Podcasts
Dusting Off Stephen King’s Earliest Stories with Bev Vincent [The Losers’ Club Podcast]
To celebrate the release of Stephen King’s latest shortest story collection You Like It Darker, The Losers’ Club is unlocking their premiere episode of The Stephen King Archives, a Patreon exclusive imprint in which your Losers search the vault of King material – dusting off unpublished short stories, long-forgotten interviews, coffee-stained manuscripts, and alternate versions of your favorite tales. In the past, they’ve covered the stories within “The Body”, the uncollected Creepshow tales, and King’s EW columns.
This particular episode, recorded in 2021, zeroes in on King’s earliest stories, specifically 1956’s “Jhonathan and the Witchs”, 1963’s The Aftermath, and 1965’s “I Was a Teenage Grave Robber”. What are these stories? Where did they come from? Listen ahead as Losers Randall Colburn, Jenn Adams, and Michael Roffman parse through these early, early works. And to help us out, they even consulted the one and only Bev Vincent. And, as you’ll hear, the writer and noted King scholar had much to say on these works.
Stream the discussion below and stay tuned next week for an interview with Sharon Kitchens on her new book Stephen King’s Maine. For further adventures, join the Club via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RadioPublic, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS. You can also unlock hundreds of hours of content in The Barrens (Patreon), including more Archives episodes like this episode.
Podcasts
Shakespearean Education in the Vincent Price-Starring ‘Theater of Blood’ [Horror Queers Podcast]
Butch knows best…
After concluding May with discussions of the disaster “slasher” The Poseidon Adventure (listen) and Michael Biehn’s demon twink in the messy-but-watchable The Fan (listen), we’re heading back to the ’70s to discuss our very first Vincent Price film in Douglas Hickox‘s horror comedy Theater of Blood (1973).
In Theater of Blood, Vincent Price stars as Edward Lionheart, a disgraced Shakespearean actor who begins targeting the critics who shamed him. The gimmick? He’s taking inspiration from the death scenes in William Shakespeare’s plays! Aiding him is his daughter Edwina (Diana Rigg), who acts as the honeypot for her father’s macabre scheme.
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Episode 388: Theater of Blood (1973)
Brush up on your Shakespeare and protect those poodles because we’re covering our very first Vincent Price film in Douglas Hickox’s horror comedy Theater of Blood (1973), a personal favorite of both Price and Diana Rigg.
Join us as we go all in on this somewhat episodic (but also educational!) proto-slasher, wondering if we’re supposed to know that’s Diana Rigg in hippie drag, and cackling at some of these murder set pieces.
Plus, “Handsy Dickman,” narcissistic gravestones, antisemitic stage makeup, and the ultimate debate: is it theatER or theatRE?
C/W: Attempted suicide, off-screen dog murder.
Cross out Theater of Blood!
Coming Up Next: We’re celebrating the premiere of AMC’s The Vampire Lestat with a look at the much-maligned 2002 adaptation Queen of the Damned!
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for over 492 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.