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‘Rose Red’ Marked the End of Stephen King’s Miniseries Boom [The Losers’ Club Podcast]

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Stephen King’s Rose Red had auspicious beginnings. According to King, it began life as a potential dream collaboration between him and Steven Spielberg, who wanted to make a haunted house movie that echoed Shirley Jackson’s iconic The Haunting of Hill House. King, an avowed fan of Jackson’s masterpiece, ran with the idea but also wove in the legend of the Winchester Mystery House, a West Coast architectural curiosity suffused with eerie lore. He wrote a feature-length script, but creative differences between King and Spielberg plagued the project and it was eventually shelved.

Spielberg would go on to produce 1999’s reviled The Haunting, while King would rework his script as a TV miniseries, a format that’s served him well over the years. ABC brought back Craig R. Baxley, who helmed the affecting Storm of the Century, and turned the three-part series into event television, commissioning a prequel novel (a diary supposedly written by former matriarch of the Rose Red estate) and borrowing some digital marketing tricks from the team behind The Blair Witch Project.

Despite a critical drubbing, Rose Red was a ratings smash. Several members of The Losers’ Club recall watching it when it first aired and they’ve gathered on today’s episode to revisit the estate’s phantom halls. Join Randall Colburn, Jenn Adams, Ana Marie Cox, and Dan Caffrey as they discuss the series’ impressively bizarre ensemble, its wretched CGI, and the surprise tragedy that nearly derailed production.

Stream the episode below and return next week when the Losers unpack one of Stephen King’s favorite novels: Peter Straub’s 1979 horror epic Ghost Story as one of our Danse Macabre book episodes. For further adventures, join the Losers’ Club over long days and pleasant nights via Apple PodcastsSpotifyRadioPublicAcastGoogle Podcasts, and RSS.

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‘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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