Podcasts
Stephen King Adaptation ‘Misery’ Made Kathy Bates A Star [Horror Queers Podcast]
The Best of King.
We spent the month of November tackling a variety of monsters. From James Whale’s Frankenstein (listen) to Gena Rowlands in The Skeleton Key (listen) to the human villains of Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (listen), it’s been a wild month.
For the last episode of November, Trace and I returned to the world of Stephen King adaptations with Rob Reiner’s 1990 take on Misery. The film has become a classic, but at the time, it struggled to cast a male lead, and star Kathy Bates was best known for Broadway, not film and television. Obviously, a lot has changed in the intervening 35 years!
In Misery, novelist Paul Sheldon (James Caan) suffers a devastating car accident on a treacherous mountain road. Rescued by Annie Wilkes (Bates), his number one fan, Sheldon soon realizes that he’s being held hostage because Annie can’t accept the death of protagonist Misery Chastain in the final book of the series.
If Paul wants to survive Annie’s wild mood swings, threats of murder/suicide, and – in the film’s most memorable scene – an excruciating hobbling, he’ll need to fulfill Annie’s request and write an epic resurrection novel for Misery. If not, he might be the one who winds up dead!
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Episode 363: Misery (1990) feat. Roz Hernandez
Squirrel away those pills and burn that manuscript because we’re talking about Rob Reiner’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Misery (1990).
Joining us for the discussion is comedian Roz Hernandez, who has begun (but maybe never finished?) every King novel.
We’re talking Kathy Bates’ Academy award winning performance as Annie Wilkes, a horny Sheriff & Deputy combo, and multiple fiery manuscripts.
Plus: toxic (queer) fandom, Lauren Bacall’s smoker voice, the FX we do – and don’t – see, and pranking Barnes & Noble employees
Cross out Misery!
Coming Up Next: We’re finally digging into a listener request that’s been years in the making: 1977’s religious thriller, The Sentinel!
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for over 437 hours of Patreon content including this month’s new episodes on Hannibal S02 episodes 11-13, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, Rian Johnson’s threequel Wake Up Dead Man, Paul Feig’s The Housemaid, plus not one but TWO audio commentaries: Knives Out and Scream 3 (from our live appearance at Soho Horror Fest earlier this year)
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.
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 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.