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Stephen King’s 10 Best Stories for Halloween [The Losers’ Club Podcast]

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Stephen King doesn’t really have a Halloween story. The holiday has certainly haunted his works — the Torrances arrive at the Overlook on October 31st, 11.22.63 returns to Derry for trick and treats (and meats), and Johnny Smith has a cheap Jekyll-and-Hyde mask in The Dead Zone — but there’s no true-blue Halloween tale within his never-ending oeuvre.

Instead, you have to find it.

That’s precisely what The Losers’ Club has done. To celebrate the festival of Samhain, they hit the stacks and came back with 10 Stephen King titles everyone ought to read during spooky season. They even consulted with their Constant Listeners to hear what tales they read when the summer sun retreats, a chill lines the air, and the moon arrives early.

Joining the Losers for this essential Halloween special is actress, writer, filmmaker, and Horror Movie Survival Guide host Julia Marchese, whose forthcoming Dollar Baby short, I Know What You Need, is on the way. In addition to the list, they also dream up ideas for a Halloween-set story by King, mull over a Pennywise vs. Freddy Krueger duel, and get a little emotional.

(Note: This conversation was originally recorded in October 2020 for the Losers’ Club Patreon, The Barrens. It has since been unlocked from the Derry Private Library by Mike Hanlon.)

Stream the episode below and return next week when the Losers head to Green Town, Illinois, where they’ll revisit Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. For further adventures, join the Losers’ Club over long days and pleasant nights via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RadioPublic, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS. You can also unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive content in The Barrens (Patreon).

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Podcasts

‘Death Becomes Her’ and the Horror of Aging [The Lady Killers Podcast]

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“This is life’s ultimate cruelty. It offers us a taste of youth and vitality, and then it makes us witness our own decay.”

Is there anything more terrifying than the relentless passage of time? It’s a bitter truth that just when we’ve become accustomed to our bodies, the sands of time turn and we’re forced to watch them slowly break down in a cruel march towards inevitable death. But what if there were a way to stop the aging process – a potion that would return us to our peak physical condition and hold us there until the end of time? Would we take it? And would we eventually find that the blessing of perpetual life is actually a curse? No film explores this dilemma quite like Death Becomes Her. Robert Zemeckis’ 1992 horror comedy pits two showstopping divas against each other for a single spotlight while asking what they would do for eternal youth – and what will be the hidden cost?

Madeline (Meryl Streep) and Helen (Goldie Hawn) are old frenemies with a history of vicious competition. Madeline seems to have won the most recent battle and married Helen’s fiance Ernest (Bruce Willis), but decades later, their marriage is on the rocks and Madeline’s once thriving career is now a thing of the past. When Helen returns with a stunning new look, Madeline turns to unorthodox methods to maintain her feminine dominance. She drinks a potion designed to give her eternal youth, but returns home to find her life turned upside down by her downtrodden husband and jealous “friend.” Having both taken the potion, “Mad” and “Hel” engage in a bitter fight to the death over years of petty snipes and the right to claim the title of Most Desirable Woman.

In their latest episode, The Lady Killers dissect these two glamorous killers and the hidden social commentary in Zemeckis’ iconic film. Co-hosts Jenn AdamsMae Shults, Rocco T. Thompson, and Sammie Kuykendall dish over their own fears of aging, choose their favorite diva, and decide whether they would take the potion should they ever find themselves in Lisle’s (Isabella Rossellini) lavish home. How does the film hit differently when watching as an adult? Could Madeline, Helen, and Ernest ever make a polycule work? Is Lisle a hero or a villain and how does she keep that gorgeous necklace in place? They’ll wrestle with these questions and more in a podcasting shovel battle to the death on this unique horror comedy and one of the most glamorous casts of all time.

Stream below and subscribe now via Apple Podcasts and Spotify for future episodes that drop every Thursday.

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