Podcasts
[Horror Queers Podcast] House, Landscape and Regular Porn in ‘The Handmaiden’
Care for a scissor?
We are finally done with May, everyone! After celebrating Mother’s Day with Paul Solet’s criminally under-seen 2009 film Grace, getting nostalgic with the 1998 animated classic Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island and dancing our hearts out in 1987’s Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II, we’re closing out May with a heavier discussion of Park Chan-wook‘s 2016 masterpiece The Handmaiden.
In the film, which is set in 1930s Japanese-occupied Korea, a young woman (Kim Tae-ri) is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress (Kim Min-hee) who lives a secluded life on a large countryside estate with her domineering uncle (Cho Jin-woong). But, the maid has a secret: she is a pickpocket recruited by a swindler (Ha Jung-woo) posing as a Japanese Count to help him seduce the heiress to elope with him, rob her of her fortune, and lock her up in a madhouse. Everything seems to be proceeding according to plan until the women discover some unexpected emotions.
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Episode 75 – The Handmaiden (2016) feat. Jenny Nulf
Hold on to your minling balls, because we’re heading to Japanese-occupied Korea with return guest Jenny Nulf (check out our previous episode on Fatal Frame) to discuss Park Chan-wook’s masterful and twisty film The Handmaiden.
After a brief history lesson, we dive right into this lengthy little film to marvel at how nothing in Park’s semi-loose adaptation of a Victorian era-set British novel gets lost in translation.
Topics up for discussion include: safe spaces for actors when filming explicit sex scenes, the practicality of scissoring, and various types of porn (house, landscape and regular). Oh, and octopuses.
Cross out The Handmaiden!
Coming up on Wednesday: We’re kicking off Pride Month with a double feature as we trace the evolution of the queer slasher from 2004’s Hellbent to 2018’s Killer Unicorn!
– Joe & Trace
P.S. Check out this month’s article on 1986’s extremely upsetting In a Glass Cage. You can find all of the old articles here.
P.P.S. As an added bonus, if you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen to bonus episodes! Since every new horror release has been delayed, we decided to go with a possession theme this month, so you can listen to full-length episodes on The Taking of Deborah Logan and Insidious, as well as an audio commentary on the unrated cut of 2013’s Evil Dead remake!
On the DL.
After spending June on explicitly queer texts like Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn (listen) and William Castle’s Homicidal (listen), it’s only appropriate that Horror Queers celebrate the American holiday with a blockbuster film with a not-so-secret gay connection.
In Independence Day, an unlikely group of people come together when the human race faces extinction from a threatening alien race. After spaceships destroy every major city, pilot Steven Hiller (Will Smith) must team up with secret tech genius David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum), as well as the US President (Bill Pullman), to execute a daring plan to save the planet from annihilation.
Along for the ride are the two saviors’ romantic partners – WH Communications Director Constance (Margaret Colin) and stripper Jasmine (Vivica A. Fox) – plus eccentric scientist Dr. Okun (Brent Spiner), who is at the center of the film’s most horrific set piece.
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 393: Independence Day (1996)
Today, we celebrate our Independence Day…courtesy of gay German director Roland Emmerich.
As the summer blockbuster celebrates its 30th anniversary, we’re looking back on an alien disaster film that scared young Trace (thanks to that alien autopsy scene) and turned Will Smith into a star.
Plus: the death that upsets the most; bemoaning Vivica A. Fox’s career; pondering what could have been with the casting; why Smith’s bravado and the film’s patriotism doesn’t always work for Joe; and plenty of riffing on the atrocious sequel.
Cross out Independence Day!
Coming Up Next: We’re retreating to the country for some questionable therapy courtesy of Joe Dante’s 1981 classic, The Howling!
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for over 503 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 the utterly ridiculous sequel Howling II: Your Sister Is A Werewolf (1985), and the conclusion of our Requel Tier coverage of AMC’s The Vampire Lestat.