Podcasts
[Horror Queers Podcast] The Queer Love Story at the Heart of ‘Copycat’
Squirrel Covers.
After closing out October with the one-two punch of Halloween horror in Trick ‘r Treat and Hocus Pocus, we are now shifting gears for November as we look at Jon Amiel‘s vastly underrated 1995 thriller Copycat!
The film sees Dr. Helen Hudson (Sigourney Weaver) deeply shaken after being assaulted by a deranged man (Harry Connick Jr.). She must now face her fears if she is to help solve a series of murders. Helen is a psychologist who has studied serial killers, but this case, in which the crimes seem modeled on the work of infamous deviants, is grimmer than most. With the help of two San Francisco police officers (Holly Hunter, Dermot Mulroney), Helen tries to come between the murderer and his next victim.
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Episode 98 – Copycat (1995)
“We’re comin’ at ya this week with a very special episode (no, not that kind) in the form of the episode we did for Salem Horror Fest on Jon Amiel’s vastly underrated (and under-seen) 1995 film Copycat! Joining us for the discussion is the director of Salem Horror Fest themself: K Lynch!
“Join us as we wax poetic over the incredible performances of Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter and the implied lesbianism between their characters, raise our eyebrows at Harry Connick Jr’s “squirrel covers”-obsessed serial killer, and debate whether or not killing off the only explicitly gay character is homophobic.
“Plus, we’ll lament the fact that Copycat fell under the shadow of Se7en, which was released just a month prior. But never fear! We’ll sing the film’s praises and point out all the things it gets right, and why it should be remembered as a classic ’90s thriller.”
Cross out Copycat!
Coming up on Wednesday: We’re going to be discussing a film directed by previous queer guest Carter Smith (see our episode on The People Under the Stairs) in the 2008 killer plant movie The Ruins!
– Joe & Trace
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for tons of additional content! This month we’ll have episodes on Run, The Witches, The Craft: Legacy and The New Mutants, plus an audio commentary on The Purge: Election Year to pair with this month’s stressful election!
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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