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Lady Scientists and a Mutant Bear in Alex Garland’s ‘Annihilation’ [Horror Queers Podcast]

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11 months ago

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Horror Queers Annihilation

Refraction action.

After closing out April with a look at the hagsploitation classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, we kicked off May with a deathly serious look at Gus Van Sant’s pseudo-Columbine adaptation Elephant. Now we continue the month with a look at Alex Garland’s dense and trippy 2018 film Annihilation.

Annihilation sees Lena (Natalie Portman), a biologist and former soldier, join a mission to uncover what happened to her husband (Oscar Isaac) inside Area X — a sinister and mysterious phenomenon that is expanding across the American coastline. Alongside a team of four other women comprised of paramedic Anya (Gina Rodriguez), physicist Josie (Tessa Thompson), psychologist Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and geomorphologist Cass (Tuva Novotny), Lena discovers a world of mutated landscapes and creatures, as dangerous as it is beautiful, that threatens both their lives and their sanity.

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 231: Annihilation (2018)

Get ready to mutate because we’re heading into the weird, wonderful and terrifying world of Alex Garland’s Annihilation (2018)! Joining us for the conversation are Alma and Dalia of the Nightmare on 5th Street podcast!

Join us as we try our best to analyze this admittedly dense film, with discussions on how it works as an adaptation, the casting controversy, the likability of certain characters and (of course) that weird as hell climax.

Plus: refraction action, horrifying mutated bears, cancer metaphors and one giant soap bubble.

Cross out Annihilation!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re checking out the ridiculous camp of the 1994 dinosaur romance Tammy and the T-Rex!

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for more than 243 hours of additional content! This month we’re going all in on Evil Dead with an episode on  Evil Dead Rise, our thoughts on the whole Evil Dead franchise, and an audio commentary on the original 1981 film.  Plus: we’ll have episodes on Amazon Prime’s queer as fuck Dead Ringers series, and the Lulu Wilson-starring The Wrath of Becky.

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A journalist for Bloody Disgusting since 2015, Trace writes film reviews and editorials, as well as co-hosts Bloody Disgusting's Horror Queers podcast, which looks at horror films through a queer lens. He has since become dedicated to amplifying queer voices in the horror community, while also injecting his own personal flair into film discourse. Trace lives in Austin, TX with his husband and their two dogs. Find him on Twitter @TracedThurman

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Podcasts

The Double ‘Othering’ of David in ‘An American Werewolf in London’ [Horror Queers Podcast]

Published

3 days ago

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April 15, 2024

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After concluding March with Raja Gosnell’s Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (listen) and James Whale’s The Invisible Man (listen), we kicked off April with a discussion of  Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley (listen).
Now we’re checking off another classic with John Landis‘ 1981 werewolf film, An American Werewolf in London.
In the film, American best friends David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne) are horrifically attacked while backpacking through the UK Moors. Jack is killed and David spends a month recuperating in the hospital, where he befriends attractive nurse Alex (Jenny Agutter) and kindly Dr. Hirsch (John Woodvine).
On the cusp of his release, the mangled corpse of Jack visits David, warning that on the full moon he will become a lycanthrope unless he kills himself. But David is unable to accept his fate and a series of terrible murders follow.
As the bodies (and the comedy) pile up, the question becomes: what will David, Alex, and Dr. Hirsch do to stop the deaths?
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, Google Podcasts, and RSS.
Episode 277: An American Werewolf in London (1981)
Try not to wolf out because we’re talking about John Landis’ classic, An American Werewolf in London (1981). Backpacking along with us is Xero Gravity, who went on a werewolf binge and has recommendations!
Up for discussion: Alex’s underdeveloped character, urban set pieces, dirty movie theaters, and British rural horror.
Plus: a queer reading of David and Jack’s relationship, Jewish horror, an unsexy sex scene, and extended tangents about werewolf anatomy.

Cross out An American Werewolf in London!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re undergoing a risky experimental treatment for a “different” kind of child with Netflix’s 2019 title, Eli.

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for over 302 hours of Patreon content including this month’s new episodes on Hannibal S01E04, Late Night with the Devil, The First Omen, Femme, Abigail and a brand new audio commentary on the original The Omen (1976).

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