Scary Movie Book Club

The Amityville Horror

Published in 1977 by Jay Anson and based on the real life events surrounding the Lutz family's takeover of the titular house after the murder of the DeFeo family it was turned into a movie soon after in 1979. The movie was directed by Stuart Rosenberg with the screenplay by Sandor Stern, and starred James Brolin and Margot Kidder.
It's a short episode this month. When it comes to the references to real life events most of the timeline was compiled using the Wikipedia page for the novel. A few side searches yielded results but most of it was the casual curiosity that started and ended with wiki.

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

Written by Bram Stoker in 1897 and adapted to the screen multiple times we chose Francis Ford Coppola's rendition with screenplay by James V. Hart starring Keanu Reeves, Winona Rider, Anthony Hopkins and Gary Oldman as the titular character.
Lots of show notes for this one so...
The actor who played Renfield in "Dracula: Dead and Loving It" was Peter MacNicol. Mel Brooks actually had Renfield be the visitor to Dracula's castle and then cast Steven Weber as Mina's beau Johnathan Harker, who stayed at home.
Princess Weekes' YouTube video is entitled 'How Mina Murray Became Dracula's Girlfriend' It can be watched here.
The Bram Stoker Estate webpage is simply bramstokerestate.com and has a plethora of nifty information about his lost journal and other stuff, worth a look.
Susie credited the statement about actors who don't work to Michael Caine. She's having a hard time finding evidence of it to make sure he said it. Someone on a forum suggested Christopher Walken had a similar quote. Can't find evidence of that either. She'll have to keep looking.
She did find the Carrie Fischer quote about no bras in space (she actually said "underwear"), and you can listen here.
Richard E. Grant's quote about wearing tights can be found on his X page, here.

BONUS: The Crow (1994)

After the disappointment of the most recent we went back to the original starring Brandon Lee, Michael Wincott, and Ernie Hudson. Directed by Alex Proyas with screenplay by David J. Schow and John Shirley, based on the graphic novel by James O'Barr.
 

The Crow (2024)

We tried to go in with an open mind and... well... you can listen to the result. Originally published through Calibur Comics (1989), James O'Barr's story of a man who crosses back over from death in order to exact revenge on the people who killed him and his fiance has once again been brought to the screen. Directed by Rupert Sanders, Screenplay by Zach Baylin, and starring Bill Scarsgard, FKA Twigs, and Danny Huston this 2024 version is... something.
 

The Ruins by Scott Smith

If you did your homework you know there's gonna be a lot of spilled tea over this one. Scott Smith's 2006 novel adapted to film in 2008 tells the story of a group of kids on spring break going off the resort and getting themselves into a heap of trouble.
We had a lot of fun discussing this month's pairing but while editing we realized it may require a warning so...
Trigger Warning: This discussion contains talk of a character's suicide, self-mutilation/flaying, and vines crawling under your skin.
 

Jaws by Peter Benchley

Peter Benchley's 1974 classic novel about a giant fish was then turned into a movie in 1975 directed by Stephen Spielberg.
(Fun Fact: Podbean won't allow a 4-letter title. Go figure.)
Did you love the book? Sad you borrowed it instead of buying a copy? Want to gift one to a friend? If you feel lucky Goodreads has a giveaway for the month of July. You could be one of the lucky 24 people to win.
We have a talk about movie posters. Susie mentions one and now looking it up finds that it's a fan design by Andrew Swainson, not the actual. You can see his movie poster here: https://www.andrewswainson.com/jaws
We hearken back to our Exorcist episode when we compare the cost of the shark ($500,000 each) to the cost of the refrigerated set ($50,000) without going back and checking some numbers.

The Birds

June's book is actually a short story, The Birds by Daphne du Maurier (1952) which was then turned into a movie in just over 10 years later in 1963 by Alfred Hitchcock who kept the title and concept but threw away just about everything else. It starred Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Suzanne Plechette, and Jessica Tandy.
 
We've been recording in a new space and it seems to be eating up our sound. Let us know if we need to crank up the volume by emailing us:  scarymbc[at]gmail.com.
 
 

BONUS: Interview With the Vampire 1994

We chat about the 1994 movie adaptation of Anne Rice's novel of the same name.
Numbers are hard, so the intro says it's episode 4, part 2. It's actually our first BONUS (episode 5 part 2).
A group of vampires can also be called a coven, though we corrected ourselves to the word "nest". Never second guess your gut.
Anne Rice's pick for Louis was Tom Hanks. Who would be his Lestat? Contact us with your picks! scarymbc at gmail.com.

Interview With the Vampire

May's book is Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire (1976) and watching AMC's TV series of the same name (2022).
Spoilers for the end of Season 1 start with a verbal warning to skip ahead at 39:44 and end at 57:37 when we say we're back.

The Exorcist

April's book/movie of the month is The Exorcist written by William Peter Blatty and adapted to film in 1973.
Special Thanks to Emily Schmidt of Tell Tale Books who set Kristine up with her copy.
Post-Recording Correction: It did not win best picture, it was the first horror film nominated for best picture, but the first win went to Silence of the Lambs.