The song is a bit polished for my taste, but this video put a great big smile on my face. Directed by Robert Rodriguez, with Effects by Greg Nicotero, this is a damn good time.
You can visit Mammoth's site HERE for merch and tour details.
Watch:
I am a HUGE fan of the Flesh and Blood season of the Horror anthology series Slasher. I tried the follow-up season and couldn't make it very far, and although I recently realized the original seasons are still on Netflix, I've yet to find the time to go back and finish the first Season - which I liked when it first hit streaming - and give two and three a chance.
Despite this herky-jerky relationship with Slasher, Flesh and Blood made enough of an impression that when I saw Bloody Disgusting post about this new upcoming anthology series by the same creators, I was intrigued. After watching the trailer, I am in!
Hell Motel starts up on Shudder June, 17th. If I remember correctly, Slasher's new episodes drop weekly, not altogether, so if that carries over to this, that's something to look forward to for sure!
I've made it a mission to fully engage with Blut Aus Nord's Disharmonuium series again. These guys are so out there sometimes - and I mean that in the best way possible - that I still don't feel like I have a grasp on some of their work. And Disharmonium: Undreamable Abysses/Disharmonium: Nahab feature chief among those albums that confound the living hell out of me.
Back in 2018, while reviewing The Dillinger Escape Plan's final album, Disassociation, I mentioned that their music often feels like encountering an extra-dimensional being that I can only grasp in vague cross-sections. That doubles for Blut Aus Nord when they are at their most experimental. The confluence of Industrial and Black Metal on these albums is astoundingly obtuse - this is the kind of music Lovecraft's protagonists occasionally describe hearing in the presence of the Outer Gods. They set a precedent for that with 2011's The Work Which Transforms God - the album that originally drew me to them. The Disharmonium series, however, really pushes that sound into new places. Dark sonic plaguescapes of an almost ungraspable nature. This sounds dramatic, but it's not. Listening to these albums, it's hard to hold onto the music for very long at all; the drums form an omnipresent backdrop upon which the guitars and keyboards (?) bloom and evolve like blood droplets in hot water. Miasma is a word that springs to mind. I'm gearing up for a session where I smoke up and sit in the middle of my floor between my speakers, just concentrate to the best of my ability on the music and where it takes me.
But I haven't found that time yet.
Play:
New Metroidvania Moadra looks BAD ASS! Some of these graphics align nicely with what I discussed above regarding Blut Aus Nord, so I couldn't pass up following up with this.
This one is hitting multiple game platforms later this year, but, of course, as of now, I'm still only interested in the Switch, so I'm glad to see Nintendo included in the rollout here. You can read more about the game and the other consoles over on Bloody Disgusting HERE.
Watch:
A week or two ago, my good friend and Horror Vision Cohost Tori posted a trailer in our podcast group chat. The trailer was for a movie I had not heard of at the time, HIM. I started watching the trailer and had to wonder why she had posted a football-centric film that looked akin to Any Given Sunday.
Then, at about the 41-second mark, the trailer changes. What follows revealed what is now one of my most eagerly anticipated films of the year.
I hate football, but I love films that defy categorization and expectation. HIM appears to be a film that will do both. I've seen this trailer three times now, and where that would normally drive me fucking crazy, each time I just marvel at it, thinking, "What the absolute fuck is this about?"
I don't want an answer. I just want to see it.
Produced by Jordan Peele, this is Written by Zack Akers & Skip Bronkie and Directed by Justin Tipping - three people I am wholly unfamiliar with, making this even more of a mystery.
Playlist:
The Cops - Free Electricity
Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
Melvins/Jello Biafra - Sieg Howdy
Black Sabbath - Sabotage
Bluekarma - The Communication
Blut Aus Nord - The Work Which Transforms God
McKinley James - Live!
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Six of Cups
• Four of Wands
• Eight of Cups
The joy of completion can lead to inactivity. Keep active.
Good advice for someone who just finished one book and is pretty hot on the next. Keep it going; don't rest on your laurels.
Dreams really do come true!
Haha, seriously, fantastic news yesterday afternoon when I saw Relapse Records announced the first studio album by Deadguy in 30 years. Pre-order Near Death Travel ServicesHERE.
NCBD:
Here's what's waiting for me in my box over at Rick's Comic City Clarksville:
I have been waiting for issue two of Tyler Boss and Adriano Turtulici's Giallo, You'll Do Bad Things, for what feels like forever! Really liked the first issue of this. So much so that Butcher (AKA Anthony) and I did a review over on The Horror Vision after it dropped. Check it out!
Void Rivals going strong. There's big shit coming up soon with the cosmic end of the Energon Universe books, and I, for one, cannot wait to see what Kirkman has in store. The words "Planet-sized" come to mind. I think there may be a race of Unicron-level characters about to be unlocked, but we'll see. Either way, I love how faith and pragmatic survivalism have come face to face in this book.
Final issue of this iteration of Eastman's Future TMNT story, so I'll definitely be going back and re-reading everything up to this point before undertaking this book.
SIKTC is back! Judging by the solicitation, we're still delving into Erica's past, which makes me think that when we finally return to the present, big things are going to happen quickly. We'll see. I loved the previous volume, "Road Stories," and how it filled in a lot of history. So, even though we all want to get back to the current timeline, I welcome more of this "what came before" story we have going on now.
Mark Spear's Monsters is still a bit of a head-scratcher for me, but that's okay. It's nice to have one of those every once in a while. The first three issues seem to set up a story that is huge in scope, so I'm not sure how long this one is planned to run or if we'll get there. Still, Mark Spears definitely has an original take on the Universal Monsters.
Watch:
Great pull today, but I won't be able to grab these until tomorrow night, as I'll have my arse safely ensconced in my local theatre for an advance screening of Lorcan Finnegan's new film The Surfer, which is to be followed by a live stream Q & A with the film's star, the one and only Nicholas Fucking Cage.
Here's the trailer, which I have not watched.
I literally no nothing about this one beyond Title/Director/Star, and that makes me SUPER fucking happy! Best way to see a movie!
Playlist:
Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja
Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Undreamable Abysses
Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Nahab
Mars Red Sky - Eponymous
David Bowie & NIN - Back in Anger 1995
Deadguy - Fixation On A Coworker
Preoccupations - Arrangements
Dum Dum Girls - Too True
McKinley James - Live!
Ghost - Impera
Ghost - Skeletá
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Seven of Swords
• Six of Cups
• Ten of Cups
Futility - Pleasure - Satiety
No matter how hard you try, the joys of life will run out if you don't stop to recognize when you've had your fill.
Man, that's more a fortune cookie reading than I'm used to, but there it is. I'm off today, off with the cards, but my writing's on fire, so that's fine. In the meantime, I guess I'll be sure to keep my eyes peeled for when enough is enough.
I feel like I've been waiting for the new Perturbator album forever, and now we finally have the first single. I don't love the video, but the track is cool. As usual, though, I'll be holding out for the full album to hear it again. Need that context.
Watch:
Here's a new Irish Folk Horror flick I do not remember hearing about before this past weekend when it popped up on Shudder. You know I love me some Irish Folk Horror; this is well-timed, as Lorcan Finnegan has a new film out and in buying tickets for that tomorrow night, I've already got a hankering to rewatch Without Name, which is possibly my favorite of the Irish Folk Horror genre.
This is Writer/Director Aislinn Clarke's second feature-length film. Their first, The Devil's Doorway, is on a list I have somewhere and is currently streaming on AMC+ (But not their Horror subsidiary Shudder, fuckyouverymuch AMC+), so I'm adding both of these films to my watch list with hopes to have a nice, spooky double or triple feature soon.
I rewatched In A Violent Nature last night, strictly because Joe Bob and Darcy hosted it on the previous installment of The Last Drive-In. Not a fan of this flick, but I did come away with this song, so that's cool.
The album this track is featured on shares its name, and while I didn't love it, I found a pretty reliable evocation of a certain kind of Electro-Indie-Pop that was ubiquitous in Los Angeles in the late 2000s and early 2010s, and thus, hits a certain nostalgic trigger for me. I'm not talking smack; I would have probably liked this a lot more back then, but my tastes have definitely shifted, and as it stands after a couple of listens, I do dig this, just not enough to really get excited by it. Still, if you dig this track, check out their music for yourself.
Watch:
Zach Cregger's follow-up to Barbarian received a trailer last week:
This is another example of a creator who must have a hand in controlling the marketing of his films because, like Barbarian, this gives nothing away. I'm not going to test that theory by watching any subsequent trailers New Line releases after this; Weapons hits theatres on August 8th, and I will be there on opening day.
Read:
Over the weekend, I ripped through a re-read of Preston Fassel's brilliant Our Lady of the Inferno. Second time reading this book, and it's an all-time favorite for me.
The depth of emotion here is incredible. This is a book that can scare you, gross you out, and touch your heart. The imagery is above and beyond as Fassel conjures 42nd Street, New York, in 1983, in a way I cannot even begin to describe. You hear it, you feel it, you smell it. The characters are so well-written and so developed that you feel like you know them - like you have known them your entire life. And the Horror is both breathtaking and heartbreaking in equal measure.
I was lucky enough to grab this one upon original publication by Fangoria, but while that edition is long out of print, there is a new edition available everywhere books are sold.
I know I say this a lot, and I always mean it when I say it, but I cannot recommend this book enough. While I would definitely classify Our Lady of the Inferno as a "Horror" novel, it is also a literary Horror novel and one that is far too human to be limited by any genre tropes.
Playlist:
Black Sabbath - Sabotage
Moon Wizard - Sirens
Sumerlands - Dreamkiller
The Raveonettes - PE'AHI II
Matt Cameron - Gory Scorch Cretins
Zeal & Ardor - GREIF
Fever Ray - Radical Romantics
Turnstile - GLOW ON
Primus - Pork Soda
The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir
Ghost - Skeletá
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
Final Light - Eponymous
Techno Westerns - Lover Boy
Joseph Bishara - Malignant OST
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Ace of Cups
• Four of Wands
• Seven of Pentacles
Emotional breakthrough leads to a stable foundation from which to move forward to victory.
Black Gloves & Broken Hearts is finished and is in the hands of my trusted Beta Reader, so I'm really just waiting on the cover art and any cleanup based on early readers' reactions. After that, we'll be looking at setting a release date. Conversely, I've added a chapter to my latest ongoing Nosleep Serial and moved back to Shadow Play Book Two with the intention of stripping it, streamlining it, and finishing it. I toyed with the idea of turning this proposed trilogy into a duology. However, I think I will simply make books two and three shorter than originally expected. There's just too much sprawl, and I think it's that admitting and acknowledging that right there that is the "Emotional Breakthrough" mentioned in the reading. Roping this in can only lead to a stronger foundation and, thus, completion (Victory).
You know what Jack Burton says at a time like this? Rock on, baby!
I've been listening to John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China score, which means I'm creeping up on a rewatch sometime soon. It's been a minute.
Watch:
Holy F**K, Predator: Badlands, I. AM. INNNNN!
And yet, I feel as though I must offer a word of seasoned warning. This is Fox, so this is Disney. I love that Ell Fanning is playing a Weiland-Yutani synth, thus bringing the two franchises together again in a less on-the-nose way, but I also remember how excited I was for the Marvel MCU and the first Star Wars movie back. Both of those have been run into the ground, so let's hope lessons have been learned and that won't happen to Alien/Predator.
But are lessons ever truly learned in the strip-mining megastructure called Hollywood?
Trachtenberg's return is a calming boon - Prey is outstanding, and this looks to be a little of that, plus the "Hostile Alien World" of Predators. So I will be there opening day.
Posting, but not listening. New albums Skeletá is out this Friday, 4/25, and although Loma Vista hasn't shipped my vinyl yet - I'm not sure what they are waiting for - I'm holding out until I can at least listen to the entire record on Apple.
NCBD:
Fantastic pull list this week! Very excited to hit the shop tonight. Here's what I'll be reading later today:
Jeff Lemire's Minor Arcana returns, just in time to line up with my Gideon Falls re-read, so I am very much into more Lemire. Plus, this book has been very cool. Atmospheric the way Lemire does so well.
Still one of the strangest books I've read in quite some time, Into the Unbeing continues to confound and delight me. Macrocosmic Body Horror.
Even though I've cooled on Skybound's iteration of Joe, I'm still looking forward to seeing the confrontation promised by this cover.
Two left after this one. Damn, I'm going to miss this book.
Dust to Dust has really turned out as a sleeper. I don't hear much about other folks reading this book, but I know they're out there.
Watch:
I haven't had a chance to say it here yet, but Ryan Coogler's Sinners is an exceptional film, and a breath of fresh air in what started out a strong year for Horror with Presence, Grafted, The Dead Thing and The Monkey, but quickly became stale.
Sinners shares some structural DNA with Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn in that it both films are actually two movies glued together in the middle with blood. What I love about this is that is the world, right? There's the everyday world where you're robbing a bank or driving around, collecting down-on-their-luck musicians to play at your new Juke Joint, and there's the world where something unnatural arrives and takes you into the netherworld.
With Sinners, the detail is fantastic. You can feel 1930's Southern heat, the sticky humidity, and the life to which these characters live to their fullest, even when they die. Very cool film that I recommend everyone up for a field trip take in on the big screen. The soundtrack through the theatre speakers alone is worth the trip.
Playlist:
Dreamkid - Daggers
Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Suspended in Dusk)
Windhand - Eternal Return
Moon Wizard - Sirens
Telekinetic Yeti - Primordial
Mars Red Sky - Eponymous
Black Sabbath - Sabotage
Card:
Back to the Thoth deck today for a quick, one-card pull:
From the Grimoire, "How true are you to your inner aspirations and will?"
From their 1995 Masterpiece, A Northern Soul. K and I listened to this out under the stars Saturday night and it proved balm for the weary soul. Been too long; I need to work this one back into the rotation for a while.
Watch:
Noah Hawley's ALIEN EARTH gets a trailer!
Still no exact release date for this one yet, just a reiteration of "Summer 2025." I have a feeling I'll be avoiding this until then, but I had to watch it once.
Read:
My good friend and co-host from The Horror Vision, Anthony (also known as Butcher), recently started reading Jeff Lemire and Andrea Torentino's Gideon Falls, and this has provided the perfect excuse for me to launch my own re-read.
This will be the first time I've read this since it was monthly, so it will be a much more revealing experience. I've forgotten a lot, but not enough to have lost the reverence for this series I hold.
Can't wait to really get into it for discussion's sake, as there will be a Hororr Vision down the road where Anthony and I deep-dive this.
Playlist:
Baroness - Blue Record
OLD - The Musical Dimensions of Sleastak
Blood Incantation - Absolute Everywhere
Dreamkid - Daggers
Oranssi Pazuzu - Live At Roadburn 2017
Tad - Inhaler
Nirvana - Bleach
My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife
Starting the day off with some old school Baroness. Thanks for the prompt, Mr. Brown!
Was super excited to find live footage of this one with Gina. Thanks to Feet First Productions for posting this. I'd urge everyone to check out their channel HERE. Tons of great live footage.
Watch:
In a bizarre turn of events, I'm off today for "Good Friday." Ah, okay? Not complaining - I'll take the day and recharge. Currently sitting outside with the cats, but I'm going to head inside in a little bit, get baked and watch a few movies to charge up for what I hope will be an epic editing session later today. Black Gloves & Broken Hearts will be finished this weekend, so I can send it to my favorite beta reader!
First up:
After that, not sure where I'll go. But wherever I do, I'm certain it will be a place both wonderful and strange!
Play:
I've seen the trailer for David Sandberg's upcoming adaptation of the game Until Dawn a few times now, and although I'll need to see it for The Horror Vision, I'm just not looking forward to it. Then I had the idea that, maybe if I played the game, it might help.
Understand that, while I bought a Switch a few years back, it's the first gaming system I've owned since the original Nintendo, so I've missed nearly 40 years of gaming history.
The problem here is that Until Dawn is a PlayStation game. I looked into buying a used one, because there are a handful of other games I might like to play on the system. After briefly watching snippets of a play-through video, I was reminded of how much I dislike the Uncanny Valley look of many of these kinds of games. It's just not for me; I'm a Metroidvania/2D survival Horror kind of guy, and I really don't want to buy another video game system at this time. So I nixed the entire idea, but this got me thinking: What other Horror games are available for Switch?
I started HERE and now I'm second guessing my Uncanny Valley prejudice, because I'm not sure I can pass this up:
Maybe my aversion to this graphic style will abait after more exposure? Whataever the case, this is currently $7.99 on the Nintendo online store, and I'm thinking about grabbing it.
Holy cow - new music from Stereolab!!! From the forthcoming album Instant Holograms on Metal Film, out May 23rd on Duophonic UHF Disks and Warp Records . Pre-order HERE.
Watch:
A full trailer for Danny Boyle and Alex Garland's 28 Years Later dropped while I slept, and just seeing the thumbnail, I'm excited. I'm not going to actually watch this trailer, mind you. But just knowing we're that much closer to this brings me joy.
My fear is this will play before every movie I go to the theatre to see until the film's release on June 20th.
Playlist:
OLD - The Musical Dimensions of Sleastak
Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me
Primus - Pork Soda
Killing Joke - Eponymous
Stereolab - Aerial Troubles (single)
Type O Negative - Dead Again
Tad - Inhaler
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• XI: Justice
• Knight of Cups
• Nine of Swords
Balance creativity or sleeplessness could result.
I actually think this is telling me this so I do the opposite - I've wanted to work on some projects at night the last two weeks, but I'm finding it impossible to stay awake later than 11:00 PM most nights. I think I need to generate a fervor to inspire some 'sleeplessness.' Or at least, some sleep-delay.
I am waaaay behind on posting new music here. Mr. Brown alerted me to Pulp's new single last week, along with news of their forthcoming first album in... a really long time! More drops on June 6th. Pre-order from Rough Trade HERE.
NCBD:
Very excited to hit the shop later today. Here's what I'll be bringing home:
Really digging A.J. Lieberman and Mike Henderson's The Hive. The first issue was something I grabbed on a lark, but it was enough to get me to come back for two, and now here I am waiting on issue #3! A street-level crime comic with a very subtle, maybe "Black Mirror-like" Sci-Fi twist.
I'm going to have a boatload of these Z-News waiting for me in Chicago next time I'm on the South Side long enough to shop at Amazing Fantasy. The cover story here is on Joe Kelly helming the recent re-launch (yes, again) of Amazing Spider-Man with a new number one. I saw that on the shelf last week and almost went for it (there were certainly enough covers and copies), but they didn't get me this time, so it will be cool to read Kelly's plans or whatever this "interview" will be.
I feel like this book is tri-monthly at this point, and that's okay with me. Take it slow.
Justin Jordan and Maan House's Mine Is A Long Lonesome Grave is now one of my most anticipated books every month! A creepy A.F. supernatural revenge story, I'm really hoping this runs longer than next issue, which is the last I see solicited. I suppose if it doesn't, we'll have a tight little tale easy to push onto others. Always better to leave 'em wanting more than give 'em too much. Still, this could unfold in some pretty crazy ways. I trust Mr. Jordan implicitly, so I'm here for it either way.
Watch:
I'm not entirely sure how I made it to 2025 without seeing 1994's Brainscan, but I watched the flick for the first time last night and instantly fell in love with it.
With a screenplay written by Andrew Kevin Walker taken from a Brian Owens story, Director John Flynn leaves his 80s Action roots behind and crafts what I can honestly say is the only film I know of that delivers to me the same vibe that Robert Englund's 976-Evil does, and if you read these pages, you know how much I adore that film.
This a 90s film that feels like a natural progression from 80s Sci-Fi Horror; the suburban neighborhood, children who lead a seemingly adult-less existence and do just fine, and an otherworldly entity that singles them out for Horror that feels, at times, theoretically very frightening. I mean, the opening "kill" sees the film's Protagonist Mike (Edward Furlong) commit a savage murder first-person by way of a 'radical new video game.'
If you've read my story "Literal Death", I'm sure you'd think this film burrowed its way into me way back. That, however, is not the case.
So, of course, after watching Brainscan, I had to follow it with 976-Evil.
How could I not? Perfect timing, because I missed this one last year during 31 Days of Halloween, so I was overdue.
I don't know what it is about Englund's sole Directorial excursion that I love so much. It captures not an era, but an era as portrayed by Hollywood so perfectly, balanced on the precipice between when Horror and Exploitation were kind of studio-ish (Post-Terminator) because there were still successful, but still malleable, small studios with widespread distribution. The kids in 976-Evil are exacerbated stereotypes of 80s nerds and hoodlums like we see in so many other films (Return of the Living Dead springs immediately to mind), but combined here with Howard Berger's FX and the faux-small town but still recognizably urban environments the Art Director and Set Designers create, there's an etheral tone I've not seen many other places. Except in Brainscan, where Flynn updates the look to early 90s-but-still-oh-so-close-to-the-80s Suburbia, but still retains that 80s Kids in Danger vibe.
Playlist:
Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Suspended in Dusk version)
Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me
MadLove - White With Foam
Chelsea Wolfe - She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Five of Swords
• Two of Pentacles
• XXI: The World
Routine can be damaging, but it can also help establish a new foundation from which new vantages reveal comprehensive comprehension.
Or something like that. In other words, stay the course.
Recently, I was back in Chicago for my good friend and Horor Vision cohost Professor John Trafton's Moving Histories Panel at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (CSMS) conference hosted at the Freemont Hotel in downtown Chicago. The panel was on Saturday, so I drove in solo on Friday, and my sister Kim and I met John for pizza and beers at Piece Brewery/Pizzaria. Great food, great beer.
After dinner, Kim and I took John to one of the few Wickerpark legends that remains from back in the day - Estelle's. The 5:00 AM on the weekend lounge still has great ambience, a killer jukebox, and an all-around air of history to it. In service of my second point, QOTSA-project Desert Sessions track Subcutaneous Phat came on. I couldn't place it at first, but as soon as I did, I knew I'd be digging out my CD copy of Desert Sessions Vol. 9 & 10 upon returning home.
Absolutely killer track!!!
Watch:
How did I miss that Ari Aster's fourth film, a contemporary Western set during the recent pandemic, is on the horizon? Here's the teaser trailer, the only thing I'll be watching in the run-up to this film's eventual release, which has yet to be announced:
Also, check out this poster. This has to be my favorite film poster in years:
Can't wait for this one to hit theatres. I know Aster's third film, Beau's Not Afraid, did not get the kind of love his first two films, Hereditary and Midsommar, did, but I loved it and, while I'd love to have Aster back in the Horror genre, I'm there for anything the man does at this point.
Somehow, I forgot to post about this back when I received it from K for my birthday and promptly read it the next day. Warren Ellis and JH Williams III blew my mind back in 2005 with their six-issue Desolation Jones book (the series continued for two issues beyond this with a new arc artistically helmed by José Villarrubia, but it only went two issues before Warren Ellis' infamous Hard Drive crash that led to the end of most if not all of the series he was writing at the time (Doktor Sleepless, New Universal, Fell, etc). Recently, however, Williams spearheaded the release of a remastered, oversized hardcover, and K gave me a copy for my birthday. It is fucking GLORIOUS!
I had not read this since it was monthly, and although I remembered it being just as good if not better than most of Ellis' work, I'llbedamned if this isn't one of my favorite arcs the man wrote. Maybe it's Williams' art, but the concept and execution are thrilling, kind of a Hellblazer-meets-the-spy-genre-meets-weird-fiction.
The problem with starting these posts days ahead of actually posting them is I'm always behind and it often makes it easy to forget import anniversaries. Like this one. 15 fucking years? Unbelievable. Miss you, sir.
More new Ghost! I'm waiting to listen to this and anything else they drop between now and April 25th, when Skeletá releases. Pre-order HERE.
Watch:
I had a mini Lucio Fulci marathon yesterday that included two films I'd never seen before. First up, I caught the last third or so of The Beyond on Shudder.TV. This one is an old favorite (thanks, Anthony), and it inspired the marathon.
Next up, The New York Ripper. I'd caught a few scenes of this here and there over the years but never watched it in its entirety. Truthfully, I had this one on in the background while I edited the latest episode of The Horror Vision, one earbud in, but with how downright mean and sleazy Ripper is, I got the gist, and it was more than enough.
Is it just me, or is there an exorbitant number of scenes in this flick of two men walking and talking exposition? Fulci uses that device often, but here it was cranked to eleven.
Finally, A Cat in the Brain. Man, this might be the grossest film by the gore master I've seen yet.
There's a kind of lackadaisical chill to some of the gore, and it did wonders for the creep factor. This was a late-night watch, so I passed out during parts and need to go back to fill in the gaps. Probably. This is not a great flick, but I'd like to sit through it at least once, even if just to see Fulci as the lead.
Read:
Now that Jeff Lemore and Garbriel H. Walta's Phantom Road is back monthly, I took the opportunity to re-read volumes one and two in one sitting, plowing right on through to last week's issue #11.
This book is up there with Tynion's SIKTC as one of the most readable books to come out since Kirkman's The Walking Dead. Every issue flies by but packs a whole lot of Mystery and Horror in its pages. I love the character development and how it's taking place, and there are just all kinds of threads to pull on and unravel.
Another thing - this book has so much Twin Peaks influence in it! It's not overt, but it's very much decipherable if you're a fan of Lynch and Frost's epic, only we've transported the weirdness from the forests of the Pacific Northwest to the desert roads of middle America.
Playlist:
Bedridden - Moths Strapped To Each Other's Backs
All Them Witches - Lightning At the Door
Marilyn Manson - The Pale Emperor
Dreamkid - Daggers
Slow Crush - Aurora
Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power
Yawning Balch - Volume Two
Miles Davis - Birth of the Blue
The Thirsty Crows - Hangman's Noose
AC/DC - Highway to Hell
Preoccupations - New Material
Preocccupations - Eponymous
Baroness - Stone
Beastie Boys - Check Your Head
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• XI: Justice
• Knight of Cups
• Nine of Swords
What does it say that Crowley turned XI Justice in Lust? Justice is certainly something people lust after in certain situations. My notes from way back talk about primordial forces underlying existence, and while I'd definitely mark Lust as one of those, I can't say my 49 years on Earth have proven to me that Justice is comparable.
Taken here as the first step on a path that advances to the Will of Emotion and culminates with a foundation of Intellect, I'd say the point to today's Pull is to remember to temper with the underlying push/pull of emotions connected to our view of the world with a healthy dose of Intellect. Not everything is as it seems, we know this, but knowing and abiding or using that knowledge is most definitely not the same thing.
Very excited that Bedridden's debut album, Moths Strapped To Each Other's Backs, released today! You can head over to their Bandcamp and snatch up the digital copy for $8 or the cassette for $12! Great band, can't wait to hear more from them!
Watch:
Although I have very few complaints about the theatrical releasing in Clarksville, I was bummed that all my Chicago friends got a pretty wide rollout of French Canadian directing trio RKSS's (Anouk Whissell, Yoann-Karl Whissell, and François Simard) new film Wake Up. All reports are, this is a great one.
I know nothing about Wake Up. This was completely off my radar until my friend Chris mentioned it to me, and from there, a few others picked up the chant. "See it in the theatre." Unfortunately, neither my failsafe Regal in Nashville nor the Belcourt has it, so I'll be holding out for VOD.
Read:
Long-time HWA friend David Lucarelli has turned his brilliant 2018 spook show Doctor Zomba into a comic book, Doctor Zomba's Ghostly Tales!
David joined us on Drinking with Comics HERE to talk about the original stage production of Doctor Zomba's back circa 2019. K and I caught the show at that year's Fringe Fest in Hollywood and LOVED it, so I'm psyched to see David turning this into a Horror Anthology comic. Head over to the Kickstarter HERE and take a gander!
Playlist:
Radiohead - OK Computer
Lounge Lizards - No Pain For Cakes
Beastie Boys - Check Your Head
Drug Church - Prude
Greg Puciato - Mirrorcell
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F#A#∞
The Thirsty Crows - Hangman's Noose
The Afghan Whigs - Black Love
Slow Crush - Aurora
Suburban Living - Always Eyes
Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Seven of Cups
• Ten of Swords
• Page (Princess) of Pentacles
Imagination culminates into prosperity when focused through long-term effort. All good signs when you're getting ready to launch a new book. Not there yet, but close.
From Money Mark's 1998 album Push the Button. One fine little tune to brighten your day. Had this man on my mind since watching that B-Boys doc on Apple, and it's been a while since I revisited this. So good.
NCBD:
Are those... Sharkticons? Oh man! DWJ and team know exactly how to get me excited before I even hold the book in my hands.
The return of Jeff Lemire & Gabriel H. Walta's Phantom Road! This is long overdue, and I'm dying to re-read the first ten issues and pick right back up where we left off. So many burning questions with this one.
I'll admit, when this book flipped to the second arc last issue and I saw it involved that ventriloquist dummy character from Batman's classic rogues gallery, I was unconvinced. But Watters and Sherman left me completely agog by that issue's closing page, so I'm psyched to be back!
Watch:
There's really only about 3% of stuff on Netflix I care about, and one of those is Love, Death + Robots, which is returning May 15th for Volume 4. Here's a teaser:
I've watched the first three volumes countless times, but I still somehow have the feeling I have not seen it all. This was a show I used to fall asleep to back in Redondo Beach when I first became enamored with it, so some episodes have a real 2:00 A.M. haze to them. That said, there's something particularly envigorating about viewing Science Fiction from a liminal conscious state, and I'm pretty sure that has added to my high regard for the show.
Playlist:
Chelsea Wolfe - She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She
The Jesus Lizard - Rack
Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1
Neverly Brothers - The Dark Side of Everything
Sumerlands - Dreamkiller
Sqürl - Third Man Records Session
Beastie Boys - Check Your Head
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Two of Swords
• Four of Cups
• King of Pentacles
As I've said here before, one of the many things I love about Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot is the imagery he uses is so particular to me, so invested in meaning, I can sometimes just read these based on what I see and not the learned associations of the number/suite/arcana. In this case, I'm hearing loud and clear I should pursue a new musical idea I have. Heard, chef.
Reba Meyers' solo record to follow this, her second single, later this year! Super good news. I love Meyer's work, but Code Orange has slowly drifted into realms that, while I'll continue to give them a chance to come back, are far afield from what I listen to.
Check out Meyer's BandCamp HERE. Also, a short interview with her can be found HERE.
Watch:
Have not had time to watch much in the last week or so. Three series have been competing for my time and heart: Severance,Yellowjackets Season Three, and a combination of Daredevil: Born Again and a rewatch of the original Daredevil Netflix series, currently nearing the end of the first season. I did, however, have occasion to watch the 2020 Spike Jonze documentary Beastie Boys Story, which I cannot recommend enough, even if you're not a fan.
The format here is Mike D. and Adrock on stage in front of a live audience, with Spike Jonze controlling images and footage on a movie screen behind them as they talk. The show is an intimate, no-holds-barred look at their history, and I cannot commend Diamond and Horowitz enough for facing some of their uncomfortable moments head-on. Also, the love and admiration on display between these two for each other and their fallen comrade Adam Yauch makes for a beautiful framing device for the group's history. Lots of stuff here I didn't know, and I grew up a pretty big fan in the 90s.
And, of course, I had to follow that up with Fight for Your Right (Revisited), which I hadn't watched since it was released.
So much fun just spotting all the cameos, and, of course, even though I'm not generally a fan of most of these gentlemen's brand of humor, here, applied to a topic that resonates, it's just a blast.
Playlist:
Pink Floyd - UmmaGumma
Frankie and the Witch Fingers - Data Doom
Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears
Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman
Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Oz
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta I: Fathers of the Icy Age
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue with the Stars
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry
Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power
Cocteau Twins - Heaven Or Las Vegas
John Carpenter - Big Trouble in Little China OST
Dreamkid - Daggers
Skid Row - Eponymous
Flying Lotus - Spirit Box
Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma
Alegeaeon - The Ossuary Lens
Cibo Mato - Stereotype A
Captain Jack - Pure Electric
Beastie Boys - Check Your Head
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Ace of Cups
• XIII: Death
• XVIII: The Moon
Everything starts with or includes transformation of late. Big things on the horizon, I think. Lots of conversations in my life at the moment pertaining to work, home and family. This just tells me something needs to change, but it may not be the most obvious thing.
Mclusky is the closest thing I've seen to the old Butthole Surfers. Thanks to Mr. Brown and Jacob for sending this my way, because this band was not on my radar at all.
New album, "the world is still here and so are we" is out now on Ipecac Recordings; order a copy HERE.
NCBD:
I love that this week's pull is two super indie Horror books and one major. Makes me feel like maybe the indie comics world is making a new push. Let's do everything we can to help it succeed.
Barstow is so goddamn odd and I have loved every freakin' minute of it. A Desert X-Files analogue, except darker, weirder and a helluva lot bloodier than Mulder and Scully ever saw. This appears to be the final issue, but damn would I love to see a 'second season.'
I know nothing about Plague House by Michael W. Conrad and Dave Chisholm, but Oni Press has really been knocking it out of the park lately, so I'm on board to check this out. Here's the solicitation blurb from League of Comic Geeks:
"Thirteen years ago, Orin McCabe was a family man living a privileged life in the suburbs. Today, he’s condemned to death row for murdering his entire family in an unexpected fit of hammer-wielding brutality. In the aftermath of his heinous crime, it’s fallen to a trio of eclectic, but dedicated, ghost hunters—Jacob, the holy man; Holland, the skeptic; and their leader, Del, a true believer in the occult and worlds beyond—to surveil the abandoned McCabe home in search of proof for the existence of the undead . . . and whatever supernatural source may have possibly fueled McCabe’s inhuman massacre. But this ill-matched and uneasy squad of investigators is about to discover something much more terrifying than any ordinary spirit. . . . Something much more pernicious, much more contagious, that if not contained, could take full advantage of America’s unquenchable appetite for violence and deliver a plague of blood unto us all . . ."
Sounds f'king awesome, right?
Finally, thinking of picking this up:
Larry Hama's GIJOE: ARAH is doing this weekly event "Silent Missions," and while I probably won't pick up the all, I have a soft spot for Beach Head, so I'm in on this one.
Watch:
I caught the trailer for the new film by Talk to Me's Danny and Michael Philippou once in the trailer last month and it was enough to convince me that I would henceforth be in rabid expectation.
Great title, too. The Philippou's are fantastic filmmakers who earned their first hit and will likely continue to make them. There's an interview with the brothers up on Indie Wire that I haven't had a chance to read and likely will avoid until after the film's theatrical release on May 30th, which you can bet your arse I'll be sitting in a seat at my Regal for.
Playlist:
Pink Floyd - Umma Gumma
Alice Donut - Dry Humping the Cash Cow
The Kills - Live at Third Man Records
Arcade Fire - Everything Now
Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power
Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears
Melvins - Thunderball
Mclusky - the world is still here and so are we
Various – The Daptone Super Soul Revue Live! At The Apollo
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• XXI: The World
• VIII: Strength
• King of Pentacles
XXI: The World (The Universe in Thoth) can sometimes indicate a happy ending. Combined with Strength and King of Pentalces - financial security - indicates, to me at this time, stay the course and things will work out. Really interesting developments after my recent pontifications on work and corporate life (anti-life), and I can't help but feel this pull is a direct response.
