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.
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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