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In this spine-tingling episode, we watch the 1962 psychological thriller "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" and dive deep into the hagsploitation film subgenre it spawned. When Hollywood legends Bette Davis and Joan Crawford found themselves discarded by studios as they aged, they turned to horror – creating a film that both exploited and empowered ageing women in cinema.

We explore how society's fear of ageing women transforms them into monstrous figures on screen. From Baby Jane's disturbing childlike makeup on an elderly face to the twisted sister dynamic, this film confronts our cultural anxieties about women who dare to age visibly.

The episode also unpacks the infamous feud between Davis and Crawford, Hollywood's persistent ageism, and why these "psycho-biddy" films found devoted audiences in queer communities. We trace hagsploitation's evolution from the 1960s to contemporary examples like "X" and "The Substance," revealing how little has changed in Hollywood's treatment of women over the age of 50.

Join us as we brush the cobwebs off this terrifying tale, shedding light on what makes ageing women both feared and fascinating in horror cinema.

Key moments

• 02:40 – "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" plot overview
• 07:35 – The birth of hagsploitation
• 10:52 – Hollywood's war on ageing women
• 14:39 – The double-edged sword of hagsploitation
• 19:51 – Abjection and the monstrous-feminine
• 30:28 – Screen queens and drag queens
• 32:40 – Bette vs. Joan
• 34:50 – Hagsploitation makes a comeback

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What do the White Witch of Jamaica’s Rose Hall and New Orleans tour staple Madame LaLaurie have in common? They're both infamous female figures in ghost lore, accused of monstrous violence during the era of slavery. But dig a little deeper, and a more disturbing truth emerges. Annie Palmer – the so-called White Witch – never existed, and Delphine LaLaurie’s real crimes were reshaped into gothic horror for public consumption. In this episode, we unpack how gendered narratives helped white societies displace guilt over slavery onto individual women.

Using the monstrous-feminine as a lens, we explore how these legends reflect colonial anxieties, racial taboos, and the fear of women wielding power. Why are Annie and Delphine the most famous symbols of slave-owning cruelty, while male perpetrators fade into obscurity?

Join Paranormal Pajama Party as we look past the ghost stories and uncover the systems that wrote these women into history as convenient villains.

Key moments

• 0:42 – A dutiful wife… and a murderess?
• 13:31 – From torture chamber to wedding venue
• 14:50 – The White Witch who never lived
• 18:26 – No villains needed – slavery was hell
• 22:53 – Delphine LaLaurie: monstrous and real
• 25:58 – When women become symbols
• 31:37 – The lady becomes a monster
  
  

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Join me to examine one of Japan's most influential ghost stories – Botan Dōrō (The Peony Lantern). This tale of love beyond death helped establish the archetype of the long-haired vengeful female ghost in Japanese horror. When handsome samurai Shinzaburō falls for the beautiful Otsuyu, their love seems destined for tragedy. Unluckily for him, even death won't keep them apart.

We'll explore how this story evolved from a Chinese Buddhist morality tale into a cornerstone of Japanese horror, spawning countless adaptations from kabuki theatre to erotica. Learn how changing attitudes toward women's spiritual power in feudal Japan gave rise to the vengeful female ghost trope, and what samurai’s wives were up to while their husbands were out fighting each other.

This ghostly tale of passion and promises reveals the impossible standards faced by samurai women – and why even death itself couldn't free them from society's expectations.

Key moments:

• 0:48 – Botan Doro, or, The Peony Lantern
• 15:25 – Historical Japan, women, and spirits
• 17:50 – Gender roles among samurai
• 20:49 – Otsuyu as a monster girl
• 23:05 – Oyoné's emotional labour
• 25:18 – Who's the stronger samurai?
• 28:41 – A word about Rangda, Barong, and hope

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This episode of "Paranormal Pajama Party" is spine-chilling – but not because of the paranormal parts.
We're headed back to Scotland to discuss the North Berwick Witch Trials – a dark chapter of history that inspired Shakespeare's most infamous witches and exposed the terrifying mechanisms of patriarchal violence. Meet Agnes Sampson, Gilleis Duncan, and Euphame MacCalzean – three women caught in a deadly web of royal paranoia, religious persecution, and systemic misogyny.
Set against the backdrop of King James VI's tumultuous reign, this episode exposes the brutal methods of torture, the gendered violence of witch hunts, and how a young king's insecurities fueled a campaign of femicide that would claim nearly 3,000 lives across Scotland.
From magical midnight meetings to royal wedding storms, we'll trace how these women's stories inspired centuries of witch folklore. This episode's stories serve as a reminder that the mechanisms of oppression may change, but the impulse to silence and control women remains disturbingly consistent.

Key moments

• 0:55 – King James, Anne of Denmark, and the Contrary Winds
• 10:11 – King James VI and I's chaotic backstory
• 15:33 – King James kicks off the North Berwick Witch Trials
• 17:55 – Agnes Sampson, the Wise Wife of Keith
• 19:03 – The Scold's Bridle
• 24:49 – Euphame MacCalzean and the King James Bible
• 29:20 – Margaret Aitken and Marion Walker
• 31:56 – Shakespeare starts writing "Macbeth"
• 34:52 – Witches of Scotland and Nicola Sturgeon's apology

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What do a trickster forest goblin, a horse-faced seductress, a desert phantom, and a deer-footed avenger have in common? They’re not just the stuff of nightmares – they’re symbols of women as society’s moral guardians.

In this episode of “Paranormal Pajama Party”, you’ll meet the Shishiga, the Siguanaba, Umm al-Duwais, and the Deer Woman – female monsters tasked with warning, protecting, and punishing men who transgress societal moral codes. These ladies, while terrifying, are also a lens we can use to explore how women have been historically cast as moral guardians. From their cultural roots in folklore to their modern-day counterparts, these figures embody a paradox: women are expected to uphold society’s moral fabric yet are often demonised for doing so.

In this episode, we talk about this complex expectation of women, connecting it to the Cult of True Womanhood, the suffrage and temperance movements, and the modern-day emotional labour women continue to bear. We’ll also discuss how public figures like Greta Thunberg and Senator Katie Britt have become modern moral authorities – and then face misogynistic backlash when they step into this role.

Why do women’s moral efforts often go unappreciated, even when they lead to positive change? Why are we expected to shoulder this burden without recognition? We unpack these questions and explore how the modern concept of emotional labour is merely a rebranded version of women’s historical role as society’s moral enforcers.

Tune in to “Paranormal Pajama Party” for a spooky yet insightful exploration of folklore, feminist thought, and the evolving roles of women in societal change.

Key moments

• 0:00 – Content warning
• 0:59 – Umm al-Duwais on the streets of Al-Satwa
• 4:23 – Meet the Shishiga, Umm al-Duwais, the Siguanaba, and the Deer Woman
• 7:27 – Female monsters as guardians of morality
• 14:28 – Women's moral guardianship paradox
• 17:49 – Burying the hatchet with Carrie Nation
• 22:04 – Emotional labour is the new Cult of Domesticity

If you’re enjoying the show, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review Paranormal Pajama Party to help others discover it!

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Welcome to America's Most Haunted House... or is it? Tonight, we’re partying at the Myrtles Plantation, where the famous ghost of an enslaved girl named Chloe is said to roam the halls.

But as we unpack this classic Southern ghost story, we'll discover something far more unsettling than any supernatural presence – the way America uses ghost tourism to process (or avoid processing) its history of slavery.

From gift shop dolls of murdered enslaved people to invented haunted histories, we'll explore how plantation tourism often makes real historical trauma more “palatable” for visitors – and why that's exactly what we shouldn't be doing. Plus: Why is it okay to run ghost tours at plantations, but not at other sites of historical tragedy?

Get ready for a thought-provoking episode about ghost stories, historical memory, and America's complicated relationship with its past.

Key moments:

• 1:17 - An encounter with Chloe at the Myrtles Plantation
• 6:34 - The Myrtles Plantation's early history
• 8:59 - America's Most Haunted House
• 13:23 - Slavery in the Mississippi-Delta
• 21:11 - The problematic truth about Chloe and Cleo
• 24:08 - How America deals with its dark history

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Hillary Clinton and the Lizard People | 27

Put on your tinfoil hat and grab your favourite pantsuit – “Paranormal Pajama Party” is back! In the Season 3 premiere, Steph connects the dots between confused Victorian lemur scientists and modern-day conspiracy theories about lizard people running the world. (It makes more sense than you'd think.)

Join us for a wild ride through the peculiar world of reptilian conspiracies, where we discover how theories about shape-shifting aliens somehow wound up tangled with gender politics and presidential pantsuits. Steph digs into why powerful women like Hillary Clinton keep getting cast as everything from robots to reptiles – and what our monster-making tendencies reveal about society's complicated relationship with female leadership.

From David Icke's cosmic energy smoothies to Hollywood's hangup on sinister women in power suits, this episode unpacks how conspiracy theories reflect our deepest anxieties about changing power structures. It turns out that when marginalised people start climbing the political ladder, our collective imagination gets pretty creative.

Listen now for a fascinating exploration of gender, power, and why some people think our world leaders might need a heat lamp to survive.

Key moments

• 1:16 – The Lizard King
• 8:56 – Where the reptilian conspiracy theory came from
• 19:47 – Real-world consequences of the reptilian theory
• 30:15 – Examining Hillary Clinton's complicated feminist legacy
• 39:45 – Female politicians and the double bind
• 42:09 – Politics, gender, and pop culture

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I get it. It’s hard to be a woman. Almost as hard as it is to be a monster.

Get ready for a spine-tingling third season of Paranormal Pajama Party!

This fortnightly podcast explores folklore and the horror genre with a feminist twist. Each episode uncovers chilling tales of female phantoms, femme fatales, and supernatural beings, shedding light on the societal fears that often shape these spooky stories.

From haunted houses to vengeful spirits, Paranormal Pajama Party shoves a flashlight into the dark corners of folklore and legend, examining how society's anxieties about women manifest in these paranormal tales. The podcast is a must-listen for any fan of horror, the supernatural or women's history.

Catch up on the first two seasons now on your favourite podcast app or at paranormalpjparty.com. New episodes drop soon, so be sure to subscribe for your weekly dose of ghostly lore and feminist insights.

Don’t forget: Ghosts have stories. Women have voices. Dare to listen.

If you’re enjoying the show, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review Paranormal Pajama Party to help others discover it!

View all my sources for each episode and read the episode transcript here.

Follow @ParanormalPJParty on Instagram.