Horror Queers

In celebration of its 50th anniversary, we're revisiting David Cronenberg's classic "sex slug" film, Shivers (1975). C/W: sexual assault, statutory rape

An isolated Montreal apartment complex comes under attack by a parasitic aphrodisiac venereal disease in the famed Canada director's genre debut, which a) nearly went to Hollywood and b) was publicly attacked because the movie was funded by taxpayer dollars. 

Plus: searching for a protagonist; low-fi FX that hold up; the nonchalant acceptance of the rape of a minor; threatening queer sexuality; and an all-timer ending in the pool!

Questions? Comments? Snark? Connect with the boys on BlueSky, Instagram, Youtube, Letterboxd, Facebook, or join the Facebook Group or the Horror Queers Discord to get in touch with other listeners.

> Trace: @tracedthurman (BlueSky)/ @tracedthurman (Instagram)

> Joe: @joelipsett (BlueSky) / @bstolemyremote (Instagram) 

Be sure to support the boys on Patreon!  

Theme Music: Alexander Nakarada   

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Grab a chainsaw because we're slicing into writer Joe Knetter and director Marcel Walz's homage to classic rural horror titles like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes.

We're mixed on this one, which has one of the best deaths of the year (file under: gloryhole sounding) and tons of queerness, but has terrible pacing/editing and a confusing message.

Questions? Comments? Snark? Connect with the boys on BlueSky, Instagram, Youtube, Letterboxd, Facebook, or join the Facebook Group or the Horror Queers Discord to get in touch with other listeners.

> Trace: @tracedthurman (BlueSky)/ @tracedthurman (Instagram)

> Joe: @joelipsett (BlueSky) / @bstolemyremote (Instagram) 

Be sure to support the boys on Patreon!  

Theme Music: Alexander Nakarada  

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Strap on your ice skates and check your makeup because we're talking Gus Van Sant's whip-smart satire To Die For for its 30th anniversary! After all, you're not anybody in America unless you're on TV, right?

Join us as we heap all the praise on Nicole Kidman's Golden Globe-winning (but not Oscar-nominated) performance as narcissistic sociopath Suzanne Stone before going all in on the film's troubled road to release (so many test screenings!).

Plus: Danny Elfman's jarring score, baby Joaquin Phoenix (in one of his best roles), assassin David Cronenberg and why there's no point in doing anything if nobody's watching.

Questions? Comments? Snark? Connect with the boys on BlueSky, Instagram, Youtube, Letterboxd, Facebook, or join the Facebook Group or the Horror Queers Discord to get in touch with other listeners.

> Trace: @tracedthurman (BlueSky)/ @tracedthurman (Instagram)

> Joe: @joelipsett (BlueSky) / @bstolemyremote (Instagram) 

Be sure to support the boys on Patreon!  

Theme Music: Alexander Nakarada   

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Here's a sneak peek at our all new Patreon episode on the first season finale of Noah Hawley's FX/Disney+ series, Alien: Earth (2025).

Like what you hear? Head on over to www.patreon.com/horrorqueers and become a Patron for more than 424 hours of exclusive bonus content today!

Theme Music: Alexander Nakarada

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week we're opening the Patreon vault to discuss The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024) in anticipation of Renny Harlin's long overdue sequel, Chapter 2.

We have a lot of thoughts about this first film, its negative reception, and how to evaluate what is really 1/3 of a single film.

Plus: Rural horror, comparisons to the Fear Street trilogy and the Cabin Fever remake, groaning at inhaler drama, debates about character stupidity, our favorite jump scares, and the perils of late night fridge repair.

Bonus Drinking Game: Trace sighs or Joe says "exciting"

Questions? Comments? Snark? Connect with the boys on BlueSky, Instagram, Youtube, Letterboxd, Facebook, or join the Facebook Group or the Horror Queers Discord to get in touch with other listeners.

> Trace: @tracedthurman (BlueSky)/ @tracedthurman (Instagram)

> Joe: @joelipsett (BlueSky) / @bstolemyremote (Instagram) 

Be sure to support the boys on Patreon!  

Theme Music: Alexander Nakarada   

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Alma! We're covering another Alfred Hitchcock film with 1963's The Birds.

It's Hitch, so prepare to get technical with Trace's production history and thanks to another essay from It Came From the Closet, Joe has a compulsory Melanie & Annie queer reading on deck.

Plus: the one scene that doesn't work; our favorite pieces of editing; why bitchy Melanie is our fave; and this week's game: sequel or remake!

References: 

• Laura Maw. “Loving Annie Hayworth”. It Came From the Closet  
• "The Making of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds." Cinemafantastique. 

Questions? Comments? Snark? Connect with the boys on BlueSky, Instagram, Youtube, Letterboxd, Facebook, or join the Facebook Group or the Horror Queers Discord to get in touch with other listeners.

> Trace: @tracedthurman (BlueSky)/ @tracedthurman (Instagram)

> Joe: @joelipsett (BlueSky) / @bstolemyremote (Instagram) 

Be sure to support the boys on Patreon!  

Theme Music: Alexander Nakarada   

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hop on your motorcycle, avoid that "child" in the road and slide to a stop because we're discussing Katsuhiro Otomo's seminal anime Akira (1988)!

Join us as we offer a primer on all things Akira, as well as its influences on, uh, everything. We then work our way through its very, very dense plot, which somehow condenses hundreds of manga pages into a 2-hour runtime. This includes a queer read for Kaneda and Tetsuo, as well as debating whether or not the film has a "woman problem."

Plus: raisin-faced "children," singularities, and one horrifying sequence involving malevolent stuffed animals (and a lot of "milk").

Reference:

• Osmond, Andrew. Akira: The Story Behind the Film. Empire. June 21, 2011.
• Schupp, Ricky. Japan’s Violent Motorcycle Gangs that Influenced Akira – and Anime History. Tokyo Weekender

Questions? Comments? Snark? Connect with the boys on BlueSky, Instagram, Youtube, Letterboxd, Facebook, or join the Facebook Group or the Horror Queers Discord to get in touch with other listeners.

> Trace: @tracedthurman (BlueSky)/ @tracedthurman (Instagram)

> Joe: @joelipsett (BlueSky) / @bstolemyremote (Instagram) 

Be sure to support the boys on Patreon!  

Theme Music: Alexander Nakarada   

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Here's a sneak peek at our all new Patreon episode on The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025) the fourth and "final" entry in the mainline entries of The Conjuring Universe.

Like what you hear? Head on over to www.patreon.com/horrorqueers and become a Patron for more than 400 hours of exclusive bonus content today!

Theme Music: Alexander Nakarada

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We're celebrating the 25th anniversary of queer director João Pedro Rodrigues' controversial erotic drama O Fantasma (2000).

There's a lot to unpack in this movie with very little dialogue or narrative tissue, as we follow protagonist Sérgio (Ricardo Meneses) from sexual encounter to sexual encounter. It's a strange (and occasionally very, very hot) film that left us a bit perplexed, but we can't deny that it fascinated us to no end. 

Questions? Comments? Snark? Connect with the boys on BlueSky, Instagram, Youtube, Letterboxd, Facebook, or join the Facebook Group or brand new Horror Queers Discord to get in touch with other listeners.

> Trace: ⁠⁠@tracedthurman⁠⁠ (Bluesky)⁠ / ⁠⁠@tracedthurman⁠⁠ (Instagram)

> Joe: @joelipsett (BlueSky) / @bstolemyremote (Instagram) 

Be sure to support the boys on Patreon!  

Theme Music: Alexander Nakarada   

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For Episode 350 (!) we decided we wanted a party, so we're headed south of the border to hang out at the Titty Twister with the Gecko brothers in Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn (1996).

From an epic game that lasts the whole episode to a little bit of drunken slurring by the end, this is a good time through and through. 

Plus: Quentin Tarantino's screenplay and how this collaboration anticipates 2007's Grindhouse (see previous episodes), worshipping Santanico Pandemonium, Trace's pitch to watch the TV series, and the many, MANY titles that we may cover in the future. Grab your crotch gun and jump in!

Questions? Comments? Snark? Connect with the boys on BlueSky, Instagram, Youtube, Letterboxd, Facebook, or join the Facebook Group or the Horror Queers Discord to get in touch with other listeners.

> Trace: @tracedthurman (BlueSky)/ @tracedthurman (Instagram)

> Joe: @joelipsett (BlueSky) / @bstolemyremote (Instagram) 

Be sure to support the boys on Patreon!  

Theme Music: Alexander Nakarada   

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.