Depot Devoid: A Movie Podcast for Dead People

Matt Fagan loves the 1999 Reese Witherspoon vehicle ELECTION because it's a dark comedy filled with irredeemable characters. For some reason, Ted Fagan had some negative feelings about ELECTION. Maybe because of all the irredeemable characters! We recorded this conversation in January of 2024, before Depot Devoid had ever even published a single episode. And before the actual Election, which makes this episode a quaint artifact of more hopeful times. In real life, it's July of 2026, the country's on fire, and Depot Devoid hasn't recorded in a while because Ted is recovering from a significant injury. So here we are, persisting, and trying to our best in spite of everything. Pick Flick!

1979's "LOVE AT FIRST BITE" proved to be so aggressively forgettable that we completely forgot recording this episode a year and a half ago! But it's a perfect complement to our recent offerings, which featured Saturday the 14th and Pandemonium. Like those films, Love at First Bite seems to be something like a horror comedy, but never truly fulfills either mandate. An absurd Dracula in the form of George Hamilton, and a bumbling Van Helsing provided by Richard Benjamin, prove to be capable foils for the normal person (Susan St. James, as a human woman). It's a love triangle but who cares? Who was this movie for? The jokes are hackneyed, the performances baffling, and the box office success a stain on our collective human experience.

Saturday the 14th was the very first horror comedy movie Matt ever watched, way back in the early eighties. Maybe not the most sophisticated film, but strangely influential to an impressionable youngster with a love of monsters! Matt drags this 1981 Roger Corman production into the Depot Devoid this week, and makes his little brother Ted watch it - something he hasn't done for about thirty years. It's a movie PACKED with jokes, and we appreciate it differently now than we did as children, but for all its many (many!) flaws, Saturday the 14th is still a pretty good time. Bonus: woke political discussion, because that's who we are, and this is our show!

It's rare enough that the Depot brings us a movie neither of the brothers has ever seen, but a genuine 1980s slasher movie? Unprecedented! Famously written as a parody of the slasher genre by Rita Mae Brown, but then rewritten and directed by Amy Jones as a mostly straight slasher, The Slumber Party Massacre is a curiously uneven Dead Teenager movie. Ted is not convinced that the murderer made the best choice of weapon, even though it was metaphorically necessary. Matt, being immune to the power of breasts, is able to assess the film with a clear head and a cold heart. But will that be enough to help them survive the Massacre?

Happy Anniversary! In this 40th episode, the Depot Devoid Podcast looks back on our first year of publication. We're a movie podcast, but the Depot Devoid has always actually been about the death of our brother Ian. It's a show about nostalgia and grief, and the ways we find to heal. While barely discussing Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, we talk about the lives that are changing around us, and how something as simple as recording this podcast can keep us sane in an insane world. Ted has a lot to say about his recent dealings with the Social Security Administration, Matt goes into a bit of detail about his upcoming gallery show, and both brothers share a little too much about scary dental visits. But perhaps the weirdest highlight of the episode is Matt's dramatic reading of his new children's poem, “Up a Hippopotamus' Bottom.”

We've got a whole Depot full of Pride this week! And you can watch the full video version of this episode on YouTube. Hedwig and the Angry Inch is the queer redemption story we all need right now: messy, cruel, and challenging, but also transformative, inspiring, and filled with love. Bursting at the seams with amazing music, performed by a truly complicated leading lady, Hedwig gets under your skin in the best possible way.Host Matt Fagan is an unabashed fan, and is clearly excited to share this movie with his little brother, co-host Ted Fagan, for the very first time! During Pride 2025, when the general vibe in America is not exactly upbeat, it's nice to just have a really good time watching a movie like Hedwig. It left us feeling better than when we started. Maybe you should watch it too.

Full video episode available on our Youtube channel! Matt Fagan introduces his brother, Ted Fagan, to a magical film that answers the question: what if your dreams came true and everybody else in the world disappeared? Thanks for Nothing, Canada!Canadian superstar David Hewlett wishes the whole world away - even the smell of rotting beef carcasses! - in this intimate, experimental fantasy from 2003. Written by, directed by, and starring the folks who brought us Cube in 1997, Nothing defies easy categorization.David Hewlett and Andrew Miller play childhood best friends whose relationship experiences a series of rapid and dramatic upsets. When their well-trod dynamic is tested, each of these men is forced to admit that they may not be who they thought they were. Maybe nothing is what they thought it was. But there were definitely too many fuckers before.