Podcasts
The Literal Battle of Gender Identity in ‘Der Samurai’ [Horror Queers Podcast]
Draw Two.
After getting fancy (and super duper queer) with Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope, we entered the gooey world of David Cronenberg in his masterpiece The Fly and we unpacked the white privilege in Bernard Rose’s Candyman. Now, we’re wielding our katanas and visiting the small German village at the center of Till Kleinert’s psychosexual thriller Der Samurai.
Set in a small German village, Der Samurai sees a bloody game of cat-and-mouse ensue between a young, straight-shooting police officer (Michel Diercks) and a villain (Pit Bukowski) who wears a dress, wields a large sword and has a predilection for beheadings.
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Episode 141 – Der Samurai (2014)
Grab your katana and white dress because we’re heading over to a small German town to discuss the internal struggle of the queer cop at the center of Till Kleinert’s surreal film Der Samurai. Joining us for the discussion is Transploitation co-creator Ten Backe!
Come along for the ride as we wade through the film’s dream logic to interpret what this film is trying to say. We’ve got a look at small town queer life, coming out via baptism, questions surrounding gender identity and one very erect penis.
Plus, attacking queer culture through pink flamingos, decapitations galore, a town literally covered in blood, more Freeway plugs and our beefs with James Woods and Isaiah Washington.
Cross out Der Samurai!
Coming up on Wednesday: We’re finally tackling a top request from listeners: David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows.
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for tons of additional content! This month, we’ll have episodes on Nia DaCosta’s Candyman, James Wan’s Malignant, Netflix’s series Brand New Cherry Flavor, as well as an audio commentary on 30 Days of Night and a minisode on weird horror films.
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.