I was first turned onto Dublin's Lankum when we interviewed All You Need Is Death director Paul Duane last year. Ian Lynch - who did the brilliant soundtrack for that film - counts his time as a member of this group, and that's really all I needed to know.
From their 12" of the same name, which you can buy HERE.
Noirvember:
I blew through a rewatch of NWR's Copenhagen Cowboy over the last few days. I am in love with this man's approach to Cinema all over again.
I've never seen anything like this. It's Noir, Gothic, Modern, Horror, Fairytale...
..
1) Too Old To Die Young
2) Mona Lisa
3) Thief
4) Copenhagen Cowboy
5) Black Angel
Playlist:
Ritual Howls - Their Body E.P.
Drain - ... Is Your Friend
Steven Moore - Jimmy and Stiggs OST
Etta James - Third Album
Creeper - Sanguivore
Various - Copenhagen Cowboy OST
Wake the Devil - Singles Playlist
The Leather Nun - F.F.A. (single)
lords. - bleeding out
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Six of Cups
• Nine of Wands
• XX: Judgement
Nostalgia works against perseverance. Judge past loyalties accordingly.
Daniel Ash's new project, Ashes and Diamonds, harkens back to his Coming Down and Foolish Thing Called Desire albums from the early 90s, only overlaid with new elements that really make this record shine. Ash has brought along Bruce Smith (Public Image Ltd/The Pop Group) and Paul Spencer Denman (Sade/Sweetback) for the ride, and the three hit on all cylinders. A great listen from start to finish, Are Forever is available from Cleopatra Records. You can order the album HERE.
Coming out of October and the customary Bauhaus, Tones on Tail jag that always ensures, it feels great to have a new Ash project to get to know.
Read:
I am proud to finally announce that my new novel, Black Gloves & Broken Hearts, is now on sale at Barnes and Noble, Indiebound, Bezos Utani, or anywhere else you buy your books.
Here's my solicitation blurb, which really tells you all you need to know:
"When incoming High School Senior Lisa McCready's boyfriend and classmates are brutally murdered at a party in the woods, the quiet suburban community of Sundown Hills transforms into a paranoid nightmare. Betrayal, corruption and dark family secrets push Lisa dead center into a burgeoning class war, where rival millionaires plot to steer the town's future between reliance on big oil and the incoming age of legalized weed, electric cars and social conscience. As she struggles for answers, the killings continue and Lisa finds the world she knew is little more than a lie to placate the masses and keep a Satanic 1% in power."
I'm super proud of this one. Previously, I'd have told you Murder Virus was the best thing I'd ever written. This takes that crown and runs with it.
Watch:
limage/textsdd
I was originally going to post about Predator: Badlands, however, I'd rather talk about something that inspired excitement as opposed to disdain. Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani are back with a new film and it looks INSANE. Of course it does - that's what they do!
Coming December 5th to Shudder. This just looks like Mario Bava on ten gallons of LSD.
Playlist:
Cristobal Tapia De Veer - Smile OST
Secret Chiefs 2 Traditionalists - La Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomimi
Ritual Howls - Their Body E.P.
Ashes and Diamonds - Are Forever
Slow Crush - Aurora
The Damned - A Night of a Thousand Vampires
The Damned - Fiendish Shadows
Perturbator - Age of Aquarius
Sharon Tandy - The Best of Sharon Tandy
lords. - bleeding out (single)
Hangman's Chair - Saddiction
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Page of Swords
• Five of Cups
• Three of Cups
Disappointment leads to impetuousness. To find out way back to Harmony, I drew a fourth card and was told to take a journey. Anyone know where I can get some mushrooms?
You know, Dreamkid's seriously 80s affectations prevented me from adding 2024's Daggers to my top ten list, but looking back on 2025, I've probably listened to that record way more than some of those that made the list. I really root for Dreamkid, and even if he sometimes leaves me a little cold at first, I overall really love his music.
This track's gonna have to grow on me, but one thing that definitely made my ears perk up is the brief spoken word part near the end - total M83 influence there! Very cool.
NCBD:
Big week. Let's go!
This one leads into big things, as issue 23 saw some crazy shit happen on the Great Ring, and 25 is due to kick off the Quintesson War. Huh - weird that, as we'll see below, this month's GI JOE kicks off the "Dreadnok War." Lots of war in Kirkman's Energon Universe these days, but that's to be expected with all the giant robots and laser weapons.
James Stokoe's second volume of Orphan and the Five Beasts promises more of Stokoe's insane art and probably even more insane martial arts action! Love this series. Just look at the cover art - how many hours could that have taken? The detail is insane, and when you figure that every page of the interior is of the same caliber, well, breathtaking. That's all I can say.
This entire issue is a Liam Sharpe opus, and I cannot wait!
Planet Death! I almost forgot about this book. Still pumping out those old school, mid-80s Dark Horse vibes, for sure.
Jeff Lemire's Minor Arcana returns and I have to confess - I'm considering stepping off this monthly and buying the Hardcovers when they come out. But then I'd have to wait and... I just don't know if I can do that.
Talk about first-world problems.
Here it is, folks - the aforementioned Dreadnok War! I love the Dreadnoks and can't wait to see how this is going to go down. Reading between the lines, I think they'll be a body count here.
Okay, I know I pop in and out of Amazing Spider-Man, so this isn't that weird, right? I think I do it because I need one title that I engage with the way I did as a kid on an allowance, in and out, based on what interests me. This cover? This interests me because that looks an awful lot like Warlock from the New Mutants. I know it's not Warlock, but if it's a Phalanx, this could be very interesting (as long as it doesn't even remotely resemble Phalanx Covenant).
Watch:
Saturday, November 1st, I kicked off Noirvember by watching something like nine hours of Nicolas Winding Refn and Ed Brubaker's 2019 series Too Old To Die Young. I finished it Sunday and now I have a great big Refn-sized hole in my life.
This is Refn's version of what David Lynch did with Twin Peaks: The Return, a 13-hour-long movie cut into episodes, or 'volumes' in this case.
Total.
Fucking.
Masterpiece.
Not going to be for everyone. Hell, it took me three attempts and six years to finally do the entire thing.
Refn likes to create gorgeous images with ugly content (see Vol. 5: The Fool), and he really wants to punish his audience at times. This is nothing new; you see increments of this in Only God Forgives, Neon Demon and I'm sure some of his other work I'm not familiar with (Pusher alienated me within minutes and I've never gone back). That penchant for beautiful ugliness, combined with his “painting” style will test a lot of people’s patience. n my opinion? It’s 100% worth it. Especially if you’re a Lynch fan, because although his influence is always apparent in NWR’s work, this feels like a love letter to him.
Playlist:
Steve Moore - Jimmy and Stiggs OST
Perturbator - Age of Aquarius
Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja
Mastodon - Blood Mountain
Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power
The Cramps - Date with Elvis
Dreamkid - Apocalyptic Love Song (single)
The Leather Nun - Primemover/FFA (single)
Blut Aus Nord - Ethereal Horizons (pre-release singles)
Blut Aus Nord - 777: The Desanctification
Ritual Howls - Ruin
White Hex - Gold Nights
The Damned - Night of a Thousand Vampires
Opeth - Still Life
The Damned - Darkadelic
Testament - Para Bellum
Young Widows - Power Sucker
Slow Crush - Thirst
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• XIX: The Sun
• Four of Cups
• Eight of Cups
The Triumphant of the Spirit. I like the sound of that. The cards on either side of XIX seem to be telling me to pick up both the bass and the guitar again, something I have ideas for throughout the week during my daily life, and then go blank at night when I have time to actually work on something. Four of Cups is an emotional powerbase, and Eight of Cups is a little bit like that pays off, so I'm thinking I might find it rewarding to put a period at the end of this sentence and then plug in a guitar for a little while, even if I don't have any ideas in my head at the moment.
As is my custom to close out October and hail in the winter, here's Opeth's Dirge for November. From their masterpiece (well, one of their masterpieces, anyway), Blackwater Park.
31 Days of Halloween:
Now that 31 Days of Halloween is over, it's straight into finishing our Stranger Things rewatch (we're on season four) and plunging into the murky depths of Noirvember. I have a lot of plans for this, so although I don't intend to do a movie-a-day, I'll keep a running list here just like I did for 31.
My favorite watch this year? Well, the old standards always feel great, and there were quite a few of them I didn't get to, so I'll have to work on my timing next year. However, I can honestly say that rewatching GDT's Crimson Peak was a 'peak' moment this year. It'd been so long since I'd seen it, and I really didn't remember it at all.
Just a gorgeous film from start to finish, with all Del Toro's trappings and a healthy dose of the Modern Gothic. Gonna have to pick this one up on BR eventually.
..
1) Incident On and Off a Mountain Road///The Funhouse (theatrical viewing)
2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1 Ep 4, "Dig That Cat... He's Real Gone"///Cabin in the Woods
3) Satanic Hispanics
4) Creature From the Black Lagoon 3D///Lucky McKee's May
5) The Strangers
6) [REC]
7) The Autopsy - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities///[REC]2
8) Where the Devil Roams
9) The Roost
10) Good Boy///The Viewing - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities
11) Blood Moon (aka Wolf Girl)///All Hallows' Eve (The Last Drive-In Helloween)
12) The Shining///The Simpsons Ssn 6 Treehouse of Horror V
13) Stream (2024)
14) Creepshow (1982; theatrical viewing)
15) They Live in the Grey///John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness (theatrical viewing)
16) Black Phone 2
17) Scream 2///Mayhem (The Last Drive-In Blu-ray
18) The Exorcist
19) The Wolf of Snow Hollow/// The Taking of Deborah Logan
20) Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight (theatrical screening)///Cellar Dweller
21) The Black Phone///"Dream Kill" (segment in V/H/S85
22) The Transfiguration///Black Phone 2
23) Shelby Oaks
24) Clown in a Cornfield/// Jack-O (The Last Drive-In Splatterween double feature)
25) Ken Russell's Gothic/// Inferno/// Lords of Salem
26) Night of the Living Dead 1990/// Night of the Demons
27) Final Destination 3/// Jimmy & Stiggs
28) Trick r' Treat
29) Crimson Peak
30) GDT's Frankenstein/// Arsenic and Old Lace/// Satan's Playground/// Rob Zombie's 31
31) Halloween (Last Drive-In Halloween Hootnanny)/// Night of the Living Dead
Read:
I spent my Halloween morning re-reading James Tynion IV and Michael Walsh's Exquisite Corpses. The first volume is now collected and readily available and I can't recommend this one enough. Here's the solicitation for issue number one from League of Comic Geeks:
"Every five years on Halloween, the wealthiest families in America play a game. Twelve of the deadliest people in the world are dropped into a small town with just one goal: last killer standing wins. For the citizens of Oak Valley, Maine — this year's unlucky arena — the goal is much simpler. They must survive the night."
Sounds a bit like Rob Zombie's 31, no? Well, there's definitely a comparison to made, but it's a surface-level comparison. When you go deeper, not only do you get some of those great James Tynion IV insights into the world, you also get context for the twelve killers loosed upon an unsuspecting town. Here's the context on the twelve killers, straight from the mouth of one of the characters in issue #1:
"In 1775, the thirteen richest families in America took the reins of power from their counterparts across the Atlantic. They have ruled this country from the shadows ever since. What you know as history is a fiction performed for the masses. Ruling didn't come easy. It took nearly a century of bickering and warfare to figure out which family rules over the rest. So every five years, we play a game on Halloween. It starts the year before, each competing family draws one of the twelve cards, representing a weapon used in every game since the first...
The ruling family's job is to find a small town in some lonely corner of America and seal it off from the rest of the world. The killers are dropped into the battlefield on Halloween night, and they must hunt and kill each other until there is a single survivor. The family whose killer survives to the end rules America until the next game."
So far, while we've been given glimpses of the power brokers in charge, we've mainly been boots on the ground with the killers and the 'collateral damage' - the innocent inhabitants of the town besieged by killers (did I forget to mention there's a large contingent of the competing families that just make side bets on how many innocents their killers can claim?). This has made for some very effective storytelling, seeing killers who maybe want something more than what they are, maybe don't and ordinary people fighting for their lives in extraordinary circumstances. We're not reinventing the wheel here, but rather upgrading its dynamics.
Playlist:
Steve Moore - Jimmy and Stiggs OST
Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Suspended in Dusk edition)
Ritual Howls - Ruin
Various - Return of the Living Dead OST
John Carpenter - Lost Themes
John Brennan and the Bigfeet - The Last Drive-In w/ Joe Bob Briggs OST, Vol. 1
M83 - Saturdays = Youth
Opeth - Blackwater Park
Opeth - Deliverance
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Like Clockwork, here's the greatest Halloween song ever recorded!
31 Days of Halloween:
GDT's Frankenstein is not what I expected at all, but it's definitely 100% Del Toro's vision of a classic. Kind of splits the difference between Mary Shelley’s novel, which I am currently rereading and have adored forever, and James Whale’s film, which I was obsessed with as a child.
Gorgeous beyond words, with performances that are out of this world, if you can see this on the big screen, that's where and how it was made to be viewed.
...
1) Incident On and Off a Mountain Road///The Funhouse (theatrical viewing)
2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1 Ep 4, "Dig That Cat... He's Real Gone"///Cabin in the Woods
3) Satanic Hispanics
4) Creature From the Black Lagoon 3D///Lucky McKee's May
5) The Strangers
6) [REC]
7) The Autopsy - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities///[REC]2
8) Where the Devil Roams
9) The Roost
10) Good Boy///The Viewing - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities
11) Blood Moon (aka Wolf Girl)///All Hallows' Eve (The Last Drive-In Helloween)
12) The Shining///The Simpsons Ssn 6 Treehouse of Horror V
13) Stream (2024)
14) Creepshow (1982; theatrical viewing)
15) They Live in the Grey///John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness (theatrical viewing)
16) Black Phone 2
17) Scream 2///Mayhem (The Last Drive-In Blu-ray
18) The Exorcist
19) The Wolf of Snow Hollow/// The Taking of Deborah Logan
20) Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight (theatrical screening)///Cellar Dweller
21) The Black Phone///"Dream Kill" (segment in V/H/S85
22) The Transfiguration///Black Phone 2
23) Shelby Oaks
24) Clown in a Cornfield/// Jack-O (The Last Drive-In Splatterween double feature)
25) Ken Russell's Gothic/// Inferno/// Lords of Salem
26) Night of the Living Dead 1990/// Night of the Demons
27) Final Destination 3/// Jimmy & Stiggs
28) Trick r' Treat
29) Crimson Peak
30) GDT's Frankenstein/// Arsenic and Old Lace/// Satan's Playground/// Rob Zombie's 31
Playlist:
Steeve Moore - Jimmy and Stiggs OST
Ritual Howls - Ruin
Ritual Howls - Their Body E.P.
Ritual Howls - Rendered Armor
Bauhaus - Burning from the Inside
Bauhaus - The Sky's Gone Out
Secret Chiefs 2 Traditionalists - La Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomimi
Type O Negative - Origin of the Feces
The Body - I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer.
White Zombie - La Sexorcist: Devil Music, Vol. 1
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
The Sisters of Mercy - Floodland
Saigon Blue Rain - Oko
Skinny Puppy - Last Rights
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• X: Wheel of Fortune
• Four of Wands
• XII: The Hanged Man
Stable Will creates a power base from which the luxury of assessing change can be anticipated and pursued.
I had a blast hanging out with Tim and Johnathan on The Average Reviews, discussing Adam MacDonald's modern Folk-Horror film Pyewacket, of which I am quite the fan. Check it out!
Tim and Johnathan have been doing 13 Nights of Halloween, posting a review episode every day leading up to Sam Hain. They've covered some awesome films and had a great cross-section of guests from the Horror Community on, so head over to their channel and give them a sub and some of your time. These two always inspire great conversations.
A little Bauhaus as we close in on the most sacred day of the year. I once had a dream about this song that made me question everything I thought I knew about my own mind. Pure Magick, this one. From Burning from the Inside, their 1983 "final" album (until 2008's Go Away White, that is) and the first Bauhaus record to cross this human's path. Made me an instant fan.
31 Days of Halloween:
Ken Russell's Gothic, a film that, although my recent rewatch taught me it doesn't quite hold up to the impression it made on me when I was younger, is still far and away a wild ride.
I have Frankenstein on the brain, and this really hit the spot, even if it is kind of more Ken Russell than it is Horror or Historical. That's fine with me, though, as I'd imagine a night spent drinking laudanum in a castle with Lord Byron would definitely make me feel as though I were in one of Russell's films.
..
1) Incident On and Off a Mountain Road///The Funhouse (theatrical viewing)
2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1 Ep 4, "Dig That Cat... He's Real Gone"///Cabin in the Woods
3) Satanic Hispanics
4) Creature From the Black Lagoon 3D///Lucky McKee's May
5) The Strangers
6) [REC]
7) The Autopsy - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities///[REC]2
8) Where the Devil Roams
9) The Roost
10) Good Boy///The Viewing - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities
11) Blood Moon (aka Wolf Girl)///All Hallows' Eve (The Last Drive-In Helloween)
12) The Shining///The Simpsons Ssn 6 Treehouse of Horror V
13) Stream (2024)
14) Creepshow (1982; theatrical viewing)
15) They Live in the Grey///John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness (theatrical viewing)
16) Black Phone 2
17) Scream 2///Mayhem (The Last Drive-In Blu-ray
18) The Exorcist
19) The Wolf of Snow Hollow/// The Taking of Deborah Logan
20) Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight (theatrical screening)///Cellar Dweller
21) The Black Phone///"Dream Kill" (segment in V/H/S85
22) The Transfiguration///Black Phone 2
23) Shelby Oaks
24) Clown in a Cornfield/// Jack-O (The Last Drive-In Splatterween double feature)
25) Ken Russell's Gothic/// Inferno/// Lords of Salem
26) Night of the Living Dead 1990/// Night of the Demons
27) Final Destination 3/// Jimmy & Stiggs
28) Trick r' Treat
NCBD:
I never made it out to Rick's Comic City Clarksville last week for my pull, so I'm doing double duty today. Here's this week's books:
Like Imperial below, I'm not really sure this series has lived up to what it could have been, but it's been fun. Ten bucks says Noran Rad isn't actually going to die, that this is just the launching of a new female character a la She Hulk, who Marvel can play around with alongside the original surfer.
I have no idea if I'll actually get a shot at picking this up—it wasn't in my shop's Shopify—but I'll try. Been meaning to watch the original Ghoulies all month, as it's one of K's favorites, but we just haven't gotten around to it. Maybe bringing this home will help make up for that.
Imperial started a lot better than it's developed, but I'm still hoping to see some crazy cosmic WTF Marvel sh*t this month in the finale.
Easily my most anticipated book each month at this point, I'm dying to see what is actually going on in this book. Zander Cannon has laid the groundwork for an epic, and based on what we've seen so far—the way everything has been plotted and slowly unraveled—Sleep is a Horror Mystery of a most singular nature.
Playlist:
Various - Return of the Living Dead OST
Steve Moore - Jimmy & Stiggs OST
Various - Rocktober Blood OST
The Cramps - Flamejob
Ritual Howls - Ruin
My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife
Trust Obey - Fear And Bullets
The Body - I Shall Die Here
A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head
Bauhaus - Mask
Eerie Von - Bad Dream No. 13
Bauhaus - Burning From the Inside
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Three of Swords
• XX: Judgement
• VIII: Strength
Conflict and a reckoning will require strength, but that strength will also increase.
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