Podcasts
[Horror Queers Podcast] External Wombs and Killer Dwarves in David Cronenberg’s ‘The Brood’
The last few weeks on the Horror Queers Podcast have resulted in plenty of great discussions and hilarious shenanigans. We’ve suffered through the misogyny and bees in Neil LaBute’s 2006 remake of The Wicker Man, taken our first journey into video game adaptations with 2014’s Fatal Frame and discussed male-on-male rape (and pig-fucking) in Calvaire.
In the newest episode Joe and I are discussing David Cronenberg‘s classic film The Brood, which follows a man (Art Hindle) uncovering an eccentric psychologist’s (Oliver Reed) therapy techniques on his institutionalized wife (Samantha Eggar), amidst a series of brutal murders committed by a brood of deformed dwarves.
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Episode 21 – The Brood (1979)
Joe drags Trace back to Canada-land to re-visit David Cronenberg’s oeuvre with The Brood, an incredibly light-hearted movie about a woman who births deformed killer dwarves through an external womb.
This week, Joe goes through a lot. Not only does he imagine what his life would be like if David Cronenberg and David Lynch were his two daddies, but he also managed to stick his finger in an electrical socket before the recording began, thereby making his audio sound all staticky.
Trace gets off a bit easier as he is forced to contemplate just what exactly a “milk and orange juice drawer” is, second guess himself on Dr. Raglan’s sexual orientation and deal with his dogs taking over his recording studio.
It’s a fun time for everyone!
Cross out The Brood!
Coming up Wednesday: We delve into experimental soft-core pornography with Bruce LaBruce’s 2008 queer zombie film Otto; or, Up With Dead People. Haven’t seen it? Never fear! It’s currently streaming on Amazon!
– Joe & Trace
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P.P.S. As an added bonus, if you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen to full-length bonus episode on the Zac Efron/Ted Bundy movie Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile, and be on the lookout for an episode on The Perfection next week!
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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