May has been a delightfully odd mix of titles, including Robin Williams’ One Hour Photo (listen), Aussie/UK thriller Like Minds (listen), and seminal disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure (listen). Adding to the fun is our most recent film: a revisit of the classic stalker title, The Fan (1981).

*We previously tackled the film in our editorial series here.

In Edward Bianchi‘s feature directorial debut, Michael Biehn is Douglas Breen, a music store employee whose singular obsession is with theatre actress Sally Ross (Lauren Bacall). The aging starlet is about to debut in a Broadway musical called ‘Never Say Never,’ but her assistant Belle (Maureen Stapleton) hasn’t been passing along Douglas’ increasingly unhinged letters.

When the young twink’s dangerous behaviour begins to escalate, Sally’s support network – including Inspector Raphael Andrews (Héctor Elizondo) and her ex-husband Jake (James Garner) – is called in. But can anyone stop the determined queer-coded antagonist? Or is Sally doomed to die on opening night?

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 387 – The Fan (1981)

Stay out of the pool and work on your singing because we’re talking Edward Bianchi’s The Fan (1981) starring Grand Dame Lauren Bacall and a twinky Michael Biehn.

Joining us for the discussion is returning guest Michael Varrati, who dubs the film “parasocial peril” and praises Bacall’s emotionally vulnerable performance as aging starlet Sally Ross.

Look for adaptation questions about Bob Randall’s pulpy source material; critiquing James Garner’s autobiography; and highlighting the subway stalking and pool slicing sequences.

Plus: the queer coding of Douglas Breen; the film’s uneasy place in (horror) history; and trying to figure out the plot of in-movie musical Never Say Never.

Cross out The Fan!

Coming Up Next: We’re realized there’s an enormous gap in the podcast’s coverage: we’ve never discussed a Vincent Price title! We’re rectifying that mistake with a look at one of his favourite roles in 1973’s Theater of Blood.

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for over 488 hours of Patreon content including this month’s new episodes on shark movies Thrash and Dark Water, Hokum, Mortal Kombat II, Obsession and an audio commentary on Wolfgang Petersen’s Poseidon.

The post Stalker Twinks and Aging Grand Dames Anchor 80s Thriller ‘The Fan’ [Horror Queers Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

A follow-up to Moore’s 2016 film Dolly Deadly, Kill Dolly Kill sees Tromaville’s local celebrity murderess, Dolly Deadly (Donna Slash) in competition to win Serial Killer of the Year. Unfortunately, rival drag queen Slasherella (Amy Vodkahaus) has designs on the title and will stoop to the lowest of lows to take the crown. To make matters worse, Tromaville’s ultra conservative and corrupt Mayor Cox (Tom Komisar, pulling double duty as the film’s co-writer) is campaigning to get the “weirdos” and “freaks” out of town, throwing a wrench in Dolly’s schemes.

While Kill Dolly Kill is a sequel, you don’t have to have seen Dolly Deadly to get any enjoyment out of it. The musical slasher (oh yes, this is a musical) kicks things off with an amusing, partially animated recap of the events of the first film, which saw Dolly (then a young, doll-loving boy named Benji) go on a killing spree against his bullies and tormenters before running away from home and restarting his life as drag queen Dolly Deadly. Kill Dolly Kill picks up some time after the end of Dolly Deadly, with Dolly having already made a name for herself in Tromaville.

Kill Dolly Kill is being sold as a John Waters-influenced serial killer comedy with drag queens galore and plenty of grisly deaths, and it is those things, but it’s also missing that spark that made Waters’ films shine. The problem with films that try to emulate the magic of John Waters (or go for intentional camp) is that they often us it as an excuse for just being “bad.” Waters’ films may have been micro-budget productions, but they always had something to say, often in transgressive ways, and always kept things funny. Kill Dolly Kill mostly achieves the first aspect, but fumbles with the latter.

The film sings (often literally) when its star is on screen. Donna Slash is a magnetic presence as Dolly, and she is able to make even the worst lines of dialogue tickle the funny bone. Her commitment to the bit is truly admirable. Unfortunately, there are far too many scenes (most of them in the middle stretch of the film) where she is absent, and those become an honest-to-God chore to sit through. Shots go on for seconds too long, killing many of the jokes, and some scenes are, quite frankly, boring. There is a refreshing lack of pretension here, but you’ll often wish you were having as much fun as the performers on screen clearly are.

The songs are a bit of a mixed bag. Musical styles range from ’60s pop to heavy metal, and actors lip sync to the songs, often terribly, with their mouths rarely lining up with the lyrics (though it should come as no surprise that Slash and Vodkahaus nail their lip syncs). One could argue that this is part of the charm of a film like this, but it proves to be more of a hindrance than an asset.

Still, in an age where drag as an art form is under attack and new anti-trans laws seem to pop up every day (especially here in Texas), there’s something deeply cathartic about an unapologetically queer film that is in direct conversation with the current social landscape. Dolly murders bigots and homophobes and transphobes with absolute glee, making the murder set pieces the film’s main draw.

All in all, the enjoyment you get out of Kill Dolly Kill will depend on your affinity for trash cinema. It’s a midnight movie through and through, but the humor might be more, well, humorous if you’re surrounded by a bunch of friends with more than a few drinks in hand.

Kill Dolly Kill made its world premiere at Fantastic Fest. Release info TBA.

The post ‘Kill Dolly Kill’ Fantastic Fest Review – A Mixed Bag of Campy Trash appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

After an amazing August filled with unusual titles like Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers, Shiva Baby, and Stoker, last week Trace and I kicked off our latest theme month on Erotic Thrillers. First up: DePalma’s Dressed to Kill.

For week two, we’re headed into unorthodox territory with a contemporary example: Paul Feig‘s bisexual suburban noir, A Simple Favor.

In the film, Anna Kendrick plays mommy Vlogger Stephanie, who befriends enigmatic and enrapturing Emily (Blake Lively). On the surface, Emily has a perfect life: a wardrobe to die for, a hot husband in Sean (Henry Golding), and a high powered job. But when Emily goes missing and Stephanie is left to pick up the pieces, the apologetic single mother suddenly finds herself playing amateur detective to solve the case.

What she discovers is pure Erotic Thriller…albeit wrapped in the glossy candy-colored spectacle of suburbia.

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, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 248 – A Simple Favor (2018) feat. Emily Gagne

Raid the closet for tear-away suits and make a “real” martini because we’re talking about Paul Feig’s suburban noir, A Simple Favor (2018).

Joining us is Dread Central writer and We Really Like Her co-host Emily Gagne, who needed a second screening of the film to warm to its bisexual charms.

Up for discussion: “pretty” girls Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick, shockingly casual incest, Henry Golding’s career as a side piece, why this film qualifies as an Erotic Thriller, and *lots* of tangents about women-centric performances and films, including Letterboxd’s High Risers, Cruel Intentions, and Legally Blonde.

Cross out A Simple Favor!

Coming up on Wednesday: Our month of erotic thrillers continues as we shift into neo-noir territory with the Wachowski sisters’ crime film,  Bound.

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for nearly 262 hours of additional content! This month we’re discussing A Haunting in Venice, The Nun 2, and two audio commentaries: one on Underworld and one on Saw II. Plus: a special full-length episode on 2021’s The Voyeurs to coincide with the erotic thrillers on the Main Feed.

The post The Bisexual Energy of Paul Feig’s Suburban Noir ‘A Simple Favor’ [Horror Queers Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

After finishing April with back-to-back looks at stylish vampire films like The Hunger and Ganja & Hess, we’re kicking off May a film we’ve actually discussed before (in written form): Fred Dekker‘s 1986 classic Night of the Creeps!

Night of the Creeps sees fraternity pledges Chris (Jason Lively) and JC (Steve Marshall) take part in a hazing prank, only to find a frozen body filled with alien slugs that escape and begin to take over everyone on campus. They must team up with a cop with a haunted past (Tom Atkins) and Chris’ new crush Cindy (Jill Whitlow) to stop the invasion before it’s too late.

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, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 228: Night of the Creeps (1986)

Cindy! Brad’s here! And don’t let him fondle your breasts because the slugs are invading, which means we’re discussing Fred Dekker’s delightfully sweet sci-fi comedy horror film Night of the Creeps (1986)! Joining us for the conversation is Patrick Walsh, the host of the ScreamQueenz podcast!

Join us as we discuss the film’s botched release before we go all in on a queer reading of JC (Steve Marshall) as the film’s “gay best friend.” Plus: disabled representation, two different endings, one very resourceful slug-infested dog and why “purée” is the gayest button on the blender.

Cross out Night of the Creeps!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re heading back to the ’60s to discuss a queer classic in Robert Aldrich’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?.

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for more than 240 hours of additional content! This month we’re going all in on Evil Dead with an episode on  Evil Dead Rise, our thoughts on the whole Evil Dead franchise, and an audio commentary on the original 1981 film.  Plus: we’ll have episodes on Amazon Prime’s queer as fuck Dead Ringers series, and the Lulu Wilson-starring The Wrath of Becky.

The post A Reading of JC as the “Gay Best Friend” in ‘Night of the Creeps’ [Horror Queers Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

After finishing off March with a look at the body horror aspects incorporated into Stephen Dunn’s Closet Monster, we kicked off April with a journey into the weird and wild world of Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Killing of a Sacred Deer. This week, we’re revisiting Tony Scott‘s iconic 1983 vampire film The Hunger.

The Hunger sees John (David Bowie), the lover of the gorgeous immortal vampire Miriam (Catherine Deneuve), begin to quickly deteriorate into a horrible living death, so Miriam seeks a new companion. She soon sets her sights on Sarah (Susan Sarandon), a young gerontologist, who quickly falls under Miriam’s spell. However, Sarah doesn’t warm up to the concept of vampirism very easily, leading to conflict with Miriam.

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, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 225: The Hunger (1983)

Wipe that sherry off your tit and dust off those human husks in your attic because we’re discussing Tony Scott’s feature directorial debut: the 1983 lesbian vampire (and David Bowie!) movie The Hunger! Joining us for the conversation is Jess, one half of The Spinsters of Horror!

We aren’t saying the word “vampire” (something something Egypt and aliens?), but who could care when the movie is such a vibe? We’ll refute the claims of “style over substance,” while marveling over the central performances of Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve.

Plus, David Bowie in old age makeup, making cigarettes look sexy, debating the male gaze and a lesson in serial monogamy and codependency.

Cross out The Hunger!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re continuing our discussion of classic vampire films with a look at Bill Gunn’s 1973 film Ganja & Hess.

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for more than 238 hours of additional content! This month, we’ve got episodes on make-or-break horror movie endings, the latest Children of the Corn film, season 1 of Amazon Prime’s Swarm, and Renfield. Our audio commentary for the month will be on Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses.

The post Discussing Codependency and Lesbian Love Scenes in ‘The Hunger’ [Horror Queers Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The time has come to finally tackle queerness in the Church. When it was revealed that Chucky S02 would take place at a Catholic school and Jake (Zackary Arthur), Devon (Björgvin Arnarson) and Lexy (Alyvia Alyn Lind) would likely face the wrath of priests and nuns, I anticipated this topic would come up at some point.

Before the season debuted, Don Mancini was interviewed about the new location and addressed how Catholicism would play into season two. Per i09:

“One of the struggles that young gay people often have is tension with their faith,” Mancini said. “As a kid who was raised Catholic, I certainly had authority figures waving their fingers at me, telling me that I was bad and going to hell.”

Considering how central Devon and Jake’s relationship was to the first season, it seemed obvious that their queerness would be a source of conflict in this new environment. And then there was the question of whether the show would dare to tackle the elephant in the room: accusations of pedophilia and sexual abuse within the church.

The show (wisely) never addressed that controversial territory, though there have been more than a few telling moments of secret queerness littered throughout the season. Most specifically, Trace and I did wonder about the sexual orientation of Devon Sawa’s Father Bryce in our Chucky Queers coverage on Horror Queers. There’s a very telling moment in episode 2.03 “Hail, Mary!” when the priest observes Jake and Devon kissing in a stairwell and not only does Father Bryce not interrupt them, he doesn’t address it or punish them. At the time Trace and I wondered if this meant that he was struggling with and/or suppressing his own sexuality, which isn’t condoned by the Church.

For reference, all Catholic priests take vows of celibacy at their ordination, meaning that they will remain abstinent and unmarried throughout their lives. Technically, however, gay men aren’t meant to be ordained at all (the Church clarified its position in both 2005 and 2008 when it listed “uncertain sexual identity” and “deeply rooted or deep-seated homosexual tendencies” as conditions for exclusion).

A 2019 New York Times editorial by Elizabeth Dias entitled “It Is Not a Closet. It Is a Cage.’ Gay Catholic Priests Speak Out” includes an incredible statistic about the prevalence of gay men living a secret life of shame: “Fewer than about 10 priests in the United States have dared to come out publicly. But gay men probably make up at least 30 to 40 percent of the American Catholic clergy, according to dozens of estimates from gay priests themselves and researchers. Some priests say the number is closer to 75 percent.” There are more moderate estimates included in Rev. Donald B. Cozzens’ 2020 book The Changing Face of Priesthood (referenced in this America Magazine piece), but the figures could still be as high as 50-58%.

With these statistics in mind, it’s completely reasonable to believe that the “different” qualities that Father Bryce mentions in the black and white confessional sequence is that he’s gay.

Father Bryce never actually says the words “I’m gay,” but the truth is that he doesn’t have to.* To queer audiences used to reading the subtext in the room, the following dialogue is as clear as day: “I always judge people so harshly. I think that’s because of how hard I treat myself. The Church has always been a refuge for people like me. They’ve never fully accepted us either. I’ve always known that I was different” (emphasis added).

Some folks could argue that his sexual orientation hardly matters since Bryce has already been dramatically exploded in slow motion (and from multiple perspectives) by this point. Regardless, the representation of a young, queer Priest who observes but doesn’t punish Jake and Devon for something he himself isn’t allowed to be is a fascinating and even tragic character arc.

Leave it to Mancini and co. to give Father Bryce a humanizing, tear-jerking semi-coming out scene immediately after spectacularly blowing the poor man up in the most over the top, bombastic death of the season. RIP Father Bryce.

*But also, let’s be real: only a gay priest would have a ripped body like that, no?

The post The Queer Horror of “Chucky”: Episode 2.07 – ‘Goin’ to the Chapel’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

After heading to 1990s New York to discuss James Bond III’s Troma classic Def By Temptation and unlocking the Patreon vault to release our episode on Josh Boone’s cursed 2020 comic book adaptation The New Mutants, we’re kicking off a month-long celebration of camp by discussing the brilliance of Michael Patrick Jann‘s transgressive (and hilarious) 1999 black comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous. It’s not really horror, but there sure is a lot of murderin’ goin’ on!

In the film, an annual beauty pageant in small-town Minnesota turns ridiculously competitive and ultimately chaotic. Amber Atkins (Kirsten Dunst), the daughter of hard-drinking mom Annette (Ellen Barkin), and Becky Leeman (Denise Richards), who is motivated by her former beauty-queen mother, Gladys (Kirstie Alley), are among the top contenders in the event. As Amber, Becky, and other local girls (including Brittany Murphy and Amy Adams) prepare for the big day, someone decides to start killing contestants one by one until only one remains.

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, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 184: Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)

Oh crap oh crap oh crap! The swan ate our baby and the most smartest tapper needs to go to state! That’s right, we’re discussing Michael Patrick Jann’s seminal dark comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999) with IGN’s streaming editor Amelia Emberwing. Think we can do it? Amer-I-CAN!

Join us as we track the film’s journey from a script called Dairy Queens to a box office and commercial failure to a stone-cold cult classic beloved by (and offensive to) many. We’re laughing at eating disorders, mental disability and pedophilia. How did this get made?

Plus: non-stop praise for this outstanding cast, discussing the on-set tensions between the writer and the director, debating the effectiveness (or lack thereof?) of the third act, and an It Takes Two tangent? Ding! Fries are up!

Cross out Drop Dead Gorgeous!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re keeping things modern as we continue our month of Camp with a look at Paz de la Huerta’s “performance” in the 2012 schlock-fest Nurse 3D!

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for more than 180 hours of additional content! This month, we’re discussing our favorite horror film-to-TV show flip floppers, as well as looking back at popular alien films Signs and Attack the Block before we close out the month with Jordan Peele’s Nope. Oh, and we’ve got an audio commentary on the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie!

The post The Transgressive Brilliance of ‘Drop Dead Gorgeous’ [Horror Queers Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

After visiting Spooky Island to solve the mystery of the zombified co-eds in Raja Gosnell’s 2002 live-action Scooby-Doo, we went to New York circa 1990 to discuss James Bond III’s Troma classic Def By Temptation. Now we’re unlocking the Patreon vault to release our episode on Josh Boone‘s cursed 2020 comic book adaptation The New Mutants.

The New Mutants sees five teenage mutants — Mirage (Blu Hunt), Wolfsbane (Maisie Williams), Cannonball (Charlie Heaton), Sunspot (Henry Zaga) and Magik (Anya Taylor-Joy) — undergo treatments at a secret institution that will cure them of their dangerous powers. Invited by Dr. Cecilia Reyes (Alice Braga) to share their stories, their memories soon turn into terrifying realities as they start to question why they’re being held and who’s trying to destroy them.

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, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 183: The New Mutants (2020)

Surprise! We’re opening the Patreon vault to deliver an episode on a film with one of the most infamously troubled production histories of all time. That’s right! After years (literally years) of waiting, we are discussing Josh Boone’s adaptation of The New Mutants and it’s…..fine?

After spending a good amount of this episodes runtime going through the film’s laborious production history and discussing the racist accusations lobbied against the film, we educate ourselves on the source material before doing a deep dive into the film itself.

We’ve got a front-and-center queer romance, lots of garbage CGI, teenage trauma porn, mostly solid accent work and a blessed 86-minute runtime. Does it all work? Absolutely not. But it’s not as bad as it could have been, so we guess that’s something?

Cross out The New Mutants!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re feeling a little patriotic as the 4th of July approaches so we’re going to cover a film that’s a bit unorthodox: the 1999 cult classic Drop Dead Gorgeous!

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for more than 180 hours of additional content! This month, we’re discussing our favorite horror movie posters, Jurassic World: Dominion, The Black Phone and releasing an audio commentary on Gremlins 2: The New Batch!

The post ‘The New Mutants’ Delivered Queer Horror With a Comic Book Aesthetic [Horror Queers Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

After three weeks of films with objectionable content (real-life kangaroo murder in Wake in Fright, an injured actress and problematic killer in Incident in a Ghostland and “consensual rape” in Perdita Durango), we did what might be our hardest pivot yet with last week’s episode on the 2002 live-action adaptation Scooby-Doo. Now it’s time to get a bit more serious with writer/director James Bond III‘s Troma classic Def By Temptation!

In the film, quiet divinity student Joel (James Bond III) starts to question his faith. So he leaves his hometown in North Carolina and heads to New York to visit his friend K (Kadeem Hardison), a struggling actor, who takes him out bar-hopping. They meet a gorgeous seductress (Cynthia Bond) who turns out to be a succubus, a demon spirit luring black lotharios to their deaths. When she sets her eyes on Joel, K turns to the help of Dougie (Bill Nunn), a drunken cop who specializes in supernatural investigations.

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, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 182: Def By Temptation (1990)

Warm up Fistina and Palmette because we’re heading to NYC circa 1990 to discuss the sinister succubus at the center of James Bond III’s Troma classic Def By Temptation! Joining us for the conversation is DBT superfan (and Bloody Disgusting Podcast co-host) Zena Dixon!

Join us as we give a bit of a Troma primer (it’s our first Troma film!) before jumping into the film’s treatment of its queer character, as well as a discussion of the dreaded AIDS Mary urban legend. Oh, and all the praise for Kadeem Hardison’s K.

Plus, debating Joel’s effectiveness as a protagonist, Samuel L. Jackson(!), stockings vs. tights and the ultimate question: would you jump in them drawers?

Cross out Def By Temptation!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re unlocking the Patreon vault and releasing our episode on 2020’s long-delayed comic book movie The New Mutants!

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for more than 180 hours of additional content! This month, we’re discussing our favorite horror movie posters, Jurassic World: Dominion, The Black Phone and releasing an audio commentary on Gremlins 2: The New Batch!

The post Adapting the AIDS Mary Urban Legend in ‘Def By Temptation’ [Horror Queers Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

So long November! After a month of beach vampires in The Lost Boys, singing demons in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, gay panic voyeurs in Creep, and lesbian Satanists in The Seventh Victim, we are *more* than ready to celebrate the holigays. What better way to kick off December than Frank LaLoggia‘s Passion Play-infused, angelic take on the rise of the Antichrist, Fear No Evil (1981)?

This film is basically a combination of Carrie and The Omen and it’s a doozy. The high school parts involve Andrew (Stefan Arngrim), a bullied queer-coded teen who is harassed by Tony (Daniel Eden) and drawn to Julie (Kathleen Rowe McAllen). Meanwhile, Margaret (Elizabeth Hoffman) – the reincarnation of the Archangel Mikhail – is tasked with finding Gabrielle (eventually revealed to be Julie) before the rise of the antichrist (Andrew). Everything comes together at the town’s beachy re-enactment of the Passion and also there are oatmeal zombies.

It’s…messy.

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, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 154 – Fear No Evil (1981) feat. Movie Oubliette

Dress in your best antichrist drag because we’re talking about the absolutely wild (and frequently nonsensical) Fear No Evil (1981). Along for the ride are Dan and Conrad from Movie Oubliette, making this a truly international podcast experience across four countries and three continents. C/W: the dog dies.

Up for debate: is this film homophobic or is it a condemnation of the damaging effects of religion? Is it a Christmas or an Easter movie? Is director Frank LaLoggia using the film to work out some personal issues? And can we find something nice to say about Kathleen Rowe McAllen’s bee-stung lips and atrocious acting?

Plus: bloody baptisms, satin Grease jackets, gun vaginas, death by dodgeball, animal cruelty, Gynecomastia and Dendrophilia, and many, MANY male asses, including one Trace deems so perfect, you could hold a tea party on it.

Cross out Fear No Evil!

Coming up on Wednesday: Prepare yourself for plenty of sexual assault (CW) in the feel bad film of the holidays: David Fincher’s 2011 remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo!

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for more than 150 hours of additional content! For December, we’re covering Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley, UK drama/holiday/disaster film Silent Night, catching up on slasher film Initiation from earlier this year and examining trailers WAY better than the film! Plus: a seasonally appropriate audio commentary on Joe Dante’s Gremlins.

The post Celebrating the Passion of the Queer Antichrist [Horror Queers Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

It’s been a long, weird road to the season finale of Chucky and we’ve had plenty of great conversations about various queer facets of the show. It delights me to no end that we get to end the first season with a discussion of the Final Boy.

The definitive interpretation of the slasher trope is Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton) from A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. Of course, there’s a legacy of trauma wrapped up in Patton’s experiences making the film (Trace and I chatted with Mark for our live episode of Horror Queers on the film, and there’s a whole fantastic documentary called Scream, Queen: My Nightmare on Elm Street that we strongly recommend). While I wouldn’t wish Patton’s mistreatment on anyone, the queerness of NoES2 was a beacon of light for gay men of a certain age, who finally saw themselves represented on screen. Importantly it wasn’t simply as a victim, or a best friend, either; NoES2 remains a fixture of queer horror history because Jesse survives to become a Final Boy.

What’s changed in the 36 years since then is evident in “An Affair To Dismember.” Not only do both Jake (Zackary Arthur) and Devon (Björgvin Arnarson) live to fight another day, but Jake gets to deliver the killing blow against Chucky (Brad Dourif) in direct response to an attack on his queer sexuality. 

Jake’s whole arc over these eight episodes has led to this: from a difficult “coming out” to his unsupportive father (Devon Sawa) in episode one, to wooing Devon and kissing him in episode five, to identifying his Chosen family in last week’s episode. The most significant difference between Jesse and Jake is that Jake has never been coded queer; from the very beginning, Jake has been out and (mostly) proud. He’s remained true to who he is throughout, which is something Jesse couldn’t be at the height of the AIDS crisis in Reagan’s homophobic 1985 America. 

The other frustrating aspect of NoES2 is that Jesse doesn’t get to be his own hero. He is consumed and discarded by Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), so the duties of dispatching the villain falls to Final Girl Lisa (Kim Myers). Jesse only returns for the denouement: he’s a hero who gets sidelined in his own climax.

By comparison, Jake remains firmly in control of his own narrative. He orders Devon to rescue Caroline (Carina Battrick), then faces Chucky down. And while he doesn’t exactly become Sigourney Weaver, Jake more than manages to hold his own. Like his father and his uncle before him (there’s that cyclical familial violence in action), Jake opts to use his own hands, pinning Chucky against a wall to deliver the killing blow. 

There’s no subtlety in writers Mancini and Harley Peyton’s dialogue in this scene (by design, I would argue). Chucky, ever the manipulator, suggests that he was Jake’s only friend and that Jake’s father Lucas would never have “accepted him.” Jake laments that Chucky’s actions never gave him a chance to “work it out” with his father, who he argues would have come around if he could have met Devon. Chucky retorts “That is so gay,” a microaggression that equates “gay” with “bad” and is basically a softer version of using the F slur. It’s in keeping with Chucky’s intolerant colloquialisms throughout most of the episode, particularly evident in his interactions with Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly), which similarly leads to violence.

“That’s so gay” proves to be the last straw for Jake and he chokes Chucky until his eyes pop out of his plastic head. “Watch your fucking mouth, that’s my boyfriend you’re talking about” he tells the doll corpse, which is itself a significant milestone considering that Jake corrected Lexy (Alyvia Alyn Lind) when she used the same label to describe Devon and Jake earlier in the episode.

Obviously Jake is not the sole hero of this tale – Lexy’s moral rescue of Junior (Teo Briones) and his sacrificial death are arguably the finale’s emotional climax. Still, there’s no doubt that the episode’s greatest “fuck yeah” moment belongs to Jake, an out and proud Final Boy for a new generation of horror queers. 

He kills the bad guy, lives to fight another day and gets the boy. What a legend.

Season one of Chucky is now available on Peacock. For more coverage, see Meagan’s review of episode eight. 

The post The Queer Horror of “Chucky”: Episode 8 – “An Affair To Dismember” and Horror’s Newest Final Boy appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

After a wild month that has included gay panic in Creep, a TV musical in Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s ‘Once More, With Feeling’ and our 150th episode extravaganza with The Lost Boys, we’re closing out the month with a slam dunk 1940s film noir. That’s right: it’s finally time for a Val Lewton classic with The Seventh Victim and who better to join us than queer author David Demchuk, author of Red X.

In the Mark Robson-directed film, naive teenager Mary (Kim Hunter) travels to the big city to find her missing sister Jacqueline (Jean Brooks), who has run afoul of a group of Satanists called the Palladists. Thwarted by Esther Redi (Mary Newton), the new owner of Jacqueline’s cosmetics empire, and Jacqueline’s “hair dresser” Frances (Isabel Jewell), the younger sister leans on Jacqueline’s “friends” Dr. Louis Judd (Tom Conway) and lawyer Gregory Ward (Hugh Beaumont) to assist her in her search. Will the idealistic ingenue be able to navigate the dangers of the inky black and white city and find her sister before a terrible fate befalls them both?

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, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 153 – The Seventh Victim (1943)

Stay away from the wine because we, along with celebrated queer author David Demchuk, are covering our first Val Lewton film: The Seventh Victim (1943).

The HEAVILY queer coded text is a nice alternative to our Universal Monster films, though we recommend having a comedy for when you finish because this movie is grim and nihilistic! Also, should we become Satanists? Because the Palladists don’t seem that bad!

Up for discussion: disdain for the male characters, Lewton’s classic “cat jump” sequence, and Frances’ emotional outburst as confirmation of a lesbian relationship.

Plus: Joe gushes over Jean Brooks’ performance, Trace cannot remember the poet’s name, and David questions Redi’s decision to put the logo of her secret society on a perfume bottle.

Cross out The Seventh Victim!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re headed to Rochester for a look at the possibly homophobic, and definitely confused gay antichrist film, Fear No Evil (1981)!

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for more than 150 hours of additional content! This month, we’ve covered Amazon Prime’s I Know What You Did Last Summer series, SyFy’s Slumber Party Massacre remake, the original Resident Evil and Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City!

The post Embracing Lesbianism and Satanism in ‘The Seventh Victim’ [Horror Queers Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

We’re into the homestretch now. This penultimate episode of Chucky’s first season* really kicks the plot into overdrive as everyone descends upon Hackensack and the show sets the literal stage for a big finale at a charity screening of Frankenstein.

*USA Network and SYFY better renew this show. We’ve all seen the numbers!

Mixed in among the legion of Chucky dolls at 987 Sherwood Lane, Jennifer Tilly vamping it up in a near-literal Black Widow dress, and Junior (Teo Briones) murdering his father Logan (Devon Sawa), there’s also a really important character moment to discuss.

Obviously “Twice The Grieving, Double The Loss” is tough for Junior and Devon (Björgvin Arnarson), who both lost their mothers last week. They deal with the grief in different ways: Junior succumbs to devilish temptation and kills his father at Chucky (Brad Dourif)’s behest (there’s a conversation about cyclical violence to be had here, but that’s for another piece). Devon, meanwhile, pushes Jake (Zackary Arthur) away, retreating into the comfort of his true crime obsession.

The one thing that both boys do is blame Jake. Junior lashes out at him for being a curse (heh), while Devon pulls away, arguing that “being around you hurts.” Jake, in return, opts to pack a bag, steal cash from his drunk uncle and head for the bus station. And that’s where the queer horror of this episode is located: homelessness and Chosen Family.

It’s significant that when the pair experienced trauma in the past, they turned to each other and (eventually) Lexy (Alyvia Alyn Lind) for support. While we saw in the last episode that Devon’s mother was supportive of his queerness, she still wasn’t the one he confided in or relied upon when he was in trouble. Jake, meanwhile, has never had a parent that he could turn to, which continues in this episode as Logan drinks away his grief and passes out on the couch. Both of these storylines align with the experiences of the characters throughout the season, which has repeatedly been defined by a divide between teens and adults (a common YA trope, which Chucky absolutely is).

The fact that Jake nearly winds up homeless and Devon expresses concerns about being put into foster care are both incredibly legitimate concerns for queer youth. According to Youth.Gov:

LGBT youth experience homelessness at higher rates than non-LGBT youth for a range of reasons. A recent study of more than 350 runaway and homeless providers throughout the United States identified four top causes for homelessness among LGBT youth: (1) family rejection resulting from sexual orientation or gender identity; (2) physical, emotional, or sexual abuse; (3) aging out of the foster care system; and (4) financial and emotional neglect.

Significantly, when Jake returns from the bus station, he does not go to his blood relatives. Instead he goes to Lexy, who remarks that his decision to abandon his Chosen family – meaning her and Devon – is selfish. While her word choice is a touch cruel, the sentiment is powerful. Going back to episode one when Jake’s father failed to support his sexual orientation, Chucky has been engaging in a dialogue about the value of finding your Chosen – or Found – Family, which, according to GLAAD, is “a group of supportive people providing unconditional support.” 

Chosen family is not an exclusively queer concept, but it tends to be more relevant to our lived experiences, particularly the 39% of queer adults who have faced rejection from their birth families. Lexy’s use of the term is a reflection of two things: 1) it is emblematic of just how far the character has come from those early episodes, but also 2) how she – and by extension the show – views her friendship with Jake and Devon. The words are also a signal to queer audiences who will recognize and understand the depth and importance of the term, which explains why Lexy and Jake are willing to lay their lives on the line to rescue Devon heading into the finale. 

After all, these three really only have each other now and nothing is more important than (Chosen) family. We’ll see if it’s enough to get them through the battle to come.

Chucky airs Tuesdays on Syfy and USA Network. For more coverage, see Meagan’s review of episode seven.

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It’s time to talk about young love! 

Without a doubt, one of the best components of Don Mancini’s new Chucky series is its unflinching commitment to telling a young queer romance story. It’s been an absolute joy to watch the trust and intimacy between Jake (Zackary Arthur) and Devon (Björgvin Arnarson) develop over the first half of the season. The age appropriate actors playing the pre-teen characters have great chemistry together and their scenes have a youthful tenderness that feels achingly authentic.

While there’s never been a doubt that these two like each other, back in episode two, when Chucky (Brad Dourif) was actively grooming Jake, it seemed as though Jake might dodge Devon’s advances in order to pursue vengeance on Lexy (Alyvia Alyn Lind). I’m specifically remembering the scene at school when Devon tries to connect with Jake by touching his arm, and Jake gives him a panicked look. Jake’s reaction is partially because he’s preoccupied thinking about murdering Lexy, but he’s also either uncomfortable or worried about being touched by another boy in a public setting.

It’s clever of writers Harley Peyton and Rachael Paradis to recreate that moment in “Little Little Lies” with a completely different outcome. In the span of two episodes, Devon has been brought into the fold: he’s researched Charles Lee Ray’s backstory and he’s seen Chucky in action at the hospital. He and Jake (and Lexy) are in this together now. This time, when Devon touches Jake’s arm, not only does Jake allow it, but the episode goes into a time lapse: it’s just the two of them, alone in this moment, and everyone and everything else is just a blur. It’s a great visual representation of how caught up in each other they are.

This nicely anticipates the pair’s first kiss later in the episode. There’s a carefree, romanticized feel to the overhead birds-eye and on the ground tracking shots as they ride their bikes, then stop to survey the lush fall colours. They gaze at each other, then lean in for a hesitant peck. After a knowing beat, the pair give it a second go, this time with more conviction and enthusiasm. 

It’s a pretty accurate depiction of the first time you realize what kissing the right person feels like. There’s trepidation and maybe even awkwardness at first, then you let go and realize you want more. 

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is a very necessary kind of representation. Same-sex kissing isn’t a rarity on TV anymore, but it is still often treated as taboo and/or sensational. It’s also the purview of older characters as a prelude to sex. What’s happening on Chucky is obviously more chaste and innocent, but it’s the kind of representation that matters, especially to closeted queer kids. 

Here are two young boys, exploring their feelings for a member of the same sex, and it’s not the end of the world. Nor is it sexless – this relationship involves kissing, hand holding and touching. Seeing physical intimacy on screen is vitally important because it reinforces that queer people don’t just exist, we also have sex. Jake and Devon’s burgeoning relationship normalizes this behaviour in an age-appropriate way.

Amusingly enough, this coming of age story unfolds in the same episode as another queer storyline, albeit one that’s much more adult in nature. The return of Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly) and Nica (Fiona Dourif), as well as flashbacks to Chucky’s first meeting with Tiffany in the same hotel room, have a heightened sexuality to them. 

For both of these adult situations, queer sexuality is intricately linked to death. In the flashbacks, Chucky and Tiffany casually murder the woman they’re engaged in a menage-a-trois with (amusingly this instigates the change to Tilly’s trademark voice) while in the present Tiffany and Nica-as-Chucky are voyeuristically having sex in front of a hostage who is later killed. These scenes exist primarily to shed light on the couple’s origin story and introduce conflict into Nica’s body possession storyline from Curse of Chucky, but the linkage between queer sex and death is significant. 

This is a far more conventional association, with historical ties to films like Basic Instinct and beyond. Queer horror has a long and troubled history wherein queer sexuality (and, more specifically, the physical act of sex) is coded as dangerous or deadly. It’s a bit ironic that this outdated/traditional depiction exists in the same episode as Jake and Devon’s more progressive depiction of queer romance. 

Don’t let anyone tell you that Mancini and company don’t have a sense of humour!    

Chucky airs Tuesdays on Syfy and USA Network. For more coverage, see Meagan’s review of episode five.

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This is the first week of my Chucky coverage that I’ve been jealous of Meagan’s reviews because the hospital horror scenes in “Just Let Go” are pretty darn exciting. But while melty-faced Chucky (Brad Dourif) double-fisting syringes into Detective Peyton (Travis Milne)’s chest to the point that his fingers bleed is highly entertaining, for our purposes, the queer horror narrative is still the one unfolding in the flashbacks.

Thanks to Devon (Bjorgvin Arnarson)’s research, the next chapter of Charles Lee Ray’s childhood is revealed. After the death of his parents, Charles was sent to a boys home where he stayed out of trouble for a few years. Then, as a fourteen year old (now played by Tyler Barish), Charles embarks on a mission of not just revenge, but also “mentorship.”

Obviously the big reveal is that Charles’ connection with a young boy at the group home is revealed to be none other than Eddie Caputo (played by Neil Giuntoli in the 1988 film). While Eddie winds up being Chucky’s accomplice and eventual murder victim in the 80s, here he’s simply a boy who shares Charles’ interest in the macabre, to the point that he willingly accepts the severed forearm of the murdered Janitor (Michael Scholar Jr) in a shoebox.

One interpretation of this development is through the lens of courtship: Chucky is wooing Eddie into a future life of crime. But there’s barely enough material here to justify that reading (perhaps we’ll see more of Eddie in the future?)

Let’s focus instead of the cultivation of homosocial relationships that Charles/Chucky covets. While in the present he’s just as interested in young Caroline (Carina Battrick) as he is in Jake (Zackary Arthur), it’s telling how easily Chucky assumes control of the all-boy troop at the group home. We see him not only commandeering story time and teaching the boys foul language, he takes them on an “adventure” into the woods to see the Janitor’s body. 

The fact that Charles was reading the group Peter Pan is significant in this regard: the story is about an emotionally stunted, immature boy who collects young, impressionable boys in a make-believe world where he never has to grow up.

Thematically the choice of Peter Pan makes sense because Chucky’s world is make-believe. For Chucky, sweet talking Jake is all it will take to convince the boy to drop Lexy (Alyvia Alyn Lind) to her death. Hell, Chucky’s moral code is such that Detective Peyton’s voracious appetite merits stabbing him to death, or that Oliver deserved to die last episode because Chucky mistook him for someone else! Let’s face it: Chucky’s point of view is infantile, so Peter Pan is a perfect fit for him. 

Coincidentally this isn’t the first time a Peter Pan narrative has been linked to queerness. Due to the character’s age and size, he was routinely played by a girl on-stage and according to The Atlantic, Peter is:

Eternally young; endlessly seeking adventure; brazenly living a fraught, fantastical life without grown-up interference or societal constriction—Peter Pan is the perfect character through whom society’s gender roles may be disrupted, and even abandoned. He’s more interested in killing pirates than kissing girls… Rascally and clever and devil-may-care, Peter will never reach manhood; he doesn’t want to achieve manhood.

Sound like anyone we know? Sure Chucky’s relationship with Jennifer Tilly’s Tiffany contradicts some of this, but the reality is that he’s always seemed more attracted to her murderous impulses than her physicality.

Of course the trip through the woods to see a dead body is also evocative of the homosocial world of Stephen King’s The Body (or Frank Darabont’s adaptation, Stand By Me), which positions a memorable adventure as a loss of innocence among a group of young male friends. And while this would apply more to Eddie than Charles in these flashbacks, this is a rite of passage and a new turning point for Charles: the moment he murders for himself.

Between the recent discussion about mentorship and grooming, the homosocial ties to The Body and the queer undertones of Peter Pan, it’s clear that Chucky has “a type”. The question is whether Mancini and his writers will continue to explore Charles’ childhood experiences, or whether the narrative will focus more on the present day now that Chucky has made his presence known to both Lexy and Devon.

Chucky airs Tuesdays on Syfy and USA Network. Also: Tune into this week’s Horror Queers for a punk interpretation of Peter Pan in queer director Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys.

The post The Queer Horror of ‘Chucky’: Episode 4 – “Just Let Go” appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

After last week’s premiere tackled concerns about coming out to unsupportive parents, it’s fascinating to see parents back at the center of attention – albeit in a slightly different way – in Chucky’s second episode. 

Thus far, Chucky has adhered closely to the tropes of a young adult/coming of age property, so it makes sense that there is a marked division between the teens on the show and the adults. In the first episode this was explored primarily through Jake (Zackary Arthur)’s relationship with his father Luke, but creator Don Mancini and co-writer Kim Garland expand on this idea in “Give Me Something Good To Eat.”

In this busy second episode, each teen character of note has a scene that illustrates the complicated dynamic they have with their parent(s):

• Lexy (Alyvia Alyn Lind) feels unsupported by hers, particularly in contrast with her (obviously sociopathic) younger sister Caroline (Carina Battrick) who receives plenty of praise for her artistic abilities.
• Devon (Bjorgvin Arnarson) is actively lying to his mother, Detective Evans (Rachelle Casseus) about his interest in Jake, and also possibly about his queer identity. 
• Even Junior (Teo Briones), who has incredibly supportive parents in Logan (Devon Sawa) and Bree (Lexa Doig), is unable to convey how pressured he feels to perform well.

And then there’s Jake and his new surrogate father/mentor figure, Chucky (voiced by Brad Dourif). The red headed doll gets into plenty of trouble in this episode – from killing the housekeeper to “tricking” a neighbor into taking a bite of a razor blade embedded-apple – but the most vital scene from a queer horror perspective is what appears to be a simple conversation between doll and owner.

In Jake’s darkened bedroom, Chucky confides that he’s protecting Jake because they both want the same thing. By episode’s end, Chucky literally encourages the teen to take up arms, but Chucky first reveals that he is father to Glen/Glenda in order to get into Jake’s good graces.

It’s a significant scene for a few reasons. Glen/Glenda hasn’t been seen since Seed of Chucky (2004), which is the last entry in the film franchise to go to theatres. That film received extremely negative reviews, thanks primarily to its very self-aware, campy tone (if you want a deep dive, check out the Horror Queers episode on it). While Bride of Chucky dabbled in similar content, that film proved nowhere near as polarizing thanks to the introduction of Jennifer Tilly’s Tiffany. 

To be clear, Chucky’s proud acknowledgement of Glen/Glenda’s existence, as well as their non-binary, gender fluid status, isn’t revelatory (by the end of Seed, Chucky is fully accepting of them, which is one of the reasons the long running franchise is also horror’s most queer friendly). One of the big developments in Seed, of course, is that Chucky’s acceptance of Glen/Glenda was superseded by his fixation of cultivating their murderous impulses. 

In this way, Seed ultimately confirmed that Chucky is more than happy to be a proud papa…so long as his child is a killer like him. And it’s clear from “Give Me Something Good To Eat” that he has similar designs for Jake. 

Unlike the other parents on the series who can’t speak their teens’ language, Chucky has the ability to talk the LGBTQ talk, thereby rendering himself cool and relatable to a queer, bullied outsider like Jake. The way Chucky gets Jake to trust him (and, in the process get him started down a murderous path) is by sharing his own relationship to the queer community. “I’m not a monster,” Chucky clarifies to Jake when pressed about his feelings regarding Glen/Glenda’s genderqueer status…and with that he begins grooming a new killer. 

It’s nefarious and more than a little predatory, but it’s also exactly what we have come to expect from Chucky. After all, we’ve been down this path before in Seed of Chucky. 

Chucky airs every Tuesday on Syfy. For more coverage, see Meagan’s review of episode two.

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There are plenty of thrilling moments in the premiere of Don Mancini’s Chucky series on Syfy. In addition to homages to both the series’ films and other horror classics, “Death By Misadventure” also positions queerness and queer horror as its focal point. Spoilers ahead.

As Horror Queers listeners know, there’s more than one way to queer a horror text. It may involve queer talent in front of and behind the camera; the narrative can focus on queer characters in significant and meaningful ways; and/or it can include content that appeals directly to queer audiences, such as casting particular actors beloved by the community or embracing a story’s camp potential.

Thus far, Chucky is engaging with all facets of queer horror. The long running franchise was created by out gay man Don Mancini, who has brought back his frequent collaborator, friend and queer icon Jennifer Tilly (she’ll turn up later in the season). The Syfy series notably also has a queer protagonist – Jake Wheeler (Zackary Arthur) – front and center.

Additionally the first episode focuses on bullying, with Chucky (voiced by Brad Dourif) seemingly protecting and even penalizing those who would do Jake harm. This is part of Mancini’s interest to explore issues that are relevant not just to teens, but more specifically, queer teens. 

In keeping with the tropes of Young Adult texts (which Chucky is, in addition to being a horror series), the family narrative is one of tragedy and loss. We learn that Jake’s mother died in a car accident, which has caused – or at minimum contributed to – Luke’s alcoholism, as well as expanding the rift between father and son. 

It’s clear that Jake related more strongly to his mother, who was also an artist (hence his interest in art, represented in the pilot by his macabre doll sculpture). Jake’s art is an attempt to work through his own grief and maintain a connection to his deceased mother. 

It is unsurprising then that, following an uncomfortable family dinner with his more successful twin brother Logan (Sawa), sister-in-law Bree (Lexa Doig) and seemingly perfect nephew Junior (Teo Briones), Luke destroys the sculpture. The demolition of this work epitomizes Luke’s desire for Jake to stop his “effeminate” activities (playing with dolls, making art like his mother, etc). The use of a baseball bat, a symbol of America’s national pastime and a conventionally masculine sport for boys, is a visual reminder of how, in Luke’s opinion, Jake fails to conform to acceptable gender behavior.

This comes to a head in a dramatic, violent confrontation later in the episode that evokes the worst fears for queer youth: Jake’s father physically assaults him when Jake proudly announces that he is a f*g. It’s significant that Mancini uses the worst contemporary slur for gay men in this encounter; not only is it shocking and confronting, but Jake has a clear understanding of its effect on his father. By using this word, Jake appropriates its hateful power and seeks to verbally wound his father, effectively turning Luke’s outdated discrimination against him.

In response Luke punches his fourteen year old son in the face and threatens to kill him. 

There’s no doubt that any audience will see this as shocking and abusive parental behavior. For queer audiences, however, Luke’s response plays into one of the most significant fears we have about the coming out process: that our parents will disown us, hate us, throw us out or, at worst, murder us. Mancini quickly subverts by giving Jake the agency and strength to fight back against his father, which plays as the ultimate wish fulfilment for queer teens. Unfortunately the ramifications of this interaction aren’t lingered on because the threat of Luke’s violence is quickly removed when Chucky kills him later that night.

For most audiences, the violence between Jake and Luke will be little more than a brief, fleeting interaction. For queer audiences, however, Mancini and Chucky have dramatized the very real emotional and physical risk of coming out to an unsupportive parent. It’s not as tangibly scary as being murdered by a doll or as entertaining as telling off haters during a talent show, but it’s an understated moment of queer horror in “Death By Misadventure” that suggests intriguing things to come. We’ll find out next week in episode 2, “Give Me Something Good To Eat.”

Chucky airs every Tuesday on Syfy. For more coverage, see Meagan’s review of episode one.

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As makeup artist Charlie (Emily Bennett) painstakingly prepares a romantic homecoming for her girlfriend Simone (Emma Myles, Orange is the New Black) in their Brooklyn apartment, she is interrupted by a jarring call from her religious mother (Barbara Crampton, Re-Animator, You’re Next) with the news that her grandmother has passed away. After enduring several of her mother’s microaggressions, Charlie becomes trapped in her apartment with no way out. The digital clocks have all been erased and the windows are covered in a dark material, blocking her view of the outside world. Oh, and there’s a mysterious voice coming out of her air vent.

Bennet pulls triple duty here, co-writing and co-directing Alone With You with Justin Brooks in their feature debut. Filmed during the pandemic lockdown, Alone With You takes place almost entirely in Charlie and Simone’s apartment, with the occasional flashback to a deserted beach, where we see Charlie in moments of distress. Interior single-setting thrillers like this almost always depend on a sense of claustrophobia, and Alone With You succeeds at this in fits and starts. They’re fighting a losing battle with the setting, as the apartment isn’t really that claustrophobic (it’s two stories), but Bennett and Brooks use the camera in a way that makes the space feel confined. A standout sequence in a dark, cramped room filled with mannequins is when the film is at its most unsettling. Unfortunately, this tension isn’t sustained throughout the duration of the film.

While Bennett is present in every scene of the film, she does occasionally gets to share the screen with other people on, well, other screens (this is a COVID-shot film, after all). Brief FaceTime calls with her mother and best friend Thea (Dora Madison, VFW) are peppered throughout, but Bennett is the focus here. She is tasked with carrying the film by herself and she is more than up to the task. The script, on the other hand, struggles to maintain suspense throughout its admittedly brief 83-minute runtime, more focused on delaying a third act reveal instead of building tension.

It’s not that that the aforementioned revelation is the problem, but rather that it’s made painfully obvious if you’re paying attention (and especially so if you know this particular sub-genre). When the reveal finally comes, one can’t help but feel a bit disappointed. Alone With You would have worked better had it opened with said reveal and moved on from there, working as a character study through a horror lens, but sadly that’s not the film we have.

Adding extra layers to the film is the queer aspect, and it’s this aspect that makes Alone With You worth a watch. The film doesn’t delve too much into Charlie’s backstory, but some viewers will put the pieces of the puzzle together simply based on minute details incorporated into the dialogue. Charlie’s mother uses certain trigger words and phrases that speak volumes about the person Charlie is today (referring to her lifestyle as her “choice,” calling Simone her “roommate,” etc.). I, as a queer viewer, know the harsh toll these words can take on someone’s psyche. I also know why Charlie has become co-dependent in her relationship and doesn’t have many friends that she can call her own. The film doesn’t do much in the way of addressing these things, though, and that can make the film’s character work seem half-baked at times. It’s a nice effort, but it’s unfortunate that the film seems content with simply letting the audience do most of the work.

Alone With You is a film in which the idea behind it is more interesting than film itself, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth checking out. It’s a promising debut feature for Bennett and Brooks, and while the idea is there, the execution leaves something to be desired.

The post [Fantastic Fest Review] ‘Alone With You’ Is a Mixed Bag of Queer Paranoia appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

After getting fancy (and super duper queer) with Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope, we entered the gooey world of David Cronenberg in his masterpiece The Fly and we unpacked the white privilege in Bernard Rose’s Candyman. Now, we’re wielding our katanas and visiting the small German village at the center of Till Kleinert’s psychosexual thriller Der Samurai.

Set in a small German village, Der Samurai sees a bloody game of cat-and-mouse ensue between a young, straight-shooting police officer (Michel Diercks) and a villain (Pit Bukowski) who wears a dress, wields a large sword and has a predilection for beheadings.

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, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 141 – Der Samurai (2014)

Grab your katana and white dress because we’re heading over to a small German town to discuss the internal struggle of the queer cop at the center of Till Kleinert’s surreal film Der Samurai. Joining us for the discussion is Transploitation co-creator Ten Backe!

Come along for the ride as we wade through the film’s dream logic to interpret what this film is trying to say. We’ve got a look at small town queer life, coming out via baptism, questions surrounding gender identity and one very erect penis.

Plus, attacking queer culture through pink flamingos, decapitations galore, a town literally covered in blood, more Freeway plugs and our beefs with James Woods and Isaiah Washington.

Cross out Der Samurai!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re finally tackling a top request from listeners: David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows.

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for tons of additional content! This month, we’ll have episodes on Nia DaCosta’s Candyman, James Wan’s Malignant, Netflix’s series Brand New Cherry Flavor, as well as an audio commentary on 30 Days  of Night and a minisode on weird horror films.

The post The Literal Battle of Gender Identity in ‘Der Samurai’ [Horror Queers Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

First we got cosmic with Adam Egypt Mortimer’s outstanding imaginary friend tale Daniel Isn’t Real, then we got hot with the 1981 parody Student Bodies before getting fancy (and super duper queer) with Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope. Now, we’re getting weird, gooey and tragic with David Cronenberg‘s masterful remake of The Fly!

In the film, scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) completes his teleportation device and decides to test its abilities on himself. Unbeknownst to him, a housefly slips in during the process, leading to a merger of man and insect. Initially, Brundle appears to have undergone a successful teleportation, but the fly’s cells begin to take over his body. As he becomes increasingly fly-like, Brundle’s girlfriend Veronica (Geena Davis) is horrified as the person she once loved deteriorates into a monster.

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, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 139 – The Fly (1986)

Check the windows in your teleportation pod because we’re heading up to Toronto to discuss all the gooey goodness in David Cronenberg’s seminal horror remake The Fly! Joining us is Bloody Disgusting’s lead critic (and co-host of The Bloody Disgusting Podcast): Meagan Navarro!

Join us as we trace the film’s journey from page to screen (rewrites, Mel Brooks, tragedy and Total Recall) before discussing the film’s possible AIDS allegory and, of course, all the praise for the film’s outstanding and Oscar-winning special effects.

Plus, respect for the film’s handling of abortion (in 1986, no less) normalizing the cock and references to Zenon: The Zequel and Cube 2: Hypercube. Hey, it wouldn’t be a Cronenberg discussion if it wasn’t weird!

Cross out The Fly!

Coming up on Wednesday: To celebrate the release of Nia DaCosta’s Candyman this weekend, we’ll finally be discussing Bernard Rose’s original adaptation of Clive Barker’s short story “The Forbidden.” That’s right, it’s time to finally dive into Bernard Rose’s Candyman!

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for tons of additional content! This month, we’ll have episodes on The Boy Behind the Door, Old, The Night House, Don’t Breathe and Don’t Breathe 2. 

The post The AIDS Allegory at the Center of David Cronenberg’s ‘The Fly’ [Horror Queers Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

After queering up the castle in James Whale’s The Bride of Frankenstein, we got cosmic with Adam Egypt Mortimer’s outstanding imaginary friend tale Daniel Isn’t Real before getting hot in the 1981 parody Student Bodies. Now we’re going back in time again to check in with the sociopathic (and possibly definitely queer) duo in Alfred Hitchcock‘s technical marvel Rope!

In the film, friends (or lovers?) Philip Morgan (Farley Granger) and Brandon Shaw (John Dall) strangle a mutual friend to death with a piece of rope, purely as a Nietzsche-inspired philosophical exercise. Hiding the body in a chest upon which they then arrange a buffet dinner, the pair welcome their guests, including the victim’s oblivious fiancée (Joan Chandler) and the college professor (James Stewart) whose lectures inadvertently inspired the killing.

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, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 138 – Rope (1948)

Shut the antique wooden chest and choke your chicken because we’re heading to a posh Manhattan penthouse for a classy dinner party in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1948 technical marvel (and uber-queer film) Rope!

Join us as we kick off the episode discussing Leopold & Loeb, the real-life “perfect murder” case that serves as the inspiration for the film (among many others) before delving into just how queer this movie is. We’ve got a queer screenwriter and multiple queer actors and some truly bitchy 1940s dialogue.

Plus, stigmatizing tops and bottoms (boo!), a murder set piece doubling as a sex scene, a Jason Sudeikis/Hugo Weaving hybrid, a 50 Shades of Grey tangent and, of course, minding our p’s and q’s.

Cross out Rope!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re getting bugged out with an analysis of David Cronenberg’s seminal body horror film (and possible AIDS allegory) in The Fly!

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for tons of additional content! This month, we’ll have episodes on The Boy Behind the Door, Old, The Night House, Don’t Breathe and Don’t Breathe 2. 

The post Just How Queer Is Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Rope’? Very Queer. [Horror Queers Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

It’s not often that a popular IP gets adapted with explicit queer content added in, but that’s exactly what happened with Netflix’s Fear Street trilogy, a groundbreaking event that puts two queer characters front-and-center in a major horror release.

Now that all three films have been released, we’re releasing a spoiler-filled interview with the trilogy’s queer co-writer Phil Graziadei (Honeymoon). After discussing the development of the films, we’ll jump right in to all things queer and discuss the decision to make Fear Street ultra-queer, fan reactions to the trilogy (including those who decry “wokeness”), and how refreshing it is to not have to deal with scraps when it comes to queer representation in media (looking at you, Disney).

The film trilogy, which is currently streaming on Netflix, centers on a group of teenagers in 1994 who discover that the terrifying events that have haunted their town for generations may all be connected — and they may be the next targets. Based on R.L. Stine’s best-selling horror series, Fear Street follows Shadyside’s sinister history through a nightmare 300 years in the making.

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, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Bonus Episode – Interview: Fear Street Trilogy Co-Writer Phil Graziadei

Surprise! We’re bringing you a special bonus episode this week in the form of an interview with the Netflix Fear Street Trilogy‘s queer co-writer Phil Graziadei! In this revealing interview, we’ll discuss all things queer in this explicitly queer adaptation of R.L. Stine’s classic book series.

But first, we’ll discuss some of the adaptation choices the film’s make as well as the film’s release strategy. Then, we’ll dive into the likability of certain characters, discuss some of the films’ queer coding and why it’s so important to make a queer couple the face of a major horror franchise. We’ve got the scoop, y’all!

Individual loglines for the film are below:

FEAR STREET PART 1: 1994

A circle of teenage friends accidentally encounter the ancient evil responsible for a series of brutal murders that have plagued their town for over 300 years. Welcome to Shadyside.

FEAR STREET PART 2: 1978

Shadyside, 1978. School’s out for summer and the activities at Camp Nightwing are about to begin. But when another Shadysider is possessed with the urge to kill, the fun in the sun becomes a gruesome fight for survival.

FEAR STREET PART 3: 1666

The origins of Sarah Fier’s curse are finally revealed as history comes full circle on a night that changes the lives of Shadysiders forever.

The post ‘Fear Street’ Co-Writer Phil Graziadei Talks Queer Representation with the Horror Queers! [Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

After visiting the lovely, bitchy ladies of Sorority Row and enjoying the French countryside in Julia Ducournau’s cannibalistic debut film Raw, we’re celebrating the release of Escape Room: Tournament of Champions with a release of our exclusive Patreon episode of the original Escape Room!

In the film, six adventurous strangers (Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Deborah Ann Woll, Jay Ellis, Tyler Labine and Nik Dodani) travel to a mysterious building to experience the escape room — a game where players compete to solve a series of puzzles to win $10,000. What starts out as seemingly innocent fun soon turns into a living nightmare as the four men and two women discover each room is an elaborate trap that’s part of a sadistic game of life or death.

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, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 134 – Escape Room (2019)

This week, we’re digging deep into the Patreon vault to discuss queer director Adam Robitel‘s Cube/Saw V sibling ‘Escape Room’ (just in time for the release of its sequel!).

We break down the actors/characters, the different rooms (#1 is obvious, but where do the other traps…er….rooms fall?) and the long, drawn-out ending of the film. You’re welcome to join us…provided that you can solve your Hellraiser-wannabe cube (or, you know, just go watch a video on YouTube)!

Cross out Escape Room!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re heading back to the classic world of Universal Monsters to revisit queer director James Whale’s better-than-the-original sequel The Bride of Frankenstein!

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for tons of additional content! This month, we’ll have episodes on the Fear Street trilogy and A Quiet Place Part II as well as Werewolves Within and Shudder exclusive Vicious Fun!

The post The Standout Set Pieces in the ‘Saw’-lite ‘Escape Room’ [Horror Queers Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

After traveling to the Amazon to check in with the Creature From the Black Lagoon, we visited the lovely, bitchy ladies of Sorority Row before falling prey to a pimped-out tire iron. Now, we’re getting serious with a deep dive into Julia Ducournau‘s cannibalistic debut film Raw!

In the film, stringent vegetarian Justine (Garance Marillier) encounters a decadent, merciless and dangerously seductive world during her first week at veterinary school. Desperate to fit in, she strays from her principles and eats raw meat for the first time. The young woman soon experiences terrible and unexpected consequences as her true self begins to emerge.

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, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 133 – Raw (2016)

Pull that gravy-soaked cafeteria meat patty out of your pocket and get ready for a cannibalistic coming-of-age tale because we’re doing a deep dive into Julia Ducournau’s debut film Raw! Joining us for the discussion is film critic Dede Crimmins.

Tag along as we endure what looks like one of the most intense and horrific hazing rituals ever put on film before lamenting the film’s unfortunate vomit bag festival buzz that no doubt set up unrealistic expectations for viewers. We’ll then pick apart the many, many metaphors contained within the film.

We’ll also share a plethora of anecdotes, including but not limited to: bedbug experiences, public urination, hair-chewing, mirror-fucking, bikini waxes and Ducournau’s secret trick to directing a dance scene.

Plus, are the parents in the film the worst film parents ever? Is 7-Eleven pizza secretly amazing? And does Trace hate women? Tune in and find out!

Cross out Raw!

Coming up on Wednesday: In honor of Escape Room: Tournament of Champions being released this weekend, we’re digging into the Patreon vault and releasing our episode on the first Escape Room!

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for tons of additional content! This month, we’ll have episodes on the Fear Street trilogy and A Quiet Place Part II as well as Werewolves Within and Shudder exclusive Vicious Fun!

The post Horrific Hazing Rituals and Multiple Metaphors in ‘Raw’ [Horror Queers Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The event is part of a weekend-long celebration of the LGBTQ+ community with local queer artists, musicians and businesses. The event will feature a live “Queer Street” mural painting by Xavier Schipani and DJ sets by Boyfriend ATX, Sin Morera, La Morena, Winona Grindr, and Suxxy Puxxy. There will also be special performances by P1nkstar, Y2K, Gothess Jasmine, Noodles, Ruby Knight, Mandy Quinn, Tatiana Cholula, and Workout! with Erica Nix.

AUSTIN, TEXAS

Date: Sunday, July 11

Time: 3pm – 7pm CT

Locations: Coconut Club (310B Colorado St) & Neon Grotto (318 Colorado St)

Muralist Xavier Shipani has participated in shows during Art Basel, The Whitney Museum, Subliminal Projects and has an installation in the permanent collection at the McNay Museum. Over the past few years, the now Austin based artist has focused his practice on creating playful installations that explore the boundaries of gender, sexuality and queer identity. Schipani’s unique voice and personal connection to the themes of his work create intimate experiences in combination with a larger than life scale to establish a contrast between the work and the viewer. He continues to investigate fear and anger, masculinity as performance and the ambiguity of what makes a man.

A separate event will also be taking place on Saturday, July 10th in New York:

NEW YORK

Date: Saturday, July 10th 

Time: 3 – 7 PM PST

Locations: C’mon Everybody 325 Franklin Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11238

Directed by Leigh Janiak (Honeymoon) and based upon the groundbreaking teen horror Fear Street books by R.L. Stine, Netflix’s Fear Street Trilogy is introducing a new brand of horror to the next generation: one story… told over three films… across 300 years.

• FEAR STREET PART 1: 1994 releases globally on Netflix on July 2, 2021.
  • A circle of teenage friends accidentally encounter the ancient evil responsible for a series of brutal murders that have plagued their town for over 300 years. Welcome to Shadyside.
• FEAR STREET PART 2: 1978 releases globally on Netflix on July 9, 2021.
  • Shadyside, 1978. School’s out for summer and the activities at Camp Nightwing are about to begin. But when another Shadysider is possessed with the urge to kill, the fun in the sun becomes a gruesome fight for survival.
• FEAR STREET PART 3: 1666 releases globally on Netflix on July 16, 2021.
  • The origins of Sarah Fier’s curse are finally revealed as history comes full circle on a night that changes the lives of Shadysiders forever.

The post Netflix Celebrates ‘Fear Street’ by Taking It to the Queer Streets of Austin! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

We’ve certainly had an interesting Pride month so far! After heading across the pond for some “Faerie Tale Queertre” in The Wolves of Kromer, we checked in with Pauline and her surgeon skills in Excision before reappraising the vastly underrated Bones. Now, we’re going classic with our first foray into the world of Universal Monsters with Jack Arnold‘s Creature from the Black Lagoon!

In the film, remnants of a mysterious animal have come to light in a remote jungle, and a group of scientists intends to determine if the find is an anomaly or evidence of an undiscovered beast. To accomplish their goal, the scientists (Antonio Moreno, Richard Carlson, Julie Adams, Richard Denning, Whit Bissell) must brave the most perilous pieces of land South America has to offer. But the terrain is nothing compared to the danger posed by an otherworldly being that endangers their work and their lives.

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, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 131 – Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

Pray you didn’t forget your bug spray, because we’re heading deep into the Amazon to hang with our favorite queer villain the Gill-Man in Jack Arnold’s contribution to the Universal monsters: Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)!

Join us as we do an in-depth production history of this classic film before going on a brief tour of what it was like to be queer in the ’50s (hint: it wasn’t fun!). We’ll then analyze the obviously queer relationship between Mark (Richard Denning) and David (Richard Carlson) while giving a queer reading to the Gill-Man himself.

Plus, a rundown of the many cancelled remakes, ass-squeezing swimsuits, underwater facials with creamy white goo and did Anaconda just completely rip off this movie (we have the receipts!)?

Cross out Creature From the Black Lagoon!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re heading back to college to check in with the lovely ladies on Sorority Row!

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for tons of additional content! This month, we’re going to rank the films in The Conjuring universe and release episodes on The Conjuring and its sequel The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. We’ll also have a summer movie preview and an episode on Hulu’s new pregnancy horror film False Positive.

The post The Diva Worship and Queer Romance at the Center of ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’ [Horror Queers Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

After closing out February with something serious (The Taking of Deborah Logan) and something bonkers (Freeway), we’re going pure comedy with Keenen Ivory Wayans‘ 2001 haunted house parody Scary Movie 2!

Scary Movie 2 sees a group of “teens,” including Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris) and Brenda Meeks (Regina Hall), invited to spend a night in Hell House. Professor Oldman (Tim Curry) has convinced them it is for a school project, but it is actually a ruse for them to study paranormal activity in the house. Master Hugh Kane (Richard Moll) is long dead, but still plans on enjoying himself, especially with Alex Monday (Tori Spelling). When things really start getting bad, the gang must work together to find a way to capture this ghostly menace.

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, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 115 – Scary Movie 2 (2001)

Get your strong hands out because we’re discussing our first full-blown parody with Keenen Ivory Wayans’ 2001 crude spoof Scary Movie 2! Joining us for the discussion is “The Oprah of Horror” (and Horror Movies and Beyond host) Ivotres Littles!

Join us as we look at this wackadoodle time capsule into the types of comedies we were getting in the early aughts, note the differences between parody and satire, and try (TRY) to figure out which jokes work and which ones don’t. But hey, all humor is subjective, right?

Plus: why Scary Movie 2 couldn’t be made today, how the film and its humor have aged, its incredibly rushed production timeline and (of course) all the praise for Anna Faris and Regina Hall.

Cross out Scary Movie 2!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re going Carrie vs. Jason with Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood!

– Joe & Trace

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for tons of additional content! In March we’re doing a hillbilly horror theme with episodes on the remakes of Wrong Turn, The Hills Have Eyes and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as well as the controversial episode of The X-Files: “Home”.

The post Analyzing the Hit-and-Miss Parody of ‘Scary Movie 2’ [Horror Queers Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Surprise! We usually take this week off because of the holidays and whatnot but we figured we’d treat you all to a special episode of Horror Queers, and that episode is one that we did for the Nightstream Film Festival back in October. Our film of choice? Tarsem Singh‘s visually stunning 2000 sci-fi horror film The Cell.

The Cell takes a shocking, riveting mind trip into the dark and dangerous corridors of a serial killer’s (Vincent D’Onofrio) psyche — a psyche that holds the key to saving the killer’s final, trapped victim who remains alive. Making this journey into the recesses of a killer’s nightmarish fantasy world is Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez), a psychologist who has been experimenting with a radical new therapy. Through a new transcendental science, Catherine can experience what is happening in another person’s unconscious mind.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, TuneIn, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 105 – The Cell (2000)

Happy holidays, everyone! We usually take this week off, but we had an extra episode in the Horror Queers archives that we recorded back in October for the Nightstream Film Festival, and we thought we’d release it as a little holiday treat for all of you. That treat comes in the form of a discussion of all things J. Lo in Tarsem Singh’s The Cell!

Join us as we enter the mind of a killer and try to figure out whether the film really is “style over substance,” defend Lopez against the haters and discuss the implications of giving a serial killer an empathetic backstory (especially one that involves potential queerness).

Plus, suspension masturbation, a Sindel cameo and another Lizzie McGuire connection! The Cell really is a better Nightmare on Elm Street sequel than, well, some of the Nightmare on Elm Street sequels.

Cross out The Cell!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re celebrating New Year’s with a film that has a direct tie-in with the holiday (as well as containing some problematic queer elements): the 1980 Jamie Lee Curtis slasher film Terror Train!

– Joe & Trace

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for tons of additional content! This month we’ll have episodes on Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor and Christopher Landon’s Freaky, and we’ll have an audio commentary on Deadly Games (aka Dial Code: Santa Claus), which is currently streaming on Shudder.

The post [Horror Queers Podcast] The Style (and the Substance) of Tarsem Singh’s ‘The Cell’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

After checking in with Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter last week in Copycat, we’re getting that much closer to our 100th episode! But before we hit that milestone we’ve got just one more episode left and it’s a good one! We’re getting timely with Carter Smith‘s 2008 pandemic creature feature The Ruins!

Related Article: 10 Years Later, ‘The Ruins’ Still Gets Under the Skin!

The film sees Amy (Jena Malone), Stacy (Laura Ramsey), Jeff (Jonathan Tucker) and Eric (Shawn Ashmore) look for fun during a sunny holiday in Mexico, but they get much more than that after visiting an archaeological dig in the jungle. Carnivorous vines try to ensnare the friends in their tendrils, forcing the group to fight for survival.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, TuneIn, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 99 – The Ruins (2008)

Can four Americans on vacation in Mexico just disappear? We’re here to find out as we discuss previous guest Carter Smith’s 2008 pandemic creature feature The Ruins! Joining us is Bloody Disgusting’s own Dax Ebaben!

Join us as we discuss the Stephen King-approved source material (aka one of the scariest novels of the 21st century) and how it translates to the screen in the Ben Stiller(!)-produced film that most critics compared unfavorably to Little Shop of Horrors (those critics are dumb).

Plus, sad handjobs, impromptu amputations, questionable German accents (sorry, Joe Anderson) and all the praise for Laura Ramsey’s tragic performance.

Cross out The Ruins!

Coming up on Wednesday: Our 100th episode is finally here and we’re celebrating the milestone with a discussion of one of our most-requested films: William Friedkin’s controversial 1980 slasher/noir hybrid Cruising!

– Joe & Trace

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for tons of additional content! This month we’ll have episodes on Run, The Witches, The Craft: Legacy and The New Mutants, plus an audio commentary on The Purge: Election Year to pair with this month’s stressful election!

The post [Horror Queers Podcast] Equal Opportunity Nudity from a Queer Director in ‘The Ruins’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

After having some goofy fun revisiting the 2000 horror film Urban Legends: Final Cut, we then had a surprisingly serious discussion over Paul Verhoeven’s misunderstood flop Showgirls (yes, we know this isn’t horror, but give us a break, will ya?). Now we are closing out September with our first foray into Hammer Horror: Roy Ward Baker‘s 1970 lesbian vampire film The Vampire Lovers!

The film sees seductive vampire (with lesbian tendencies) Carmilla Karnstein (Ingrid Pitt) target the beautiful and the rich in 19th century Styria.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, TuneIn, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 93 – The Vampire Lovers (1970)

“On this week’s episode, we’re making our first foray into Hammer Horror with a journey to 19th century Styria in Roy Ward Baker’s The Vampire Lovers. Joining us for the discussion is Scarred for Life co-host Mary Beth McAndrews, who brings her own passion for vampires to the episode.

After a brief crash course on Hammer Horror, we’ll laud the performances of Ingrid Pitt as the thrice-named anti-heroic vampire Marcilla/Carmilla/Mircalla, marvel at the unusual vampire lore (shrouds?!), and lament the lack of any interesting male characters (though that is undoubtedly the point).

Plus, Mary Beth leads us in a frank discussion of bisexuality and the vampire sub-genre’s relationship to it, which isn’t too shocking considering this film is sexy af.”

Cross out The Vampire Lovers!

Coming up on Wednesday: Now that we’re in October, we’re kicking off the month with something a bit more light-hearted in Todd Strauss-Schulson’s 2015 meta-slasher The Final Girls!

– Joe & Trace

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for tons of additional content! This month we’ll have episodes on Ratched, Books of Blood, The Haunting of Bly Manor and Rebecca, as well as an audio commentary on Halloween: H20!

The post [Horror Queers Podcast] Entering the World of Hammer Horror with ‘The Vampire Lovers’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Vacation Month kicked off with a deep, uh, cave dive, into one of our personal favorite films: Neil Marshall’s 2005 masterpiece The Descent. Then we explored the world of perversity (and goat-fucking) in Nico Mastorakis’ 1976 video nasty Island of Death. After that, we traveled to Fiji to have our wildest fantasies fulfilled in…..Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island (oof). Now we close out Vacation Month with Colin Minihan‘s under-appreciated 2018 thriller What Keeps You Alive.

In the film, Jackie (Hannah Emily Anderson, Jigsaw, USA Network’s The Purge) and Jules (Brittany Allen, Jigsaw, It Stains the Sands Red, Amazon’s The Boys) are a couple celebrating their first anniversary at a secluded cabin in the woods belonging to Jackie’s family. From the moment they arrive, something changes in Jules’ normally loving wife, as Jackie begins to reveal a previously unknown dark side — all building up to a shocking revelation that will pit Jules against the woman she loves in a terrifying fight to survive.

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, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

Episode 88 – What Keeps You Alive (2018)

We’re heading to a cabin in the beautiful woods of Muskoka, Ontario to celebrate the anniversary of the two lovely ladies at the center of Colin Minihan’s 2018 thriller What Keeps You Alive!

After discussing the implications of the film changing the protagonists of the original script (a heterosexual couple) to a lesbian couple, we’ll then delve into the film’s only real acknowledgment of the struggles of being gay (in a sequence that is quite personal to Joe). Yet we can’t deny that the film has quite a few insightful things to say about relationships, especially its emphasis on the importance of communication (ya know, so you’re not blindsided by the fact that your spouse is actually a psychopath). That it’s anchored by two stellar lead performances doesn’t hurt, either.

Plus, we’ll (rightly) laud the film’s memorable rowboat set piece (yes, really), gush over the blacklight-lit montage that cleverly uses Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” and feel equally frustrated with the film’s protracted third act.

Cross out What Keeps You Alive!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re joining Peter Neal on his Italian book tour in Dario Argento’s Tenebrae!

– Joe & Trace

P.S. If you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen to bonus episodes! For August, we’ve got audio commentaries on Deep Blue Sea and The Cabin in the Woods, as well as additional episodes on Deep Blue Sea 3 and Jay Baruchel’s Random Acts of Violence.

The post [Horror Queers Podcast] Women and Their Rowboats in ‘What Keeps You Alive’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Partially funded from the ad revenue garnered from Houston’s YouTube channel, the 50-minute film started as a noir-ish script called Boys, Smoke and Mirrors before being morphed into what it is today after Houston saw David Lynch’s Lost Highway for the first time. Filled with tons of pulsing blues & reds, Rapture in Blue is now a loving ode to all things Lynch.

The film’s production can only be described as “guerrilla.” Houston, who was 18 at the time of filming, was aided by fellow young media producers who provided him with the professional filming equipment he needed to bring his vision to life. The film went into production in the summer of 2019, with the young director shooting for 12-16 hours each day. He would also drive an old beat-up truck across town to haul the aforementioned equipment to set every day, despite not yet having his driver’s license. After wrapping, Houston spent the next several months dubbing scenes in his mother’s closet.

The synopsis of the film is as follows: Rapture in Blue follows Jason’s (Bryce Lederer) quest through flickering neon and hazy noir shadows to find his true self. After he tries to use his childhood home for a steamy rendezvous with his girlfriend Valerie (Sarah Greenfield), they discover that it is newly occupied by the smoldering Sebastian (Tanner Garmon), who eagerly warms up to anxious Jason. Wracked with desires he’s long tried to ignore while also being pressured by his girlfriend’s sensual advances, a growing sense of unease and dread permeates his life. After receiving an ‘impossible’ photo of him embracing Sebastian, Jason realizes he needs to confront the madness consuming him from all sides.

Specs:

• Widescreen Anamorphic 2.40:1
• Dolby Digital 5.1
• Region Code: 0

Bonus Features:

• Director Commentary Track
• Making-Of Featurette
• Outtake Reel
• Music Video
• Trailer
• Other Trailers
• Reversible Art

Rapture in Blue had its world premiere at the Angelika Film Center in Plano, Texas, and is currently available for pre-order on Altered Innocence’s website.

The post Lynchian Queer Horror Film ‘Rapture in Blue’ Hitting DVD Shelves in October appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Without getting too deep into spoilers, you play as multiple characters in this game, but two end up becoming the central focus: Ellie, and a new character named Abby. You play through vignettes with both of them leading up to where the action kicks off. Ellie starts out on patrol with her soon-to-be love interest Dina, and Abby is searching for someone who apparently lives in Jackson, the Wyoming settlement where Joel & Ellie now live. The two meet in a nightmarish way, and their lives are changed forever.

Once events are set into motion, the game takes place over only three days, first following Ellie, then Abby. These stories are supposed to run parallel to each other, informing how things are shaking out on the other character’s end, but because they’re back-to-back the game ends up feeling like a slog to get through, and the story is unbalanced and unwieldy. 

The Seattle we see in Naughty Dog’s newest project is a post-apocalyptic warzone, and crossing it is every bit as arduous as it sounds both mechanically, and narratively. Part II took its predecessor’s combat system and tuned it up quite a bit, especially by changing the variety of equipment available to you depending on which character you’re playing as. But, at its core, every combat encounter outside of boss fights is the same loop of stalking enemy patrols/infected through abandoned buildings and overgrown streets. 

If you’d like to get creative, you definitely can. There are a ton of ways to approach things if you’re feeling frisky, but by and large, the game won’t ask you to change up how you play. This, combined with the frequency of enemy encounters, made progressing feel like a chore as I went on. 

The monotony that starts to build with one character never gets to be relieved in full because you’re stuck with them for several hours before switching. As soon as you’ve gotten used to one, it’s time to play as the other. This does get a bit better in the late game, but at that point, I was so fatigued from the first 18-20 hours that I often found myself wondering when it was going to be over. 

This is not helped by the uneven and often equally monotonous story. Ellie really only stays interesting for the first of three days. After that, it’s a lot of tracking down landmarks and slaughtering anyone in your path, with little to no character or plot development in between. Despite being funny and somewhat awkward, Ellie’s character remains flat because it’s largely focused on Joel & her immunity. 

On the other hand, Abby’s storyline gets increasingly more interesting as the days go by, but suffers because there’s so much more character development and world-building jammed into the same three-day span. This made playing through Abby’s route frustrating because I wanted more time learning about this new area and what was going on, but that time was instead devoted to Ellie walking around by herself, murdering endless enemies largely in silence.  

One of Part II’s biggest issues is that despite being excessively long, it just doesn’t understand how to allocate its time appropriately. When I take a step back, I can see the skeleton of this story, and there could have been a solid foundation. But aside from way too many combat encounters, and focusing entirely too much on Ellie’s killing spree, the game isn’t confident enough in its subtleties, overcompensating with heavy-handed and time-consuming flashbacks.

I’m torn on these because they do a lot of the emotional heavy lifting for this story, but I think that fact most strikingly shows its inherent weakness. The Last of Us is definitely a zombie story focused on the monstrosity of humanity in crisis, so it invests a lot into important relationships from the past. But in places where a gentle touch with an implication or reminder would be more than enough, Naughty Dog’s delivery of these emotional points has the nuance of the bricks you throw at Clickers. This takes the feeling from heartwarming to redundancy in record time.

Meanwhile, the relationships that are central during the events of Part II are developed largely through brief dialogue interactions triggered by the environment. While there are character dynamics that feel genuine and emotional, they’re not given the time to realistically grow. I ended up really loving these relationships, but I constantly found myself wanting more time with them. Instead, that time went to racking up a higher body count.

Violence in this game is something that’s been a hot button issue since the start, and the sequel is definitely is more graphic than the original. Part II leans more heavily into the horror side of its zombie apocalypse, which includes a lot of blood, gore, and general maiming. It’s no more graphic than a Resident Evil game, but the enemies, sans infected, are very realistic. You’ll hear people’s gurgling final breaths as they go down under your blade, and soldiers calling out the names of their companions, dog and human alike. If you’re someone who can’t bear to hurt dogs in games, you shouldn’t play this. 

However, the violence isn’t just limited to gruesome spectacles and vicious jump scares. Another hot-button topic I want to address is the trans character, Lev, who was revealed through leaks to a litany of reactions both positive and negative. Without elaborating on his plotline, he is deadnamed, and he does experience violence that is motivated by transphobia. In spite of this, in the context of the game itself, I personally didn’t feel the treatment of this character was harmful. Part II is a story rooted in brutality and angst over the nature of violence and selfishness, and Lev isn’t spared from that. But he isn’t a joke, or a token. His story is one that’s familiar, but at least to me, it didn’t feel trope-ridden or toxic. Lev’s transness is a key part of his character, but it is respected by the protagonist in addition to other key parts of who he is, like his relationships with his family and religion.

There are multiple queer characters in Part II, and despite my initial hesitation, I do think they were done well overall. The relationship between Ellie and Dina is definitely the best sapphic romance I’ve seen depicted in a AAA game. There are also some really incredible accessibility options and a diverse cast both in race and gender, as well as body types to some degree. This is refreshing, especially given how skeptical I was going in, but honestly, this is the least AAA devs can be doing in this day and age. 

After getting through all the bloodshed, horror, and brief rays of light that The Last of Us Part II has to offer, I was tired and wondering what the point even was, but I don’t think it was for the reason the developers wanted me to. There are some excellent high points to be found in this game, but they’re buried in repetitive combat, narrative fluff that wants to hold your hand through emotional beats, and erratic pacing that leaves the story constantly feeling off-kilter. Part II wants to show the ever-present rot that power and authority create in people, but it trips over its own messy structure and narrative insecurity. This game was clearly intended to push what we think of as prestige AAA gaming to the next level, but much like Ellie, it got lost along the way.

The Last of Us Part II review code provided by the publisher.

The Last of Us Part II is out now on PS4.

The post [Review] ‘The Last of Us Part II’ Offers an Uneven and Overlong Journey Filled With Bloodshed and Horror appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Happy May, everyone! After looking at child molester Freddy Krueger in the 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Joe and I decided to discuss something a bit less gross and disgusting for Mother’s Day this year! Well, as long as you don’t consider zombie babies that drink blood gross and disgusting. That’s right, we’re discussing Paul Solet‘s criminally under-seen 2009 film Grace!

In the film, a pregnant Madeline (Jordan Ladd, Cabin Fever) is involved in a car accident that leave her husband and unborn child dead. Desperate to have a child after trying to have one for years, she decides to carry her baby to term anyway. The child, a girl, initially appears stillborn but is eventually revived and named “Grace”. When Grace develops unhealthy smells, attracts flies, and craves blood, it becomes clear that there is something wrong with her.

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, Acast, Google Play, and RSS.

Episode 72 – Grace (2009) feat. Anya Stanley

Happy Mother’s Day, everyone! We’re celebrating this sacred holiday with a discussion of booby horror and queer baby mama drama in Paul Solet’s Grace! Joining us for the discussion is journalist and mother Anya Stanley, who brings some much-needed maternal instincts to the discussion. Fair warning, though: this is not a film to watch if you’re already pregnant..

Join us as we discuss the greatness that is the supremely underrated Jordan Ladd, as well as admire Solet’s use of sound design and lighting in the film. Plus, is the evil mother-in-law an example of unintentional camp? You tell us!

Also on the docket: a debate on how to pronounce the word “midwifery,” water births, Trace’s sore left nipple and learning to flambé while cooking liver and onions!

Cross out Grace!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re celebrating the VOD release of Scoob! with a double feature of 1998’s Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island and its 2019 sequel Return to Zombie Island!

– Joe & Trace

P.S.  Keep an eye out for this month’s article on 1986’s extremely upsetting In a Glass Cage, which will be dropping in the next week or so. You can find all of the old articles here. 

P.P.S. As an added bonus, if you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen to bonus episodes! Since every new horror release has been delayed, we decided to go with a possession theme this month, so you can listen to full-length episodes on The Taking of Deborah Logan and Insidious, as well as an audio commentary on the unrated cut of 2013’s Evil Dead remake!

The post [Horror Queers Podcast] Celebrating Mother’s Day With Queer Baby Mama Drama in ‘Grace’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

February has been a bit all over the place when it comes to our film programming, hasn’t it? First we celebrated Joe’s birthday with an in-depth discussion on the troubled production of Hellraiser: Bloodline (aka Pinhead goes to space!) and then joined in on the Valentine’s Day festivities with the ladies from Double A Horror Highway to discuss the love at the center of Single White Female. Now we’re taking another look at female friendship with Pascal Laugier‘s 2008 film Martyrs. Yay?

In the film, two young women (Mylène Jampanoï and Morjana Alaoui), who were both victims of abuse as children, embark on a bloody quest for revenge only to find themselves plunged into a living hell of depravity.

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, Libsyn, Google Play, and RSS.

Episode 61 – Martyrs (2008)

You asked for it (well, at least one of you did), and so we are finally covering the listeners’ choice that was selected from our 2019 Listener Survey! That’s right, we’re discussing Pascal Laugier’s controversial 2008 film Martyrs (or the most anti-spoiler film ever made)! Big thanks to listener Brian Conmy for helping us pull the trigger on covering this masterful and deeply upsetting film.

Major trigger warnings for anyone who has never seen Martyrs, because this film is one of the most disturbing films ever made. That’s not hyperbole! 

Join us as we discuss what might be the most extreme example of white privilege ever put on screen (seriously, these people are so rich that they seemingly have all the time in the world to torture young women just so they can find out what happens after we die) and assign a few different readings to the film, including a very positive queer reading that might turn a few people around on the film.

We’ll also try to answer questions that have followed the film since its 2008 release, including but not limited to: Is its torture porn? Is it misogynistic? Does it have a purpose? Why would someone make this endurance test of a film?

Oh! And as an added bonus, both of us secretly watched the 2015 American remake without telling the other one, so we spend a little bit of time comparing the two films (hint: the original is better).

Cross out Martyrs!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re celebrating my birthday next week by letting me finally make Joe watch Jordan Rubin’s 2014 classic creature feature Zombeavers!

– Joe & Trace

P.S. Be sure to check out all of our online articles right here and read our latest on 1971’s Doctor Jekyll and Sister Hyde. 

P.P.S. As an added bonus, if you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen our audio commentary on 2001’s Valentine, as well as a full-length episode on Blumhouse’s latest disaster Fantasy Island.

The post [Horror Queers Podcast] An Unexpectedly Positive Queer Reading of ‘Martyrs’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

After kicking off the new year with an episode on our favorite entry in the Scream franchise (that would be Scream 2, in case you were wondering), we’re making a return trip to Slovakia to discuss Eli Roth‘s controversial 2007 sequel Hostel: Part II, which is leaps and bounds better than its predecessor!

In the film, three American female art students (Lauren German, Bijou Phillips and Heather Matarazzo) are directed to a Slovak village where they are kidnapped and taken to a facility in which rich clients pay to torture and kill people. In an inspired turn of events, the film splits its screen time between the trio of girls and two of the men (Roger Bart and Richard Burgi) who have paid to kill them.

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, Libsyn, Google Play, and RSS.

Episode 56 – Hostel: Part II (2007)

The boys are making a return trip to Slovakia to discuss a film that no one wanted to guest on! That’s right, they’re discussing Eli Roth’s controversial and (dare they say it?) feminist sequel Hostel: Part II!

Join them as they discuss the rapid decline of the torture porn sub-genre between 2006 and 2007, the accusations of misogyny lodged against the film, and Roth’s progressive decision to make the protagonist of his sequel a lesbian (whom he doesn’t objectify!) while casting out-and-proud lesbian Heather Matarazzo as the character who gets the film’s most brutal death (in a scene that got the film banned in several countries).

Also, Trace tries to come up with a synonym for the word “castration,” Joe gives a brief oral history of the word “cunt” and they both try to figure out why Jordan Ladd needs so much sleep.

Cross out Hostel: Part II!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re heading back to high school to discuss Lucky McKee’s (May, The Woman) and Chris Sivertson’s (I Know Who Killed Me) kooky horror comedy All Cheerleaders Die!

– Joe & Trace

P.S. Be sure to check out all of our online articles right here. 

P.P.S. As an added bonus, if you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen to our full-length episodes of Nicolas Pesce’s reboot of The Grudge and 2020’s first aquatic horror offering Underwater.

The post [Horror Queers Podcast] The Surprisingly Feminist Mindset of Eli Roth’s ‘Hostel: Part II’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

In the film, the crew of a colony ship discovers an uncharted paradise with a threat beyond their imagination and makes the dunderheaded decision to colonize there, and must attempt a harrowing escape.

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, Libsyn, Google Play, and RSS.

Episode 48 – Alien: Covenant (2017)

It’s time to hop aboard the Covenant and head over to Origae-6….oops! We mean this random mystery planet that didn’t show up on any of our scans! But hey, it’s probably fine, right? Joining us for our colonization mission is Drew Dietsch, co-host of the GenreVision and Fin Flicks podcasts!

After kicking things off with a debate on who will work the hole and who will do the fingering, the trio dive into the long and convoluted history of how Prometheus led to Alien:Covenant. Why does it feel like two films? Why is the CGI so bad? Why can we not tell any of these characters apart? Why does the movie think we will feel bad about their deaths if their spouses do? We will try to answer these questions in what is admittedly a super-sized episode, but hey, at least it’s pretty.

And if there’s one thing that’s certain, it’s that Ridley Scott needs to shut the fuck up. 

In this week’s game: Put an android in a horror movie!

Cross out Alien: Covenant!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re deviating from our standard M.O. to discuss the colorful black comedy (that was almost a horror film) of Darren Stein‘s Jawbreaker!

– Joe & Trace

P.S. Be sure to check out all of our online articles right here.

P.P.S. As an added bonus, if you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen to our full-length bonus episodes on Doctor Sleep and Primal (aka Nicolas Cage vs. a jaguar on a boat).

The post [Horror Queers Podcast] Who Works the Holes and Who Does the Fingering in ‘Alien: Covenant’? appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

In the 34 years since the film’s release, it has become the butt of many a joke within the horror community. No one person has been affected by the film’s reception more so than the film’s star, Mark Patton. Unable to get steady acting work after the release of the film, Patton eventually disappeared from the public eye. It wasn’t until the 2010 documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy began production that Patton took to the internet and witnessed firsthand all of the hatred not only toward Freddy’s Revenge, but also toward him.

Because of this, he was motivated to tell his story and participate in the documentary. His one condition of participating, however, was that he would be allowed to confront Freddy’s Revenge screenwriter David Chaskin about the role he had in ruining his career. That confrontation never happened.

Enter Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street, a documentary that aims to set the record straight (for lack of a better term) on Mark Patton’s story. The end result is a touching, poignant film that’s less about the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and more about how one man took control of his narrative and used it to empower not only himself, but millions of queer horror fans around the world.

Scream, Queen! began as a Kickstarter back in 2015 (yours truly was a backer), and directors Tyler Jensen and Roman Chimienti have devoted the past four years of their lives to crafting this documentary. Jensen and Chimienti are able to capture moments that Nightmare fans have only dreamed of witnessing. They take a deep dive into the inner workings of the queer horror community, which has been becoming more and more vocal over the past few years. The film briefly looks at why the horror genre is so important to the queer community, but Patton is the focus here, and rightfully so.

Following a brief prologue that sets the stage for the release of A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 in 1985, the film chronicles Patton’s early childhood and career before hitting the road on his tour of various horror conventions in 2015. The overarching narrative sees Patton coming to terms with his resentment toward Chaskin, with the endgame being their climactic confrontation. Jensen and Chimienti wisely decide to focus on the heart of Patton’s post-NOES 2 life, however, rather than that resentment. This is a film about hope, not hatred. It wants to look toward the future rather than the past. It has a heart, and it’s that heart that makes Scream, Queen! such a winning documentary.

The emotional core is what will win over many viewers. The film takes the standard documentary approach using talking heads, but it’s at its best when it is being a slice of life film showing Patton in his daily routine. Yes, there is a stagy element to these scenes, but the raw honesty is there. It is during these moments that Scream, Queen is the most successful.

Scream, Queen! bites off a bit more than it can chew with the number of topics it tries to address, many of which deserve more screen time and analysis. What starts off as a personal story about Patton quickly bounces around between the history of the AIDS crisis (a lofty subject if there ever was one) to an analysis of Carol Clover’s Final Girl theory to various other topics. These are all important subjects that play a role in who Patton is today, but the end result is that some of the spotlight is taken off of Patton as the film’s scope widens during its second act. It isn’t fully able to devote the proper attention to the deeper subjects it addresses, making their analysis feel slight in the process. It quickly course-corrects to revert the story back to Patton, though.

Finally, I have one minor quibble with the film’s ending:

***Spoiler warning***

The film’s climactic sequence is a conversation between Patton and Chaskin. Chaskin’s “apology” is unsatisfactory and disingenuous, yet the film seems so intent on having a happy ending that it tries to morph it into a satisfying conclusion. As a result, there’s something artificial about the conclusion of the film. Patton seemingly lets go of the resentment he has held for over three decades, but there is something bittersweet about it that the film doesn’t address. That being said, who am I to say that Patton shouldn’t be satisfied with the way things are left? I haven’t spent the past 34 years dealing with the repercussions of Chaskin’s words and actions. All that really matters here is that Patton is satisfied with it; but as a gay man myself, I’m still angry. Would the film have been as uplifting if Jensen and Chimienti had opted to end it without that hint of the bittersweet? Maybe not, but it would have felt more honest.

***End Spoilers***

A somewhat flawed conclusion shouldn’t take away from the sheer emotional power that Scream, Queen! has. Simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking, this is still a wonderful documentary that chronicles the life of a gay man from the height of the AIDS crisis in 1985 to his journey for resolution in 2019. Patton’s story is an inspiration. Seeing him go from a pariah in the Hollywood community to the social activist and horror royalty he is today makes for a rewarding viewing experience.

This won’t be the last documentary on queer horror (Shudder has one coming out next year), but it’s set the bar very high. Don’t miss it.

Scream, Queen! had its US premiere at Fantastic Fest and is currently seeking distribution.

The post [Fantastic Fest Review] Mark Patton Sets the Record Straight in ‘Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Joe and I left behind the world of femme fatales after we discussed the dynamics between teenage sociopaths Sadie and McKayla in Tyler MacIntyre’s Tragedy Girls, the lesbian relationship at the heart of the Brazilian film Good Manners and queer icon Lola in Sean Byrne’s The Loved Ones. After a brief detour to Derry, Maine with It: Chapter One last week, Joe and I are starting an eight-week marathon of campy horror films!

First up is Adam Marcus‘ 1993 grand slasher “finale” Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday! In what would ultimately not be the final film in the Friday the 13th franchise, Jason’s spirit leaves his body after the FBI blows it to bits and decides to possess other people as he seeks out a member of his family to possess so that he may be reborn. It’s about as stupid as it sounds.

Joining us on our camping trip to Crystal Lake is fellow Bloody Disgusting columnist Alice Collins, who broke into the BD scene with her exceptional “Trapped By Gender” column earlier this year. A self-proclaimed Jason Goes to Hell fanatic, Alice provides some much-needed backstory into the making of this weird little film.

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, Libsyn, Google Play, and RSS.

Episode 38 – Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

The Horror Queers are getting a head start on Friday the 13th celebrations with a visit to Crystal Lake in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday! Joe and Trace are joined by fellow Bloody Disgusting columnist Alice Collins in an episode that might as well be called E! True Hollywood Story: Jason Goes to Hell. Together, they will try to do the impossible: make sense of a film that makes absolutely no sense.

Topics up for discussion are little girls in pink dresses sticking a hot dog through a donut, queer leather-daddy shaving fetishes, sensual hand-stroking and crazy-impressive gore effects. In a surprising twist, Joe admits to loving the film (despite not being a fan of the franchise), Trace talks about how screenwriters Dean Lorey and Jay Huguely stole the plot of the film from a story he wrote in the first grade and Alice spills the tea on most of the film’s production troubles.

Oh! Did they mention that this episode starts off an eight-week marathon of campy horror films? Because it does! So be prepared for seven more weeks of unintentionally funny horror films, most of which have very, very troubled production histories.

This Week’s Game: If you were a studio executive with $10 million and you had the rights, which dormant horror franchise would you order an off-brand installment of?

Cross out Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday!

Coming up Wednesday: Camp Month(s) continue as we look at the complete and utter clusterfuck that is Wes Craven‘s Cursed and its homo-repressed bully (Milo Ventimiglia)!

– Joe & Trace

P.S. Be sure to check out all of our online articles right here, including August’s article on The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014).

P.P.S. As an added bonus, if you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen to our full-length bonus episode on It: Chapter 2.

The post [Horror Queers Podcast] So About That Shaving Scene in ‘Jason Goes to Hell’… appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

We had a blast celebrating crazy ladies in Femme Fatale Month in August. Joe and I explored the themes of Takashi Miike’s controversial Audition, the dynamics between teenage sociopaths Sadie and McKayla in Tyler MacIntyre’s Tragedy Girls, the lesbian relationship at the heart of the Brazilian film Good Manners, and the Lola of it all in Sean Byrne’s ultra-violent (and ultra-hilarious) The Loved Ones.

This week, we’re heading to Derry, Maine to hang out with the Losers’ Club in Andy Muschietti‘s IT: Chapter One! Joining us is resident Stephen King expert Michael Roffman, the editor-in-chief of Consequence of Sound and co-host of the Halloweenies and Losers’ Club podcasts! In the film, seven children are haunted by an evil clown in 1989 and are forced to face their demons.

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, Libsyn, Google Play, and RSS.

Episode 37 – IT: Chapter One (2017)

In an episode almost as long as its source material, the boys kick off Stephen King week with a trip to Derry alongside resident Stephen King expert Michael Roffman. EVERYTHING is on the table: coming of age narratives, bad CGI, the appeal of dancing clowns, as well as Derry and Pennywise as stand-ins for Reagan-era Conservatism. Also, a discussion of whether adults are the true villains, the most effective set pieces and an obligatory queer reading of Richie and Eddie (and if you’ve seen IT: Chapter Two, then you know this isn’t a reach).

Throw in Michael’s analysis of Ariana Grande’s contribution to music, the group’s analysis of why a wave of 90s nostalgia is long overdue, and Trace’s passionate response to hysterical reactions on the Internet.

This Week’s Game: which King universe (book or film) would you live in?

Cross out IT: Chapter One!

Coming up Wednesday: We’re getting a head start on Friday the 13th with a trip to Crystal Lake in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday! The leather-daddy shaving scene alone merits an hour-long discussion.

– Joe & Trace

P.S. Be sure to check out all of our online articles right here, including August’s article on The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014).

P.P.S. As an added bonus, if you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen to our full-length bonus episode on IT: Chapter Two!

The post [Horror Queers Podcast] A Not-So-Subtle Queer Reading of ‘IT: Chapter One’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

As August ends, so too does Femme Fatale Month. It’s been one Hell of a ride! Joe and I explored the themes of Takashi Miike’s controversial Audition, the dynamics between teenage sociopaths Sadie and McKayla in Tyler MacIntyre’s Tragedy Girls and just last week we looked at the lesbian relationship at the heart of the Brazilian film Good Manners.

This week, we’re flying to the Outback to praise the Lola (Robin McLeavy) in Sean Byrne‘s explosive feature debut The Loved Ones (review)! In the film, Brent (Xavier Samuel) is reeling after the death of his father one year earlier. When Lola asks him to the school dance he politely refuses, but it turns out that Lola has other plans. With the help of her Daddy (John Brumpton), she kidnaps Brent and subjects him to various forms of torture (see header image) to ensure that he will be her King forever. It’s……nuts.

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, Libsyn, Google Play, and RSS.

Episode 36 – The Loved Ones (2009)

The boys are having their first foursome as they discuss Sean Byrne’s drill-happy 2009 film The Loved Ones with the hosts of the Dirty Little Horror Podcast! Self-proclaimed Britney Spears enthusiast Charles Rockhill and resident Australian Christopher Downs crash Joe and Trace’s party to weigh in on the film’s queer icon (and completely cuckoo bananas psychopath) Lola (Robin McLeavy).

Join the boys as they travel Down Under so that Chris can explain the Australian concepts that are so foreign to the North Americans (P Plates, anyone?), Trace gets a lesson in consent and Joe defines cultural cringe and discusses the film’s kitchen sink approach to storytelling. 

This Week’s Game: Would our favorite pop stars survive The Loved Ones?

Cross out The Loved Ones!

Coming up Wednesday: We’re road-tripping it to Derry, Maine to check in with the Losers’ Club as we discuss It: Chapter One!

– Joe & Trace

P.S. Be sure to check out all of our online articles right here, including August’s article on The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014).

P.P.S. As an added bonus, if you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen to full-length bonus episodes on 47 Meters Down: Uncaged and Ready Or Not.

The post [Horror Queers Podcast] The Lola of it All in Sean Byrne’s ‘The Loved Ones’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Over the last few weeks, Joe and I have made a brief detour into the world of television with the BBC queer zombie series In the Flesh, discussed the completely bonkers twist in Jaume Collet-Serra‘s Orphan (just in time for its 10th anniversary!) and made our first foray into family films with ParaNorman and its secret queer character.

We are officially declaring August “Femme Fatale Month,” which means we’ll be looking at a number of horror films that feature villainous (and some not-so-villainous) badass ladies. On this week’s episode, we go back to our favorite year (1999) with a look at Takashi Miike‘s Audition! In the film, a widower (Ryo Ishibashi) stages a phony audition to meet a potential new wife. After interviewing several women, he becomes interested in Asami (Eihi Shiina), whom he immediately clicks with. Unfortunately for him, Asami has a dark past that leads to one of horror cinema’s most shocking and gag-inducing climaxes!

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, Libsyn, Google Play, and RSS.

Episode 33 – Audition (1999)

Kiri Kiri Kiri! The boys are officially declaring August Femme Fatale Month, which means they’ll be tackling a bunch of films with some killer ladies (aka Trace’s favorite type of character)! First up is Asami Yamazaki in Takashi Miike’s controversial 1999 film Audition! That’s right, it’s another Japanese film, which means you can laugh along (or take a shot) every time Joe mispronounces a character’s name!

Join Joe and Trace as they discuss the misogynistic (douchebag protagonist, objectification of women) and feminist (taking down the patriarchy, Asami as an avenging angel) elements of the film, BDSM, the secret queer relationship that no one talks about and the beautiful gore that fills the film’s final act. Finally, they take the film’s revelatory flashback to task for not making any sense whatsoever!

Oh, and Joe is somehow able to liken the film to Bring it On. 

Trigger Warning: The dog DOES die in this movie, but it’s off-screen. You do see its corpse, though.

This Week’s Game: If forced to part ways with a body part, which body part would it be?

Cross out Audition!

Coming up Wednesday: It’s a double dose of femme fatales with Sadie and McKayla in Tyler MacIntyre‘s Tragedy Girls!

– Joe & Trace

P.S. Be sure to check out all of our online articles right here.

P.P.S. As an added bonus, if you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen to a full-length bonus episode on Alexandre Aja’s insanely fun killer alligator movie Crawl, as well as a minisode on a controversial topic: do horror fans lack empathy?

The post [Horror Queers Podcast] Takashi Miike’s ‘Audition’: Feminist, Misogynistic or Both? appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

And in case you missed it: we spent the first half of the summer covering entries from popular horror franchises! Here’s a quick recap: we got a little too deep into a discussion of bodily fluids when we watched Ginger Snaps, drooled over Billy Zane’s gay Collector in Tales From the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight and lamented how poorly 1999’s killer crocodile horror comedy Lake Placid has aged.

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, Libsyn, Google Play, and RSS.

Episode 31 – Orphan (2009)

Joe and Trace are traversing the spooky halls of Dark Castle Entertainment to discuss Jaume Collet-Serra’s (The Shallows, House of Wax) creepy-kid movie Orphan! Joining them on their tour is Sade Sellers, one of the co-hosts of the Afro Horror Podcast! Her expertise on black horror cinema will prove crucial when the boys analyze Sister Abigail’s (C.C.H. Pounder) brutal death by hammer!

Other topics on the table are the film’s obscenely long 123-minute runtime, Trace’s thoughts on Taissa Farmiga’s acting abilities (or lack thereof) and Joe’s fight for deaf actors’ rights.

Also: Why is Peter Sarsgaard’s character the absolute worst? Why doesn’t Character Actress Margo Martindale believe anything Vera Farmiga says? And what is Asia Argento’s secret connection to the film?

Cross out Orphan!

Coming up Wednesday: We cover our first family film as we travel to Blithe Hollow, Massachusetts to raise the dead with ParaNorman and its shocking gay character reveal in its final moments!

– Joe & Trace

P.S. Be sure to check out all of our online articles right here.

P.P.S. As an added bonus, if you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen to a full-length bonus episode on Alexandre Aja’s insanely fun killer alligator movie Crawl!

The post [Horror Queers Podcast] Evil Esther is a Threat to the Nuclear Family in ‘Orphan’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

This week, we are making our first foray into television with an analysis of Britain’s queer zombie series In the Flesh! We’re watching the whole first season series, which is a mere 3 episodes. In the Flesh depicts life several years after The Rising, a time when thousands of corpses were resurrected as zombies. When the series begins, the zombie apocalypse has long since been staved off by armed resistance from the living and a medication has been developed that restores consciousness to the undead, allowing them to remember their time alive and to identify as their former selves. In the Flesh examines what happens when these newly-revived Partially Deceased Syndrome-sufferers are reintroduced back into society (hint: it isn’t a walk in the park).

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, Libsyn, Google Play, and RSS.

Episode 30 – In the Flesh (2013)

The boys are jumping across the pond this week to meet up with journalist David Opie to discuss the first season series of Britain’s queer zombie show In the Flesh! Feeling intimidated be a whole season series of TV? Never fear! Because it’s Britain, it’s only three episodes long! And it’s available on Amazon Prime and Hulu!

Join us as we discuss zombies as a metaphor for queerness, condemn the 2016 Irish film The Cure for completely ripping off In the Flesh‘s premise and the absolute brilliance of Emily Bevan’s rebellious Amy.

And in one of their more bizarre tangents: a debate over baked goods!

Cross out In the Flesh!

Coming up Wednesday: Just in time for the its 10th anniversary we’re traveling to Dark Castle (Entertainment) to discuss Jaume Collet-Serra‘s (The Shallows, House of Wax) creepy kid movie Orphan!

– Joe & Trace

P.S. Be sure to check out all of our online articles right here.

P.P.S. As an added bonus, if you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen to a full-length bonus episode on Alexandre Aja’s insanely fun killer alligator movie Crawl!

The post [Horror Queers Podcast] It’s a Gay British Zombie Takeover in ‘In the Flesh’! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Be sure to check out and subscribe to the Horror Queers podcast! We’re still writing one article a month, but we release one podcast episode each week and discuss one film per episode. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn, or RSS.

***SPOILERS for Eyes of Laura Mars to follow.***

Synopsis: Famous fashion photographer Laura Mars (Faye Dunaway) develops a disturbing ability to see through the eyes of a killer targeting her and those closest to her.

Queer Aspect: Laura’s best friend/manager Donald (René Auberjonois) is a big ol’dandy who dies in drag. Plus: the theme song is sung by gay icon Barbra Streisand!

Joe

Trace, we’ve been working overtime on the podcast getting ready for some exciting fall stuff that we totally missed our monthly column! Anyways, we’re back with this late 70s gem and everything is right with the world again.

Yes, folks, we’re talking 1978’s Eyes of Laura Mars, which really does have something for everyone. You’re a Star Wars fan? This is directed by Irvin Kershner, the guy behind arguably Empire Strikes Back, the single greatest entry in the franchise! You’re a John Carpenter fan? He co-wrote the screenplay! You’re a fan of iconic Hollywood actress Faye Dunaway’s ENORMOUS eyes? Well good, because she’s basically acting with them the entire film!

Seriously, though, Eyes of Laura Mars is such a bizarre oddity. Released the exact same year as Halloween, this is basically an American Giallo that also utilizes the killer POV that Carpenter’s breakout became famous for (reminder: Black Christmas actually did it four years earlier). It’s a horror film set in the world of photography and high-end fashion, which essentially means it’s voyeuristic as hell and filled with gasp-worthy photoshoots and outfits, which also means that it may just be one of the most gay-friendly films we’ve ever covered for this column. Sometimes readers accuse us of reaching, but when Faye Dunaway is shooting lingerie-clad lesbian models in front of flaming cars in the middle of New York as her bitchy gay bestie throws shade at a misogynist and showers her in female empowerment bon mots, all I can say is that this is some GAY AS F*CK SHIT.

It’s also extremely my jam. I will fully acknowledge that as a thriller it has all of the usual giallo-influenced plot logic problems. I will also acknowledge that the hamfisted romance with Detective John Neville (a young, beautiful, unibrowed Tommy Lee Jones) is shoehorned into this narrative in the most unnecessary and egregious way possible and that the end result is a film that is probably too long by around ~20 minutes. But who cares when it is all so soapy, ridiculous and gorgeous?!

I’ll also confess that part of my appreciation for this film is nostalgic. I first watched this in university, before I had really begun watching a lot of foreign films. This meant that a lot of the giallo influences felt fresh; I was such a naive baby horror viewer that I didn’t even realize how much the film is paying homage to Bava and Argento!

What strikes me most, to this day, is how literally the film plays with the concept of voyeurism and “the gaze”. It’s something that we’ve discussed before – both here, as well as on the Pod – but the vast majority of cinema tends to be filtered through a male gaze. Typically this is because most directors are men (thankfully this is changing), but also because the perceived film audience is also male, particularly for the horror genre (a ludicrous and antiquated belief that critics, fans and even plenty of academics are still trying to combat). 

According to this belief, the camera is a substitute for male eyes, which is why films – and by extension horror films – tend to focus on women’s bodies, fetishizing them entirely or in parts (exhibit A: Quentin Tarantino’s obsession with toes). This in effect turns films, and by extension audiences, into leering voyeurs.

Eyes of Laura Mars complicates this notion by giving the power of the gaze – both professionally and personally – to a woman. Not only is Laura an in-demand photographer whose work appears on buses and books and sold out gallery shows, but she is literally the only person who can (psychically? It’s unclear) connect with the murderer to decipher his identity. Whether or not the power ultimately helps her is debatable, but the simple idea of inverting the male gaze and giving it to a woman feels pretty revolutionary in a horror film from the late 70s. 

Trace, what was this like as a first time watch? Are you as taken as me with the fabulousness that is Eyes of Laura Mars? And what do you make of the film’s only gay character of note, Donald (“DOOOONNNNNAAAAAALLLLLD”) dying while dressed in Laura’s clothes?

Trace

So good to be back, Joe! It’s definitely been a crazy summer but I’m happy to be back at the keyboard. First, however, I must correct you regarding your little factoid about the killer’s POV: Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom actually pioneered that technique in the slasher sub-genre. The only issue is that, despite coming out the same year a Psycho, it was critically reviled (it has since been reappraised) so no one ever remembers it. Did you learn nothing from Kirby’s quiz in Scream 4?

Anyway, on to Eyes of Laura Mars! I really don’t think there were enough close-up shots of eyes in this movie, but I’m glad you pointed out that it’s essentially an American giallo, because that is my conundrum. As we have discussed at length on the podcast, giallo is simply not my cup ‘o tea (this is especially puzzling considering slashers are my favorite sub-genre of horror). 

I love the standard slasher elements (a mysterious killer, bloody kills, a compelling heroine) but absolutely loathe the meandering narrative that is a common trait of giallo films. The meandering aspect of Eyes of Laura Mars is the shoehorned romance between Laura and John that you speak of (by the way, I found Jones, Raul Juliá and Brad Dourif all to be incredibly attractive in this movie). It’s such a slog and seems to exist solely to make John’s eventual killer reveal more dramatic, but it actually has the opposite effect. It’s downright silly!

What this movie was really missing are the trademark bloody kills that filmmakers like Bava and Argento were masterful at choreographing. Eyes of Laura Mars loves to cut away right before the killing blow, and it’s simply puzzling because this is an R-rated film! It has no shortage of breasts, though, so I guess there’s that. 

It is important to note that John Carpenter only wrote the first draft of the screenplay. You see, Barbra Streisand was originally set to play Laura Mars! It was only when she pulled out of the film (due to its admittedly scandalous themes) that Dunaway was cast. Because of this, the studio demanded that Carpenter’s script be re-written and David Zelag Goodman (of Straw Dogs and Logan’s Run fame) was brought in to do it. Carpenter is still understandably bitter about the experience, but rumor has it that his script had even more giallo elements. I could only imagine how much gorier the film would have been! Oh well, Halloween was released two months after Eyes of Laura Mars so at least 1978 wasn’t a total wash for him.

I find your analysis of the film’s gaze slightly off as well. Yes, the film is told from Laura’s point of view, but when Laura (and the audience) sees it through her eyes, she is still seeing it through the (male) killer’s eyes. So it really is still the male gaze. And there’s still a bunch of titties everywhere so I’m not fully sure I buy into your suggestion that it’s revolutionary, but it is an effort, so I’ll buy into it just a bit.

But yes, this movie is very gay. I want to find the outfit Dunaway wore as she was running through the warehouse and wear it for Halloween. Then, while driving to the classiest Halloween parties, I would pull surprise U-turns as I scream “DOOOOOONNNNNAAAAALLLLLLLD” out the window. I’m sure everyone in my neighborhood would get the reference.

I jest, but I actually love the Donald character. He doesn’t take shit from anyone and, while he doesn’t wave his sexuality around as if he’s on a Pride float, he’s still confident in his queerness. He even manages to avoid the standard “gay best friend” trappings of modern films! I’m not quite sure how I feel about him dying in drag (also: it’s important for us to distinguish between the terms “drag” and “drag queen” in this scenario). The film plays his reveal in Laura’s clothes for laughs, but his murder (again, off screen) is handled with care. I would say this portrayal is more progressive than that of the film’s inversion of the male gaze, though you may disagree.

Joe, what in God’s name do you think of the film’s ending? It certainly made me want to go back and look for clues, but it’s so silly. Are we to believe that John has multiple personalities? Did you find any unintentional humor in the film (mine would be Lulu’s partner being carried off as he’s screaming at Laura)? And how about that Nikon product placement?!

Joe

I would love for you to cosplay as a blind, freaked out Laura Mars for Halloween. I’ll need photographic evidence as soon as it happens, please and thank you.

I’m not ready to let go of “the gaze” yet. Ok, yes, I confess that I did forget about Peeping Tom, but I don’t think that you’re giving the film’s take on seeing, voyeurism and violence enough credit. Consider this: John’s murders are actually reproductions of Laura’s acclaimed, visionary photography staging. So he’s trying to reclaim her eyes and her work, minus the artistic integrity and with more brute force. This makes the film extremely cyclical: she explores violence through art, which he then repurposes as literal violent spectacle, which she then attempts to decipher through her own eyes. Considering that we as an audience side with Laura (we also literally see through her eyes), we’re privy to the experience of being a female creative whose work is appropriated by men and its meaning perverted. That’s so incredibly progressive!

I see a lot fascinating parallels with the aggressive reactions that we recently got tied up with involving Scream Stans and VH1’s Resurrection miniseries. We both had very strong reactions to that series’ commentary about the impact and responsibility of art, which we felt was a perversion of the original film franchise’s intention. The same is true for Laura Mars: after all, John’s rationale for becoming a killer is that he saw his mother brutally murdered and the experience fucked him up. Of course, what that doesn’t explain is why he’s abusing Laura’s perspective – her titular eyes, as it were. Scream: Resurrection apologists attacked us for “reaching” and reading too much into the same killer defense on that series, but just like in Laura Mars, it doesn’t truly explain anything and comes off as an empty, ugly excuse.

The honest truth is that this IS a woman’s film. It’s dominated by Laura, her work and her love life. The men in the film, by comparison, are nearly all completely terrible. There’s the producer/client who only wants to ensure that she integrates lace into the shoot; there’s the potentially violent driver; there’s her ne’er-do-well ex-husband who is both a financial parasite and an emotional manipulator and there is John, the guy who looks good on paper and in the sack and turns out to be a living nightmare with mommy issues. Hell, the best guy is probably the male model who shows up in a tux, looks good and then does as he’s told, which is die.  

Seriously, though, the only really good man in this film is Donald (because queer people are awesome). So yes, I’m torn about his death scene. Unlike other films of its ilk, Donald is never presented as anything other than a supportive advocate for Laura. He’s not a casual cross-dresser or an amateur drag queen who is murdered in costume; he’s being a good friend by providing a distraction for Laura and that just so happens to be the moment that he is murdered. And yet…it is a deliberate decision to knock Donald off at this particular moment (similar to how Lulu and her female lover are murdered after they are glimpsed in what can be read as a mildly sexual situation). Is this a “punishing deviancy” motivation by the killer? Laura Mars doesn’t ultimately confirm or deny its sexualized violence. It’s almost as if the film is content for the audience to make up its own mind, which evokes the opening party where individuals are debating the relative merit of Laura’s work. Art is funny like that; everyone has different opinions on it.

Speaking of art, on this most recent rewatch, I couldn’t help but see all kinds of connections to another text we recently discussed: Yann Gonzalez’s Knife + Heart. As we discussed on the podcast, that film was also influenced by giallo films so the similarly sexualized violence makes sense. It’s more Laura and Anne’s similarly constructed arcs that caught my attention. They’re both powerful women creatives working in a derided artistic field in the 70s; they both have a keen visual eye and they both choose to focus their controversial attention on the intersection of bodies, sex and violence. I know that Laura Mars is an influential, albeit somewhat forgotten text (Ugly Betty memorably recreated the fiery car crash photoshoot somewhere in its run) but I have to wonder if queer director Yann Gonzalez took notice of the utter fabulousness of this film when he was putting together the scenario and the visuals of his genre break-out?

Trace, what do you make of my Knife + Heart connection? Do you see Laura’s influence in other places? What do you suppose a Barbara version of the film would have been like? And how would a game of fuck/marry/kill with Tommy Lee Jones, Raul Juliá and Brad Dourif play out for you?

Trace

You will be the first to know if I dress up as Laura Mars for Halloween, Joe. But yes, now I see what you’re saying. You know just as well as I do that my fatal critical flaw is that I initially view things far too literally. I needed your helpful push to see the error of my ways (I realize that sounds really cunty, but it’s genuine. I swear!). Isn’t it amazing how discussing a film (or in our case, trading written words) can open up one’s eyes? In all seriousness, though: your analysis of the female gaze in your reply makes sense, so shame on me for being so quick to reject it. It’s certainly not revolutionary now, but putting myself in 1978 (which is admittedly difficult to do since I wasn’t alive that year), it makes a modicum of sense. Perhaps the inherent silliness of the ending is affecting my analytical skills?

While Eyes of Laura Mars’ ending isn’t offensive like the finale of Scream: Resurrection is (to me, anyway), it bothers me so much that John’s modus operandi isn’t explored at all. Yes, copycatting her art is a cool gimmick, but why does he do it? And why did he target the people around Laura? What is it about Laura that is so alluring to him?

There are so many unanswered questions, most likely due to the film’s giallo influences; but since you bring up the reactions we got to Scream: Resurrection (many people are fond of calling me a “pussy,” it seems), let me posit a theory. What if Eyes of Laura Mars is a tale of psychotic/toxic/crazed fandom? John is clearly familiar with Laura’s photographs and is re-creating them when he kills, but why bother? The film doesn’t let us in on that (very important) tidbit, so it could be assumed that he is just a crazed fan (or stan, as you so eloquently put it). The crazed fan is no stranger to the horror genre (see: The Fan, Misery or even Copycat for a few examples), but if we read John as a member of that particular community then it recontextualizes everything about that character and maybe even the film itself.

It’s apt that we are discussing this film directly following the aftermath of ScreamGate, because some superfan turning my writing against me (or, you know, murdering me because of something I wrote) is one of my worst nightmares. Though if we read the film that way, it takes away some of the focus from Laura herself and moves it over to the killer, which wouldn’t have benefited this film at all.

I agree with your comparison of this film to Knife + Heart, however. Both have incredibly strong female protagonists and are set in the world of sensuality and sexuality (erotic and violent photography for Eyes and pornography for Knife) and follow a killer killing everyone related to the protagonist, but I admit that I didn’t even make the connection that they were both set in the ‘70s! How apropos! I’m sure Gonzalez made this connection, as the film has acquired quite the cult queer following. It’s thanks to my fellow queers (you included) that I even found out about it!

Another (and lesser) film that I see Eyes of Laura Mars’ influence in is the critically-panned Halle Berry film Gothika, which is about a psychiatrist (Berry) who murders her husband while she is possessed by a ghost and later wakes up as a patient in the hospital where she works. The general premise is different, but it’s still very much a woman’s film (Berry teams up with Penélope Cruz to solve the mystery) and focuses on sexual abuse from a woman’s perspective, but through the eyes of the victim rather than the killer. It’s extremely convoluted and equally as silly as Eyes of Laura Mars, but that’s what makes them so comparable! I don’t think there’s any significant queerness in Gothika, but it has some campy moments!

As for fuck/marry/kill: Kill Dourif, Fuck Jones. Marry Juliá. And I have absolutely no idea what a Streisand version of this would look like. I mean, I’ve never really found Streisand to be particularly sexy (don’t hate me, gays!), whereas I think that Dunaway does exude a considerable amount of sexuality. That being said, Streisand does have a commanding screen presence. I guess it would just be a lot gayer. Dunaway is a queer icon, of course (Mommie Dearest, anyone?) but Streisand is queer royalty. Imagine the melodrama! Imagine her delivery of “DOOOOOOOONAAAAAAAAALD!!!!!” Goddammit. Now I want that movie. 

Let’s cross out Eyes of Laura Mars!

Next time on Horror Queers: We’re bringing it back to the modern age with a look at the super meta (and occasionally queer) sequel to The Town that Dreaded Sundown!

Eyes of Laura Mars is available to stream for $3.99 on Amazon.And don’t forget to catch up on our previous Horror Queers articles here or check out our podcast page here.

The post [Horror Queers] Inverting the Male Gaze Through the ‘Eyes of Laura Mars’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

In case you’ve missed out on some of our recent episode: we’ve pissed a bunch of you off by proclaiming Kerr Smith‘s Carter as a repressed homosexual in Final Destination. Then we defended the controversial and widely-maligned slasher sequel Seed of Chucky. And finally, we got a little too deep into a discussion of bodily fluids during our discussion of Ginger Snaps.

This week, Joe and I are joined by Sarah-Tai Black and continuing our franchise marathon with a discussion of Ernest Dickerson‘s (Bones) booby-filled Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight! In the film, Brayker (William Sadler) is on the run from a demon known as The Collector (Billy Zane), who is after a Biblical artifact that could lead to demons controlling the world. After seeking refuge in a run-down church, Brayker teams up with local convict (and totally queer) Jeryline (Jada Pinkett) to stop The Collector before he can get his hands on the precious artifact.

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, Libsyn, Google Play, and RSS.

Episode 27 – Tales from the Crypt Presents Demon Knight (1995)

Hello Kiddies! The Horror Queers are joined by Tales from the Crypt expert Sarah-Tai Black to discuss the booby-filled 1995 banger Demon Knight! In what may be their most tangent-filled episode yet, they not only code Billy Zane’s Collector as gay and Jada Pinkett’s Jeryline (a name that no character pronounces the same way) as a “soft butch” lesbian, but they also proclaim the queer icon status of the Crypt Keeper!

Trace tries to decipher the rules of the demons (they’re so contradictory!). Sarah-Tai gets a Bible study lesson. And Joe is dumbfounded by Sarah-Tai’s story of how Alan Cumming once bullied her at a roller rink (and a thong-clad Anna Paquin just stood there and let it happen).

Lastly, Joe cribs a lot of his supposed “knowledge” of Demon Knight from this wonderful article written by Stephanie Crawford. 

This Week’s Game: What would a sequel to Demon Knight look like?

Cross out Demon Knight!

Coming up Wednesday: Just in time for the its 20th anniversary (and this Friday’s release of Crawl) we finally get to discuss some aquatic horror in Steve Miner’s (Friday the 13th Parts 2 and 3) horror comedy Lake Placid!

– Joe & Trace

P.S. Be sure to check out all of our online articles right here.

P.P.S. As an added bonus, if you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen to a full-length bonus episode on Ari Aster’s new mind-fuck Midsommar!

The post [Horror Queers Podcast] We’re Reaching (Again!) With Billy Zane’s Gay Collector in ‘Demon Knight’! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The Horror Queers have spent the last several weeks checking out international queer horror in places such as Canada (Cronenberg classic, The Brood, in honor of its 40th anniversary), Germany (Otto; or Up With Dead People and its queer pornographic qualities) and France (Knife + Heart and its switchblade dildo-wielding serial killer), but it’s time to come back to the States!

This week, Joe and I are starting our five-week marathon of popular horror franchises with the hit 2000 pseudo-slasher Final Destination! Joining us is Terry Mesnard, the founder of the queer horror website Gayly Dreadful! For those of you who don’t know, Final Destination tells the tale of a group of high school teenagers (and one of their teachers) who get off a plane right before takeoff after one of them has a premonition of the plane exploding. Lo and behold, the plane does explode, and Death begins taking the lives of those who were meant to die on the plane.

What’s so queer about Final Destination? That’s an excellent question! Not only is the franchise creator (and co-screenwriter) an openly gay man, but Joe has a sneaking suspicion about the sexual orientation of Kerr Smith‘s douchebag bully Carter (cue the “you guys are reaching” comments).

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, Libsyn, Google Play, and RSS.

Episode 24 – Final Destination (2000)

Our Summer of Franchises begins by knocking on Death’s door with the 2000 pseudo-slasher Final Destination! Joined by Gayly Dreadful‘s Terry Mesnard, the boys look at the film that boasts a queer screenwriter (Jeffrey Reddick) and several gruesome Rube Goldberg-y deaths (and one surprise bus attack).

Join them as they debate the ridiculousness of the name “Clear Rivers,” the fact that the FBI agents are the worst and why straight guys like to poop together (seriously, why is this movie so poop-obsessed?).

Is a queer screenwriter not queer enough for you? Never fear! Joe has you covered with his theory about Carter’s repressed homosexuality. Plus, his secret dislike for Jaws comes out!

Weekly Game: the boys try to come up with their own convoluted deaths!

Cross out Final Destination!

Coming up Wednesday: Just in time for this week’s release of the Child’s Play remake, we celebrate the 15th anniversary of Don Mancini’s controversial camptastic sequel Seed of Chucky by discussing the genderqueer politics of Glen/Glenda and trying to figure out just how such a bizarre little film got made.

– Joe & Trace

P.S. Be sure to check out all of our online articles right here.

P.P.S. As an added bonus, if you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen to a full-length bonus episode on the new Octavia Spencer/Blumhouse film Ma and, coming up next week: we discuss the first three episodes of AMC’s Joe Hill adaptation NOS4A2!

The post [Horror Queers Podcast] A Homo-Repressed Bully in ‘Final Destination’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

In the newest episode Joe and I are discussing David Cronenberg‘s classic film The Brood, which follows a man (Art Hindle) uncovering an eccentric psychologist’s (Oliver Reed) therapy techniques on his institutionalized wife (Samantha Eggar), amidst a series of brutal murders committed by a brood of deformed dwarves.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, SoundCloud, TuneIn, Libsyn, Google Play, and RSS.

Episode 21 – The Brood (1979)

Joe drags Trace back to Canada-land to re-visit David Cronenberg’s oeuvre with The Brood, an incredibly light-hearted movie about a woman who births deformed killer dwarves through an external womb. 

This week, Joe goes through a lot. Not only does he imagine what his life would be like if David Cronenberg and David Lynch were his two daddies, but he also managed to stick his finger in an electrical socket before the recording began, thereby making his audio sound all staticky.

Trace gets off a bit easier as he is forced to contemplate just what exactly a “milk and orange juice drawer” is, second guess himself on Dr. Raglan’s sexual orientation and deal with his dogs taking over his recording studio.

It’s a fun time for everyone!

Cross out The Brood!

Coming up Wednesday: We delve into experimental soft-core pornography with Bruce LaBruce’s 2008 queer zombie film Otto; or, Up With Dead People. Haven’t seen it? Never fear! It’s currently streaming on Amazon!

– Joe & Trace

P.S. Be sure to check out all of our online articles right here.

P.P.S. As an added bonus, if you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen to full-length bonus episode on the Zac Efron/Ted Bundy movie Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile, and be on the lookout for an episode on The Perfection next week!

The post [Horror Queers Podcast] External Wombs and Killer Dwarves in David Cronenberg’s ‘The Brood’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

***SPOILERS for Night of the Creeps to follow.***

Synopsis: An amalgamation of ‘50s alien invasion films, B-movies, slashers and zombie movies, Night of the Creeps sees alien brain parasites turning humans into zombies. Caught in the middle of the invasion is Chris (Jason Lively) who, with the help of his best friend J.C. (Steve Marshall), is trying to pledge the Beta Epsilon fraternity in order to impress sorority girl Cynthia (Jill Whitlow).

Queer Aspect: J.C. is Chris’ Gay Best Friend!

Trace

Well Joe, are you prepared to piss off a ton of people who are bound to suggest that there can’t possibly be a queer reading of Fred Dekker’s cult classic Night of the Creeps? Because I’m steeling myself for the angry comments. It’s totally there, though! It may not be explicit, but there’s definitely an implied queer reading to be made in the film. I’d love to talk to Dekker about it to see if it was intentional, or if it’s just something fellow horror writers came up with years later, but since that’s not in the cards we’ll just have to discuss it amongst ourselves. And dear readers, lest you think we are saying “J.C. is 100% queer and there is no other way to see it,” rest assured that that is not the case. Before we get to J.C. though, let’s go over some facts.

Though Night of the Creeps did earn mostly positive reviews, that didn’t translate to a commercial success. Released by TriStar Pictures on August 22, 1986, the film was a box office flop, earning a meager $591,366 domestically. It was only released in 70 theaters, so that gross isn’t too surprising, but it did doom the film to fall into obscurity until a small, but loyal fan base could develop. Night of the Creeps is now one of the most sought-after cult films of the ‘80s, which is probably why Shout! Factory is releasing a brand new Blu-Ray next month (where’s my Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II Blu-Ray, guys???).

It’s not difficult to see what attracted people to the film. It’s a fun, kooky and gory love letter to several different sub-genres of horror (it’s no coincidence that the last names of all the characters also happen to be the last names of famous horror directors). There isn’t a single second in this film that doesn’t include a sly wink to the audience.

Written and directed by Fred Dekker, who would go on to direct The Monster Squad the following year and co-write last year’s controversial The Predator with frequent collaborator Shane Black (who appears in an uncredited role as a police officer in Creeps), the film works for viewers whether they’ve seen the film’s it’s referencing or not. I mostly fall into the latter group, but anyone watching the film will be able to tell that Dekker knows his shit and that he (and everyone else involved) is having fun. That sense of fun translates to screen perfectly, which makes the film’s flaws even more forgivable. Such flaws could be the result of the fact that Dekker wrote the script in a week, but who knows?

Now, on to the gay stuff: I confess that I didn’t pick up on any subtext (intentional or not) during my viewing. Admittedly, it was my first time seeing the film so I’ll blame that on my focus being on absorbing everything that was going on (Night of the Creeps is a simplistic movie, but it’s stuffed to the gills with Easter eggs, homages and other little details). Upon doing some research, I’m kind of shocked I didn’t detect J.C.’s queerness sooner. I mean, J.C. flat out tells Chris that he loves him, and that isn’t the only example of the subtextual homoeroticism conveyed between the two. As the two sit on beds opposite each other, J.C. explains to Chris why he’s so intent on helping him date Cynthia:

“I bust my ass to help you and you get chickenshit again. And I push and I push and I don’t give up. And why? You don’t even know. You don’t even care. Because it’s important to me that you’re happy. Is that so crazy?”

Can this be seen as J.C. just being a good friend to Chris? Absolutely. But he also falls into the trope of the gay best friend typically seen in romantic comedies: a nonsexual character with no priorities other than to worry about his best friend’s romantic life and to make funny quips. J.C. more than satisfies these criteria, but the difference between him and many of the other one-dimensional G.B.F.s is that we really do grow to care about him, which makes his eventual death all the more upsetting. Also of note is the fact that J.C. is the only character in the film who has some sense of self after the slugs get into his brain. Could this say something about the higher state of being queer? Probably not, but far be it from me to prevent someone from looking at it that way.

The issue with the J.C. character, however, is that he is doomed to die from the start (you can’t have both of your male protagonists make it to the end, can you?), which also forces the film to embody the “bury your gays” trope. Sure, he gets to warn Chris about the slugs and provide a vital piece of information about their weakness (off camera), but he takes no part in the climax of the film and we don’t even get to witness his death, which I’m assuming was a suicide (the film doesn’t make it particularly clear).

Joe, this was not your first time watching Night of the Creeps. Did you enjoy it more or less on a rewatch? What are your thoughts on the J.C. character? And why are movies about evil slugs (Slither, Shivers, and this), destined to be box office bombs? Are they just too gross for audiences? I didn’t even get to discuss Cynthia, whom I find to be an excellent final girl.

Joe

This was emphatically not my first time watching Night of the Creeps (though I’ll confess that I can’t recall how or when I stumbled upon this amazing little gem). Night of the Creeps is actually one of my “go to” horror films for screening parties with my non-horror fans because it has juuuust the right amount of camp and scares to simultaneously appeal to fans of the genre, as well as scaredy cats who can barely handle a jump scare.

After all of these years I unabashedly still love this film. It’s a great mix of wit, character work, genre-blending and, perhaps most importantly, it has a great sense of timing and pacing. This is a movie with a runtime of less than 88 minutes and, following an introductory black and white opening prologue set in 1959, the shit pretty much immediately hits the fan in 1986 and the film barely slows down again until the credits roll.

Perhaps this is a good time to reference that there are a few different versions of the film floating around (see also: last month’s column on Nightbreed). One reason that we selected the film in advance of its forthcoming Scream! Factory release is because that Blu release includes both versions of the film: the Theatrical Cut and the Director’s Cut.

On the surface the difference in runtime is negligible (approximately 100 seconds), but the reality is that the two cuts feature radically different endings that completely change the viewing experience:

• In the Theatrical Cut, once the sorority house is blown up and Chris and Cynthia share a kiss, the dog who infected all of the boys on the bus trots up. Cynthia bends down to pet it and a slug shoots out of the dog’s mouth into hers (presumably infecting/killing her).
• In the Director’s Cut, it is revealed (unbeknownst to everyone) that Detective Cameron’s infected corpse survived the sorority explosion. He stumbles out onto the street and falls down; his head splits open and slugs scurry into the street and nearby cemetery as the alien spaceship from the opening sequence flies away into the night sky.

To jump straight into your inquiry about Cynthia, Trace, the Theatrical Cut essentially confirms that the story has no happy ending (which as we’ve frequently discussed is the equivalent of a box office kiss of death). To have gone through all of this and lost J.C., Detective Carpenter and Cynthia? Woof – what a downer ending to walk out of theatres with back in ‘86.

The Director’s Cut, on the other hand, offers a more traditionally happy ending for the new couple, while simultaneously leaving the door open for a sequel (in addition to infecting a bunch of corpses, the presence of the ship teases that Earth will continue to be manipulated by the aliens). It’s definitely less of a satisfying end if you’re a fan of Atkins’ grizzled film noir detective, but considering how much the film acts as a heteronormative romcom about Chris and Cynthia’s unorthodox prom courtship, it’s easy to see why Dekker would have opted for the longer cut that doesn’t kill off his female protagonist. I definitely prefer this ending myself; Cynthia’s handling of herself with that flamethrower (evocative, of course, of a certain Alien badass) is certifiably kick-ass and that girl deserves to kiss the geek.

Circling back around to J.C., I’ll confess that I, too, overlooked a queer reading of his character the first few times I screened the film. And I think that’s completely intentional! It’s a testament to Dekker’s amazing screenplay that queer audiences can easily read (or not read) J.C.’s less-than-straight love for Chris.

Also, for the second month in a row, you’ve opted for the less obvious queer signifier! I can’t believe you went with the easily dismissed declaration of love when there’s an entire exchange about Chris fucking J.C. and how much J.C. would like it!

For ’80s audiences who needed to believe that they were just watching a homage-filled zombie flick, however, it’s entirely possible to read J.C. as little more than the wisecracking best friend to Chris’ hero. In this way, J.C.’s role is quietly revolutionary simply because he is so normal; he’s not the kind of fan-service, in your face, “yaaas queen” caricature that we see in later horror entries that desperately try to shoehorn a queer character in simply to fill out the diversity/inclusivity quotient.

I truly love that J.C. is an under-the-radar queer character whose sexuality simply is. Would I would have preferred to see him survive to live another day along with Chris and Cynthia (à la Kevin J. O’Connor’s queer-coded Joey in Deep Rising)? Absolutely! But if that’s not in the cards, I do love that J.C. is the only character in Night of the Creeps who gets a truly emotional send-off. His tape recorded deathbed confession, which I would argue negates the need to actually see his suicide, effectively stops the film dead so that Chris can grieve for his absent bestie (and, obviously, collect some much needed info on how to stop the slug plague).

I’ve run out of space without tackling your question about the box office poison potential of these kinds of films, Trace, though I have some thoughts. I’m curious to read yours, however; you show me yours and then I’ll show you mine. Also: what did you think of Cynthia’s douchey frat boyfriend Brad, whom I affectionately refer to as Albino Vampire? And finally, how surprised were you at the black and white opening? I confess that I always forget that the film begins that way!

Trace

Apologies, Joe. I think I missed that entire exchange between Chris and J.C.! I assume that you’re referring to this, which takes place immediately after the quote I mentioned above:

J.C.: “If you take it seriously you just get depressed all the time like you are so fuck you!”
Chris: “Yeah, well, fuck you too.”
J.C.: “You’d try it.”
Chris: “You’d let me.”
J.C.: “You’d want me to.”
Chris: “You wish.”

Then yeah, okay. That’s a bit queer-coded. Whether or not Dekker intended for J.C. to be read this way is entirely up to the viewer, but I assume that he didn’t write J.C. as queer. This reading is surely a more recent development amongst its fanbase, right? If we do read J.C. as queer, then the fact that his sexuality plays no part whatsoever in his character is refreshing (not that I would expect any serious devotion of time to his sexuality in a movie in 1986, but still). That being said, if Dekker’s intention was for J.C. to be gay, do you not feel a bit cheated that that part of his identity wasn’t given more focus? Again, it’s 1986, but one can dream.

Allow me to play Devil’s advocate for a moment to discuss the inherent contradiction in what we as a queer audience want from our queer characters. We simultaneously want our queerness to be “normalized” to the point where it’s not a big deal if it’s part of a character’s identity (meaning: it’s not their sole personality trait), yet we also want the appropriate amount of attention given to that aspect of a character. While a character’s queerness doesn’t define them, it does play a part in shaping who they are (and anyone who says otherwise clearly hasn’t grown up being tormented for being different). Add to that the importance of accurate representation (something the aforementioned GBF trope almost always screws up), and it’s easy to see just why so many straight screenwriters get it wrong. There’s so much to take into account, and it’s their responsibility to get it right. But what is “right” is different to everyone.

To use an oft-quoted phrase: write what you know. This is why it’s so important to have queer people telling queer stories, and why I get so frustrated when a commenter asks us why it matters if a director or a screenwriter is queer or not. This opens up a whole other can of worms: should queer characters only be written by queer people? Should straight characters only be written by straight people? That’s not what I’m saying at all, but I do think research needs to be done if you’re writing what you don’t know, and that is where so many people get it wrong.

Joe, I notice that you avoided my remarks about J.C.’s death being a part of the “bury your gays” trope. You could even say that he is fridged; the term is traditionally used for female characters, but it applies perfectly to J.C. in that his death is intended to move Chris’ arc forward (it gets him angry enough to take action and also feeds him the knowledge that the slugs are weak to fire). This is why he’s the only character to get the truly emotional send-off. I do think that Night of the Creeps is too fun for there to be any malicious intent, but arguments about the mishandling of the J.C. character do hold water.

Hoo boy, that was a bit of a serious tangent, wasn’t it? Let’s move on to lighter fare. Based on your descriptions of both versions of the film, I have to agree with you that the Director’s Cut is more satisfying on a narrative level. Night of the Creeps has a bit of a mean streak, but it’s not cruel. Ending the film with Cynthia’s death would have felt cruel, so I can only imagine what the few people who caught the film in theaters walked out thinking.

As for the mainstream public’s aversion to slug horror, my sneaking suspicion is that it has to do with the fact that they all involve elements of comedy (even Shivers, which is the most straightforward horror film of the bunch, has some dark comedy infused into its DNA). My passion for defending the horror-comedy (or comedy-horror, whichever term you prefer) dates back to the very first article I wrote for BD back in 2014 (heads up: it’s the work of a novice writer).

Horror-comedy is a difficult sell for anyone other than die-hard horror fans, and even then it’s iffy. We have seen plenty of our readers criticize films like Us and Get Out for their use of comedy during tense scenes. Those may be poor examples, though, particularly Us, which was marketed strictly as a horror film so the comedic elements were unexpected. Films like Night of the Creeps and Slither are explicitly marketed as horror-comedies. So what is it about that particular sub-genre that turns off “regular” moviegoers? One can only assume it’s that some people can’t reconcile the mixture of death and destruction with light-hearted comedy.

Joe, I haven’t addressed your question about the black-and-white opening, but, in short, I liked it! I also realize that it seems like I’m coming down on the film and Dekker, but I’m really not! I enjoyed Night of the Creeps a ton and think Dekker crafted something insanely fun. I’m merely trying to voice different perspectives that people might have when diving into a queer reading of the film.

Anyway, I know you had issues with The Predator, so what do you think Dekker gets right with Night of the Creeps that he doesn’t in The Predator?

Joe

I certainly did have issues with The Predator! Mostly I found that film struggled mightily to balance its humour (which is subpar and borders on offensive, particularly in its treatment of Thomas Jane’s Tourette’s) with its action (which is good for the most part, albeit with some truly terrible editing near the end).

What Dekker struggles with in The Predator is executed nearly perfectly in Night of the Creeps. It has endlessly quotable dialogue, hamfisted effects that render the film endearing, a good amount of gore/mayhem and a bunch of great characters (Atkins’ gruff and grumpy cigar-chomping detective is just everything). It’s honestly one of my favourite films of the ’80s!

Now, that’s not to say that Night of the Creeps doesn’t have issues. As we’ve discovered doing these posts and the podcast, it can be tricky to revisit films, especially beloved films, of the past because the world has evolved and certain things aren’t acceptable anymore (arguably that’s usually for the best). In that regard, the issues you raise about J.C. getting fridged and the way that his death exists primarily to motivate the straight protagonist’s journey absolutely do suck.

Would I have loved for the film to keep J.C. around, or to even have a character like him as the protagonist? Yes, obviously. Was that going to happen at a time when AIDS was more or less synonymous with gay sex? Or when positive representation wasn’t a thing and the best LGBTQ+ audiences could hope for was a character that wasn’t dying or a stereotypical villain? Given the circumstances, J.C. is the absolute best you could hope for from a gay character in a late ’80s film.

From a 2019 perspective, though, yeah…we should want more. This is why it is so frustrating when screenwriters – gay, straight, bi or whatever – define these characters entirely by their sexual orientation as though they have no other qualities or toss in a casual “He’s gay” or “She just broke up with her girlfriend” and call it a day. You’re absolutely right that it’s a deft balancing act, but I would argue that you can tell the difference when the characters are well-written and well-rounded.

Ugh, now I’ve fallen into a serious tangent black hole!

Know what I really want more of? Weird albino frat boys! And mouthy cops! And girls with flame throwers! In all honesty, if we’re talking about the historical legacy of Night of the Creeps, I think one of the most obvious reasons why it is such a beloved film is because it is such a fun mix’n’match of horror genres and characters. I love that Dekker has seemingly taken all of the things that he loves about horror, thrown them into a blender and hit pulse.

It’s crazy to me that an oddball horror comedy like Gremlins stormed the box office only two years earlier to the tune of $148M while Night of the Creeps crashed and burned. Obviously, Gremlins had the support of powerful people like Kathleen Kennedy and Steven Spielberg, but it is odd how poorly some horror comedies tend to perform (especially the ones that deal with parasitic worms).

I suppose we shouldn’t be that surprised when horror comedies – already a hard sell – are made even more challenging to sell courtesy of the uncomfortable sexual connotations of slugs that work their way into the body in penetrative, oral fashion. I mean, the harsh reality of Night of the Creeps (and Shivers and Slither) is that it is a film about a bunch of folks getting face-raped and then turning into horrible somnambulist monsters. It’s not the most feel-good subject for a horror film and it doesn’t have the “high art” seriousness/prestige of Alien to make it more palatable.

Still, I challenge audiences who haven’t yet checked out Night of the Creeps to resist the charm of that black and white opening ode to 50s sci-fi and beach blanket films. Or to avoid swooning at Atkins’ film noir-inspired gumshoe who is just so sick of this shit. Or to refrain from applauding when Chris and Cynthia begin lighting up and shooting down the school’s population of fraternity brothers. You won’t be able to! The film is just too damn delightful!

Whether or not Dekker knew how progressive he was when he created iconic queer character J.C. is definitely up for debate, but the writer/director sure as hell understood the love letter that he was making. And any film that treats our beloved genre with that much respect and admiration is a winner in my books.

Next time on Horror Queers: it’s lights! Camera! Fashion! as we go blind with Faye Dunaway and The Eyes of Laura Mars.

Night of the Creeps is available to stream for $3.99 on Amazon. And don’t forget to catch up on our previous Horror Queers articles here or check out our podcast page here.

The post [Horror Queers] ‘Night of the Creeps’ and the Gay Best Friend appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

In the newest episode, Joe and I are joined by Jenny Nulf, film critic for the Austin Chronicle and director of programming for the Austin Asian American Film Festival, to discuss the 2014 film adaptation of the beloved video game franchise Fatal Frame (yes, that Fatal Frame). Is it the best video game movie adaptation ever made? Depending on how you felt about Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, maybe!

In the film, a student in a conservative all-girls school must resolve the mysterious disappearances and deaths of her fellow classmates after they find an intriguing but haunting photo of Aya, the best singer of class. A death curse is placed on anyone who sees Aya’s photo, which seems to be taken with a “Camera Obscura.”

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, SoundCloud, TuneIn, Libsyn, Google Play, and RSS.

Episode 18 – Fatal Frame (2014)

The Horror Queers are playing their way into the world of video game adaptations with the 2014 film Fatal Frame. “What? They made a movie out of Fatal Frame????”, you ask? They most certainly did! Unfortunately, it never saw a North American release. Lucky for us (and you), it’s streaming for free on YouTube! Sure, it is more of an adaptation of the video game franchise’s themes than its plot, but the Camera Obscura does make a cameo!

Joining the boys to discuss this atmospheric tale of Japanese lesbians, ghosts and cursed photograph (the “fatal frame,” if you will) is Jenny Nulf, the Director of Programming for the Austin Asian American Film Festival! Her knowledge of Japanese culture and creepy ghost girls brings a necessary outside perspective to the episode.

Laugh along as Joe butchers every single name (seriously, he gets them wrong even after he’s been corrected), takes a pot shot Madonna(!) and does some sort of ga(y)mer impersonation (discussing video games isn’t a good look for Joe). Plus, Trace commandeers the weekly game (invoking Joe’s wrath), the group discusses the film’s murky stance on lesbianism and also try to figure out why it has 17(ish) endings.

Cross out Fatal Frame!

Coming up Wednesday: We’re making our first foray into the New French Extremity movement with a viewing of Fabrice Du Welz’s 2004 film Calvaire (known as The Ordeal in the United States) to discuss one of cinema’s few instances of male-on-male rape.

– Joe & Trace

P.S. Be sure to check out all of our online articles right here.

P.P.S. As an added bonus, if you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen to full-length bonus episodes on the next chapter in The Conjuring universe The Curse of La Llorona and Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile (aka the Zac Efron/Ted Bundy movie).

The post [Horror Queers Podcast] Is ‘Fatal Frame’ the Best Video Game Movie Adaptation Ever Made? appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.