writing a killer y...

Step into the blood-soaked world of Ken Ace Brewer, an indie horror lifer who taught himself the rules so he could gleefully break them. From Super 8 shorts made with backyard friends to a sprawling cult saga that fuses grindhouse energy with modern gore, this episode traces the crazed, creative path that birthed Return to Death Park and the hit film Death Bitch.

Listen as Brewer and host Kent Hill swap stories about influences (Ca...