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In this episode of Drawn to Darkness, we pivot back to true crime with Captive Audience: A Real American Horror Story, a three-part docuseries about the kidnapping of Steven Stayner and the traumatic ripple effect. We’ll discuss Steven’s story, how he was abducted at age seven while walking home from school and held captive for seven years by Kenneth Parnell. What makes the story even more unsettling is how “normal” his life appeared from the outside. Steven attended school, played sport, and yet could not free himself from his abuser until Parnell kidnapped five-year-old Timmy White. Refusing to let another boy endure what he survived. Steven heroically escaped, saving Timmy and himself. We discuss the psychological barriers that kept him from escaping sooner, the media’s obsession with a “happy ending” and its impact on Steven’s recovery, and the tragic fatal motorcycle accident that ended Steven’s life. Just when you think the story must be over, the Stayner curse delivers one more twist: Steven’s older brother Cary becomes the Yosemite Killer, turning this into a story not only about captivity, but about generational trauma and murder.

Content & Spoiler Warning:

This episode includes discussion of child abduction, pedophilia and child sexual assault, intergenerational trauma, serial murder, and a fatal motorcycle accident. We also spoil Captive Audience and the made-for-TV miniseries I Know My First Name Is Steven.

Palate Cleanser:

After something this bleak, we recommend something more fun: Derry Girls, Caroline’s comfort-watch of choice, Heated Rivalry, and The Mummy, because Evie and Rick are adorable.

Recommendations:

Adolescence - mandatory viewing if you’re raising a boy

Wild Crime -another national park–focused docuseries

Park Predators -for more on crime in wilderness spaces

Murdoch Murders: A Southern Scandal - another cursed-family true crime saga

Six Schizophrenic Brothers - a different kind of family horror

Bloodline and The Perfect Couple - fictional family darkness

My Favorite Murder Episode 30 - their early coverage of this case

Media Pressure (Julie Murray’s podcast) -on family tragedy and public obsession

I Know My First Name Is Steven — the original 1989 miniseries that shaped the family’s story

Untamed with Eric Bana for a Yosemite murder mystery. Also Free Solo and The Dawn Wall for that stunning Yosemite setting.

Stephen King’s The Dead Zone because Parnell is giving Greg Stillson as a Bible salesman.

The 1990s The Stand mini-series, with Corin Nemec as Harold

All Around The Town by Mary Higgins Clark

Weapons because of a scary gas station scene and a child keeping a secret at school

California True Crime, Timesuck, Casefile, and Last Podcast on the Left if you want to know more about these crimes.

Homework:

Next episode, we continue our run of cursed families, but through gothic fiction rather than documentary. Read Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Special thanks to Nancy Azano for the podcast cover art (Instagram: @nancyazano) and Harry Kidd for the opening and closing score (Instagram: @harryjkidd, Spotify).

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In this episode, we dive into Trainwreck: Poop Cruise, Netflix’s lowbrow, sensational documentary about the 2013 Carnival Triumph disaster, when an engine room fire left more than 4,200 passengers and crew stranded in the Gulf of Mexico with no power, no air conditioning, no refrigeration, and, most importantly, no functioning toilets.

We begin with discussion about losing power during floods, blizzards, hurricanes, and honeymoons gone wrong, but end up discussing human behaviour under extreme stress. As we discuss the "characters", we unpack how quickly civility can erode when basic systems fail, why some people balk at the the red biohazard bags, and how entitlement, privilege, and desperation collide in confined spaces.

We also discuss the heroism and exploitation of cruise ship staff, the cruise industry’s fine print and lack of accountability, the shift from news to spectacle in media coverage, and how this situation never quite tips into Lord of the Flies, but comes disturbingly close. Along the way, we link Poop Cruise to other maritime disasters, cruise ship disappearances, and the deeper horrors lurking beneath the glossy promise of “all-inclusive” leisure.

Content & Spoiler Warning:

Bodily waste, unsanitary conditions, vomiting, public urination, extreme hangovers, fire at sea, societal breakdown, hoarding, cruise ship disasters, corporate negligence, environmental harm, assault risks, disappearances, and capitalism behaving exactly as expected. We also spoil Trainwreck: Poop Cruise and briefly discuss Amy Bradley Is Missing.

Palate Cleanser:

• TikTok trends including a man attempting (and failing) to learn how to Dougie
• Museums pairing classical art with modern film and TV audio
• People doing owl impressions in regional accents (including Moira Rose as an owl)

Recommendations:

• Wine & Crime – “Cruise Ship Disappearances” (Episode 7) for an unsettling overview of nightmares at sea
• Other episodes of Netflix’s Trainwreck, especially Astroworld, Balloon Boy, and Mayor of Mayhem
• Amy Bradley Is Missing (Netflix) – watch with a critical eye
• Titanic and the Titanic: Ship of Dreams podcast for deep dives into hubris at sea
• The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
• Yellowjackets, FantasticLand, The Platform, Under the Dome, The Mist, and The Shining for enclosed-space psychological breakdowns
• Better Call Saul for class-action lawsuits and legal cynicism
• Sudden Storm, about the Galveston hurricane
• The 30 Rock episode “Double-Edged Sword” for plane-based claustrophobic comedy
• And, always, Andor

Homework:

Next episode, we pivot back into true crime cursed family, with Captive Audience: The Abduction of Steven Stayner, examining his kidnapping and the devastating ripple effects on his family.

Coming up soon:
Start reading Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

Special thanks to Nancy Azano for the podcast cover art (Instagram: @nancyazano) and Harry Kidd for the opening and closing score (Instagram: @harryjkidd, Spotify).

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In this episode, we tackle Hereditary, Ari Aster’s devastating 2018 debut and one of the films most often credited with launching a new era of “elevated horror.” After the death of her estranged mother, miniature artist Annie Graham struggles to process her complicated grief. When her daughter Charlie dies in a shocking accident, the family fractures under the weight of blame, guilt, and unbearable loss. What begins as a family drama about grief, resentment, and inheritance curdles into something far darker as supernatural events occur and Annie Graham and her family discover that their suffering may have been orchestrated long before the story even begins.

We unpack the film as both a supernatural horror and a deeply human tragedy about motherhood, blame, intergenerational trauma, and the corrosive effects of grief. We discuss Annie’s ambivalence toward motherhood, Peter’s unbearable guilt and trauma, Charlie’s unsettling presence, and the way Ari Aster traps his characters inside a dollhouse world where something is playing with them. Along the way, we explore fate versus agency, cult manipulation, spiritualism and grief exploitation, and why this film hurts as much (or more?) than it scares.

Content & Spoiler Warning:

This episode includes discussion of child death, grief, suicide and suicidal ideation, self-harm, decapitation, anaphylaxis, possession, cults, toxic parent–child relationships, intergenerational trauma, mental illness, body horror, animal death (a dog, shown after the fact), disturbing sound design (including tongue clicking and wet mouth noises), and graphic emotional distress. Also, as usual, we fully spoil Hereditary. Close your eyes around 33 and half minutes. Listener and viewer discretion is advised.

Here’s a link if you want to know more: https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3535054/hereditary-hidden-clues/

Palate Cleanser:

• Heated Rivalry (HBO) - Caroline is obsessed!
• Watching TikToks of people reacting to shows they love

Recommendations:

If Hereditary got under your skin, you might want to explore:

• Other Ari Aster films, especially Midsommar (grief, cults)
• The Sixth Sense (and our Episode 12) for another Toni Collette performance as a mom dealing with the supernatural.
• Rosemary’s Baby which is clearly an inspiration
• The Babadook — motherhood, grief, and a difficult child
• Pet Sematary (book) — Stephen King’s bleakest exploration of parental grief
• The Shining for slow-burn dread
• The Haunting of Hill House for more family trauma wrapped in horror
• Unobscured (Season 2) by Aaron Mahnke, for historical context on spiritualism
• Sleepwalk With Me by Mike Birbiglia, for a funnier take on sleepwalking
• United States of Tara, for more Toni Collette navigating fractured identity
• The Yellow Wallpaper (see our earlier episode), for women, madness, and being trapped inside domestic spaces

Homework for Next Episode:

Watch: Captive Audience: A Real American Horror Story

We pivot back to true crime with the story of the Stayner family, another exploration of family trauma, captivity, and the long-term consequences of violence.

But before that watch:
Trainwreck: Poop Cruise (yes, really), followed by reading Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

Special thanks to Nancy Azano for the podcast cover art (Instagram: @nancyazano) and Harry Kidd for the opening and closing score (Instagram: @harryjkidd, Spotify).

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In this episode, we discuss Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers, Emily Turner’s documentary about Aileen Wuornos, a rare, hands-on female serial killer whose life is steeped in trauma, exploitation, and state violence. We discuss our views on the death penalty and then unpack whether Aileen’s childhood abandonment, sexual abuse, homelessness, and years of sex work made her into a "monster”. We discuss nature vs nurture, the deeper horror of the targeting of sex workers; misogynistic and homophobic rhetoric, and the way prosecutors, cops, lawyers, and her “adoptive” mother profited from Aileen's story.

Content & Spoiler Warning:

This episode includes discussion of capital punishment, sexual assault, sex work, misogyny, child abuse and neglect, mental illness, suicide, corruption, homophobia, and of course murder and serial killers in general. We also spoil this documentary.

Palate cleanser:

The films of Rob Reiner, whose work, such as The Princess Bride, Stand by Me, This is Spinal Tap, and When Harry Met Sally has shaped our cinematic lives almost as much as Star Wars.

Other recommendations:

Other media covering Aileen Wuornos includes Nick Broomfield’s documentary Selling of a Serial Killer, the Oscar-winning film Monster starring Charlize Theron, the podcast the Last Podcast on the Left (Aileen Wuornos two-parter), the podcast Women and Crime (criminology professors discuss female offenders), and My Favorite Murder (episode 96).

Dateline & 13 Alibis – for exploration of wrongful prosecutions

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog – ongoing recommendation if you want to learn more about the impact of childhood trauma.

S-Town (podcast) – a portrait of a damaged, brilliant man

Shiny Happy People and The Righteous Gemstones – to explore evangelical excess and hypocrisy.

The Crucible – for witch-hunt logic, moral absolutism, and judges who sound a lot like Aileen’s.

Betrayal (podcast, not the documentary) – a woman uncovering that her teacher husband was abusing students.

Our past episodes on Spotlight and Catch and Kill for the horrific impact of sexual abuse.

Dexter - a unique take on a Florida serial killer

Sons of Anarchy for biker bars similar to the Last Resort, where Aileen was arrested.

Making a Murderer for troubling confessions.

My Favorite Murder episode 145 on the McMartin pre-school

The Green Mile - both the book and the movie for a riveting story of death row inmates

Super Troopers for highway cops with prominent moustaches.

Homework for next episode:

Watch: Hereditary (2018)

Next up, we pivot from true crime back to horror cinema with Ari Aster’s Hereditary. What's the connection? Shocking violence on a highway. You might want to close your eyes around 33 and a half minutes.

And coming up on a future episode, start reading Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno Garcia.

Special thanks to Nancy Azano for the podcast cover art (Instagram: @nancyazano) and Harry Kidd for the opening and closing score (Instagram: @harryjkidd, Spotify).

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In this episode, we discuss Guillermo del Toro’s gorgeous and gothic adaptation of Frankenstein, an epic, operatic exploration of creation, obsession, abandonment, and the horror of living after being rejected by the world. We discuss our own life goals and the hollowness that can follow achieving your greatest ambition, before diving into this reimagining of Mary Shelley’s ground-breaking novel. We unpack the cinematic devices, symbolism, use of light and colour, as well as each character and what motivates them. We explore themes of immortality as a curse, intergenerational trauma, scientific overreach, colonialism, class violence, and what happens when society decides someone is a monster.

Content & Spoiler Warning:

We spoil Frankenstein (the novel and film), and the film and our dicussion has body horror, animal death (wolves), child abuse, death during childbirth, toxic father–son relationships, and corpse desecration.

Palate cleanser:

Star Wars (Original Trilogy) – Caroline is revisiting the entire Star Wars universe in timeline order, and despite some CGI should never have happened, these movies hold up.

Recommendations:

• Little Shop of Horrors – mad science, creation, and unintended consequences
• My Cousin Vinny – for unexpected tonal callbacks
• Marvel films (Frankenstein connects to Captain America, Ultron, and Hulk lore)
• Inglourious Basterds, Indiana Jones, The Sound of Music – confronting Nazi violence and persecution
• Death Becomes Her and Vampire lore– immortality is its own horror
• Alice in Wonderland and Beetlejuice – embracing the strange and unusual
• Little Women (2019) – the dance scenes are similar.
• Dr. Death (podcast) – psychotic doctors and medical hubris
• Book Cheat (podcast) – a comic shortcut to classic literature
• Epistolary horror: Dracula, Carrie
• “The Monkey’s Paw” – the danger of subverting death
• Jurassic Park, Terminator, M3GAN, Oppenheimer, Edward Scissorhands – losing control of creation
• Guillermo del Toro’s other works: Pan’s Labyrinth, Crimson Peak, The Shape of Water, Pinocchio, Hellboy, Blade II

Homework:

Watch Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers (Netflix)
A documentary that continues exploring how society punishes those it deems monstrous.

Special thanks to Nancy Azano for the podcast cover art (Instagram: @nancyazano) and Harry Kidd for the opening and closing score (Instagram: @harryjkidd, Spotify).

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In this Christmas special of Drawn To Darkness, we swap favourite festive films (from Die Hard and It’s a Wonderful Life to The Muppet Christmas Carol and Scrooged) before diving into Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. We’ll discuss the plot and characters (Scrooge, Marley, the three spirits, Fezziwig, Tiny Tim, Fred), unpack life in Victorian London with its filth, disease, child labour, workhouses, debtor’s prisons and ghost-obsessed spiritualism, and trace how Dickens wrote this “ghostly little book” as a sledgehammer blow against capitalism, greed and cruelty. Along the way we’ll call out Dickens’ own contradictions (social critic, but a terrible husband), compare Bob Cratchit’s wages to modern minimum wage debates, talk through the horror of dying unmourned and unnoticed, and discuss whether Ignorance is more dangerous than Want.

Content & Spoiler Warning:

This episode includes spoilers for A Christmas Carol (book and major adaptations), and discussion of child death, Victorian poverty and disease, eternal damnation, bad bosses and workplace exploitation, and references to body parts/sexual topics.

Palate Cleanser:

The Office – “Dinner Party” (US) and Thor: Ragnarok

Recommendations:

Muppet Christmas Carol, Scrooged – Bill Murray’s ‘80s TV-exec Scrooge, Mickey’s Christmas Carol (Marley's door-knocker and Scrooge’s hellfire grave are seared into our brains)

Other Christmas movies like It’s a Wonderful Life and Elf because like Scrooge, Walter Hobbes needs some Christmas spirit.

Newsies – A musical that reflects Dickens’ views on child labor.

Parasite – For a contemporary look at the horrors of the class divide.

The Castle – Australian working class family cult favourite that’s giving Bob Cratchit.

Home for the Holidays – Caroline’s favourite holiday movie with a cast including Holly Hunter, Robert Downey Jr., Dylan McDermott, and Claire Danes

Christmas specials! Look up your favourite 80s or 90s TV show and find their Christmas special (Caroline recommends Roseanne & 90210)

The Haunting of Bly Manor – For “ghost stories at Christmas” vibes

Time Bandits (TV) – jokes about how gross and diseased Victorian London was

Hugh Grant’s narration of A Christmas Carol (though his soothing voice might put you to sleep) which dovetails with Dickens’ descriptions of cholera-era filth.

The Signalman –A lesser-known Dickens ghost story

The Phantom Tollbooth – Audiobook family favourite for Caroline

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl – Structurally similar morality lessons

The podcast Scared To Death –annual Christmas readings of classic ghost stories,

Dark Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal -if you want to know more about Dickens’ fascination with spiritualism and the paranormal.

Black Mirror "White Christmas” – another Christmas special featuring eternal torment

Homework:

Watch: Frankenstein (Guillermo del Toro) on Netflix.

Special thanks to Nancy Azano for our cover art (Instagram: @nancyazano) and to Harry Kidd for our opening score (Instagram: @harryjkidd)

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In this episode we unpack the history and ethics of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (1932–1972), guided by Michael Hobbes and Sarah Marshall’s reporting in You’re Wrong About. We recount how U.S. Public Health Service researchers recruited 600 Black men in Macon County, Alabama under the promise of treatment for “bad blood,” then withheld effective care, even after penicillin became a simple cure, so they could watch the disease progress. We explore why the study was “bad science” as well as immoral; the racist assumptions baked into its design (e.g., claims that syphilis affects Black bodies differently); and why it kept running long after penicillin was a viable option because the participants as “more valuable” as cadavers).

Content & Spoiler Warning:

This episode includes spoilers for the You’re Wrong About two-parter on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and discussion of: medical racism, eugenics, unethical human experimentation, government misconduct, venereal disease symptoms and treatment (e.g., spinal taps, mercury “rubs”), lynchings, sterilisation without consent, infection of prisoners, intergenerational trauma, and mental-health impacts.

Palate Cleanser

Max Rebo Productions (TikTok): Classic Star Wars toys lip-sync famous ‘90s movie scenes (Karate Kid, Home Alone, My Cousin Vinny). Pure delight between heavy topics.

Recommendations:
Podcasts & Episodes

• You’re Wrong About — Tuskegee two-parter; plus episodes on Anita Hill, eugenics, Reagan/Trump, DARE, Satanic Panic/D&D.
• Distrust & Disparities — Two-parter on Tuskegee and broader medical inequities.
• Black History for White People — Discussion including hospital perspectives.
• 1619 — “How the Bad Blood Started.”
• The Breakdown (Sean King) — Context for vaccine hesitancy vs. Tuskegee.
• This Podcast Will Kill You — Syphilis overview and history.
• The Dollop — Syphilis episode (history).
• American Scandal (Wondery) — Tuskegee season (Ep. 1 free).
• Sounds Like a Cult — Humanitarian/aid-adjacent critique.
• Seeing White - Episodes 1 & 2

Books & Articles:

• Medical Apartheid — On systemic medical exploitation and its legacy.
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
• Works by Dale Huey and Ta Nehisi Coates

Films & TV:

• The Fall of the House of Usher (Mike Flanagan) — Sackler-like family and “bad drugs.”
• Westworld — How people treat “less-than-human” beings.
• Stranger Things — Dr. Brenner as “greater good” rationaliser.
• The Pitt — Representation matters in diagnosis (sickle cell storyline).
• Sinners (set in Mississippi sharecropping milieu) and Weapons. Both flagged for future episodes for sure!

Contacts:

• Makeda Pennycooke, Life Coach & Chance Strategist for anti-racism coaching makeda@makedapennycooke.com

Homework:
Watch: Frankenstein (Guillermo del Toro) on Netflix to explore the ethics of creation. and it includes a syphilis line: “A night with Venus, a lifetime with mercury.”

But before that, it’s our Christmas special! So read, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

Special thanks to Nancy Azano for our cover art (Instagram: @nancyazano) and to Harry Kidd for our opening score (Instagram: @harryjkidd)

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Welcome back to Drawn to Darkness, the podcast where we deep dive into our favourite horror and true crime. In this episode, we head deep into the peeling wallpaper, raccoon-infested attic, rotting walls and shingles, and extraordinary psychology of Grey Gardens, the 1975 direct-cinema documentary that follows Big Edie and Little Edie Beale, two formerly glamorous socialites now living in overwhelming decay and filth in their once-grand Hamptons estate. We unpack the house as gothic horror, Little Edie’s charm, yearning, and self-loathing (as well as her fabulous head scarves), Big Edie’s pride in her aristocratic past, the mother daughter dynamic, and then men who didn’t help (at least Jackie Kennedy Onassis stepped in). We discuss the film’s reputation as a masterpiece, the tension between fascination and voyeurism and its connection to contemporary reality TV such as Hoarders.

Content & Spoiler Warning

In addition to spoilers, this episode contains discussion of animal neglect and unsanitary living conditions, including cat faeces, raccoons, fleas, and hoarding, Toxic mother–daughter relationships, psychological distress, Isolation, mental health concerns, and hints of past trauma

Palate Cleanser

TikTok trend of people strolling through HomeGoods and dramatically “discovering” absurdly specific décor items (like a “bird on a golden twig” or a “portrait of an elephant in a bathtub, but just the butt”). Just for fun.

All the Star Wars, including Rebels

The Whimsical Muse on Threads, an account full of cozy, bookish, soft-rain-in-Edinburgh energy to restore your faith in the world.

Recommendations:

Films & TV:

• Grey Gardens (2009) — The Drew Barrymore/Jessica Lange dramatization
• Documentary Now! — “Sandy Passage” — Bill Hader and Fred Armisen’s hilarious Grey Gardens parody
• Gimme Shelter — Another documentary by the Maysles Brothers
• American Horror Story: Season 1— For claustrophobic house-based dread
• Feud: Capote v. the Swans — For more on high-society mythology (creative non-fiction)
• Arrested Development and Schitt’s Creek— Wealthy family, disastrous decline, narcissistic mother: say no more
• The Haunting of Hill House — For more gothic “dancing alone in an empty house”

Books & Literary Connections

• The Marble Fawn of Grey Gardens by Jerry Torre and the novel by Nathanial Hawthorne
• The Fall of the House of Usher (Edgar Allan Poe)
• The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
• The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
• A Raisin in the Sun & Langston Hughes’ “Harlem” (what happens to a dream deferred?)
• The Great Gatsby for Gilded Age illusions

Other Fascinating Rabbit Holes

• The Winchester Mystery House — Another sprawling home built on grief, ghosts, and possible madness

Homework Assignment:

Caroline is taking us into the horrors of scientific research gone wrong. Listen to the two-part “Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment” series from the podcast You’re Wrong About. We’ll explore the real-life horror of government-sanctioned cruelty, medical racism, and scientific exploitation.

Special thanks to Nancy Azano for our cover art (Instagram: @nancyazano) and to Harry Kidd for our opening score (Instagram: @harryjkidd)