Episode Overview:

In part two of our conversation with the Spooky Twins, things get hilariously spooky as we dive into their adventures in cosplay, their love for horror cult classics, and some heated debates about what truly qualifies as horror. From The Thing to Blood Dolls, the twins share their unfiltered takes, proving once again that horror can be as silly as it is scary.

The Great Horror Debate with the Spooky Twins

What You’ll Hear in This Episode:

🎭 Cosplay Creations:

The Spooky Twins reveal their current cosplay projects, including a mashup of Animal Crossing characters Red and Tom Nook.

Hear about their memorable Us-inspired cosplay featuring the iconic red jumpsuit and golden scissors.

🎮 Gaming & Horror Lore:

Tonia admits she doesn’t play first-person games like Outlast or Fallout but gets all the juicy lore from Tonie, who loves diving into these creepy worlds.

Corey and Kendall share their struggles with gaming and how kids these days are introducing them to gamer culture.

🏆 Favorite Final Characters:

Tonia passionately defends R.J. MacReady (The Thing) as her ultimate “final person,” sharing a theory about the film’s iconic ending.

Tonie chooses Sally Hardesty (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), praising her grit and the importance of keeping horror alive through remakes and reimaginings.

🎥 The Horror Debate:

Is Gremlins a horror movie or a Christmas movie? Kendall stirs the pot with his controversial take, and the group dives into the nuances of horror-comedy.

The twins defend remakes and reboots, comparing them to cover songs and emphasizing the joy of keeping horror relevant.

🍕 Horror is Like Pizza:

Tonia drops a gem of wisdom: “Horror is like pizza—whether it’s gourmet or cafeteria quality, you’ll still eat it!”

🎞️ Cult Classics and Obscurities:

The twins introduce Corey and Kendall to hidden gems like Blood Dolls, raving about its bizarre mix of puppets, clowns, and a girl band in a cage.

They also reminisce about Full Moon Features classics like Puppet Master and Demonic Toys.

📽️ The Magic of Horror Conventions:

Tonia and Tonie discuss the creativity and community they experience at cons, making it clear why horror fans are some of the most welcoming people around.

Highlights:

The Gremlins debate: Is it horror, Christmas, or both?

Why The Thing is a masterpiece with no romance to distract from its monstrous paranoia.

Tonia’s passionate defense of Sally Hardesty and the beauty of horror remakes.

A deep dive into cult classics, from Blood Dolls to Phantasm.

Memorable Quotes:

“Horror is pizza—you’re going to eat it no matter what!”

“The Thing doesn’t have romance, girlfriends, or tension—it’s just pure monster paranoia, and that’s why it’s perfect.”

“We can cover songs, so why can’t we cover movies?”

Core Themes:

Horror as Community: Whether it’s cosplay, gaming, or conventions, horror unites people across creative and cultural boundaries.

Embracing Nostalgia: From 80s classics to Full Moon Features, the twins celebrate the beauty of revisiting and reviving old favorites.

Redefining Horror: Debating genres and blurring lines between horror, comedy, and everything in between.

The Fun of Cosplay: Using horror fandom as an outlet for creativity and connection.

Where to Find the Spooky Twins:

Follow them on Instagram for more cosplay, crafts, and spooky creations: @spookytwins13.

Stay Connected with Horror Heals:

Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for updates, behind-the-scenes content, and more stories of how horror helps us heal.

Don’t forget to tag us with #HorrorHeals to share your own horror stories!

Final Note:

This episode celebrates the beauty of horror in all its forms—scary, silly, or downright strange. Whether you’re into cult classics, cosplay, or just debating what makes a horror movie, there’s something here for everyone. Stay spooky, stay silly, and keep the horror love alive! 🎃

C&K: we've not been making stuff here recently because we've been working on some cosplay. We're, we're, we try to do some cosplay on the side when we go to cons.

Tonie: we're doing, uh, Red and, uh, Tom Nook from Animal Crossing.

C&K: Yeah. Very cool.

Tonie: that ought to be silly. But we've done, we've done other stuff in the past. We did, uh, we did Us. I don't know if you guys have seen Us, Jordan Peele's Us.

Tonie: But we did, uh, I did the, um, the red jumpsuit, and Sister was the, the normal person, so. Ha ha

Tonie: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Tonia: it were but us is us is fantastic If you haven't seen it's because

Tonia: it's

Tonia: doppelgangers.

C&K: I don't, yeah, I typically don't do cosplay. My, my attire at horror conventions is like really wild, um, glittery suits. But the one time I did do cosplay, uh, as, uh, and I'm not, I'm going to mangle his name to the Tim, Tim Heidenberger. The neighbor character, like his doppelganger.

C&K: So I had the red jumpsuit and the scissors and the, you know, the wig and all that stuff. That was one time.

Tonia: nice

Tonie: Oh, wow, yeah. Okay, that's cool.

Tonia: we have been making a lot of fallout stuff lately because that's

Tonia: kind of stuck in our craw It was

Tonia: such a good show. we're not, uh, video game dudes over here .

C&K: Like, I mean, I'll, I'll play like, you know, like the matchy type of stuff or whatever on my phone, but, uh, I started watching Fallout cause I'm, I love Walton Goggins and, uh, yeah, it's, it's fun. cool.

Tonia: playing first person perspective games So sister plays Games and then tells me about

Tonie: Yeah, I tell her about it, so, everything she knows about a lot of first person games, she does, because of me!

Tonia: borderlands And outlast and fallout and almost it's it's sad because so many horror games are first person perspective and I can't I can't play them. So I get I miss out on a lot, but I get told about all of it though I know all the lore and I know everything about Leland Coyle right now so I can tell you that,

Tonie: I don't know what she's talking

C&K: my godson just turned, uh, 13 and, you know, he's a, he's a big gamer, of course, because I think every kid that age is, and so he wants to show me, like, all these memes, . and I have no idea what they mean, because I don't know anything But whatever, you gotta indulge the kids, right? Yeah. So, something that, uh, we like to ask all our guests, uh, here is, um, who is your favorite Final person? I know that, you know, Final Girl is sort of a personal favorite. A term, but we, you know, we try to be all inclusive here. So who's your final favorite final person?

Tonia: McCready

Tonia: from the

Tonie: That didn't take long.

Tonia: no. No. Yeah, he's the best. He's like Balls to the

Tonia: wall the perfect example of exactly how a final person should

Tonia: be just because child's is I know I think I think child's I think child's was gone. I think I think mccready was the last

Tonia: one. I I do

Tonia: personal opinion I think so I think the light was out in his eyes And I think that that whiskey I think the drink he gave him at the end had kerosene in it And when he took it and drank it because you can see mccready he shakes his head. He's like, okay You

C&K: Now I gotta go back and re watch. I know, we're gonna have to. Thanks Tonya, now we gotta go back and re watch The Thing tonight. Again!

Tonia: You should be watching it every day. anyways.

Tonie: Yep. There

Tonie: you go.

Tonie: There

C&K: and uh, oh, I'm just, side note, just so um, excited that Carpenter's getting his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame next year. Like, so well deserved.

Tonie: Oh God.

C&K: Yeah,

C&K: and Robert Englund, you know, like, you know, just.

Tonia: Yes.

C&K: Shout out to both of them. You're putting it out in the universe. If they want to come on horror heels, they are more than welcome.

C&K: Anytime

C&K: three o'clock in the morning. I don't care. Yeah. All right. So Tony favorite final person.

Tonie: I'm gonna say Sally from Text Chance Massacre. 'cause that's my

Tonie: favorite movie.

C&K: Now what I know the, uh, the, the recent Netflix, um, sequels was kind of controversial. What did you think about that with the return of Sal, the Sally character?

Tonie: I loved it. I, I am a, I am a chainsaw whore. I don't care what they make and what it looks like. I'm gonna watch it. You know, I think people are, I think people are way too precious about films. Um, uh, I, I get a lot of flack because I really like a lot of remade stuff, or a lot of reimagined stuff. And my thing is, is that they're putting this stuff out there, and they're getting it back into people's consciousness, and people are talking about it again.

Tonie: So do it. Remake it. Re, I mean, we, we recut, we cover songs all the time. Why can't we cover

Tonie: movies? You know what I

Tonie: mean? You know,

Tonie: Shakespeare has been think about, many times? you go. Yeah. Shakespeare wrote Hamlet and it's been um, Good point. Very

Tonie: so why can't we do the same thing with films, you know? And I, cause I don't, I don't think people had a problem with the Netflix, the Netflix one was fantastic.

Tonie: Leatherface. I love that one so much. It was so great. They're just, they're all great. They're all so great, you know, and I think it's from growing up when we were talking earlier about growing up and having to read the boxes and not having a lot of access to it and you just can't click, click, click.

Tonie: Okay, there it is. You know, you have to, you had to go to it to be able to find it and to have all this stuff coming to you now. It's like, yeah, I'll eat. I'll eat that. I'll eat one of those. I'm going to eat that too. I'm going to eat everything. You know what I mean? And it's, that's basically what it's become now.

Tonie: Movies have become a buffet. You know, and when you've been starving your whole life, you're going to eat everything that comes your way, and it's going to be great, and I just, I don't know, and, and maybe, maybe I'm a little bit too loosey about it, maybe I'm, but it's just, and I, and then there's points where I'm like, oh, you know, really, does that, does that really have to happen, but at the same time, I kind of have to keep in mind, somebody out there likes that, somebody out there wants that to happen, that's fine, you know what I mean,

C&K: Yeah, I would have liked to see Sally get a little bit more, um, kick ass time, you know, in that sequel.

C&K: But, yeah. you know, that being said, the final moment with the, with the chainsaw and the head coming off was like, I did not see that coming and that was like, whoa, No.

Tonie: No, you don't. You don't. yow, Well, it's like the, uh, it's like the prequel with the thing. Everybody made such a big deal about how crappy it was, and I'm not going to watch it, and it's awful. But it was

Tonia: fantastic!

C&K: I liked it, yeah,

Tonia: I stood in the theater and gave it a, and, and, and clapped, because I'm an idiot. But yeah, it was just, it was fantastic.

Tonia: It was great. It was great. And the best thing about it that I found and I know the cgi was blah blah blah blah Blah, we need to see the cut with the proper. I would whatever I don't care more thing is better than no thing I don't care but the best thing about it was is there was a Two gentlemen in front of us in the audience and they were super getting into the movie and they loved it And they were hooting and hollering and we were too it was great And then at the very end when the dog's running across the snow You And the beginning of the next one basically starts during the end credits.

Tonia: One of the guys actually said, Oh my god, this was before all of that. This is the beginning of the other movie. And I was like, are you fucking kidding

Tonia: me? Did I don't think people, people didn't know that. They don't

Tonie: realize it

Tonie: Yep. it was a prequel because it was billed. So many people kept calling it

Tonia: a sequel. And i'm like, oh man, and it was such a love letter because they took they did frame by frame shots for their storyboards to make sure that Everything matched.

Tonia: Oh my god. I cried. It was amazing And people just it gets so much hate for no reason give it give it up people. It's pizza. It's pizza You're gonna

Tonia: eat it We If it's school pizza or if it's a fancy, you know, gourmet pizza, it's still pizza. What is your problem?

C&K: yes. We watch bad horror movies all the time, and it's like, eh, you know, and we'll, and we'll rate them, and Kendall is a harsh critic. I tell what like, mean a movie that I would give an A to. He's like, yeah, I'd give that a c plus . Yeah. I'm like, what? Yeah, but I, I

C&K: think.

Tonia: you sound like

Tonia: us.

C&K: automatically, though, if he stays awake through an entire horror movie, that should be a B minimum right there because he can't stay awake.

C&K: It's my body. If I, if it's after dinner and there's a puppy on my lap, forget about it. Yeah. I mean, got to be really,

Tonie: I can

Tonie: respect that.

Tonie: Tonya's got a, uh, Tonya's, Tonya's gauge is, is it tone good or is it actually good? Because I like a lot of really

Tonie: bad, I

Tonie: adore full moon, I absolutely adore full moon videos. I'll tell you what, I like the old school stuff. Because sometime around, like, Head of the Family and Blood Dolls, I think it's probably when it started going downhill.

Tonie: Blood Dolls is not. Blood Dolls is the best. But sometime after Blood Dolls, and that storyline, the movies started going downhill. They started getting a lot more about TNA, and they're kind of gross now, and I don't know. It's a little awkward, I think. But, a lot of the

Tonia: I want you guys, I want you to roll that back and hear that phrase again. And that will that will tell you the caliber of film we're talking about blood dolls is the best. So, that will give you that will give you the area that you're working on here for what she considers to be a and hear the air quotes because I'm doing it a good film.

C&K: Well, I would say

Tonie: guys, do you guys watch a lot of full moon?

C&K: I definitely,

C&K: definitely in the, in the, in the past and definitely, you know, when I was a kid and renting, but not so much recently. Yeah. But now we will now, now we got to check out, I don't think I've ever seen blood dowels, so now maybe

Tonie: Oh my god. Oh my god, Blood Dolls is the best. It's got, it's got like puppets, like, from Puppet Master, but not the Puppet Master puppets. It's like different puppets and they're just like, they're totally racist. There's a dwarf. And, um, there's a clown, and he's like a, a preacher, and, then there's a guy

Tonie: with a, a head,

Tonia: movie.

Tonie: there's a guy with a head the size of an avocado, and there's a girl band in a cage, and, um, the soundtrack is

Tonie: amazing.

Tonia: it is exact. It's exactly what it sounds like you guys enjoy that.

Tonia: Uh

Tonia: punch in the gut

Tonie: Oh, it's so good.

C&K: I mean, but I love like the cheesy low budget, uh, stuff like was, um, did you, have you seen baby oopsie?

Tonie: Yeah, Yes, yeah, demonic

C&K: I just, I like that, that after I just, I think she's a riot or like online videos and stuff, but.

Tonie: Oh my god, right. I haven't watched like, uh, Killer Bong or Ginger Dead Man. I haven't seen Killjoy. I think it's some of the stuff that's coming out now. A lot of that stuff I haven't watched. But a lot of the older things like Dollman and demonic toys and Puppet Master and, now puppet master is a good series. I do I do like that series. I will I will get into some puppet master

Tonie: Now they do get pretty awful towards the end, like Axis of Evil, I think was just stupid.

Tonia: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's a point. There's a point where you have to it's like resident evil The first one was good the old resident evil But the first one was good the second one starts getting kind of and then after that yeah. Yeah. That's harder. Yeah.

Tonie: You know what a great series is? Phantasm is a great series. Let's talk about

Tonie: Phantasm. Can

C&K: yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tonie: wonderful Phantasm is?

C&K: yeah. Oh yeah. Kendall's not a huge FM fan, but I, I love him. Yeah. Um,

Tonia: that's a that's another one. That's another childhood one. Our, uh, parents showed us that one and we had watched, uh, was it on air in Japan?

Tonie: Yes.

Tonia: was it a jet? It was, I think it was actually on

Tonia: air

Tonie: Yeah, it was on a Japanese television show. Uh huh.

Tonia: so, and there was, there was the point, the part where he's in the bushes and he's watching everything that's happening and he mouths out, what the fuck, they actually said it was in Japanese.

Tonia: You could hear it. And we were so jealous because we didn't know what

C&K: Sure.

Tonie: And our

Tonia: And her mother would not tell Yeah. And it took us years before we found out that he was saying, what the fuck?

Tonie: know? Yeah.

Tonia: but yeah, the tall man and uh, great great movie.

Tonie: I guess it's like a, a, a arc of maturity for me. 'cause when I was younger, I loved Reggie. I thought Reggie was the best, and he was so sexy and he was so great.

Tonie: And then when I got up to a certain age, I was like, oh my God. Reggie's just an absolute dirt bag.

Tonia: He is a dirtbag

C&K: Oh, no.

Tonie: what is wrong with me? But I

Tonia: That's one of the problems. That's one of the problems. too is is from from being from a lady point of view from a I guess a feminist point of view is that As you got older and you go back and you watch these films, you really have to edit. You just have to let some of it go because it's just, it's

Tonia: just, the way, it's the way it was.

Tonia: We do better now. We, we do better now. We need to do better now, but it's the way it was and we're just, you can't change

Tonia: that. And I think that's why I enjoy, I think that's why I enjoy the thing so much is that there's none of that at all. It doesn't, it doesn't exist. There's no sexual tension. There's no girlfriends.

Tonia: There's no, there is a female voice on the computer and that is it. Everything is focused on the monster and the paranoia and what is happening in the moment. And I do not mind a romance story. Don't get me wrong. I love a good romance. I actually read Twilight. Didn't care for it, but I like a good romance.

Tonia: But, uh, uh, when it comes to the thing, it's not, it's not, it doesn't, it just doesn't suck any of that in. It's about something

C&K: Well, you raise an interesting point, because, um, we're going to have Andre Gower from Monster Squad on the show, and so, and Kendall didn't remember Monster Squad, so we started watching it through the night. And I mean, in the first five minutes, it's like

Tonie: Yeah, that's

C&K: Yeah,

Tonie: Yeah.

C&K: some stuff, you know, there's a character, then the character's name is Fat Kid.

C&K: It's like, oh, come on now, you know, it's not cool.

Tonia: Yeah. Yeah. I went back and watched that one a couple of, about a year or so ago and I was like, Oh

C&K: yeah, yeah, the

C&K: eighties. Yeah. You know, my God, After a few minutes, I was like, okay, I need to take a break. I need to go.

C&K: I can't do this right now. Yeah. I mean, just.

Tonia: And you know, that's that's funny because the kind of movie that that you know People expect to be the kind of movie you'd have to take a break from it's like human centipede And we did we took a break. We took a break halfway through that film because we kind of needed a mental clear but it's interesting that monster squad you you do too you have to take a break because it's just the Because it's just so

Tonia: awkward and it just makes you so uncomfortable.

Tonia: It's it's a different

Tonia: kind of horror

C&K: Um, and so, and this is interesting because this is an argument, will be a continuing argument between me and Kendall as we do this series. he doesn't consider like horror comedies to be really like horror, like Monster Squad

C&K: so Kendall said something very controversial. I think he said, Gremlins is not a horror movie.

Tonie: a Christmas movie.

C&K: say it again.

Tonie: It's a

C&K: It is a Christmas movie. You're right. It is a Christmas movie, but I still consider it a horror movie.

Tonie: It is a horror movie, though. Yeah, it's still, yeah, it's a horror

Tonie: movie. Yeah. Yeah. why, why do you not consider it a

C&K: I love it. Don't get me wrong. It's just, I don't think there's one. For me, it's, was I scared?

C&K: And I don't think there's one scary moment in it. And like, for me, I'm like, eh,

Tonie: It's a horror

Tonie: comedy.

C&K: yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I just, and I would say,

Tonie: Kinda like Tucker and Dale. I mean, Tucker and Dale is a horror comedy. I'd still consider it horror, though.

C&K: And I think, you know, like, it's probably been a while since Kendall's seen it, but like, the scene with the mother versus the gremlins, there, there's some scary moments there, you know, when the gremlins in the Christmas

C&K: tree,

Tonie: pretty tense,

C&K: getting attacked by them.

Tonie: There's some pretty tense moments in that movie. Yeah.

C&K: Well, I just kind of, I

Tonie: You're wrong.

C&K: rewatch it, I need to rewatch it.

C&K: It's going to continue to be like a, you know, a thing with us. For sure, for sure. Cause like, I'm like one of our dream guests is Joe Dante, you know, and he's definitely, I mean he's done the horror, but like he's also done, you know, the horror comedy stuff too. And I'm not saying it's not

Tonie: Yeah.

C&K: it's just not what I think of.

Tonie: Oh, listen. Listen to him. You're floundering

Tonie: now.

C&K: It's like, I, I just don't, I just don't think of it as horror. It's like, oh, yeah. People, people think of it as horror.

C&K: I don't,

Tonie: It's alright. It's alright. It's okay to be mayor of Long Island. You live on Long Island, homie.

C&K: and I think it's, it's like, well, it's introductory horror too. It's like, it's horror. It's like it introducing kids to horror, you know? So your kremlins, your monster squad, um, your, uh, the gate, you know that stuff. Like,

Tonie: oh wow, the gate was

C&K: It is. And, you know, okay. I'll admit when I'm possibly wrong,

C&K: Everybody's entitled to their opinion whether how silly it's Yep, that's right.

Tonie: What is it, whether it's wrong? Just because it's wrong doesn't make you a bad person, it's

Tonie: just wrong. Well,

C&K: I def, I think horror movies are like we, we do like differ in our opinions. We'd like debate, quite a bit, probably more than anything else. Um, maybe RuPaul's drag race. Maybe those two, I think are probably our biggest debates. Yep. So, well, this has been, um, a joy. I, I, I knew, um, from watching your Instagram yesterday that we were going to have, this was going to be a lot of fun and we love what you guys are doing. And, um, definitely want to come see you at a con.

Tonie: thank

C&K: Yeah.

Tonie: We'd love to see you