Hosted by Amanda Kagiwada and Michael Ryan Assip. Every episode, a deep-dive into the real crimes, cultural anxieties, and folklore behind horror’s most unforgettable films. Darkly funny. Rigorously researched. Free.
New episodes drop every other Wednesday. Watch or listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube — free, no paywall.
Horror news, listener mail, and whatever Amanda and Mike can’t stop thinking about. Same feed as The Fear Archive — no separate subscription, no paywall.
Every horror film starts somewhere — in a real crime, a moral panic, a folk legend, or a cultural anxiety that nobody wanted to say out loud. The Fear Archive finds that starting point.
Each episode, Amanda Kagiwada and Michael Ryan Assip pick a horror film and follow it backward: the true events it drew from, the era it was made in, and the specific dread it was designed to tap. The result is something that feels less like a podcast about movies and more like an autopsy on fear itself.
Research-heavy. Frequently funny. Never precious about it.
Amanda is a writer, producer, and lifelong horror obsessive based in Los Angeles. She co-created The Fear Archive and has been making it deeply, unnecessarily personal ever since.
Michael Ryan Assip writes for stage, screen, and audio. He co-wrote The Gloom and Hollow for Violet Hour Media, and brings the same level of craft to explaining exactly why Jaws made an entire generation afraid of municipal water.
New episodes, catalog deep-dives, and whatever’s keeping us up at night. Subscribe free — and get a curated introduction to the full VHM catalog delivered one show at a time.