Podcasts
The Devious Divas at the Center of ‘Death Becomes Her’ [Horror Queers Podcast]
Now, a warning.
After wrapping up October with discussions of horror classics like Tobe Hooper’s original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (listen), Bob Clark’s Black Christmas (listen) and Kevin S. Tenney’s Night of the Demons (listen), we’re checking in with two of cinema’s fiercest divas in Robert Zemeckis‘ Death Becomes Her (1992).
In Death Becomes Her, novelist Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn) loses her fiancé Ernest (Bruce Willis) to movie star and former friend Madeline Ashton (Meryl Streep), she winds up in a psychiatric hospital. Years later, she returns to confront the now-married couple, looking radiant. Madeline, desperate to one-up her former rival, is offered a mysterious potion that allows her to look young and beautiful forever, but she soon discovers that immortality has a price…
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Episode 306: Death Becomes Her (1992)
Spoon that icing out of the can and get ready for a lot of time jumps because “it” is awake in Robert Zemeckis‘ Death Becomes Her (1992). It’s a smorgasbord of bitchery and high fashion in this delectable black comedy.
Join us as we marvel at the Oscar-winning special effects that are anything but “cheap” in this hilarious film starring two of Hollywood’s greatest actresses (Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn) and a scene-stealing Bruce Willis.
Plus: fat suits, rock-like tits, floating nuns, beekeeper couture, and sex. Sex. Sex. En garde, bitches!
Cross out Death Becomes Her!
Coming up on Wednesday: We’re heading to Springwood to look at horror’s ultimate diva Wes Craven’s original A Nightmare on Elm Street: Freddy Krueger!
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for over 340 hours of Patreon content including this month’s new episodes on Hannibal Season 1 Episode 10, Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby, It’s What’s Inside, Apartment 7A, Salem’s Lot (2024) and, finally, our brand new audio commentary on Wes Craven’s New Nightmare for its 30th anniversary.
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.
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