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   

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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.

Trace and Joe hit the stacks to check out Clark Collis' Screaming and Conjuring: The Resurrection and Unstoppable Rise of the Modern Horror Movie (Available Sept 2, 2025). This is your new Bible for contemporary horror films, complete with production info, tracking trends, and interesting facts about individual films and franchises.

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.

Get the kid and the bike because we're heading to The Mexican Place to check out Troma Entertainment's crown jewel: The Toxic Avenger (1984). Just in time to celebrate the release of Macon Blair's remake, too!

Join us as we offer a primer on all things Toxie before diving into this ridiculously silly (and charming!) little film. The Toxic Avenger feels like a live-action cartoon that's been dumped in a vat of extremely transgressive toxic waste, and it all (mostly) works!

Plus: an unexpected gang of queers, masturbating to photos of dead children, "Body Talk", and swapping out human heads for cantaloupes.

CW: Dog death, child death, attempted sexual assault and the use of many, many slurs. 

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.

Keep an eye out for pussy willows and don't wear white after Labor Day because we're talking about John Waters' most "accessible" film, Serial Mom (1994).

Featuring an all-time performance by Kathleen Turner and the usual Waters' stable, this satire of true crime and horror films is a great introduction for Dreamland novices.

Plus: the best comedic bits, a primer on Patty Hearst, more of Trace's favorite Waters films, and why you *do not* want to mention Annie around Joe.

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 Patreon episode on Zach Cregger's sophomore feature Weapons (2025). We're split on this one, but had a healthy debate over the film. This includes a lengthy conversation about the film's handling of its gay characters, which you'll hear us discuss in this clip.

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.

Here's a sneak peek at our all new, supersized Patreon episode on the first two episodes 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 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.