As I mentioned last time, I regularly co-host a live podcast and free screening series at the Stray Cat Film Center here in KC. Next month will mark four years of the Horror Pod Class being at Stray Cat, so I thought it would be fun to crunch a few numbers about what we’ve done in that time.

As of next month’s show, we will have hosted 43 movies at the Stray Cat Film Center as part of the Horror Pod Class. (Why not 48? We usually take July off so Tyler can teach a summer course about monsters, we’ve had two shows that had to be canceled due to inclement weather, and for one Halloween we showed the Sleepy Hollow Mixtape instead of a movie.)

The first of those movies was 976-Evil (1988), which we showed all the way back in March of 2022. While my own personal predilections lie toward vintage films from before I was born, I try to program a wide array at the Horror Pod Class – so I thought it might be fun to do a breakdown to see how I did.

To the surprise of no one, our most-showed decade as of next month will be the 1960s. (I’ve already planned out the rest of this year’s schedule, and several other decades will catch up to the 60s by the time we’re done.)

As of March’s show, we’ll have featured 8 movies from the 1960s. The next highest decade, however, is the 90s, from which we will have shown 7 movies. Then the 80s with 6. From there, the rest of the list is as follows: We’ve shown 5 movies from the 2010s, 5 from the early 2000s, 2 from the 1970s, 2 from the 1950s, 4 from the 1940s, 3 from the 1930s, and only one from the 1920s (it was Maciste in Hell, which we showed around this time last year as part of our Yearbook Series, highlighting a different film from each decade).

Guess I’ll just have to program more silent films in the future.

It’s also worth noting that one of those was a cartoon (Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, which we showed back in May of 2024), not to mention the two cartoons that made up the bulk of Sleepy Hollow Mixtape.

During that time, I’ve also done some other stuff at the Stray Cat, including a book launch party for Glowing in the Dark where I screened Doctor X (1932), and a month-long series of horror movies adapted from the works of manga master Kazuo Umezu, co-hosted by myself and Elijah LaFollette of Magnetic Magic Rentals, who also regularly hosts Analog Sunday every month at Stray Cat.

Next year at this time, assuming we all survive that long, we’ll be heading into 5 years of doing this. Will we do something special to mark the occasion? Only time will tell. But for the rest of this year, you can keep enjoying our Year of Monsters programming. We’ve got some fun stuff coming up for you, including werewolves this month, lab experiments next month, as well as mummies, sea monsters, kaiju, aliens, and more!

And if you’ve ever made it out to the Stray Cat Film Center for the Horror Pod Class, let me know what your favorite experience was!