Chopping It Up

This week on Prime Cuts, we’re talking Heart Eyes (2025) — a Valentine’s Day slasher that mixes rom-com charm with masked-killer chaos. When the “Heart Eyes Killer” targets couples in Seattle, marketing exec Ally and her suspiciously charming coworker Jay find themselves fighting for their lives… and maybe catching feelings along the way.

It’s self-aware, fast-paced, and packed with holiday-themed carnage. Does it reinvent the genr...

This week on Chopping It Up, the crew revisits two ’80s cult favorites with shared DNA but very different execution: Big Trouble in Little China and The Golden Child.

The discussion explores why Big Trouble thrives as a confident genre mash-up—subverting the action hero, embracing mythological chaos, and fully committing to its weirdness—while The Golden Child often feels held back by studio expectations, despite Eddie Murphy’s cha...

n this Prime Cuts episode, the crew heads back to Derry, Maine to slice into Welcome to Derry, the newest dip into Stephen King’s ever-expanding IT universe—minus Jesse, who we’re told was “busy,” but we assume was avoiding homework and timelines.

The gang breaks down how the show smartly uses Derry’s long history of trauma, structuring the story around past atrocities while keeping the “every 27 years” cycle intact. Highlights inc...

This week on Prime Cuts, we tackle Blood Beat—a holiday-adjacent regional horror oddity that defies explanation. Featuring telekinetic samurai armor, psychic trauma, wooden performances, and vibes that feel more manifested than written, this film exists in a category entirely its own.

We break down what Blood Beat is (and definitely isn’t), why it barely functions as a slasher, and how its surreal earnestness somehow makes it unfor...

In this episode, the CIU crew plunges into the dark, deliciously deranged imagination of Clive Barker as we pair two of his most iconic cult classics: Hellraiser and Nightbreed. We break down Barker’s singular ability to fuse beauty with brutality, the way his creatures blur the line between monster and misunderstood outcast, and why his worlds feel like nightmares you want to keep dreaming.

From Pinhead’s coldly philosophical sadi...

On this Prime Cuts mini-episode, the Chopping It Up crew dives beak-first into Robert Eggers’s 2015 Puritan-nightmare masterpiece, The VVitch. The team revisits the bleak New England homestead, unpacking the film’s slow-burn tension, its suffocating dread, and the brutal unraveling of a family exiled for being too devout for the Puritans themselves.

From baby-paste broomstick lore and “wet” witchcraft sequences to Calvinist paranoi...

This Halloween, the Chopping It Up Horror crew—Jesse, Jeannie, Joel, Jay, and Sledd—dives pitchfork-first into Hack-O-Lantern (1988), the gloriously incoherent satanic slasher from Jag Mundra. Part hair-metal fever dream, part small-town cult drama, this movie has everything: incest, flannel-robed devil worshippers, a mid-movie stand-up routine no one asked for, and High Pike giving the most unhinged performance since Dolemite.

The...

In this Prime Cuts installment of Chopping It Up, we wade into Dick Maas’s 1988 Dutch cult classic Amsterdamned. Join us as we follow Detective Eric Visser on the trail of a scuba-diving serial killer terrorizing Amsterdam’s canals. From outrageous chase scenes and giallo vibes to Members Only jackets, killer stunts, and a banger of a theme song, we dive deep into one of the most stylishly bonkers action-horror hybrids of the ’80s.

In this Prime Cuts mini-episode, we dig into the premiere of Revival, Peacock’s new supernatural horror series adapted from the Tim Seeley/Mike Norton comic. Set in small-town Wisconsin, the story follows Deputy Dana Cypress as she grapples with townsfolk mysteriously dying and returning as “revivers.” The hosts weigh in on the familiar cop-show tropes, Dana’s uneven likability, and the more compelling arc of her troubled sister Em...

In this episode of Chopping It Up, the crew heads into the desert to tackle Wes Craven’s 1977 The Hills Have Eyes and Alexandre Aja’s 2006 remake. They swap meat cleaver ratings, with most agreeing the gritty, low-budget original nails its social commentary and unsettling atmosphere, while the remake delivers competent gore but misses the nuance. Discussion ranges from themes of American exceptionalism, patriarchy, and the blurring...

In this episode of Chopping It Up, the boys go fully unsupervised and dive deep into the 90s slasher boom by pairing up Scream (1996) with I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997). They dissect the origins of meta-horror, trade meat cleaver ratings, bicker about runtime and sweaters in July, and spiral into an unexpected Maryland blue crab tangent. With no oversight and plenty of hot takes, it's a nostalgic, chaotic romp through teen...

This week, we’re slicing into Tales from the Hood, a cult classic where social commentary meets supernatural terror. From killer dolls to corrupt cops, this horror anthology delivers sharp scares and sharper truths. Join us as we unpack the eerie elegance of Mr. Simms’ funeral home, discuss the film’s unforgettable segments, and honor how this ’90s gem used horror to hold up a mirror to real-world horrors. Come for th...

Summer is officially here—and that means it's time to kick off pool season with two aquatic horror heavyweights: Jaws and Piranha. In this supersized episode, we wade into the deep waters of Spielberg’s blockbuster classic and Joe Dante’s schlocky, subversive B-movie to ask: What really lurks beneath the surface?

From the birth of the summer blockbuster to genre-blending brilliance, we break down what makes these films endure—yes, ...

This week on Prime Cuts, we take a trip to Summerisle for a deep dive into the sun-drenched dread of The Wicker Man (1973). From rigid righteousness to ritual sacrifice, we explore how Sergeant Howie’s doomed investigation unfolds amidst maypoles, masks, and eerily cheerful folk songs. We’re talking pagan pageantry, sexual tension in graveyards, and yes—corn rigs and barley rigs aplenty. It’s a slow burn that ends in flames, and we...