Saturday, October 3, 2020

Isolation: Day 203

Musick:


New Meg Myers? Yes! Wow, Ms. Myers music just keeps getting more lush and interesting. This is obviously very produced, almost to the point that it sounds like a pop queen's record, except her song writing continues along a track that puts her as a natural heir to the lineage that Kate Bush began and Tori Amos continued. Image that: a pop Kate Bush. Actually, as luck would have it, we don't have to imagine it, because here it is.

Pre-order the new album out November 11th on Sumerian Records HERE.
 


News:

Being that I run a small business, really a micro business at this point, I'll always use this space to promote what The Horror Vision/THV Press is up to. Most recently, I've branched out into THV as a boutique record label. That's right. There is some new music on the horizon, but first up, I've finally taken steps to get the albums I did with Darkness Brings the Cold onto streaming platforms. First up, Darkness Brings the Cold - Devil Swank, Vol. 1 is now on all streaming platforms. Here's a link to Apple Music and I've updated the widgets on the right hand side of this page with a Spotify widget.




Watch:

Thursday night was a HUGE event viewing night for K and I. We started with the Raised By Wolves Season One Finale. This is now one of my favorite shows going, as it is absolutely unlike anything I have ever seen before. Also, I once again have a teeny tiny sneaking suspicion this may end up tying into the Prometheus/Alien Universe. It doesn't matter if it does or not - hell, at this point, I'd overall probably rather it didn't. But either way, I love this show. Here's the opening credit sequence, with music by Ben Frost, who I am thrilled to see moving on from scoring Netflix's Dark to something as high profile as this.

 

After Raised By Wolves, we changed it up and did the South Park Pandemic Special. South Park is often hit or miss with me, and I'm not a die hard. Season 19 - the introduction of PC Principal was one of the most genius satires I've ever seen, and this special is right up near it. Maybe I just really needed to laugh, but there was one scene that I honestly believe made me laugh harder than I have ever laughed before. It felt GOOD.

Here's the opening musical number, I Love You Social Distancing, which I guess could kind of be a theme song for this blog:

          




31 Days of Halloween:

Also over the last two nights, we started our 31 Days of Halloween ritual, month-long viewing. This year, I thought I'd work in as many short films as I could, and as such, it occurred to me to finally take care of a little unfinished business. 

I've watched The October Society's Tales of Halloween several times now and never taken to it, and just seems completely insane to me because I love pretty much every director who had a hand in making this anthology. So to kick the first two nights off this year, we began taking one or two shorts a night, as kind of a throwback to old school theater experiences, where cartoons or serialized pulp adventures would precede the feature. First up then was David Parker's Sweet Tooth on Thursday, with Adam Gierasch's Trick and my favorite thus far, Darren Lynn Bousman's The Night Billy Raised Hell.

 

Moving on to features, we capped Thursday with George Waggner's original, 1941 The Wolf Man. A perfect film to kick off this year's October viewing, especially with a full moon that night (and another coming on the 31st; oh 2020, what sights you have to show us).

Friday was a half day from work, and I continued the 31 Days with an afternoon viewing of Stuart Gordon's From Beyond. I had no idea this was coming to Shudder, so the moment I saw it in the Just Added section, I hit play. This one is even better than I remembered it - first and only viewing was quite some time ago - like maybe 20 years. From Beyond is a practical FX extravaganza, and Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Ken Foree, and Ted Sorel act their asses off! 

Next, HULU premiered their new series Monsterland on Friday. I know I've talked about this in these pages ad nauseam, but now that it's here, I'm overjoyed. Monsterland is, of course, an adaptation of Nathan Ballingrud's first collection of short stories, North American Lake Monsters. I've been waiting for this one since I got to meet Babak Anvari, the Director of Annapurna Pictures' first adaptation of Mr. Ballingrud's novella The Visible Filth, 2019's Wounds, at Scream Fest last year. During my brief discourse with Mr. Anvari  - super nice chap, btw - we geeked out over Ballingrud's writing and he excitedly mentioned this series was en route.

The first episode, Port Fourchon, Louisiana, adapts the first story in the book, You Go Where it Takes You. I really think Bloody Disgusting/Fangoria writer Megan Navarro drove the proverbial nail in the palm when she wrote of the show, "... cuts straight to the heart of the human condition and at its ugliest and most hopeless. It's not the monsters that provide the horror here, but humanity." (Full article HERE). This is definitely a downbeat, philosophically reflection on humanity and the corners we like to paint ourselves into.

Let's start the count:

1) The Wolf Man
2) From Beyond/Monsterland: Port Fourchon, Louisiana




Playlist:

Deftones - Ohms 
Deftones - Diamond Eyes 
Sepultura - Quadra 
Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (digipak) 
The Sisters of Mercy - Floodland 
Tangerine Dream - Sorcerer OST
Darkness Brings the Cold - Devil Swank, Vol. 1
Also, I spent a lot of time updating my All Hallows Playlist and adding it to Spotify. Here's a link:

 


Card:

Out with the old, in with the new. 

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