Podcasts
Coralie Fargeat’s ‘Revenge’ Is an Informed Evolution on the Rape-Revenge Subgenre [The Lady Killers Podcast]
“Women always have to put up a fucking fight.”
While the rest of North America settles in for the cold winter nights of December, The Lady Killers are heating it up with a trip out to the dry and dusty French desert. They’ll relax and unwind by snacking on seductive lollipops and dancing by the pool on a fancy sex holiday with their hot French boyfriend. Unfortunately, it looks like a couple of unwanted visitors will be crashing the party. Thank goodness they’ve got Jen (Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz) to guide them through.
Few corners of the Horror genre deal with the subject of female rage like rape-revenge. These complicated and oft-controversial films have a long history of exploitation and salacious violence that turn the stomachs of many viewers. But there’s no doubt that they also provide a liberating sense of empowerment and an aspirational vision of justice usually not available in our patriarchal society. For their first foray into the rape-revenge subgenre, The Lady Killers tackle Coralie Fargeat’s stunning 2017 film Revenge and find it to be both an informed evolution of this complicated classification and a neon entry in the annals of New French Extremity.
After retreating to a cave for some beer can surgery and hallucinatory drugs, co-hosts Jenn Adams, Sammie Kuykendall, Mae Shults, and Rocco T. Thompson will emerge transformed for a candid conversation about rape-revenge films, cinematic exploitation, and the nature of consent. Are they concerned with the verisimilitude of Jenn’s desert transformation? What do her pink star earrings say about feminine strength? Who is the story’s true villain and why does it feel so good to watch a film so gory? They’ll tackle these questions and more while sharing their love for this incredible female killer and her empowering metamorphosis. Because, as it turns out, women do always have to put up a fight.
Stream the episode below or subscribe now via Apple Podcasts and Spotify for future episodes that drop every Thursday.
It’s been a busy month on Murder Made Fiction podcast. In addition to introducing a new co-host (Perfectly Good Moment‘s Amanda Jane Stern), we spent Pride Month tackling a wide variety of Leopold and Loeb fictional adaptations.
In 1924 Chicago, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb plotted to commit the perfect murder when they abducted and killed 14-year-old Bobby Franks. As Amanda outlines in her primer on the case, the men were caught almost immediately and the media circus that followed was billed “the trial of the century”.
Listen to Leopold and Loeb mini primer.
The fallout has reverberated throughout the last century as countless books, plays, musicals, and films have drawn on the case for inspiration. Some are more faithful than others, such as Richard Fleischer‘s 1959 drama Compulsion, which stars a young Dean Stockwell as Leopold and Orson Welles as the boys’ lawyer, John Darrow (named Jonathan Wilk in the film).
Listen to Leopold and Loeb: Compulsion (1959).
Then there are the texts that use the idea of queer-coded killers as a jumping off point, but confuse (or flat-out disregard) the details of the real life case in favour of jumbled fiction. That’s what happens in Barbet Schroeder‘s Murder by Numbers, which awkwardly introduces a tortured backstory for lead actress (and executive producer) Sandra Bullock. The result is an uneven film that misunderstands which of its two competing storylines are actually interesting (hint: it’s the Leopold and Loeb stuff with Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt).
Listen to Leopold and Loeb: Murder by Numbers (2002).
We ended up discussing other (often more successful) titles on Patreon, including 1992’s Swoon (a New Queer Cinema art-house take on the crime), Michael Haneke‘s 2007 Funny Games remake, and gay screenwriter Kevin Williamson‘s Scream, which proved to be a much more reverent and sly interpretation of L&L than we anticipated.
We wrapped up the month with a final summary episode about our favorite adaptations before chatting with author and archivist Erik Rebain, who literally wrote the book on Leopold (Arrested Adolescence) and maintains one of the foremost websites on the crime.
Watch our discussion on YouTube below (or listen here):
Next month: For July, we’re turning our attention to the Boston Strangler, with a look at films from 1964 and 1968, as well as the most contemporary version from 2023, starring Kiera Knightley and Carrie Coon.
Want even more true crime adaptations and Murder Made Fiction? Support the show on Patreon to listen to the aforementioned episodes, as well as a full-length primer on the case and 160+ hours of bonus content.
You must be logged in to post a comment.