Episode 197 - Sounding the Otherworld: On Bryn Chainey's 'Rabbit Trap'

Episode 197 - Sounding the Otherworld: On Bryn Chainey's 'Rabbit Trap'

Author: SpectreVision Radio September 17, 2025 Duration: 1:10:31
In a rare surfacing in the contemporary world, JF and Phil discuss a film that has just been released. Bryn Chainey’s Rabbit Trap is psychological horror in the tradition of Repulsion, Jacob’s Ladder, and Angel Heart. But it is more: a metaphysical film exploring the mystery of sound and the Otherworld of Faerie—an excursion into that weird country, so deftly explored by Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood, where wonder and terror perform their eldritch duets. Sign up for JF's new Henri Bergson course, starting September 18, 2025. Support Weird Studies on ⁠Patreon⁠. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes ⁠1⁠ and ⁠2⁠, on Pierre-Yves Martel's ⁠Bandcamp⁠ page. Visit the Weird Studies ⁠⁠Bookshop⁠⁠ Find us on ⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠ Get the T-shirt design from ⁠⁠Cotton Bureau⁠⁠. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, ⁠Cosmophonia⁠. REFERENCES Bryn Chainey, Rabbit Trap Weird Studies, Episode 190 on “The Willows” Alan Crosland (dir.), The Jazz Singer Weird Studies, Episode 150 on “A Fragment of Life” Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will Vladimir Jankelevitch, Music and the Ineffable Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Mysticism of Sound and Music Herman Hesse, Siddhartha J. R. R. Tolkein, The Silmarillion Giles Deleuze, Cinema II   Robert Kirk, The Secret Commonwealth Weird Studies, Episode 120 on Radical Mystery (story of the anti-sound starts at 52 minute mark)   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the heart of Weird Studies, a podcast from SpectreVision Radio, you’ll find long-form conversations between Professor Phil Ford and writer J. F. Martel. Their discussions aren’t simple reviews or straightforward analyses; instead, they wander through the tangled undergrowth where art and philosophy meet, giving generous time to concepts that resist easy understanding and to creative works that fracture our ordinary sense of the world. This podcast deliberately lingers in that ambiguous space, treating the “weird” not as a genre but as a particular mode of experience-one that reveals the cracks in what we comfortably assume is real. Each episode feels like joining a deep, meandering dialogue between two friends who are both deeply knowledgeable and endlessly curious, covering a vast terrain that includes literature, film, music, and esoteric thought. It’s a show for anyone who suspects that the most profound truths are often found in the shadows, the anomalies, and the strangely beautiful. As part of the SpectreVision Radio network, which specializes in content that explores the uncanny edges of creativity, Weird Studies builds a unique community of listeners who are eager to think differently. You won’t find pat answers here, but you will encounter compelling questions and a shared sense of exploration that makes each installment a distinctive journey.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 230

Weird Studies
Podcast Episodes
Episode 148: Mythos of the Moment: On 'Twin Peaks,' Season 3 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:18:14
David Lynch and Mark Frost's Twin Peaks has been a touchstone of Weird Studies since the podcast's inception. Back in 2018, Phil and JF recorded Episode 1: Garmonbozia while still reeling from the series' third season, w…
Episode 147: You Must Change Your Life [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:33:57
Rainer Maria Rilke's poem "Archaic Torso of Apollo" ends on a note that has puzzled and inspired readers for more than a century: "For there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life." In this episode,…
Episode 146: An Air of Great Power: On the Chariot in the Tarot [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:17:49
Of the twenty-two figures that make up the major arcana of the tarot, the Chariot is probably the most commonplace. While the tenth arcanum is a wheel, it's The Wheel of Fortune, not just any old wagon wheel. But arcanum…
Episode 143: On UFOs [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:30:34
In the 1950s, Carl Jung expressed frustration at the impenetrability of the UFO mystery, the "strange, unknown, and indeed contradictory nature" of this "ostensibly physical phenomenon" with "an extremely important psych…