Celebrating our 12th Season!
Demented Features host Danvers – America’s favorite LGBTQ+ horror host, brings campy cult classics & wild creature features!
Demented Features
Danvers brings you macabre goodness, classic horror flicks, and sketch comedy straight from the shadows—and probably a cursed basement or two. With a cackle in his voice and a flair for the theatrical, he serves up spine-tingling scares, low-budget brilliance, and laugh-out-loud lunacy like only Demented Features can. Grab your garlic and glitter, ghoul—it’s showtime!
DANVERS
Danvers follows in the legendary footsteps of the Creature Feature hosts of yesteryear, serving up a deliciously deranged mix of schlocky films, campy shorts, and an unhealthy dose of offbeat sketch comedy. With a style that’s equal parts retro horror and outrageous humor, Danvers brings spine-tingling entertainment and fabulous flair to every episode. “Demented Features” is syndicated on television stations across the U.S. and streams to horror fans worldwide—no coffin required.
Demented Features premiered in 2012—right before the Mayan calendar predicted the end of the world. Despite our best efforts to usher in the apocalypse with bad wigs, B-movies, and buckets of fake blood… the world survived. And now, in 2024, Danvers and Demented Features are celebrating 12 horrifyingly fabulous years of campy chaos, cult classics, and creature-feature madness!
Danvers, the fabulously fiendish host of Demented Features, is brought to (after)life by actor John Faust. From campy chaos to creepy characters, Faust brings his unique flair to every performance. Click the button below to explore more of his delightfully demented work—if you dare!
Watch an Episode
Demented Features host Danvers brings you schlocky monsters and campy cult classics.
Watch an episode below, and creep on over to our YouTube channel to uncover a crypt full of terrifying treasures,
bizarre B-movies, and ghoulish giggles galore!
And as the kids say—like, subscribe, and comment…
because ignoring a horror host’s call to action is exactly how people die in the first five minutes of the movie.
Coming Soon!
The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu
Where to watch
- The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu (1929)
- The Taming of the Shrew (1929)
- The Wild Women of Wongo (1958)
- The Great Gabbo (1929)
- The Man Who Laughs (1928)
A Brief History of Horror Hosts and the Genre
Shock Theater
Before streaming platforms, before cable TV—back when rabbit ears ruled the screen—there were horror hosts. These ghoulishly charming characters emerged in the 1950s, rising from the late-night shadows to present old monster movies, B-grade sci-fi flicks, and spooky serials. More than just movie presenters, they were entertainers, comedians, and cultural icons who turned bad films into beloved cult classics with a wink, a pun, and a whole lot of theatrical flair.
It all started with Shock Theater in 1957, a syndicated TV package that brought Universal’s classic monster movies to local stations. To spice up the broadcasts and keep viewers coming back for more, stations added local hosts—vampires, mad scientists, witches, and assorted weirdos—who introduced the films and filled commercial breaks with skits, jokes, and low-budget antics. The genre quickly grew into a phenomenon.
Names like Vampira, Zacherley, Ghoulardi, Elvira, and Svengoolie became household names in their regions, and in some cases, across the country. These horror hosts weren’t just part of the show—they were the show. With their larger-than-life personas and a mix of humor and horror, they transformed cheesy creature features into something magical. Every host had their own style, but the goal was always the same: entertain, engage, and celebrate the strange and unusual.
Danvers Demented Features
Over the decades, horror hosting evolved but never truly died. From local cable access to national TV and now the internet, the genre has proved to be as immortal as a vampire in prime time. Today’s horror hosts continue the tradition with fresh takes, fabulous costumes, and plenty of nods to the legends who came before them. The heart of horror hosting is still the same—celebrating campy cinema, embracing the weird, and connecting with fans who share a love for all things spooky and strange.
At Demented Features, we proudly carry that tradition forward. Danvers, our fabulously fiendish host, brings his own unique twist to the genre, blending sketch comedy, classic public domain horror films, and outrageous commentary in every episode. We honor the pioneers of horror hosting while keeping things fresh, fierce, and full of frightful fun for a new generation of monster kids.
Whether you grew up watching horror hosts on late-night TV or you’re just now discovering the joy of campy cult cinema, there’s a place for you in our wonderfully weird world. So grab your popcorn, dim the lights, and join us in celebrating decades of demented delights—because horror hosts never go out of style… they just get better with age (and maybe a little embalming fluid).