Podcasts
Saying I Do to Radio Silence’s ‘Ready or Not’ [Horror Queers Podcast]
The Goat Pit.
In March, we bracketed Spanish language hit Thesis (listen) and the 3D Friday the 13th – aka Part III (listen) with a celebration of two Radio Silence films. We began the month with a look at their second Scream film – VI (listen) – and now we’re covering their 2019 hide and seek horror comedy, Ready or Not, in anticipation of the sequel Ready or Not 2: Here I Come.
In the film, Grace (Samara Weaving) is an orphan in search of a family. She thinks she’s found it in her ultra-wealthy fiancé, Alex LeDomas (Mark O’Brien). The only issue? His family – headed up by patriarch Tony (Henry Czerny), matriarch Becky (Andie MacDowell), and ne’er do well siblings like Daniel (Adam Brody), appear to have weird ulterior motives.
When Grace is forced to pick a card in a bizarre midnight ceremony, the fun and games begin. As she desperately tries to survive “Hide and Seek”, the LeDomas family will do anything to kill her before sunrise. Jaunty records, carcass-ridden goat pits, and plenty of screaming blood sacs ensue.
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Episode 378: Ready or Not (2019)
Lace up your yellow chucks and rip that wedding dress because we are revisiting Radio Silence’s Ready or Not (2019).
Starring Scream Queen Samara Weaving (in her break-out role), the “Explode The Rich” horror comedy is as good as ever (Trace) or even better than before (Joe).
Plus: Grace as a “Final Girl”, a cast of Canadians, speculations about the mythology, and the original ending that would have been completely unacceptable.
Cross out Ready or Not!
Coming Up Next: We’re celebrating the arrival of Spring with a look at the original Wicker Man from 1973.
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for over 474 hours of Patreon content including this month’s new episodes on Psycho Killer, The Bride!, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, Scream 7, a new audio commentary on Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon and our continuing coverage of Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House (2018) on the Requel tier.
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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