Podcasts
[Horror Queers Podcast] An Unexpectedly Positive Queer Reading of ‘Martyrs’
Spoiler Warning: The Movie
February has been a bit all over the place when it comes to our film programming, hasn’t it? First we celebrated Joe’s birthday with an in-depth discussion on the troubled production of Hellraiser: Bloodline (aka Pinhead goes to space!) and then joined in on the Valentine’s Day festivities with the ladies from Double A Horror Highway to discuss the love at the center of Single White Female. Now we’re taking another look at female friendship with Pascal Laugier‘s 2008 film Martyrs. Yay?
In the film, two young women (Mylène Jampanoï and Morjana Alaoui), who were both victims of abuse as children, embark on a bloody quest for revenge only to find themselves plunged into a living hell of depravity.
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Episode 61 – Martyrs (2008)
You asked for it (well, at least one of you did), and so we are finally covering the listeners’ choice that was selected from our 2019 Listener Survey! That’s right, we’re discussing Pascal Laugier’s controversial 2008 film Martyrs (or the most anti-spoiler film ever made)! Big thanks to listener Brian Conmy for helping us pull the trigger on covering this masterful and deeply upsetting film.
Major trigger warnings for anyone who has never seen Martyrs, because this film is one of the most disturbing films ever made. That’s not hyperbole!
Join us as we discuss what might be the most extreme example of white privilege ever put on screen (seriously, these people are so rich that they seemingly have all the time in the world to torture young women just so they can find out what happens after we die) and assign a few different readings to the film, including a very positive queer reading that might turn a few people around on the film.
We’ll also try to answer questions that have followed the film since its 2008 release, including but not limited to: Is its torture porn? Is it misogynistic? Does it have a purpose? Why would someone make this endurance test of a film?
Oh! And as an added bonus, both of us secretly watched the 2015 American remake without telling the other one, so we spend a little bit of time comparing the two films (hint: the original is better).
Cross out Martyrs!
Coming up on Wednesday: We’re celebrating my birthday next week by letting me finally make Joe watch Jordan Rubin’s 2014 classic creature feature Zombeavers!
– Joe & Trace
P.S. Be sure to check out all of our online articles right here and read our latest on 1971’s Doctor Jekyll and Sister Hyde.
P.P.S. As an added bonus, if you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen our audio commentary on 2001’s Valentine, as well as a full-length episode on Blumhouse’s latest disaster Fantasy Island.
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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