Podcasts
[Horror Queers Podcast] Women and Their Rowboats in ‘What Keeps You Alive’
Row, Row, Row Your Boat.
Vacation Month kicked off with a deep, uh, cave dive, into one of our personal favorite films: Neil Marshall’s 2005 masterpiece The Descent. Then we explored the world of perversity (and goat-fucking) in Nico Mastorakis’ 1976 video nasty Island of Death. After that, we traveled to Fiji to have our wildest fantasies fulfilled in…..Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island (oof). Now we close out Vacation Month with Colin Minihan‘s under-appreciated 2018 thriller What Keeps You Alive.
In the film, Jackie (Hannah Emily Anderson, Jigsaw, USA Network’s The Purge) and Jules (Brittany Allen, Jigsaw, It Stains the Sands Red, Amazon’s The Boys) are a couple celebrating their first anniversary at a secluded cabin in the woods belonging to Jackie’s family. From the moment they arrive, something changes in Jules’ normally loving wife, as Jackie begins to reveal a previously unknown dark side — all building up to a shocking revelation that will pit Jules against the woman she loves in a terrifying fight to survive.
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, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.
Episode 88 – What Keeps You Alive (2018)
We’re heading to a cabin in the beautiful woods of Muskoka, Ontario to celebrate the anniversary of the two lovely ladies at the center of Colin Minihan’s 2018 thriller What Keeps You Alive!
After discussing the implications of the film changing the protagonists of the original script (a heterosexual couple) to a lesbian couple, we’ll then delve into the film’s only real acknowledgment of the struggles of being gay (in a sequence that is quite personal to Joe). Yet we can’t deny that the film has quite a few insightful things to say about relationships, especially its emphasis on the importance of communication (ya know, so you’re not blindsided by the fact that your spouse is actually a psychopath). That it’s anchored by two stellar lead performances doesn’t hurt, either.
Plus, we’ll (rightly) laud the film’s memorable rowboat set piece (yes, really), gush over the blacklight-lit montage that cleverly uses Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” and feel equally frustrated with the film’s protracted third act.
Cross out What Keeps You Alive!
Coming up on Wednesday: We’re joining Peter Neal on his Italian book tour in Dario Argento’s Tenebrae!
– Joe & Trace
P.S. If you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen to bonus episodes! For August, we’ve got audio commentaries on Deep Blue Sea and The Cabin in the Woods, as well as additional episodes on Deep Blue Sea 3 and Jay Baruchel’s Random Acts of Violence.
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.
You must be logged in to post a comment.