Podcasts
‘Full Dark, No Stars’: Stephen King’s ‘Big Driver’ Hits the Gas With a Complex Revenge Story [The Losers’ Club Podcast]
“How many unsuspected selves could a person have, hidden deep inside? She was beginning to think the number might be infinite.”
As the temperatures continue to drop and the autumn leaves begin to fall, there’s nothing more pleasant than a long, leisurely drive down a picturesque country road. Unless, the driver is Stephen King. Any road trip navigated by the Master of Horror is bound to twist and turn through the darkest recesses of the human heart. After traveling back to the year 1922, The Losers’ Club continues their coverage of King’s disturbing collection Full Dark, No Stars by shining a light on the rape-revenge tale Big Driver.
Tess Thorne loves to drive. After delivering a lunchtime lecture in Chicopee, Massachusetts, the cozy mystery writer avoids the turnpike in favor of a rural detour and uncovers a hellish trap worse than anything within the pages of her Knitting Society novels. Armed with a GPS she affectionately calls Tom, Tess embarks on a harrowing journey of revenge that will cause her to embrace the dark versions of herself she never knew existed.
Like King’s novella, this episode is not for the faint of heart. Join Jenn Adams, Randall Colburn, and Justin Gerber as they dive into the world of rape-revenge storytelling, including the subject’s controversial nature and classic examples of the subgenre both old and new. Together, they discuss King’s treatment of female characters, the healing power of community, and the story’s beautifully upsetting prose that helps normalize an all-too-familiar experience. Sometimes, the worst monsters are the ones we encounter on the sunniest of days.
Stream the episode below and return next week as the Losers dive head-first into October. Continue cruising through the club’s extensive catalogs via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RadioPublic, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS. You can also unlock hundreds of hours of content in The Barrens (Patreon) — including their latest book episode on Holly.
Aaliyah Innocent.
May was a busy subgenre-switching month. After kicking things off with disaster “slasher” The Poseidon Adventure (listen), we watched American Giallo The Fan (listen), then wrapped things up with Vincent Price’s horror comedy Theater of Blood (listen).
Now, in honor of Pride Month and the return of AMC’s Interview with the Vampire (renamed The Vampire Lestat for S03), Trace and I had to check out the straight-washed second attempt to bring Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles to life.
Back in 2002, director Michael Rymer pitched Hollywood on his vision for Rice’s second Chronicle book, The Vampire Lestat. Instead, the suits opted to adapt the third book, Queen of the Damned (likely due to the ancillary opportunities of the soundtrack, written entirely by Korn frontman Jonathan Davis).
In the film, Lestat (Stuart Townsend) awakens from slumber to reinvent himself as a leather-pant-wearing rocker. Lestat’s very public vampire persona attracts the attention of Talamasca novice Jesse (Marguerite Moreau), as well as the vampire’s maker Marius (Vincent Perez). But the nu-metal has the greatest impact on Akasha (Aaliyah), who awakens and promises to take over the world if her old foe Maharet (Lena Olin) doesn’t stop her.
Whose side will Lestat join? Will Marius help his fledgling or abandon him to public sacrifice? And does anyone actually care about Jesse? (Please note: that last question is rhetorical.)
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Episode 389: Queen of the Damned (2002)
Practice your Egyptian accent and bare that midriff because we are talking the troubled “adaptation” of Anne Rice’s Queen of the Damned (2002).
Directed by Australian Michael Rymer, this one was doomed by the suits before it was even greenlit (which happened AFTER all of the songs were written by Korn frontman Jonathan Davis). It’s a bit of a clusterfuck.
Plus: praising everything Aaliyah (RIP); critiquing everything Stuart Townsend (aside from his abs and leather pants); a soft queer reading of Marius; and bemoaning boring protagonist/audience surrogate JESSE.
Cross out Queen of the Damned!
Coming Up Next: We’re tackling Ben Stiller’s horror-adjacent dark comedy The Cable Guy (1996), in anticipation of its 30th anniversary!
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for over 495 hours of Patreon content including this month’s new episodes on Hannibal Season 3 Episodes 5 & 6, Backrooms, Passenger, Leviticus, an audio commentary on the original Scary Movie (2000), and the return of our Requel Tier as we begin our episode coverage of AMC’s The Vampire Lestat.