Pennywise Surprisingly Anti-Queer

fran Toronto. You are aware that I was a somewhat precocious child, right, I think I've given some evidence to that fact. No, no't no. I I feel like you were totally normal, like a completely you know, not a nondescript, kind of unmemorable childhood from what I remembered, totally sweet and demure. Well I might have been, but I was corrupted. And I actually have always been able to trace that corruption to one choice. Sure, just one. Well, I'm one

that that stands out as defining. And I think I've said before that I've always been a big reader. Um, you know, if I was like in a rom com or something. The thing about me would be like I love to read it so quirky. Um, But um, you know, I never I kind of went straight from children's fair to adult literature. And the way that that happened was

through the work of Stephen King. Because I was I spent a lot of time at the library as a kid, especially when I spent weekends with my dad, And I remember being in the library one day and for some reason, I was in the like adult book section because I was already a little like I knew that I was different. And I saw a book cover um of a woman's face and it was on fire, and I just had to know what it was. And it was the novel

Carry by Stephen King. And I checked it out of the library and read it and was obsessed with it. And I do think it was one of the things that fundamentally shaped and shifted the kind of media I was interested in and the kind of cooky, spooky girl

I would become. Okay, I want to hear about this, but can we just have a quick aside to tell the truth on this podcast that there is like a kind of like phrase in the culture which is you can't judge a book by its cover, but I actually find that a lot of times you can the book. The book cover is about as good as the book. Like that really happens a lot, and we as a

culture should be saying that. Yeah. I mean that's why when you see all these covers, stay of the with the with the cartoon people of them, you know exactly what kind of book you're you're about to get yourself in. Rose and I are alluding to like a genre of like rom com books that we're talking about, Red White Royal. Yeah. Yeah, there are these little kind of like oscar health style, like millennial illustrations on the cover of like two little

you know, gays. It's like a guy with this arms crossed, another guy's like leading against one of the letters. Anyway, you know exactly what you're signing up for. So Carrie, Yeah, Carrie, And I was very young. I was in fourth grade, so let's say I was eight or nine years old, way too young to read Carrie, which is a horrifying book.

Um that's kind of made all the more horrifying because of how first person it is, so you're very much in the psyche of all these people doing horrible things having horrible things done to them, and it really did shape me in a lot of ways. So I do owe a lot of myself in a way to Stephen King.

And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to talk about him today, along with the fact that when you're talking about the horror genre, you can't not talk about Stephen King, because Stephen King is often credited as the father of modern horror. And I think when you look out at the cultural landscape of horror, supernatural horror, everything can be traced in some way back to Stephen King,

at least American horror. And when we see things like stranger things or goose bumps or like things like that, like it all is in his lineage. And I think the tropes that make a Stephen King book are things that are going to be replicated till the end of time. Yeah, And you did not have like much familiarity with Stephen

King before I brought this episode up. Prior prior to preparing for this podcast, the only Stephen King thing I had ever seen was the Carrie remakes starring Chloe Grace Morett's and Julianne Moore, which I did on your insistence, watch half of last night and we'll get into it. But I I knew you wouldn't spoiler alert. I was not happy. Um, So let's talk about the man, the myth, the legend, Stephen King. Um. Stephen King's old. I don't know how old, but he's an old white man. So

who cares. Um. He's published sixty four novels, which is a lot um more than that flop Joyce, Carol ods have you did you see the oats tweet that has been that was circulating about what about how she's not hot and shouldn't be writing about Marilyn writing. Look, it's it's not it's it's kind of not wrong that that's we kind of spilled like literary non hotties should know their lane, and we do. We do. Um. So he's

written a lot of books. I would say that some of the things that he kind of returns to over and over again are childhood and adolescence. That's a huge part of a lot of his novels. And I would say, especially the most famous ones, the Manifestation of Inner Demons as Outer Demons, he talks a lot about addiction. Um. He is famously was an alcoholic and it worked its way into a lot of his writing. I didn't even

know that. Um. And I also think you know his kind of um fascination with an understanding of children adolescence. A lot of that comes from the fact that he was a teacher. M Kerry, which was his first published novel. It was it was originally published as a short story, um, while he was working as a teacher at a like a fancy private boarding school, and then the book was published in nineteen seventy four, um, and that is really

what started his career. I would say he didn't pick up like he still kind of worked as a teacher throughout the seventies, even as he started to publish more novels and they became adopted into films. Carry was adopted into a film only two years after it was published. Wow, So he became kind of an immediate sense. He wasn't

he was an immediate sensation. I would say that, like the real Stephen king Mania is very eighties and that is when he became the figure he is today, which is I think it's he's a very as our producer put it, um, Airport Bookstore author. That's how I would have categorized him to like, to be totally honest, like, I just as I didn't know anything about Stephen King, and in my head he's in the category of airport novels.

I would have catalog when when authors are this prolific, sorry, like the Daniel Steels of the world, or like the John Grishams or whatever you kind of um I put him into that category of like a person who makes a ton of um almost formulaically engaging novels, you know what I mean? And I don't actually think maybe that

Stephen King belongs in that. I think what he does is maybe a lot more masterful, or at least his popular work is a lot more masterful than airport PAPERVACU think so too, when when when I say airport novels, I just mean that he's reached such a critical mass of consumption that his work is readily available, his work

is always being adopted. We're right now in a in a moment where for the next couple of years there's like almost always going to be some Stephen King adaptation happening, which I honestly think is part of like effect, right, Like I think that a new popular rization and or rather invigoration of prestige horror and UM a greater popular popularization of horror and possibility for horror to win awards.

I think it's being people are being like, well, what other Stephen King things are like out there that we haven't you know, looked at. Yeah, And so much of his work has been revisited multiple times, as we see with Carrie with It UM. A lot of it has also kind of been remixed UM in a in an almost incestuous way, like the Hulu series Castle Rock that UM aired a couple of years ago, and I tried watching a few episodes of and just wasn't super interested.

But it was a TV show in which UM characters from all of his novels kind of lived in the same town and interacted with each other. UM. So there's just so he's he really has UM spread kind of out to every aspect of our culture, and now his UM, his sensibility is one that is now being mimicked by uh, you know, the new things that are peak culture, Like like you mentioned, Stranger Things. Stranger Things is a direct

homage to Stephen King. It's the you know, kids, kids riding around on bicycles, spooky stuff happens young girl with you know, terrifying powers, Like it's all allusions to things like it like fire Starter and carry um, like stand by Me. So he has had all of these peaks and valleys of being you know, relevant in culture, and I don't think that's stopping anytime soon. So you know, what better time to talk about him than in our

spooky era. And I think that honestly, something that's like indicative of like more or rather more things that are indicative of Stephen King's work that you're kind of getting at is the storied quality to them that like supersedes the horror genre. Like if you took the IT Book or whatever and you took out all the kind of horrific graphic things that happened and happened in it, it

would still be a fucking good, compelling story. You know, he is a master of plot, and you know, I think that you you pointed out the stranger things um parallel to me when we were watching for the Part one remake together. But like something that I've noticed after consuming a few more things in preparation for this episode is that Stephen King's work has a kind of like sublime eerieness to it, Like there's the kind of obvious eereness of like basements or ghosts or you know, things

like that. But like Stephen King understood why clowns are scary or whatever, he knows why twins are scary, right, Like um, a kid with an imaginary friend, a really really Christian protective mom. Right, he sees the kind of hidden uneasiness that we might encounter in a literal, normal human life, and it's an eeriness that is pulled out

of our lives. Like there's a really good quote from the Philosophy of horror Um in which Noel Carol writes that for King, the horror story is always a contest between the normal and the abnormal, such that the normal is reinstated and therefore affirmed. That's such a great way

of putting it. It's like what I was trying to say, honestly, and and yeah, and I think on top of that, the thing that you were talking about, that childhood adolescence um component that works its way into a lot of the books, I think lends itself to Stephen King's fascination with outsiders, nerds, people that are ostracized. Deviance, yes, deviance

of any kind. Um, people with unique talents, people more skills. Yes, And I think that also, like that abnormal normal thing you're talking about is like Stephen King, I think introduces um very inventive, if not totally bizarre monsters and scares, like things that you could never really I think. I think the specificity of his work is what makes it really good. And I also think, honestly, the specificity of his work is something that gets him in troublesometimes. But um,

we'll get into that. Yes, but you know, let's go back to the beginning, both for Stephen King and for me more importantly. Um So Carrie, as I said, was published in ur first as um, you know, a story in a magazine, and it was something that he thought he should like stop working on, and his wife, Tabitha, was like, no, no, this is good, you should keep at it. And he kind of leaned on her to help get inside the female psyche. So his wife's name

was Tabitha. Is that weird? Tabitha? I mean, she's sounds a name. She sounds like a like a wench. I think it sounds like Tabitha makes perfect sense. Is the name of someone who's married to Stephen Carry, Yes, it does. That's I don't know, she's still married. It's like two on the nose is like what I'm saying, that's funny. So Carrie for the Virgins UM is a very short

novel about a girl named Carrie. A girly named Carrie White who um is bullied at school because she's weird and also because she has an extremely religious mother who has sheltered her her entire life. The book starts with Carrie getting her first period um during gym class in the showers, and her mother has never told her what

it is, and so she thinks that she's dying. And the other girls who kind of have been looking for this reason like an excuse to bully her, um, you know, torment her in this really ugly way, and it unlocks this latent ability Carrie has, which is telekinesis, which is, you know, being able to move things with your mind. Um. These girls are punished by not being able to go to the prom um and they react in different ways. One of them decides to have her boyfriend take Carrie

to the prom out of penance. UM, and then one of them decides to further humiliate Carry at the prom Um and this all leads to, you know, the iconic scene where it Carries Crown prom queen gets pigs blood dumped on her and then her mind fractures and as revenge she destroy She kills everyone, destroys the town, kills and is killed by her mother. Oh, she's killed by her mother in the original Yes, and in both in

both the book and the film adaptation. Before Carrie is able to kill her mother, her mother stabs her, and then Carrie kills her mother and escape. It's their house which burns to the ground and Um you know, dies later after Sue Snell, the sort of sympathetic girl who had her boyfriend take carry to the prom Um, finds her and with her as she dies. UM. In the In the book it's it's Um a little differently than

the Brian de Palma film. Um Carries Powers also have a sort of you know, psychic um, a component where people in the town. Because the book is an epistolatory novel, so a lot of it is told through UM letters and through letters and also UM transcriptions from so in the world of the novel, what happened Um in Chamberlain, Maine, which is where the book is set Um has become this national phenomenon, and there's a whole inquiry into it.

So a lot of the novel is told through court transcripts or magazine are articles um, and you find out that a lot of people, like while Carrie was going on her rampage, I knew what was happening because they

had the psychic connection with her. And Sue Smell at the end of the novel is inside Carrie's mind while she dies, and it it adds this component to it of um, this girl not only taking her pain out on people in a physical way, but also kind of making this town that has tortured her be witness to

what is happening. Can we talk about the fact that like in this kind of like out the outsider troupe that's like in Stephen King's books, this like psychotic break that Carrie has and the literal revenge that she enacts on like the people that have like really torture her is so satisfying. It is, it is incredibly satisfying, but it's also horrific Um. And it it is that fantasy that all of us have of being able to get revenge on but but it's taken to you know, the

nth degree. But it also is the blueprint for a lot of things that would come after it. You know, we would not have things like um, The Dark Phoenix, Saga and X Men. We would not have Wanda Maxim off the Scarlet which, you know, losing her mind. Um, we wouldn't have like Willow from Buffy going evil. All of that. It goes directly back to carry these mentally unstable powerful women, you know, letting loose on the world or the universe favorite tune to them. It is also

one of my favorite tropes. Yeah, I um, I've never have I've yet to see the original. It was one of the things that I was not able to get to before we watched, but I did. Such a beautiful, beautiful film. I can't It's incredibly sad. Sissy Space is so good in it. And even though Sissy's basic is beautiful, she has this sort of like awkward gazelle like quality that works really well. Um for Carrie. It reminds me, or at least what you're describing, and from what I

know from like clips of the movie. It actually I'm just now feeling like it's reminding me of Shelley Duval and the Shining like it kind of feels like a similar archetype and like an unassuming, like skinny, awkward white woman and her mother who's played by Piper Laurie. Um, you know, Margaret Um is horrifying. UM. I mean, she's as she's given sort of this I think, I mean, because Piper Laurie was so beautiful, she's almost um like resplendent in her you know, um psychopathy in the movie.

In the book, it's much more. It's just disturbing because you also there's a lot of chapters that are first you know, from her perspective um of how you know, she sees Carrie as this as um, you know, an abomination because she you find out that Carrie's mother was raped, that's how she became pregnant with her, and she wanted to kill her when she was born and she didn't,

and she sort of regretted that Carrie's whole life. But genetic trauma honestly is like also a thing in Stephen King's books, like the parents are always fucked up and makes the kids sucked up, Like he really over and over again, has a kind of childhood thing that keeps coming through and according to my therapist, I have a similar thing. You watched a half of the reboot starring

Chloe Grayson, Rats and Julianne Moore. I okay, I have to say when I watched this movie years ago, I had a pretty low threshold old um of quality for

like horror movies in general. So I remember actually really liking it, in large part because I like Julianne Moore and I like Chloe Grace Morett's um But I think that the thing maybe you did not like about it, which I now retroactively do not like about it is the kind of imaxification of the story right, like it's rotted, it's and I don't even I mean, what do you mean by imaxification? I feel like, um, the so you didn't get to the end, but like I you see

it throughout the film I've watched. I have watched clips of the prom scene, so I do know a little bit what the end looks like. Okay, It's like she literally like blows up the town. There there's so many special effects explosions like um c g I elements that like have to create Carrie's kind of like psychotic break. And I think that that is in large part like what's wrong with like a mayor Can movies right now?

Like it just scrubs out. I think a lot of the integrity of what could be a really good story, Like these are complaints that you and I have of, Like a lot of Marvel movies are like a lot of just like when when it gets too far into the c G, I it's like I don't really care about these characters as much anymore. Right well, because the original movie is all practical effects and it's so much more effective. The remake, I think is bad a lot

because of Chloe Grace Maria ut perfectly cast. She's not she's she's way too pretty to be carried like I is carrying on supposed to be pretty. No. I mean in the book she's written as much more like kind of plain and dumpy. But I don't think it. I don't think it's like, um, she needed to be ugly. It's just she looks like a movie star. And I mean that's a problem with all movies, is like these people just look like very attractive actors. Um. But Chloe

Grace Martz is also just a bad actress. Um, She's just not believable in the way that Sasy's face it was. And I also think this is a film that is I don't think it really works outside of its time in a couple ways, Like I can suspend disbelief that in the seventies Carrie White would, because of her extremely

religious mother, not know about menstruation. But I don't believe that a teenager in the tens, no matter how sheltered they were, would who went to public school, would not know about menstruation, like would not have taken a health class at some point. It's just not believable. Yeah, I

I the the reboot. Yeah, it takes place in the modern day ish and like, I totally totally agree with you, I do think, Like, honestly, another reason, maybe another reason I enjoyed it was really just because it was the first time I was watching any iteration of the Carry story, and I probably would have had a much more positive

reaction if I had watched the original first. But I think a lot of what I was feeling and I was watching it was kind of my own connection to the subject matter, you know, like, I don't know, it's really personal. My my mom is not a Carry level mom. Like it's it's not anything like that, but like a child that is like protected from the world because of like oppressive Christianity and like you know, doesn't know things about her own body that then cause real world harm

to her because of that kind of protection. I was just like, whoa like that actually is like something that uniquely hits home and hasn't like a an ever present relevant to it. But I totally agree with you, it's it doesn't make sense in the two thousand's. Yeah. Also, all the girls in the movie look like Paxson models really weird. M Chloe Grace Moretza's hair extensions are I mean,

are like a horror movie unto themselves. What about Julianne Moore's hair extensions, I mean Julianne Moore's it's not hair always. It's not that it's not actually a hair extension problem with her, It's just that her her hair is still like kind of even though it's like looks very dry and kind of unkempt, it's still like a gorgeous red color. And I don't believe that Margaret White would like you do, but like fall prey to the sin of vanity coloring

her hair and because because she's a redhead. They kind of tried to do like a strawberry blonde thing with Chloe Grace Moretts and it just it just looks like someone forgot to put toner on her after she got her roots touched up. And also thought it was really funny. You know, there's always a scene in a supernatural movie where the character goes to the library to like research whatever. That happens in a lot of Stephen King And there's there's a point where carries reading a book that's just

called telekinesis and like, I don't think that book exists. Stupid, that's so dumb. I forgot about that. And um also Ansel L. Gore is in this movie, which you know, oh my god, but he does die. Um. But Judy Greer is in the movie, which I was very happy about. But then also she dies. Happy about Judy Greer in literally any movie at any time. Um. But Carrie, like again, you know, cannot be overstated how much, um I think culture is is owed to it, how much I am

owed to it? Um. And you know it kind of set a lot of things that um, I mean, uh, And Stephen King owes his whole career to it, and It's set in motion a lot of things that he would revisit, like fire Starter, which um he wrote after this, which has also been adapted into various films. UM fire Starter, fire Starters another novel about a girl with special powers. It's about this girl whose um parents were UM part of these trials of experimental UM hallucinogenic drugs in the

seventies that gave them like low grade psychic powers. And they have a child who has this like insane pyrokinetic power where she can create fires with her mind, and a government agency wants her. It was made into a movie with Drew Barrymore. It's one of her like first big films. I think it was pre Et or maybe post Et, I don't know. Um. There was a recent remake of it too. Was Zac Efron as the Dad character I would watch unfortunately, UM, but was it his

new or old face? Sorry? Dad, it was his old face. I miss his old face old face too. But UM. You know, adolescence is something that Stephen King would return to again and again. UM like an it which we um. I've read the book, I've seen the contemporary remakes. I've never seen the miniseries UM starring Tim Curry Um. The book was published in six The TV movie, which was a two part um movie, came out in and then the modern remakes came out in seventeen and twenty nineteen,

so we watched it part one together recently. It was a lovely experience, to be honest. Um, my kind of childhood association with it on slee is like associated with a fear of clowns that I think permeated like the nineties was all across like Halloween costumes, Like was absolutely like um in like goose Bumps or like in other kind of scary things that I had growing up, And I just like, I was like, I don't know, I I feel like, uh, well, here's my question. Were clowns

scary before it? I bet you anything. I'm sure that maybe there maybe was like a conversation in the culture about how clowns are creepy, But there's no way that they would to this scale be immediately associated with horror, because I think now clowns are immediately associated with horror because of Suman King and and you know in the book, the way that it's explained why it the entity takes the form of Pennywise is because children love clowns. It's a way for him to lure them to him so

he can scare them and eat them, right. And that is to say, like I think at the time that this novel came out there we didn't have culturally the immediate connotation of clowns being scary. And I do think that it is the red print. Yeah it isnt the print. Yeah, I I um I for for those of you that don't know, uh, the book itself is like bible length, Like it's it's a thick, thick book um. And I feel like I know a lot of people that are like, oh my god, it is my favorite book ever, I

love that book or whatever. Like I think it's despite being so long, I'm always surprised by how much of a sensation it like still is. But when I sat down to watch part one with you, I had no idea that there was this like kind of epic um lifelong story inside of it. Um for the Virgins, there's a group of kids that you know, start to encounter it as it's slowly killing children in the town of

dairy Um, and a lot of horrific things happen. It's vanquished and then boom, it jumps twenty seven years and the kids have to return to Dairy to kill the clown again as it starts finding new victims because they made a pact between each other as kids to come back to the town and do so if it ever happened again. Yeah, And what you find out is that it is an entity that has lived in Dairy since possibly the beginning of time, and like is an alien

from outer space that crash landed into Earth. And it's an entity that feeds off of fear, So it visits primarily children because I guess their fear taste better, they're easier to scare, and it manifests as whatever they scare

them most. But it's most favorite um you know form is Pennywise, the dancing clown played by Bill scards Guard in the film by Tim Curry in the original TV mini series and like as a kind of monster, Pennywise frequently finds its victims at their emotionally lowest points, like it finds children back Nastian broke, like gay bashed, or you know, like uh, just finding victims when they feel already like outsiders, like playing back to this like outsider

thing that keeps going in and out of Stephen King's work. Um, but I'm curious actually to know from you, uh why this like kind of reboot worked for you, because you know you're kind of staunchly against reboots. You and I have not seen, um, the Tim Currery one, so you know, virgins out there. We're virgins to the Tim Curry mini series, so we would love to know, like why it's so great. I would imagine it's just like Tim Curry that makes

it great. But I wh when I was googling, like trying to find like images of like him as it or whatever, I had a really hard time visualizing how this series would work in the eighties, how the practical effects would work, all this different stuff. Because Bill's Scars cared so fucking good he is. I have watched some clips on YouTube of some of Pennywise scenes, and I think the way Tim Curry plays it is much more.

He goes there is a very um dramatic shift from when he's doing Pennywise, just this sort of like Wise crack in clown too, the monster who eats children, and with Bill Scars guard, I think it's I'm not gonna say it's one note because it's not at all, but it's he's always he's always menacing, He's always a monster,

no creepy, no camp. I would say there's still a little camp because it's a clown, but I think it's um, it's he's always sinister and and Tim Curry while still sinister, like you still could there's there's I think there's a little more humor there, um than with than with Tim sinister. Camp is like in every Tim Curry role I can think of, I actually feel like him. Curry is unable to not seem either sinister and or camp like it really is in every single I'm literally cataloging in my hat.

I can't think of anything. You know, I've never seen Clue. I really want to watch it. All the virgins are at home screaming. I'm not like I'm not like a Clue die hard like I've seen a billion times, but like, I know that people have that relationship to this movie. We have to someone needs to If we have somebody out there that like wants to come in and like, uh pop our cherries on Clue. I've only seen it once, we should do it. Um, you know, maybe like for

around the Holidays might be a good one. Okay, so why did the reboot work? We were what why else did you like the real I think it's I thought it was gorgeous. I thought it was like prestiguous. Yeah,

it's very scary. Child actors are amazing, yes, um. And also it started this Stranger Things level craze of people being obsessed with these child actors, probably partially because this came out at the same time of like peak Stranger Things maybe, And um, that little kid is in both of them, and the girl the main girl is also from a Netflix thriller franchise. I'm not okay with this, which is so good. Yeah, Like, my sisters were obsessed

with this movie. My sisters are about to turn twenty, so they were like peak you know, teen like audience for this movie when it came out, and they even

went to a meet and greet that had. It was like a mall meet and greet like what they used to do for boy bands, and you could meet actors from Stranger Things and it The Stranger Things kids are so internationally famous, like so mind blowing, the most famous people in the world truly, Like Millie Bobby Brown is the most famous woman in the world, the most she we we really as a culture, Like I don't think we even fully can grasp how famous those kids. Sorry, it's it's kind of wild to me. Um, but I

thought this movie was amazing. I think I was really when we were watching it together, I just remember turning to you and being like, this is like a genuinely compelling story, like uh, And it's hard for me to feel that in a lot in a lot of like the horror genre. I didn't feel that way about part two, which we'll get to. But the scares are so well done. The effects are really good. Effects are really good. Um, Bill scars Guard can do so much with just a look.

Have you ever seen him do the smile out of makeup? It's he does it on a late night talk show. It's really fun. I need to watch that, I think. Um. The scariest, not well, like, the biggest jump scare of the first movie for me is the scene where they're watching the projector and then between one frame and the other you see like the woman turning into him, and then between one frame and the other he comes out.

But even just like the little moments of him, like he's like standing with Billy's ripped off arm, and like a waving with it, or when he has the blue and it like comes out of his face. It's just it's oh and we I mean remember the Pennywise mania

there was when this movie came out. Every fucking beauty YouTuber Pennywise did a Pennywise tutorial for Halloween that year, Stephen King was paying Nick's cosmetics lifell they were they had it down something else that this movie kind of um, something that's this movie maybe unknowingly uh taps on that. I'm curious if you noticed was I immediately started thinking of balloon fetishists. Do you know that a thing? Oh my god, girl, I'm actually sure. Is it people who

would like to sit on balloons and and pop them? Yes? If you don't know, there's like there's a huge kind of subb cultural fetish about people that are really really turned on by the popping or anticipation of popping balloons and find that scary. It is scary. That's the thing. Is Like, I'm curious if it was if there's anybody on set who knew about this, because there are a few moments. I know there's one, there's like one or

two in part two. Um, but I think there's something in the first part movie as well, where like there are several kind of there's tension built around a balloon

that's gonna pop, you know what I mean. And I thought that that was again just kind of the thing that we're talking about, that sublime eerienus, that kind of like unnamable antition, anticipation of something that the tension is so thick in these movies, but particularly the first movie, and also there's so many easter eggs that you don't see of because it has control of the town of of Dairy, and a lot of scenes there's usually someone

in the background who's watching one of the child characters, and you know, there's lots of YouTube compilations of all these moments that you missed in they're really eerie, and it's just it's I think it's just very good filmmaking, um and acting and like all of the all of the parts came together in the right way, which unfortunately

can't be said for the second movie. I yeah, the second movie, I um, I honestly didn't even finish because in the first like twenty minutes or so, I just felt like there were so many scenes in a row where I was like this feels really Um, it was giving me stars. It was it was giving me like unearned like stars with this yes, sorry sorry stars with the Z stars net clarify. Yeah, yeah, sorry sorry sorry.

It was giving like soapy, unearned melodramatic moments. I'm thinking specifically of, um, Jessica Chassan, which, how the funk was Jessica chestingon in this movie is so baffling to me because she's literally because she's a redhead. Like people they were like, who's the redhead actress that we know? You know, it was either her, I mean them, and I'm sure Amy Adams was like I'm good love and yeah Amy

would have chewed though. Um. But Jessica Chastian has this scene where, um, first of all, in the in the part one of the movie, you've spent a lot of, in my opinion, gratuitous scenes with this like pedophile father. Right, this character has a dad, Yes name, great name, Beverly has a dad that's a pedophile. There's a lot of really hard to watch scenes wherein he's like just she's

a captive in her own home. It's really like yes, And it's one of those things that I think Stephen king leans into and why it finds her as a victim and finds her at the lowest moments so frequently. Do you know why? I mean Part two was like critically like not you know, loved, like people didn't like it at all? Why didn't people like it? Like? Do you know? I think a lot of it is just because the adult story is not as interesting as the

child story. Um. You know, the way the novel plays out is that, um, the two are kind of intermingled. I mean it is separated into the older and younger, but they do kind of interact with each other a bit more. And I you know, like it. When you think of it, you don't think of the adult parts of it. You think of the kids being scared by the creepy clown. And so I think it's just, um, not enough story. Um. In the back half of the book is stretched out over a lot of movie and

and it was three hours long. It's a really long. It's not as effective. I will say, there are still scenes that are good and Larry, I think one of the scariest visuals is when um, James McAvoy is in the fun house and Pennywise is behind the glass trying to get to the kid hitting his head and his mouth stretches open. That just that image haunts me, and it's like incredible c g I work really good acting, like,

but that's all the movie is. It's like a collection of moments that are kind of good, but they're not held together by um, you know, a movie that knows how to weave them all together in a compelling way, which I think the first one does really effectively. And I think in part two there was some of this like imaxification thing that we were talking about too, Like I felt like there were way more big swings on the c g I level to pull off Part two,

like the big Paul Bunyan guy. Yes, the little like create not scary, and the little creatures coming out of the fortune cookies and stuff like that. Um. I think honestly, part of the reason it didn't work for me was that the anticipation of seeing it and when we don't see it um, which by the way, I love that it's pronouns are it um, which maybe Stephen King invented

it it pronounced um. I feel I felt like, because we've already seen it, it was a lot less scary In part two, I also feel like, um, there was something totally off about Bill Hayter, who had really great jokes and like I really was probably my favorite part of the movie, but felt like a different movie, you know what I mean, Like his jokes were like just um something that I added levity and we're definitely true

to part one. But I was just like, I feel, I don't know if he's like in this like cinematic universe. I think like the Wise cracking, you know, class clown figure again works and another trope maybe that Stephen King, you know, laid the foreground, because we see that trope in a lot of different things today. But queer legend, careeer legend right, Bill Hayter spoiler alert Bill Hayter's character and of being closeted gay man, Why does Bill Hayter

keep playing gay? Well, let's talk about The Shy Name, which is maybe in my top five movies. You say it's one of the greatest movies ever created. I would say that and like with absolutely no hyperbole I I and I would completely validate that. I thought it was an amazing So the novel was written in nineteen seventy seven, making it, you know, one of Stephen King's earlier novels.

I think it's UM one of his most personal novels. UM. The film version, directed by Stanley Kubrick, starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duval. Um came out in eighties, so pretty quick turnaround there. Um the film is I think like universally considered one of the greatest films ever made. It's definitely one of the best horror movies, if not the best horror movie ever made. UM one of the defining

films of Jack Nicholson's career. I think probably and Shells and Shelly's probably the thing that is associated with Stephen King more than anything. I do think that three, the three things we're talking about today are probably Stephen King's most famous novels, UM and the ones that that people think of first when they think about him. UM. And I think because The Shining Is is so personal to to him, and there's so much more of him in it than than the other two things we've talked about,

Maybe that's partially why can you describe that? Because Stephen King does, I think, routinely put himself or a shell of himself into a lot of his books that you can spot pretty quickly. But I but I, yeah, I did recognize that it was. He was very in the Shining. A lot of his characters are authors. You see this

in Misery, UM, which I've still never seen or read. UM. I think The Shining specifically is really personal to him because UM, Jack Torrence, the main character, is an alcoholic UM and Stephen Hang, as I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, had a really intense struggle with alcoholism, and I do think this is a you know, a version of himself in which he's trying to work that out on the page. UM. The book and the film

are very different. I think The Shining is one of the few examples of a film adaptation transcending its source material, because it is I didn't read the book until, like, um, kind of crazy enough. I read the book in early COVID quarantine that sounds like, which is like a bit on the those to read a book about being stuck somewhere until you're driven to madness and murder. Honestly, I'm surprised I was inhabiting spaces with You at the same

time and survived to tell the tale. I will say, I'm not going to say that the movie is better than the book, because I don't think that's like an

interesting take. I would say though, that it transcends the book just because of how iconic it has become in terms of its visuals, which I think are more than anything what Kubrick brought to the project, like this incredibly artistic visual language to tell this story, um, which did sacrifice a lot of what King thought was important about the novel, and he has gone on record many times

saying that he's not a fan of the movie. I did not know that the actually though, um So, Stephen King did write a sequel to The Shining Doctor Sleep um, and a movie version of that was made. It's I

actually love the movie. Um. You and McGregor plays the grown up Danny Torrence the little boy, and we can get into this, I think after we talked about The Shining, But it does bridge the book and the movie versions um to kind of combine them and fix some of the problems and re insert a lot of what was lost in the adaptation of the novel. And Stephen King has said that that film has helped him appreciate the original Shining film in a new way. Oh that's really cool.

That makes me want to watch it, honestly, now that I've watched The Shining, So for the Virgins. The Shining is about UM, a writer named Jack Torrence who has recently been fired from his position at a private boarding school. You find out more of this in the novel, but it's because he like hit a kid or something and so Stephen King, So ste what were you doing that your your your your school that you were teaching that.

He's UM trying to find work to support his wife and young child, UM, and he gets a job as the winter caretaker at UM this hotel in the movie, it's the Overlook Hotel, and essentially what that means is he and his family will spend the winter they're just maintaining the hotel, UM, but they're going to be totally

by themselves. UM. Kind of unbeknownst to him, his son has the psychic ability that the cook at the hotel tells him Um he refers to as the shining, which is, you know, he can see ghosts and he UM has this sort of like psychic ability, And it's explained to him that UM, people shine, but sometimes places shine. In this hotel is a place that shines, and also kind of wants to eat his power, and so they spend

the winter in this hotel. And the hotel um kind of as a way to get to the sun, which is more explicit in the book than is in the movie, uses Jack Torrens as like a vessel and it corrupts him and drives him crazy until he is driven to try to kill his wife and son. Yeah, it's kind of the quintessential cabin fever story, so to speak. It's

like introduced thematically right at the beginning. And um, it must be said that American Horror Story Hotel is essentially like a bastardization of of like what Stephen King invented here, which I honestly didn't know until I turned on the movie, like really like and I was like, oh, this seems familiar. I didn't even watch American Horror Horror Story Hotel, though, I feel like we should watch it together because I

want to see Gaga my mom. It's um, I don't know that I can do another rewatch of it anytime soon, because I have rewatched it a fewture but we'll we'll have to do an American Horror Story episode eventually. You Virgin really wanted us to do one. You could not make the time for it because I can't. It's it's a lot to consume girls, and I've only watched one season. But I'm really interested to hear what you thought of

the movie watching it for the first time. Yeah, so hot off of our Silence of the Lamb's discussion, which I you know, uh didn't. I didn't love that movie for reasons you can listen to. I kind of went into The Shining putting this movie and something of the same category, right, Like you thought I overhyped it. No, No, not you. Specifically, I thought culture at large was putting this much like Science Lamp, like The Shining, one of

the greatest movies ever created. Um, it was starring middle aged white guy and his struggle you know what I mean, like and I feel like um and and also just middle aged white guy who's evil and like the woman that is beholden to like his like villainie or whatever. Um, totally not the same thing at all. Uh. And also stylistically had so much more to say than Silence the Lamps,

which was much more procedural. Not a bad thing, but like, much more procedural of a movie than I feel like a Stanley cubrick vehicle, which is so imagistic, and you know, even just the opening and they're driving up the mountains and all those overhead shots with the score in the background. I was kind of entranced by cubricks very exacting process and the kind of very specific and creative directorial things

that I think I'm really you know, attracted to. Usually, like all the girls know that, I am a kind of style over substance person. Sometimes this movie brings both, um, but it but it is it does lean more heavily

on style. It is so stylistic, and obviously, you know, you can't have a conversation about the Shining without talking about Shelley Duval and her like experience of making this film, um and how it was a really grueling weeks and weeks and weeks long process that was much longer maybe than your average kind of film might be, and she was terrorized by Stanley Cooper. Yes, and there are like, um, you know, this this movie hat holds the Guinness World Book of Records for like most takes of a scene

with dialogue in it or something like that. There's the scene between the kid and um, the guy that kind of explains what the shine is and what the title is. Um. They apparently shot that like a hundred and fifty eight times or something. But the staircase scene, which is maybe my favorite scene in the movie, where in Jack Nicholson is kind of experiencing this psychotic rather his psychotic break, is really crystallizing, like Shelly Val exactly something that is

said a lot um in the novel. It's like this recurring thing like mask off, but it's when he reveals to Shelly Duval that like he's after her. Yes, she is now explicitly aware that, like the jig is up and it's all happening on this staircase as he's kind of ascending like slowly, like creepily talking to her, and she's holding a bat and being like, get the funk away from me, Like, but she's talking to her husband, you know, She's like, I don't know who you are

anymore and what's going on. They apparently shot that hundred and twenties seven times. And if you haven't read the Hollywood Insane and if you haven't read the Hollywood Reporter profile on Shelly Duval um, I strongly recommend it. It's so good. It's about like her her um life as a recluse after you know, losing a relationship with Hollywood.

She pretty much has your ideal life Rose Like she's like living in like podunc nowhere, Texas, like you know, with her like truck and like all of her things, like just sitting around and like enjoying life and enjoying like her her own company and like just like being isolated.

And the profile writer UM talks to her about Stanley Cubeck's process and how grueling it all was, and they talked about the staircase scene, UM and how it was shot on twenty seven times, and Shelley Duval says something to the effective like, I actually haven't watched the movie in a really long time. I would actually like to

revisit it, which is shocking to me. And then because it is, you know, the thing that she's the most known for, even though she you know, she also like is known to a generation of children because of her fairy tale show Yes, and also as olive Oil. Um in Popeye is olive oil. And she had um like several other you know, notable roles before the Shining, but

the is what cemented her in pop culture. Um, you know, her image I think, and her her voice and her manner right, And so when she said to the writer of this profile, like, I would love to rewatch it, the writer pulls out their phone and they watched the staircase scene together and Shelley Duval just starts crying and the writers like what's going on, and She's like, that took three weeks to shoot. We shot this one scene for three weeks, and it is a emotionally traumatizing scene.

It's an emutually traumatizing movie, which is part of what the profile is getting at and why Shelley Duval's unraveling was so entwined to a process that was way too

close to the subject matter. I think that Shelley is unfortunately an example of like why we need mental health professionals on the sets of films that deal with traumatic or all consuming or like method kind of like acting right, well, because now we have things like intimacy coordinators, and we also have, um, you know, there have been so many stories in recent years about the dangers of people going

method and like being horrible on set. So when are we going to have you know, like a humanity coordinators to make sure that these fucking like asshole actors and directors, because you know, right now there's a conversation happening around David or Russell in his film Amsterdam, Oh, and how abusive he is to his actors. You know, like it's just is you have to think is it worth it? And like I think a lot of people would look at the shining and say it is worth this woman's pain.

But I can't help but wonder, like, is what ended up in the movie? Is that from take one? Or is it from take twenty or is it from take a D seven? Like we'll never know. And it's like with the staircase scene as an example, It's like, is the deterioration I'm watching on screen acting or is this shot a hundred and twenty six? And like Shelley's really deteriorating? Like it is? It is? It was hard? It was.

I wouldn't say it was hard to watch. I thought she's so compelling and and her performance is cannon forever, you know what I mean. Jack Nicholson on the flip side, I patently don't like Jack Nicholson. That's something I'm copying to. I don't like watching him in movies. Uh, he's not my Tea. I don't think he's a bad actor. I understand if you like Jack Nicholson, that's fine, by that's

like fine for you. He's not my girl, um I, I you know, probably has something to do with the fact that, like I've never forgiven him for wooing Diane Keaton and something's got to give when she could have been with Keana Reeves. Um. But at the same time, I also have never forgiven Diane Keaton for being a Woody Allen apologize. Yeah, I feel like that's fine, But um, Jack Nicholson in this movie was the first time I've watched a Jack Nicholson movie where I was like, I

love that, and I loved him in it. He's incredible. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. He's such a good is so fucking good. And you know, um, I thinking about this, you know, like I'm writing a book right now, and so much of what this book is about is writer's block. And like, again, this goes back to Stephen King putting himself in his work, like this author who's struggling, who can't write anything. Um it,

you know, hits a little close to home. I do want to tell you a little bit about Dr Sleep the sequel and sort So I think something to understand is that in the book, the way The Shining ends is not with you know, Jack Nicholson um being defeated

and them just abandoning the hotel. Um. What happens is that Jack kind of breaks through the hold the hotel has on him and goes down to the boiler, which has been referenced several times throughout the novel, and sets it to explode so that the hotel burns down and

so that Danny and Wendy can escape. So does so he dies, He sacrifices himself and to save them, And so Dr Sleep is about the grown up Danny Torrence who who um you know, Wendy dies early in his life and he spends his life numbing his psychic powers through alcohol just the same way his father did you know, And um he establishes this psychic connection with a young girl who has the same kind of you know, shining

abilities that he does, only much more powerful. She becomes the target of this group of sort of psychic vampires um who are called the True Not and their leader is this woman named Rosie the Hat. She's played by Rebecca Ferguson who she's um, she's Lady Jessica and Dune she'ss mom, Thank you so much. She's so good in the movie. So they're, you know, they're hunting this girl down.

Eventually Danny um links up with her and um, you know, they kind of they kill a lot of her companions, but then it's kind of just her left against them and they in the book, they kind of they bring her back to the site of where the hotel used to stand, because it's like this powerful place in the movie what they do because in the original Shining film

the hotel was never burned down. They go back to the hotel and the film ends in the way that the original Shining film does, where Danny, rather than his father, is the one who sacrifices himself and causes the hotel to explain, My god, that's so cool, Like as a filmmaker, that's such a smart thing to do. And it does really toying with both like iterations of the in an

intellectual property and somehow making both true. Yeah, because it equally draws from both Stephen King's novels and the you know, the visual landscape that Stanley Kubrick created and melds them together in this really beautiful way. And I think that's why Stephen King has said that this movie has really helped him appreciate the original film in a way he was never able to before. And it's such a good movie. I definitely recommend anyone. If you like The Shining, if

you like Stephen King, definitely give it a watch. Rebecca Ferguson is such a good villain. Um, you know, I ride for you and McGregor to talk about honestly, Stephen King adaptations more generally, and this very thing that you're getting at about, like being true to the source material. Just on a personal level, I feel like I will always appreciate a Stanley Kubrick kind of reimagining of the source material that discards some of it for this sake

of cinema, as opposed to something like honestly it. I feel like it Chapter two suffered from trying too hard to be true to the book, because I was when I was watching it, googling to see if these scenes had happened in the book, and nine times out of ten it was actually in the book, and I was, like, to be honest, I wish I wish it wasn't in the movie, like I felt like it was uncompelling for

whatever reason. And I think that there is something that um is really lost when you are too attached to the subject matter and don't understand the importance of your own medium and how it can transform things absolutely. And that is something that is inextricably tied to Stephen King, because I think the way that we judge a lot of his work will be either by how true it is to the source material or how far away it is.

And I think the best balance with Stephen King and probably any adaptation is how you're able to blend those things in the best way UM. And I think things like It Part One, like Doctor Sleep and like The Shining are ways in which you know filmmakers have gotten it right, and like keeping what works, discarding what doesn't,

and inventing what will bring it all together. I just remembered something that you and I need to discuss in terms of this like book to movie source material thing and the thing that has been left out out of every iteration of it adaptation, which is a scene that happens at the end of the Children when all the children so okay, Virgins. There's six children total. I think it's like it's a lot of children. They're like six children that are kind of the main characters and moving

action of this film. They the Losers Club, and effectively like part one, like the part one of the movie, right, they go through this whole saga there. You know, it's kind of like enemies to lovers to friends. Like their relationships I'll change because of it. And they their bonds are like forged a lot tighter. Some of them fall in love with each other, some of them, you know,

grow to love each other or whatever. Um when it is vanquished, reas you told me that there's something that happens in the book that never occurs in the movie. Would you like to share with the Virgins and with Phoebe honestly about what happens? Yeah, So like and remember these are all you know, young, like preteen, they're like what they're like, I want to say, when they vanquish it for what they think is forever, but like honestly,

kind of in their minds, no isn't. Um. They're kind of in this like fugue state, and the novel dives into this more. It's like they do this thing, this like ritual thing, um, a blood ritual. Yeah, but like it's the way that they defeat it is like because they're more powerful together, and in the book, as a way to like seal that power, all of the boys have sex with Beverly Um in the Sewers and it's not it's like pretty much an orgy. Like it's not you know, it's not an orgy. It's like a consensual

gang bang. Like yeah, but I guess it happens in this way that's sort of like dreamlike kind of and like in I think this is also kind of It's been a while since I've seen part two, but I do believe that as they grew up, they forget a lot of what happened in the first movie, and it's only they've oppressed it. Well, I think it's part of like the magic of it, and it's only once they

kind of go back to dairy that they start remembering things. Um. But yeah, you know, a like thirteen year old gang bang is not really something that we need to see adapted into a film. And I'm glad that that was cut. It's so whack a doodle, I mean, honestly, so I haven't read his books. But I can imagine Eugen why it happened, Like it's just something that's disturbing, and Stephen King is good at like disturbing images and motifs, and

he knew what he was writing was disturbing. But like when he's been asked, I've like, you know, googled, and like when he's been asked about it um nowadays and why you know, he thinks that hasn't been included and you have the movies. He is shocky ly unfazed. But he's like he's like, oh, yeah, you know, it's interesting because people are, you know, much more sensitive around content like that these days. And I was like, no, no, no, I think we were still pretty sensitive about it when

this book came out. Like I don't think anything has changed, Like I don't think he he's I think honestly. And this might be a little bit of a bridge to discussion about Stephen King just as a figure. But Stephen King's subject matter is sometimes a little out of touch, and I think that you could see that in it part two with like the quote unquote Native American rune

book or whatever. Well that's something he does a lot um a lot of his books feature even the shining you learn about the hotel that it was built on an indigenous burial ground. It's something that is in pet cemetery as well. We won't get too into pet cemetery, which is I do love pet cemetery, both the book and the movie, but you haven't seen it, so we're

not going to get into it. Um. But yeah, it's it's a recurring thing that he does, and it's just like it's so of the time that he was really popular, but that's not an excuse for it. No. Yeah, And I honestly think, um, Stephen King is not alone and that like I think a lot of horror movies exploit UM without any sort of like researcher connection to indigenous communities, the mysticism of you know, Native American lore, and how they create a very generic, watered down version of it,

a very white version of it. Right. That also you know happens with like Stephen King's relationship to UM, like people with disabilities, like able is UM comes up in a lot of horror films, not just even Kings, but like, yes, he's like Stephen King is guilty of that all the time. Another another kind of horrifying part in pet Cemetery is the wife has this um sister who was like very ill or she she had I think, like really bad

scoliosis when she was a kid. Her name was Zelda, and she's like one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen on film. And it's like, it's not it's not great. Oh really, So wait, you didn't like you didn't love the movie. No, I do love the movie. But Stephen King, you know, he is not perfect. He's an old white man. He's literally white man. I mean he did he did say he did um ride for trans people in the face of j K. Rowling, but also but he also kind of like it wasn't in

the best way. But he said the tweet was he said, um, my opinion is that Joe Rowling is wrong about trans women. Leave shitney and hateful out of it. Please, So he's saying like, I don't agree with her, but she's not a bad person. Oh interesting. You know there are some things about like I I'm actually shook. I thought that he would have kind of a worse take because he seems like one of those people that would be like

canceled cold. Her sucks am I right, like, um, but he did have like, you know, alongside it, like around the same time. I want to say this like weird tweet about like diversity and like the Oscar's race and how like, um, like diversity and like quality of a film or TV show is they're like mutually exclusive and like how like diversity doesn't improve quality and vice versa. And it's like that's like just categorically like not true.

And of course, like a white man like would say that, I like, I feel like I understand what he's trying to say. Like if I if I try to be you know, a white woman whisperer, which I am often uh whisper to me, I do know how to do it. I think I can see why an old white man would be like, it's not fair to the material to

like to organize it. Like I think a lot of people from this generation are latching onto this idea of tokenization and how it's bad without understanding that there is a vast difference between tokenization and just a story from a person that is marginalized, you know what I mean. Um, So I don't know. I wasn't surprised by it. I

think it's funny. Um. I remember like when this like tweet storm came up, and he's like again making like quality and diversity like mutually exclusive and like you know you can develf like you really can do both and it costs you nothing. Um. Also, I mean, let let it be said for this man has written sixty four books. Not all of them are good. No, some of them I have. I used to be much more kind of hardline about I always finished books. Now I will in them,

you know modern parlance of book talk. I will DNF a book if it's not working for me, do not finish DNF. Is that like a fan fiction term or something. It's like people who were reviewing books, so like I d n F to this because it was bad or like whatever. But when I was a teenager, the only book that I ever stopped in the middle of with was the Stephen King book called Dream Catcher, which was I think about people, which I think was about people who were like um uh, like aliens took over their

bodies and then they like farted them out. What. Yeah, I would watch that. It was just and I do think it was adopted into a movie. Um, since we are like a virgin can we also just have like a quick reaction to the gay bashing scene at the beginning of it part two, because when you and I were working at Out magazine, I remember seeing the takes, did you It was mine. I had a viral article that I wrote. Wait, let me let me google penny Wise Rose Dambis. I can get the title right, Unwise, Okay, yeah,

the article. The article is called Pennywise is surprisingly anti queer in chapter two, which is but I wrote it as like as a troll. Well as the virgins need to know that, that's do you do they do the virgin to understand why that's a troll the very specific era of the internet, yes, because like this is the era of the Baba Duke and like people making the Baba Duke gay and so like a lot of what was happening on tumbler and stuff was like the Baba

Duke and Pennywise are like boyfriends, blah blah blah. And so I wrote this article being like literally the like the deck of this story is the killer clown. Isn't the ally We thought he was right? But the end the headline is a dig at an era of queer media as well. It must be said, we're in into more grinders, like media brand was you forgot about that? There was this headline from Into which amazing journalists into

a phenomenal media brand, like really made compelling stories? Had you know a lapsed moment of judgment where in there was a headline um that was like Ariana Grande's album whatever is like surprisingly antiqueer was like just it. We were all writing stupid headlines in in this day and age. I don't fault it for that, but it wasn't meme forever, Like we were tweeting things about things being surprisingly antiar

and this Pennywise moment was an homage. And let me tell you, writing this article has haunted me because, like a couple of other things I've written that went viral, it will like in the years past, every couple of months it would go viral again and I would get people commenting on my pin tweet on Twitter being like, how could you think that a killer clown would not

be homophobic? Like just it would be either people from the right wing being like, you know, saying something about how he should be homophobic, and people liberal people being like, you stupid bitch, He's like a murderer. Blah blah blah. Even just looking at this article, so many comments on it. It's like the anti queer thing. People just didn't get it. It was, didn't get it out of its time. Next week we'll be back with another bonus episode on a specific piece of media that is TVD, so it'll be

a nice little surprise for you. But for our regular episode next week, we will be sinking our teeth into all things vampires. So prepare your blood sacrifices, get out your your garlic and your iron steaks. Well, no, we don't want that, because we want the vampires. We want that. We want to You've gotta you gotta stretch that neck out so they can sink their teeth. Maybe vampires have like a garlic kink. Maybe they like how much it hurts. I don't know. Yeah, it's part of the four play

could be anyway. Um in the meantime finals on Instagram at like a vergine, tell us what's your favorite Stephen King book or adaptation? Do you hate Stephen King? Do you think he's a flop? Are you more of a carry? Are you more of a Wendy? Um? And as always, you know you can slide into our d m s and tell us what you think of the show, what you think we should cover next. Also, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps us out so much. Also, um rate the podcast on Spotify, but only if it's

five stars of course. Um I'm your co host, Rose Damn You. You can find me anywhere online at Rose Damn You, and I'm fran Toata. You can find me at France, Squish Coo, anywhere you want subscribe to. Like a Virgin anywhere you listen to podcasts. Like a Virgin is an i Heeart radio production. Our producers Phoebe Unter, with support from Lindsay Hoffman, Julian Weller, Jess Crane Chich and Nikki Eatur. Until next week, See you later, nobody watch. She'll play with me. M m hmm