Podcasts
[Horror Queers Podcast] Exploring Toxic Masculinity in ‘Better Watch Out’
Power Rangers.
The month of December has been dominated by holiday horror so far. Trace and I have tackled Krampus and the ill-advisedly-released-at-Christmas animated film, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.
Now it’s time to dissect a new classic: queer director Chris Peckover‘s Better Watch Out.
In the film, teenage babysitter Ashley (Olivia DeJonge), her young charge Luke (Levi Miller) and his best friend Garrett (Ed Oxenbould) are caught up in a home invasion. Events quickly and unexpectedly spiral out of control to include Ashley’s boyfriend Ricky (Aleks Mikic) and her ex-boyfriend Jeremy (Dacre Montgomery) in a film where not everything is as it seems.
The podcast does contain MAJOR spoilers, so be sure to watch the film before listening if you haven’t already seen it!
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, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.
Episode 104 – Better Watch Out (2016) feat. Ariel Fisher
This week on the pod, we’re wrapping up the holiday season with queer writer/director Chris Peckover’s 2016 film Better Watch Out. We’re joined by returning guest Ariel Fisher and…well let’s just say that both the film and the discussion go places that you might not expect.
Big, flashing SPOILER WARNINGS for the film, as well as We Summon the Darkness.
Also: TRIGGER WARNING. We get into some heavy, uncomfortable, challenging topics, including rape, sexual assault, toxic masculinity and microaggressions. Take care of yourself before listening.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though: there’s also a running gag about the Power Rangers movie.
Cross out Better Watch Out!
Coming up on Wednesday: We’re taking a week off for the holidays, but rest assured that we’re still dropping a “new to most folks” episode. For its 20th anniversary this year, we’re looking back on Tarsem Singh’s The Cell with the release of the audio from our Nightstream Festival appearance back in October!
– Joe & Trace
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for tons of additional content! For December, we’re digging into the top horror stories of 2020 and our Best films of the year. Plus: full length episodes on Possessor, Freaky and an audio commentary on Dial Code Santa Claus, the R-rated Home Alone film that came out before Home Alone!
After kicking off July with discussions of Joe Dante’s seminal werewolf film The Howling (listen) and Ken Russell’s controversial erotic thriller Crimes of Passion (listen), we’re heading to Maine to dissect one of Stephen King‘s most misguided adaptations in Lawrence Kasdan‘s 2003 misfire Dreamcatcher!
Dreamcatcher sees friends Henry (Thomas Jane), Jonesy (Damian Lewis), Pete (Timothy Olyphant) and Beaver (Jason Lee) reunite for their annual hunting trip in Maine. Their reunion is cut short when they find themselves caught in the middle of a war between a hostile race of farty-farty aliens and an elite US military unit led by Colonel Abraham Curtis (Morgan Freeman), who has been driven mad after spending decades tracking the extraterrestrials. When Jonesy is possessed by one of the aliens, the remaining friends seek out their disabled childhood friend Duddits (Donnie Wahlberg), who they believe has powers that can save Jonesy…and the world.
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 396: Dreamcatcher (2003)
Watch out for “ister gay” (oof), take some Gas-X and bite our bags because we’re talking Lawrence Kasdan’s baffling 2003 adaptation of Stephen King’s equally baffling novel Dreamcatcher.
Join us as we go all in on the farty-farty aliens populating this hilarious misfire that often feels like a bad Kevin Smith script. It’s a film filled with characters who get a single defining trait (if they’re lucky), played by respectable actors who are here for the paycheck (looking at you, Morgan Freeman).
Plus: blown-out assholes, using guns as telephones, pitying poor Donnie Wahlberg, and wondering why the hell this movie is called Dreamcatcher.
Cross out Dreamcatcher!
Coming Up Next: We’re going to be lounging around a posh Greenwich Village apartment as we check in on Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954).
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for over 513 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 Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (aka Howling II: Stirba – Werewolf Bitch), and the conclusion of our coverage of AMC’s The Vampire Lestat on the Requel Tier.