Podcasts
Evil Begets Evil in ‘Apt Pupil’ [Horror Queers Podcast]
Nazi is as Nazi does.
After kicking off spooky season with a look at Tim Burton’s ode to Hammer Horror in Sleepy Hollow and tackling another Friday the 13th with one of its best entries in Friday the 13th Part 2, we’re getting serious for a minute with a discussion of Bryan Singer‘s 1998 Stephen King adaptation Apt Pupil.
Apt Pupil sees high school student Todd Bowden (Brad Renfro) discover a fugitive Nazi war criminal, Kurt Dussander (Ian McKellen), living in his neighborhood under a pseudonym. Bowden, obsessed with Nazism and the Holocaust, blackmails Dussander into sharing his horror stories, and their relationship stirs malice in each of them.
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Episode 252: Apt Pupil (1998)
Keep the cat away from that Nazi and get ready to separate the art from the artist because we’re discussing Bryan Singer’s 1998 Stephen King adaptation Apt Pupil! Joining us for the discussion is The Losers’ Club podcast co-host Jenn Adams!
Join us as we discuss the long road to getting this adaptation made before delving into the Bryan Singer of it all in an admittedly difficult and heavy conversation. Plus: the tragedy of Brad Renfro, David Schwimmer and his mustache wig, Ann Dowd(?!?!) and the always excellent Ian McKellen marching in an SS uniform.
We are also offering a content warning for this episode because we do discuss the sexual assault allegations against Bryan Singer in detail, so proceed with caution.
Cross out Apt Pupil!
Coming up on Wednesday: We’re closing out October with a look at what might be the most controversial entry in the Halloween franchise: Rob Zombie’s Halloween II!
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After kicking off July with discussions of Joe Dante’s seminal werewolf film The Howling (listen) and Ken Russell’s controversial erotic thriller Crimes of Passion (listen), we’re heading to Maine to dissect one of Stephen King‘s most misguided adaptations in Lawrence Kasdan‘s 2003 misfire Dreamcatcher!
Dreamcatcher sees friends Henry (Thomas Jane), Jonesy (Damian Lewis), Pete (Timothy Olyphant) and Beaver (Jason Lee) reunite for their annual hunting trip in Maine. Their reunion is cut short when they find themselves caught in the middle of a war between a hostile race of farty-farty aliens and an elite US military unit led by Colonel Abraham Curtis (Morgan Freeman), who has been driven mad after spending decades tracking the extraterrestrials. When Jonesy is possessed by one of the aliens, the remaining friends seek out their disabled childhood friend Duddits (Donnie Wahlberg), who they believe has powers that can save Jonesy…and the world.
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, and RSS.
Episode 396: Dreamcatcher (2003)
Watch out for “ister gay” (oof), take some Gas-X and bite our bags because we’re talking Lawrence Kasdan’s baffling 2003 adaptation of Stephen King’s equally baffling novel Dreamcatcher.
Join us as we go all in on the farty-farty aliens populating this hilarious misfire that often feels like a bad Kevin Smith script. It’s a film filled with characters who get a single defining trait (if they’re lucky), played by respectable actors who are here for the paycheck (looking at you, Morgan Freeman).
Plus: blown-out assholes, using guns as telephones, pitying poor Donnie Wahlberg, and wondering why the hell this movie is called Dreamcatcher.
Cross out Dreamcatcher!
Coming Up Next: We’re going to be lounging around a posh Greenwich Village apartment as we check in on Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954).
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for over 513 hours of Patreon content including this month’s new episodes on Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Forbidden Fruits, Saccharine, Evil Dead Burn, an audio commentary on Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (aka Howling II: Stirba – Werewolf Bitch), and the conclusion of our coverage of AMC’s The Vampire Lestat on the Requel Tier.