Podcasts
[Horror Queers Podcast] Yet Another Homo-Repressed Bully in Wes Craven’s Dismal ‘Cursed’
Joanie’s Story.
We are now entering the second week of our eight-week camp marathon, and the movies aren’t getting any better! First we looked at the Friday the 13th “film”Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday and now we’re heading to Hollywood to party at the Tinsel club and take Wes Craven‘s Cursed to task.
In the film, two estranged siblings (Christina Ricci and Jesse Eisenberg) are attacked by a werewolf after getting into a car wreck on Mulholland Drive. That might sound exciting, but if you’ve actually seen the movie you’ll know it’s a heaping dumpster fire of a film that even Wes Craven himself disliked. Plagued by re-writes, production delays, re-shoots and re-casts (courtesy of Dimension Films founder Bob Weinstein), Cursed‘s production was, well, cursed. Joe and I aim to find out just what went wrong with this film (and discuss Milo Ventimiglia‘s gay bully Bo as well).
Joining us for the conversation is Los Angeles resident Tim O’Leary, creator of the upcoming queer web series DEMONHUNTR. We will need all the help we can get to figure out what just this cobbled-together Frankenstein’s monster of a film is trying to do!
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, Libsyn, Google Play, and RSS.
Episode 39 – Cursed (2005)
The Horror Queers eight-week camp marathon continues as Joe and Trace journey to Hollywood (barely escaping a car wreck on Mulholland Drive) to visit the hippest new night club since Planet Hollywood: Tinsel. That’s right, they’re discussing Wes Craven’s Cursed! In what seems to be an ongoing trend with these campy movies, the boys discuss the very troubled production for Cursed at length, and try to determine just what the fuck Bob Weinstein was thinking when he demanded the script be re-written when 90% of the film had already been shot.
No one, save for the always reliable Judy Greer, is having any fun in this movie. Kevin Williamson’s script reads as if he was trying to one-up Scream 3‘s Hollywood satire (he fails), poor Christina Ricci is handed some of the worst dialogue you’ll ever hear (“Everybody’s cursed, Jimmy. It’s called life.”).
But hey, it’s not all bad! Topics for discussion include Milo Ventimiglia’s homo-repressed bully Bo, a werewolf giving Christina Ricci the middle finger and the longest plot summary ever. Oh, and man butts and cock socks.
This Week’s Game: Considering the film’s many casting changes, pick one actor that you will substitute out for someone new in order to make this a more enjoyable (but not necessarily better) film.
Cross out Cursed!
Coming up Wednesday: We’re ready for a hoedown as Joe enters my neck of the woods with Kim Henkel’s comedic masterpiece Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (aka the one with Renée Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey)!
– Joe & Trace
P.S. Be sure to check out all of our online articles right here, including September’s article on The Fan (1981).
P.P.S. As an added bonus, if you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen to our full-length bonus episodes on It: Chapter 2 and 3 From Hell.
After winding down June with discussions of our vey first William Castle film Homicidal (listen) and queer director Roland Emmerich’s summer tentpole Independence Day (listen), we’re heading back to 1981 to check out Joe Dante‘s seminal werewolf film The Howling.
The Howling sees television journalist Karen White (Dee Wallace) attend a psychiatric retreat with her husband Bill (Christopher Stone) after being attacked and traumatized by local serial killer Eddie Quist (Robert Picardo). It isn’t long before Karen realizes that the retreat is actually a secret cult of werewolves, and they’ve already got their sights set on Bill.
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 394: The Howling (1981)
Make note of that smiley face sticker and snag that conveniently-placed jar of acid because we’re talking Joe Dante’s stealth werewolf classic The Howling (1981)!
Join us as we discuss the film’s deviations from its source material before doing a deep dive into this very tongue-in-cheek, self-aware horror film. It honestly feels like a precursor to Scream, in many ways!
Plus: Roger Corman (again!) those incredible special effects, differentiating “color movies” from “movies in color,” and why queer icon Elisabeth Brooks has us going “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!”
Cross out The Howling!
Coming Up Next: We’re tackling our very first Ken Russell film with a look at his controversial 1984 erotic thriller Crimes of Passion!
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for over 508 hours of Patreon content including this month’s new episodes on Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Forbidden Fruits, Saccharine, Evil Dead Burn, an audio commentary on Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (aka Howling II: Stirba – Werewolf Bitch), and the conclusion of our coverage of AMC’s The Vampire Lestat on the Requel Tier.