Podcasts
[Horror Queers Podcast] Party Like It’s 1999 With ‘The Rage: Carrie 2’
Looks can kill….asshole teenagers.
The last few weeks on the Horror Queers Podcast (we launched back in mid-January) have resulted in plenty of great discussions and hilarious shenanigans. We’ve tackled Jessica Rothe’s delightful performance in out-and-proud director Christopher Landon‘s 2017 horror-comedy Happy Death Day, brought in a third to discuss the lesbian Rosemary’s Baby-esque film Lyle and discussed the toxic friendship at the center of Always Shine.
In the newest episode, we travel back to 1999 to reevaluate Katt Shea‘s (Poison Ivy) supernatural sequel The Rage: Carrie 2. The film sees Carrie White’s (Sissy Spacek) younger half-sister Rachel (Emily Bergl) discovering her telekinetic powers after her best friend Lisa (Mena Suvari) kills herself. Why does she kill herself, you ask? Well, she learns that the popular guy she recently had sex with (Home Improvement‘s Zachery Ty Bryan) used her to win a game the football team plays where they sleep with girls and receive points.
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, SoundCloud, TuneIn, Libsyn, Google Play, and RSS.
Episode 10 – The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999)
Since the boys got a late start to Women in Horror Month, they’ve decided to continue it into the first week of March! Next up is Katt Shea’s under-appreciated and ahead-of-its-time film The Rage: Carrie 2.
Join Joe and Trace as they take a deep dive into the troubled production of this much-maligned sequel. Topics on the table include but are not limited to: the truly despicable teenage characters, an enormous stuffed dog, Amy Irving’s completely ineffectual guidance counselor, and Mena Suvari’s predilection for projects with the word “American” in the title. And yes, they do address the fact that the remains of the OG Bates High School are still there for some reason.
On a more serious note, they also discuss their experiences with bullying, narrowing them down to what they refer to as their “Carrie Moment.”
Cross out The Rage: Carrie 2!
Coming up Wednesday: we fast forward to the year 2000 with an episode on Geoffrey Wright‘s “kill the virgins” slasher film Cherry Falls, which stars the late (and great) Brittany Murphy and features a somewhat problematic cross-dressing killer.
– Joe & Trace
P.S. Be sure to check out all of our online articles right here.
P.P.S. As an added bonus, if you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen to our in-depth discussion of the remake of The Last House On The Left (2009) to celebrate its 10th(!) anniversary. And dropping at the end of the month: our reactions to Jordan Peele’s Us!
It’s been a busy month on Murder Made Fiction podcast. In addition to introducing a new co-host (Perfectly Good Moment‘s Amanda Jane Stern), we spent Pride Month tackling a wide variety of Leopold and Loeb fictional adaptations.
In 1924 Chicago, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb plotted to commit the perfect murder when they abducted and killed 14-year-old Bobby Franks. As Amanda outlines in her primer on the case, the men were caught almost immediately and the media circus that followed was billed “the trial of the century”.
Listen to Leopold and Loeb mini primer.
The fallout has reverberated throughout the last century as countless books, plays, musicals, and films have drawn on the case for inspiration. Some are more faithful than others, such as Richard Fleischer‘s 1959 drama Compulsion, which stars a young Dean Stockwell as Leopold and Orson Welles as the boys’ lawyer, John Darrow (named Jonathan Wilk in the film).
Listen to Leopold and Loeb: Compulsion (1959).
Then there are the texts that use the idea of queer-coded killers as a jumping off point, but confuse (or flat-out disregard) the details of the real life case in favour of jumbled fiction. That’s what happens in Barbet Schroeder‘s Murder by Numbers, which awkwardly introduces a tortured backstory for lead actress (and executive producer) Sandra Bullock. The result is an uneven film that misunderstands which of its two competing storylines are actually interesting (hint: it’s the Leopold and Loeb stuff with Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt).
Listen to Leopold and Loeb: Murder by Numbers (2002).
We ended up discussing other (often more successful) titles on Patreon, including 1992’s Swoon (a New Queer Cinema art-house take on the crime), Michael Haneke‘s 2007 Funny Games remake, and gay screenwriter Kevin Williamson‘s Scream, which proved to be a much more reverent and sly interpretation of L&L than we anticipated.
We wrapped up the month with a final summary episode about our favorite adaptations before chatting with author and archivist Erik Rebain, who literally wrote the book on Leopold (Arrested Adolescence) and maintains one of the foremost websites on the crime.
Watch our discussion on YouTube below (or listen here):
Next month: For July, we’re turning our attention to the Boston Strangler, with a look at films from 1964 and 1968, as well as the most contemporary version from 2023, starring Kiera Knightley and Carrie Coon.
Want even more true crime adaptations and Murder Made Fiction? Support the show on Patreon to listen to the aforementioned episodes, as well as a full-length primer on the case and 160+ hours of bonus content.
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