Candyman & the Making of Monsters: Shadow Work Analysis of Storytelling

How do we protect our creativity in a world designed to steal our attention? I’m talking with Steven Puri, former DreamWorks and Fox film executive, tech entrepreneur, and founder of SUKHA, about the psychology of flow states and what they can teach us about focus, creativity, and writing truly original stories. We explore what happens when you become so immersed in your work that time disappears, how music, rain, smell, and nostalgia can help you find your creative groove, and why protecting your attention is essential to doing your best work. Then we get into horror and screenwriting. After years in the film industry, Steven has seen what separates competent writing from the kind that makes you think, I’ve never seen anything quite like that before. We discuss why the best writers understand people rather than simply copying genre conventions, how flow can help creators move beyond predictable ideas, and what AI means for the future of original storytelling. Plus, we talk about distraction, digital overwhelm, ADHD, creative community, and why taking back our attention may be one of the most important things we can do to preserve what makes us human. If you’re a writer, filmmaker, horror fan, or creative person trying to do meaningful work in an increasingly distracted world, 🎧 listen now, and discover how going deeper might be the key to creating something new and fighting LLMs coming for our art. And if this episode helps you want to understand horror a little differently, I've made a guide specifically for you. It's called So You Like Horror… Now What? and it walks you through how to watch horror through the lens of psychology, culture and storytelling. It includes a horror glossary of common horror scholarship terms and a beginners list of horror movies to start your scholarly journey. You can grab it at https://payhip.com/b/VdMNb.

AI was supposed to make our lives easier. So why does it increasingly feel like we’re living inside a horror movie? In this episode of the mini-series How Scary Is It?, we’re looking at the very real fears surrounding artificial intelligence, from the recent calls for caution and “pauses” in AI development to the question of what happens when we build systems that become more powerful, more autonomous, and harder to control. We’re revisiting Demon Seed (1977), where an AI becomes obsessed with its creator and decides it has a mind (and a future) of its own. Then there’s The Terminator (1984), which gave us perhaps the ultimate AI nightmare: machines that don’t just think, but decide humanity is the problem. And the part that makes this especially creepy? The Terminator takes place in 2029. That’s only three years away. So the big guns are suggesting a pause, but aren’t you a little curious why we’re putting on the breaks only now? That's a very special brand of freaking me out. So… how scary is AI? Very. Probably.

Ever find yourself checking your phone during a horror movie? Looking away when something gross happens? Talking to your friend because you’re totally not scared? Congratulations: you’ve just discovered second screening. Second screening is the increasingly common habit of using a second device or otherwise splitting your attention while watching a film or TV show. But horror has a particular problem with it: the genre depends on your attention, anticipation, and willingness to surrender yourself to the full experience. In this episode, we’re looking at what second screening does to the way we watch horror and why getting the full thrill of a scary movie might require something that feels increasingly radical: actually watching the damn movie.

What happens when the girls who grew up watching Final Girls… become ...women? In this episode of Spooky Scholars, we look at one of horror’s most iconic tropes through a very specific lens: perimenopause, divorce, and Gen X finally being fucking done. Drawing on Carol J. Clover’s influential work on the Final Girl, I look at Laurie Strode, Nancy Thompson, Alice, Jess, and the women who survived the horror movies of our youth and asks why they hit differently when you’re in your 40s than they did when we were teens Because maybe Nancy wasn’t a prude; maybe she was exhausted. And maybe a generation of women who grew up watching Final Girls fight monsters, get ignored, stop asking permission, and get the f*** out are finally living their own Final Girl stories. Betrayal. Gaslighting. Divorce. Perimenopause. Man-babies. Emotional labour. Existential dread. The Final Girl has been there for us this whole time and we're finally her. *This episode contains spoliers for A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) Ready or Not (2019) Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (2026) You're Next (2011) Black Christmas (1974) Friday the 13th (1980)

This episode is an exploration of what happens when the horror movie you loved as a kid turns out to be about the exact trauma you're living through! Buckle up, because this episode gets personal. Before we get into the 1992 horror classic Candyman, I’m dropping the tea on my divorce, betrayal, and what it feels like when someone you trusted completely destroys the reality you thought you were living in. (Yes, we are processing our trauma through horror movies, where've you been?) But this isn’t just a story about my life. It’s a close look into why Candyman is such a powerful film about trust, belief, and the stories we use to make sense of the world. Helen Lyle begins the film believing in marriage, academia, logic, police, and respectable institutions, while dismissing folklore, oral history, and community knowledge. By the end, every assumption she has about truth and safety has been turned upside down. Because that’s what betrayal does: it doesn’t just break your heart, it breaks your entire understanding of reality. Using Jungian shadow work, horror theory, (and a whole lot of uncomfortable honesty), we explore how Candyman is the "whisper" and darkness we need to face, especially when we're looking away from the truth. But also, sometimes the monster isn’t always the thing we should fear the most. Sometimes the darkest horror is the story we’ve spent our whole lives trying not to hear or see. Sometimes its our own stubborness to hold onto the structures that are actually doing us more harm than good!