Podcasts
The Badass Babes of Robert Rodriguez’s ‘Planet Terror’ [Horror Queers Podcast]
Oh, balls.
After concluding June with discussions of the wacky space antics (and commando drag queens) of Leprechaun 4: In Space (listen) and the underseen-but-very-good trans vampire film Bit (listen), we’re heading into grindhouse cinema with Robert Rodriguez‘s first half of the Grindhouse double-bill: Planet Terror (2007)!
In the film, an experimental bio-weapon is released that turns the residents of a small town into zombie-like creatures. A rag-tag group of survivors, including go-go dancer Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan), anesthesiologist Dakota Block (Marley Shelton) and bad boy El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez), team up to stop the infected and those behind its release. Little do they know that the army, led by the sinister Lieutenant Muldoon (Bruce Willis), is hiding a deep, dark secret that none of them could have ever anticipated.
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Episode 288: Planet Terror (2007)
Break out your good spring water and raise those limp wrists because we’re talking the first half of Grindhouse in Robert Rodriguez‘s endlessly entertaining Planet Terror (2007). Bazooka-jumping into the conversation are Jamie and Bhavna of the Bloody Broads Podcast!
Join us as we do a deep dive into the legacy of this film, including its notorious box office flop status, before heaping all the praise on its badass female characters (Rose McGowan and Marley Shelton). From changing history with Osama bin Laden to pushing all the limits of good taste, we’ve never seen anything like this film before….and we’ve been to Morocco!
Plus: that iconic machine gun leg, debating “bro films,” plenty of pus (and pustules) and one hilarious child death.
Cross out Planet Terror!
Coming up on Wednesday: We’re heading into the world of Japanese experimental cinema with a look at Shinya Tsukamoto’s classic Tetsuo: The Iron Man!
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for over 317 hours of Patreon content including this month’s new episodes on Hannibal Season 1 Episode 7, A Quiet Place: Day One, MaXXXine and Longlegs. And to tie in with Longlegs, our audio commentary for the month will be on David Fincher’s 1995 film Se7en.
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.)
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 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.