Sitting in the Dark

What happens when the symbols of our holidays themselves turn against us? What if we find ourselves running not from Frankenstein or Dracula or some other manifestation of desire and technology run amok but we're running from murderous Saint Nick himself? What happens when the things we celebrate in song are recontextualized as explicit symbols of fear?

Here’s the thing. A dude in a suit slashing people while dressed as Santa is a subversion of expectations, sure. Presumably, the victims wouldn't expect someone dressed as Santa to be carrying a knife. But in that context, in horror films, the suit is simply camouflage. We’re looking for something more. We’re looking for the fear that comes when our own most special childhood icons... go very, very dark.

Film Sundries
  • (00:00) - Welcome to Sitting in the Dark
  • (01:37) - Holiday Horrors
  • (02:57) - The LIst
  • (03:56) - Opening Statements
  • (07:42) - Why do we do this to ourselves?
  • (17:53) - Leprechaun
  • (23:28) - Jack Frost
  • (31:56) - Saint
  • (41:35) - Rare Exports
  • (51:23) - The Mean One

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What is Sitting in the Dark?

Sitting in the Dark is a podcast about horror, but not the kind that hides in a single shadow. Each month, hosts Tommy Metz III, Kynan Dias, and Pete Wright pick a theme — an idea, a trope, a nightmare that keeps winding back — and explore it through three films that share its DNA. Sometimes the connections are obvious, sometimes they’re unexpected, and sometimes they lead you deeper into the maze than you expected to go.

One month might bring The Drac Pack, three wildly different takes on cinema’s most famous vampire. Another, a journey through The Bride, the Boy, and the Firetruck, unpacking coded queer horror across decades. We’ve explored maternal terror in Mommy Acts This Way Because She Loves You, broken into the home-invasion subgenre, tiptoed through haunted houses, and stared down both classic monsters and blockbuster franchises.

What ties it all together is a love of horror as a labyrinth — a twisting path where every turn reveals something new about our fears, desires, and cultural obsessions. With smart conversation, dark humor, and a willingness to look behind the curtain (or under the bed), Sitting in the Dark invites you to settle in, turn down the lights, and find out what connects the nightmares.