The Kingcast

Kingcast favorite Kate Siegel (Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass) returns to the show to discuss her latest genre appearance as the special guest star for the Season 3 premiere episode of The Creep Tapes, debuting next Tuesday, September 15th on Shudder/AMC+. 
We talk about the sexual politics of that episode, her working relationship with star Mark Duplass, and how she prepared for one specific tender, yet powerful moment in the episode before we moved on to talk about her Stephen King fandom, her experiences directing an episode of the upcoming Carrie, and, of course, the topic at hand: The Talisman universe.
With Other Worlds Than These (aka The Talisman 3) coming out next month it's about time we discuss a little bit about what King and his co-author, Peter Straub, set out to do with not just The Talisman, but their divisive sequel: Black House.
Vespe and Kate have different opinions on the sequel, but that just leads to a more riveting discussion at what's at the heart of this particular series from King.

If you're a weirdo like us here at The Kingcast then you'll hold Casper Kelly's work up as an ideal beacon of the bizarre. From Too Many Cooks to his Cheddar Goblin commercial in Mandy, Kelly's been bouncing between pitch perfect nostalgia and crap-your-pants creepiness his whole career. 
He finally got to make a feature film called Buddy, which is essentially what if Barney was really a hellish purgatory for the characters trapped inside the tube. Yes, it's as sweet as it sounds. Bloody, profane, and fun as all hell. 
Kelly joins The Kingcast boys to talk about this film and to talk about the strange Stephen King influences that can be found therein. The Shining, Misery, and On Writing all had at least a backwards impact on how this crazy flick came together.
And thanks to this episode's sponsor The Calamities, written by Chuck Wendig and published by Penguin/Randomhouse, available right now wherever books are sold.

Are The Boulet Brothers the hardest working drag queens in the world? There's an easy case to be made that they are. From hosting their long-running and Emmy nominated show The Boulet Brothers' Dragula, to guest-editing Heavy Metal, to producing and hosting their Creatures of the Night podcast, it's a wonder Dracmorda and Swanthula Boulet found the time to join Vespe and Breznican to talk over Mike Flanagan's adaptation of Stephen King's Shining sequel, Doctor Sleep.
Join in on this rambunctious conversation in which we talk about how drop dead sexy Rose the Hat is, debate about which is better: the director's cut or theatrical, figure out if baseball kids kind of deserve to get murdered by psychic vampires, and definitively answer which Stephen King character is best represented in drag.

This past weekend we lost genre great Chuck Russell, who directed the best Nightmare On Elm Street sequel, one of the best horror remakes (The Blob), and introduced the world to Cameron Diaz in The Mask. Last year we had the great pleasure of interviewing him on this show, so in honor of the man and his legacy we're rerunning that chat this week.
Most of the conversation revolves around his remake of schlockfest Witchboard and his early career collaboration with one Mr. Frank Darabont. He had a front row seat to Darabont's pursuit of Stephen King's books, including The Shawshank Redemption.
Rest In Peace to Chuck Russell!

One of the most common questions we receive here at The Kingcast is where to start. It's not an easy question to answer, especially given the mountain of work the author has put out and continues to add on to year by year.
So Vespe and Breznican brought in acclaimed genre author Nat Cassidy (When The Wolf Comes Home, Nestlings, I Know A Place) to talk through different titles and determine what we think the best Starter King is.
Is it a Short Story? Is it a famous book? How challenging is too challenging? And would we recommend the same Starter King to an adult as we would the parent of a tween curious about reading Stephen King?