Now that we’ve wrapped up season 1 of Twin Peaks, taken a short break, and returned with a special episode covering Blue Velvet, it’s time to have a small giveaway.

If you haven’t been keeping up with HPTV, now is the perfect time to binge all of season 1, before we head into season 2 of Twin Peaks! Check it out here!

Last weekend, while walking the grounds of the Horror Press estate, I came across a severed ear. I was surprised because I hadn’t noticed if any writers were missing any. Instead of picking it up and bringing it to the cops, I decided to bring it inside and use it like a paperweight. Jeffrey Beaumont, eat your heart out.

Anyway, this inspired me to check our walk-in Blu-ray closet and pick something special to giveaway.

Enter Our Blue Velvet Giveaway!

For this special giveaway, we have a copy of Blue Velvet (1986) on Blu-ray. This copy happens to be the Criterion Collection version.

Blue Velvet is a psychological thriller directed by David Lynch. It follows Jeffrey Beaumont, played by the legendary Kyle McLachlan, who makes a grim discovery in his quaint suburban town. This leads him down a seedy path that exposes him to the dark underbelly of his hometown.

HOW TO ENTER

Entering is easy. Just follow the steps below!

Step 1. Make sure to FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM!
Step 2. LIKE the giveaway post!
Step 3. Tag a friend who loves all things David Lynch!
Step 4. Leave HPTV a review and DM us a screenshot! 

Seriously, no review, no entry!

The giveaway will begin on Friday, 05/03/24, and end on Monday, 05/13/24.

When the winner is selected, we will reach out via DM. If the winner does not respond within 24 hours, we will randomly select another winner.

WHAT YOU’LL WIN

The winner of our giveaway will receive a brand-new, Blu-ray copy of Blue Velvet (1986) from the Criterion Collection. This edition contains several special features, such as:

**Giveaway entries are limited to addresses in the United States.**

**All entries must be 18 or older to enter**

I was guesting on an episode of my friends’ podcast, It Came from the Midwest, recently when one of the hosts, Aryn, asked me to talk about the queerness of the Saw franchise. I’m not going to lie: I fudged it. My mind went blank. Despite writing for a living, I momentarily lost the ability to translate a deeply held belief into words. If it had been Jigsaw asking me the question against the clock, I would have lost my test. Game over, bitch.

Aryn, thankfully, is more benevolent than Jigsaw. After listening to me waffle for several minutes, she stepped in to voice what I was struggling to communicate.

“I don’t even think you have to say it necessarily, because I feel it,” she said. “It’s there. You can sense it. You just know it’s different.” 

Saw is a Queer Franchise, IYKYK

Aryn is right: the Saw franchise is different, as are the most memorable characters from its world. Take the angry, apathetic loner Adam Faulkner-Stanheight (Leigh Whannell in Saw), an artsy boy on the outskirts of society who puts his trust in all the wrong men and gets attacked by a monster in the closet. Or what about that monster herself, Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith in Saw 1–3 and Saw X), who steps into her full lesbian power (and haircuts) after having a major reawakening? And how can anyone watch Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) putting his hand on Adam’s cheek during the climax of Saw — Adam sobbing uncontrollably, their faces inches apart, lips quivering, Dr. Gordon making a solemn promise to come back for him — and not see it as the tragic conclusion of an enemies-to-lovers arc? (Cue Elle Woods throwing chocolates at the screen with a cry of “Liar!” How could you, Larry?) 

There’s just something about the Saw franchise that speaks to the queer community, and the franchise has taken notice. When Jigsaw hit theaters in 2017, the team promoting the tie-in blood drive — a tradition dating back to the very first film — ran an ad campaign called “All Types Welcome” to protest the Food and Drug Administration’s discriminatory abstinence rule for LBGTQ+ blood donors (a rule that wouldn’t be revised for another six years). By the time Saw X rolled around last year, the iconic Billy puppet was announcing “yes I stun” from Saw’s official Twitter profile. Over on TikTok, meanwhile, fans were speculating why the Lionsgate account would post a video featuring Jigsaw killer John Kramer (Tobin Bell) framed in the colors of the Bisexual Pride flag. 

Of course, we don’t need the marketing team to tell us that Saw is queer, because as Aryn so sagely articulated, we just know. The fic writers know it. The fan artists know it. And the creators of Saw the Musical: The Unauthorized Parody of Saw most definitely know it, too. 

Saw the Musical : A Play Where the Subtext Can Become Text

Created and produced by Cooper Jordan, from a book by Zoe Ann Jordan and with music and lyrics by Anthony De Angelis and Patrick Spencer, Saw the Musical wastes no time letting us know that Adam and Dr. Gordon would be in one another’s pants immediately if only those darn chains weren’t keeping them apart. Adam is recast as a slutty himbo twink with a pocket full of condoms and a head full of cotton wool and dirty thoughts. As for Dr. Gordon, he’s no longer just a distant father with a penchant for stepping out on his marriage. Now, he’s a horny closeted bisexual who cares more about his furniture than his family and who won’t pass up an opportunity to bend over a resident, portrayed by a blow-up sex doll.

Chain these versions of Adam and Dr. Gordon together in a bathroom and the sexual tension doesn’t so much build as explode. It’s camp, it’s raunchy, and it can only end in — spoilers, but duh — a surprisingly sweet on-stage kiss. Perhaps if the bathroom set didn’t look like hepatitis waiting to happen, it might have gone even further. Then again, Dr. Gordon is bleeding out at the time. It is based on Saw, after all. 

I was front and center for Saw the Musical off-Broadway in New York City around Halloween 2023. My editor asked me if I wanted to write something about it not long after and I agreed, but whenever I opened my laptop to do so, the words just wouldn’t come. 

It was the podcast all over again. Sometimes something is just so obvious that you can’t find the queer forest for all the gay trees. 

I think that what I most wanted to say but didn’t know how was that Saw the Musical’s very existence makes me happy. It’s nice to see a horror movie that was initially dismissed as mindless “torture porn” by many critics be reimagined as something silly and joyous and, most importantly, unabashedly, unquestioningly queer. It’s the thing many queer people already knew Saw to be, even if we didn’t quite have the words to articulate it. 

As director and choreographer Stephanie Rosenberg told NPR, the musical is “a love story that… people have wanted for 20 years.” We felt it. We could sense it. Saw the Musical just turns our intuition (and the film’s subtext) into text. Sometimes in the form of funny songs. 

Saw the Musical: The Unauthorized Parody of Saw is playing in New York City through June 23. The national tour kicked off in April. For tickets and tour dates, visit their website.