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The Scares That Shaped Us Episode 50: The Stand with C. Robert Cargill

Matthew Jackson

08 Oct 2025 — 1 min read

C. Robert Cargill and I have run in some of the same Austin film spaces for some time now, but we didn't actually meet until Fantastic Fest earlier this year. He was gracious enough to agree to come on the podcast, and as luck would have it, his visit coincides with our landmark 50th episode.

And it's a good one! We talk about Cargill's writing process, his collaboration with Scott Derrickson, his writing advice doled out across social media, and of course, Black Phone 2. I loved that film, as I wrote about over at Pop Heist, so I was eager to dig into that, but I was also thrilled with Cargill's chosen topic.

We're discussing The Stand, but not just The Stand. It's one very particular part of The Stand, the famous "no great loss" 38th chapter of very short stories about other Captain Trips survivors. For both Cargill and I, this piece of writing tucked in the middle of a massive novel opened up the world of horror prose in a way nothing else did, and we had a lot of fun talking about it.

Listen below:

And of course, for every episode of the show, check out our episode archive.

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