October 07, 2025

Episode 69: Wonderland, Starring Val Kilmer as John C. Holmes!

1 hour 30 minutes

69! Very nice. We commit to the bit by exploring the seedy underworld of Los Angeles’ porn and drug scene in 2003’s unfairly overlooked Wonderland. Starring Val Kilmer as the legendary abusive monster John Holmes, aka Johnny Wadd, Wonderland documents, Rashomon-style, the notorious revenge murders in which John Holmes most definitely participated, and reminds us that drugs are indeed very, very, very bad.

We discuss a lot of addict logic, P.T. Anderson’s insistence that John Holmes was a good actor, the differences between crack and freebase, Tim Blake Nelson’s enduring gift for playing the kind of dude who would be comfortable at a dog fight, the unbelievable magic of Lisa Kudrow, Liberace, and so much more, including acrylic yarn.

Wonderland is directed by James Cox, and stars Val Kilmer as John Holmes, Lisa Kudrow as Sharon Holmes, Kate Bosworth as Dawn Schiller, Eric Bogosian as Eddie Nash, Dylan McDermott as David Lind, Carrie Fisher as Sally Hansen, Josh Lucas as Ron Launius, Ted Levine as Sam Nico, Tim Blake Nelson as Billy Severely, Christina Applegate as Susan Launius, Janeane Garofalo as Joy Miller, and Natasha Gregson Wagner as Barbara Richardson.

Sources used in the episode include…

“The Devil and John Holmes” by Mike Sager — this was an article for Rolling Stone that is kind of the definitive telling of this story.

Wonderland Murders podcast on Wondery.

Michael Connelly's series on MGM TV called The Wonderland Massacre.

Malice in Wonderland by Tom Lange.

The documentary WADD, which came out in 1999.

– Basically if there’s a podcast or episode of television or anything about this story Sara has probably looked into it.

Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.

Our theme music is by Ben Patch: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5BB01QpPE7HBGacGAlullu?si=gp_6jbvsThWXg_sSLVcv6Q

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