Podcasts
Repressed Sexuality, Ghosts and Bad Children in ‘The Innocents’ [Horror Queers Podcast]
Dabbling and Dawdling.
March wound up being a wild month that offered something for everyone: Trace and I revisited two horror franchises with looks at Bride of Chucky and Friday the 13th Part 7. We went classy for French foreign horror Diabolique, slept through bland American thriller The Skulls, and tackled our first parody in Scary Movie 2.
We’re kicking off April with a classic Gothic Horror film in Jack Clayton‘s The Innocents. This adaptation of Henry James‘ The Turn of the Screw finds Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr) arriving at Bly Manor to look after two increasingly erratic children.
Are Miles and Flora being possessed by the ghosts of the deceased lovers who died on the grounds…or are the children playing a cruel trick on their sexually repressed, religious governess?
The best thing about The Innocents is that the argument can be made for both readings!
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Episode 120 – The Innocents (1961)
This week on the pod, we’re headed back to Bly Manor with Jack Clayton’s 1961 classic, The Innocents (see also: last year’s Patreon episode on The Haunting of Bly Manor). This classic Gothic Horror film is reminiscent of Diabolique, Rebecca and The Haunting and has a strong queer connection thanks to screenwriter Truman Capote, whom we discuss at length, including Trace’s hatred of Holly Golightly.
Plus: an influential 15th-century picture book, Cinemascope challenges, the genesis of Austin Powers, and evil children. But the real question is whether Miss Giddens is going mad…or are there actually ghosts?
Cross out The Innocents!
Coming up on Wednesday: We’re revisiting the most celebrated horror film in Oscar history with a look at The Silence of the Lambs.
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for tons of additional content! April is unofficially video game horror month with episodes on Monster Hunter (2021), as well as both Mortal Kombat films (1995 and 2021). Plus minisodes on the Best Jump Scares and our wrap up of Sundance and SXSW.
– Joe & Trace
Aaliyah Innocent.
May was a busy subgenre-switching month. After kicking things off with disaster “slasher” The Poseidon Adventure (listen), we watched American Giallo The Fan (listen), then wrapped things up with Vincent Price’s horror comedy Theater of Blood (listen).
Now, in honor of Pride Month and the return of AMC’s Interview with the Vampire (renamed The Vampire Lestat for S03), Trace and I had to check out the straight-washed second attempt to bring Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles to life.
Back in 2002, director Michael Rymer pitched Hollywood on his vision for Rice’s second Chronicle book, The Vampire Lestat. Instead, the suits opted to adapt the third book, Queen of the Damned (likely due to the ancillary opportunities of the soundtrack, written entirely by Korn frontman Jonathan Davis).
In the film, Lestat (Stuart Townsend) awakens from slumber to reinvent himself as a leather-pant-wearing rocker. Lestat’s very public vampire persona attracts the attention of Talamasca novice Jesse (Marguerite Moreau), as well as the vampire’s maker Marius (Vincent Perez). But the nu-metal has the greatest impact on Akasha (Aaliyah), who awakens and promises to take over the world if her old foe Maharet (Lena Olin) doesn’t stop her.
Whose side will Lestat join? Will Marius help his fledgling or abandon him to public sacrifice? And does anyone actually care about Jesse? (Please note: that last question is rhetorical.)
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 389: Queen of the Damned (2002)
Practice your Egyptian accent and bare that midriff because we are talking the troubled “adaptation” of Anne Rice’s Queen of the Damned (2002).
Directed by Australian Michael Rymer, this one was doomed by the suits before it was even greenlit (which happened AFTER all of the songs were written by Korn frontman Jonathan Davis). It’s a bit of a clusterfuck.
Plus: praising everything Aaliyah (RIP); critiquing everything Stuart Townsend (aside from his abs and leather pants); a soft queer reading of Marius; and bemoaning boring protagonist/audience surrogate JESSE.
Cross out Queen of the Damned!
Coming Up Next: We’re tackling Ben Stiller’s horror-adjacent dark comedy The Cable Guy (1996), in anticipation of its 30th anniversary!
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for over 495 hours of Patreon content including this month’s new episodes on Hannibal Season 3 Episodes 5 & 6, Backrooms, Passenger, Leviticus, an audio commentary on the original Scary Movie (2000), and the return of our Requel Tier as we begin our episode coverage of AMC’s The Vampire Lestat.