A Movie of Dicks.
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.
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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 into the land of adolescent misfits and overall weirdness in Richard Bates Jr.’s superb horror film Excision!
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.