Podcasts
Rewriting the Rules and (Re)Inventing the Requel With ‘Scream’ 2022 [Horror Queers Podcast]
For Wes
After spending our birthday month talking about ‘Weird Sex’ films like Videodrome, 1981’s Possession, Tusk and Wolf, last week Trace and I jumped back to the 60s to tackle an iconic UK spooky flick with The Haunting.
With the release of Scream 6 this past week, it only made sense to open the Patreon vault and revisit Scream (2022), Radio Silence’s ode to Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson’s iconic slasher franchise.
In the film, 10 years have passed since the last massacre in Woodsboro. When Tara (Jenna Ortega) is attacked in her house, her estranged older sister Sam (Melissa Barrera) returns home with her faithful boyfriend (Jack Quaid) in tow. When more people are killed, a new generation of suspects and victims emerges with ties to legacy characters.
It’s quickly deduced by twins Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad (Mason Gooding), as well as Sheriff Judy Hicks (Marley Shelton)’s son Wes (Dylan Minette), that someone is making a real life “Requel” to get the stalled Stab franchise back on track.
Can the group, which grows to include original trio Sidney (Neve Campbell), Gale (Courteney Cox) and Dewey (David Arquette), unmask the killer or killers before it’s too late? It’s always someone you know!
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 220 – Scream (2022)
We’re unlocking the Patreon vault with last year’s episode on Scream (2022) – with bonus new content around the 1:57 mark!
We’re covering *everything*, including “Re-quel” rules, what we think of the new cast (Barrera! Ortega! Savoy Brown!), our fave set pieces, how the legacy characters are handled, as well as the film’s controversial elements, including that cameo and the killer[s] motivation.
Plus: what we expect from a (now confirmed, but at the time hypothetical) sixth entry and our updated franchise ranking!
Cross out Scream!
Coming up on Wednesday: We’re celebrating the 25th anniversary of John McNaughton’s deliciously trashy Erotic Thriller Wild Things (1998)!
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for more than 231 hours of additional content! This month, we’ve got episodes on on The Outwaters, HBO’s adaptation of The Last of Us, 65 and, of course, Scream VI, along with audio commentaries on both Scream (2022) and The Strangers: Prey at Night.
Maybe you haven’t thought about your good friend Sweeney Todd in a while, or maybe you have. The 2007 movie is a bit of a memory, though a fond one – it has a healthy 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, for what it’s worth. But 2023’s Broadway revival starring Josh Groban, who your mom thinks is “so talented” (she’s right!), was enough of a hit that its run was extended.
It appears we’re in a bit of a Sweeneyssaince.
For the uninitiated, Sweeney Todd is the story of a barber who kills his customers and disposes of the bodies by passing them off to pie shop owner Mrs. Lovett, who uses them as a special ingredient. But there’s more below the trap door.
Sweeney Todd isn’t just a late 70s musical that turned into a movie; it started as a penny dreadful called The String of Pearls: A Domestic Romance (author unknown), told week-to-week in the 1840s. Penny dreadfuls were essentially fiction zines featuring serialized stories that were usually horror-based and cost a penny, leading to the very literal nickname.
The String of Pearls differs from the more well-known Sweeney Todd plot in that it follows the investigation of a missing persons case that leads to the reveal of Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett’s arrangement, as opposed to the more modern iteration which treats audiences to the duo hatching their homicidal plan and then giving the worst haircuts ever. What a delightfully wild reveal that must have been if you were a reader in Victorian London after weeks of wondering what had become of the missing sailor carrying a string of pearls to deliver to a lovely girl.
Kristen and Will discuss the history and future of Sweeney Todd and works inspired by it this week on Guide to the Unknown. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts to get a new episode every Friday.
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