Two things that are blissfully not my problem are kids and podcasts. I don't have kids, and I don't have a podcast. It's all very freeing. So I might not be the best person to make the following recommendation. On the other hand, I was once a kid, and I have listened to podcasts, and I feel you need to know about a new example of the latter, made by the former.
I’m talking about The Horror Boys Podcast, which debuted on Spotify recently and moved me to tell you about it. It’s a casual conversation about the genre from friends Pat, Shea, Dash, Adam and Grady. They’ve got one full episode in the can so far (“2024 Horror Rewind”), with a bonus check-in on Companion. By the sounds of it, these kids are all under 16, so if you’re looking for grown-up studio polish or dry horror academia, your podcast app of choice is already spilling over with every possible flavor of those.
No, what’s here, and what hit me about it, is the sound of discovery. If you’re reading this you’re most likely a few decades from your own horror origin story, and what The Horror Boys delivered to me was this almost emotional callback to that time in our lives when we were all finding horror for the first time, falling in love with it and, so overcome with fresh passion for the genre, running to tell anyone who would listen. This sounds like what a podcast my 14-year-old friends and I might have made (had podcasts existed in those ancient times). And in listening to it, I realized it’s probably been years since I’ve witnessed kids waxing rhapsodic about horror. It’s energizing!
The other thing of value here is that it’s kind of a perfect gateway vessel for the kid in your life who’s looking for voices they trust to recommend horror to them. We have a roster of very astute and erudite tastemakers here at Fango, but a pre-teen horror fan is probably hungry to hear recs from someone closer to their own age (as opposed to the great Jordan Hoffman), and The Horror Boys is wholly appropriate for such a kid in your life. It’s all very wholesome: while loving on The Substance, one host speculates that his parents probably won’t let him watch Revenge, director Coralie Fargeat’s previous film. (They even bleep “badass,” for Pete’s sake.)
If the above describes something that’s missing from your podcast listening life, or if you just want to hear the genesis of a group of lifelong genre fans, give The Horror Boys a listen.
