​We all scream for ‘We Watch Shudder’

By John Showalter

john.d.showalter@gmail.com

It’s that time of year again: October, the so-called “Spooky Season” where people partake in everything macabre. From costume parties to scary movie marathons, folks can’t get enough chills leading up to Halloween. However, for one locally hosted podcast, the spirit of Halloween is a year-long affair. “We Watch Shudder” is the passion project of JD Provorse and Michelle Roller.

“We met many years ago at, I believe, the Red Raven, just after it had moved to the old firehouse on Main in Fargo,” said Provorse. “I was an active part of the early local stand-up comedy scene, and Michelle was in the audience one night. And then more nights. And then eventually she started performing herself.”

“Since I was going to open mics every night anyway, I decided to start writing some of my own material,” Roller added. “JD was really supportive of that, even though he openly mocked me for calling myself one of his fans. I couldn’t help it. The dude’s funny.”

It was comedy that brought the two friends and co-hosts together. So how did they make the transition to hosting a podcast about horror films?

“2020-2021 was a terrible time for a ton of reasons we all remember and don’t need to rehash,” said Provorse. “I went into 2022 with an attitude of determination. I had been talking about doing some kind of podcast for a long time and in January 2022, I started a different podcast called ‘All Screens Great & Small’ with my friend Scott Ecker. It ran all that year, 40 episodes total.”

This first podcast was about new release films in general, both theatrical and streaming. He had also been discussing Shudder releases and horror in general with Michelle at that time, so he started hosting the new “We Watch Shudder” with Roller beside the previous podcast in March 2022. He decided it was too difficult to juggle both.

“Eventually a move had to be made, and with my personal passion for horror, its direction was clear,” Provorse said. “Scott was gracious and understanding and let me go easy.”

For readers unfamiliar with Shudder, it is essentially “Netflix for horror movies” as Provorse put it. Its library includes studio releases as well as originally produced content.

“Initially, we were only discussing new original and exclusive releases from Shudder because they were dropping new stuff every week in 2022,” said Provorse. “When their release schedule lightened up in 2023, we saw an opportunity to expand into more wide-ranging horror.”

Despite the name of the podcast, it has not yet gotten an official endorsement from Shudder.

“Craig Engler, who was the big boss at Shudder when the podcast began, was an early Twitter follower of ours, but we never had any direct contact with him,” said Provorse. “He left the company at the end of 2022, and new big boss Sam Zimmerman won’t return my phone calls. Or I assume he won’t. That’s why I haven’t called him.”

“We’ve gotten tiny acknowledgements that some people at Shudder know who we are and don’t mind what we’re doing,” said Roller. “But I am still 100% convinced that the executives of Shudder will someday show up on my doorstep and tell me that not only do they hate the podcast and want us to change the name and our gimmick, but they think that I, as just a normal person, suck.”

Two and a half years into the podcast, “We Watch Shudder” has logged its fair share of achievements.

“For me, at least, the primary thing is that we’re now two and a half years in, nearing 24 episodes, and we’re still going strong,” said Provorse. “I have a lot of issues with frustration and mood stability for a variety of reasons, and the fact that I haven’t yet thrown my hands up and quit the whole damned thing is miraculous. But that’s all thanks to Michelle keeping me well grounded.”

“Aside from that, we’ve received messages from some filmmakers who have said very nice things to us: Aaron B Koontz, Jeremiah Kipp, and Nick Kozakis to name a few,” continued Provorse. “We’ve been an active sponsor of Timebomb Pro Wrestling for two years. We sponsored the spring edition of the 2024 Chicago Horror Film Festival. But probably the biggest thing is the relationship we’ve developed with Adams Family Films, particularly John Adams and Toby Poser. We recently hosted a double feature screening of their films ‘Hellbender’ and ‘Where the Devil Roams’ at the Fargo Theatre, and they came all the way from the Catskills to hang out and chat with us and the audience for the night. These folks are on the cutting edge of modern indie horror, and they couldn’t be more kind and welcoming and validating. We all left that experience feeling like we were kinda part of the Adams Family now ourselves. Horror fandom is kinda beautiful like that sometimes.”

“The absolute coolest thing about the podcast is getting to talk with fellow horror movie lovers, especially when those people are writers and directors we’ve talked about on the show,” said Roller. “Joko Answar liking a tweet I posted kept me happy for days. I could hardly breathe when I read Jeremiah Kipp’s Instagram message to us, laughing along with how much I hated the title of his movie ‘Slapface’. And Toby Poser and John Adams wound up being two of the kindest people I’ve met in my entire life. Connecting with all these people, even briefly, is really what I’m most proud of.”

The podcast has even developed its own running joke/meme in the form of “squelch”, or in the words of Roller, “the greatest subtitle of all time.”

“In August 2022, Shudder released a new film called ‘Glorious,’” Provorse said, “At one point, the film goes to a completely black screen with some squishy and gross sound effects. Like so many people these days, I keep the subtitles on because my ears are just as bad as modern sound mixing. Anyway, it’s a black screen, gloopy sounds and the subtitle on screen just says [squelching]. And for some medical cannabis-related reason, it struck me as very funny, so I grabbed a screencap and sent it to Michelle with, like, ‘best subtitle ever’ or something. And now she has nearly 2,000 collected subtitles from television and film that include various derivatives of the word ‘squelch’. We’re hoping to get a Guinness World Record out of it.”

“Every time JD tells this story, he gets the movie wrong,” said Roller. “I know for a fact that ‘Glorious’ only contains two [squelching] subtitles, neither of which occur as an invisible squelch where nothing except the subtitle is visible. The movie he actually sent me a screenshot of was ‘Superdeep’, which is a particularly squelchy film. I had already been mentally noting each time I saw a [squelch], [squelching], [squelches], or [squelched] subtitle. It became a running joke after watching season three of ‘Stranger Things’, where each episode contains at least one [tentacles squelching wetly].”

Roller became so passionate about squelch that she even added “The [Squelch] Files" to the podcast’s website and started capturing every squelch subtitle she could find, or squelch hunting.”

“This is now my most time-consuming and strangest hobby.” Roller said. “I don’t even want to tell you how much time I spend tweaking the website gallery. It’s… kind of a problem.”

Of course, with it being Halloween and the subject matter of the podcast, “We Watch Shudder” has plans.

“This is the third year in a row we will be releasing a new episode of the show every day in October to celebrate the season,” said Provorse.

“Spooktober is unsurprisingly our best streaming month each year,” said Roller. “JD put a lot of effort into figuring out this year’s list, and I just let him tell me what to watch and when.”

For those interested in listening, “We Watch Shudder” is on every major podcast delivery platform. The official website is wewatchshudder.com and they are @wewatch shudder on major social media. “I have [squelching] merch, because of course I do,” said Roller. “Pens, stickers, and now little tubs of slime. None of it is for sale. You can just have it.”

Provorse added, “Send us a DM on social media and Michelle will find a way to [squelch] you.”