Podcasts
The Prescient Politics of Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien’ [Horror Queers Podcast]
The Perfect Organism.
After kicking off May with discussions of Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy (listen), Trace and I have checked out Audrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark (listen) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Gregg Araki‘s Mysterious Skin (listen).
Now we’re crossing a classic title off our list: Ridley Scott‘s Alien.
Alien tells the story of the crew of the Nostromo as they’re awoken from stasis to answer a distress beacon on a nearby planet. When Kane (John Hurt) is attacked on an alien ship, Warrant Officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) refuses to let Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt) and Navigator Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) back on board with quarantining.
Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm) overrides her command and brings them inside, but as the alien creature on Kane’s face evolves, it becomes clear that there’s more than one antagonist on board the ship and everyone, including Engineers Parker (Yaphet Kotto) and Brett (Harry Dean Stanton), are in danger.
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Episode 283 – Alien (1979)
Grab Jonesy the cat and prep the explosives because we’re celebrating the 45th anniversary of Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979).
This film is all about reproduction and gender (roles) from Sigourney Weaver’s iconic performance as Ripley to the male rape of Kane to the evolving form of the Alien.
It’s also an incredible technical feat, a take-down of capitalism, and a reason why you should never trust Ian Holm when he’s dissecting.
Cross out Alien!
Coming up on Wednesday: After missing it years ago, Trace finally crosses off a bucket list teen girl coming of (r)age film with the Swiss mermaid movie, Blue My Mind (2018)!
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Aaliyah Innocent.
May was a busy subgenre-switching month. After kicking things off with disaster “slasher” The Poseidon Adventure (listen), we watched American Giallo The Fan (listen), then wrapped things up with Vincent Price’s horror comedy Theater of Blood (listen).
Now, in honor of Pride Month and the return of AMC’s Interview with the Vampire (renamed The Vampire Lestat for S03), Trace and I had to check out the straight-washed second attempt to bring Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles to life.
Back in 2002, director Michael Rymer pitched Hollywood on his vision for Rice’s second Chronicle book, The Vampire Lestat. Instead, the suits opted to adapt the third book, Queen of the Damned (likely due to the ancillary opportunities of the soundtrack, written entirely by Korn frontman Jonathan Davis).
In the film, Lestat (Stuart Townsend) awakens from slumber to reinvent himself as a leather-pant-wearing rocker. Lestat’s very public vampire persona attracts the attention of Talamasca novice Jesse (Marguerite Moreau), as well as the vampire’s maker Marius (Vincent Perez). But the nu-metal has the greatest impact on Akasha (Aaliyah), who awakens and promises to take over the world if her old foe Maharet (Lena Olin) doesn’t stop her.
Whose side will Lestat join? Will Marius help his fledgling or abandon him to public sacrifice? And does anyone actually care about Jesse? (Please note: that last question is rhetorical.)
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, TuneIn, Amazon Music, and RSS.
Episode 389: Queen of the Damned (2002)
Practice your Egyptian accent and bare that midriff because we are talking the troubled “adaptation” of Anne Rice’s Queen of the Damned (2002).
Directed by Australian Michael Rymer, this one was doomed by the suits before it was even greenlit (which happened AFTER all of the songs were written by Korn frontman Jonathan Davis). It’s a bit of a clusterfuck.
Plus: praising everything Aaliyah (RIP); critiquing everything Stuart Townsend (aside from his abs and leather pants); a soft queer reading of Marius; and bemoaning boring protagonist/audience surrogate JESSE.
Cross out Queen of the Damned!
Coming Up Next: We’re tackling Ben Stiller’s horror-adjacent dark comedy The Cable Guy (1996), in anticipation of its 30th anniversary!
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