Lee Cronin's The Mummy

From their 2013 masterpiece Tomorrow's Harvest, which, to my ears, plays like the sweetest soundtrack to an 80s Horror film that never existed. 

All this talk of the upcoming album has me excited to dip back into all the BOC music I love, and I love this one the most. 

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Watch:

After swearing off Lee Cronin's The Mummy for almost two weeks, I ended up seeing it last Thursday, and I actually really liked it. I hate the trailer and pretty much every single piece of art released for the film, which was a large part of why I swore the film off to begin with, but here's something that's not too obnoxious:

To crib directly from my Letterbxd review: 

"Lee Cronin suffers from publicity that seems bent on ruining his films. The trailers take the weakest, most trite scenes from his films and blow them up as if they were the entire movie. It happened with Evil Dead Rise, "Mommy's with the maggots now," and it happened with The Mummy, "Don't worry, grandma, it's fun to be dead." 

Both of those scenes are cringe-inducing in my opinion. Especially when they've been forced down our throats for months on end at the theatres. But against all the odds, The Mummy actually turned out to be fun and pretty intense at times. Kinda “Evil Dead Exorcist.” In fact, I almost wish it could have just been another Evil Dead flick, so they could have shaved 30 minutes of setup.

Jack Reynor did a great job. His performance buoyed some of the more goofy stuff. He sold me on his grief, anger and frustration. And Natalie Grace… I didn’t care for the makeup they used for her, but she did a really good job. Creepy movements. Nightmare fuel."

Seeing and liking The Mummy (for the most part) put me in mind to revisit Cronin's Evil Dead Rise for probably the third time since I bought the Blu-Ray. And at least a year has passed since my most recent viewing, and two since the movie came out, I find that, as I originally suspected, I can honestly say I really like this one. None of the things about it that bugged me at the time it came out still do, except, of course, I really wish the trailer hadn't ruined some of the imagery centered around Lily, as trying to see it with new eyes definitely makes me think it would have been far more effective had it not been ruined by that same inundation The Mummy just suffered. 

Also, EDR has probably the best opening of any Evil Dead film to date. Just my opinion, but it's pretty freaking epic.

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Playlist:

Steve Moore - Christmas Bloody Christmas

Electric Youth & Pilot Priest - Come True OST

Radiohead - Kid A

Telefon Tel Aviv - Immoliate Yourself

sElf - Gizmodgery

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

Pink Floyd - Animals

Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar

Big Business - Here Come the Waterworks

Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

Gnarls Barkley - Atlanta

sunn O))) - Pyroclasts

Blackbraid - Blackbraid II

Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• King of Cups

• Knight of Wands

• King of Wands

That's a lot of masculine energy. Let's look at some overviews here:

King of Cups - Emotional upheaval or conflict

Knight of Cups - Controlling those emotions with Will

King of Wands - Sometimes, to get control, aggression is required.

Being smart enough to recognize when my emotions are getting the best of me, and being strong enough to prevent my response to those emotions from getting out of control. 

Total work pull. People piss me off all the time, and sometimes I get worked up enough where I want to say something. Here's the reminder not to say something. Grin and bear it. Stay dressed in the fatigues of the enemy. They pay your bills.

It's Saturday...

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

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New Music from Low Cut Connie!!!

More new music from Low Cut Connie ahead of their new album, Livin in the USA, out July 3rd. You can pre-order a copy directly from the band HERE.

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Tuesday night, I rewatched Marcus Nispel's 2003 Platinum Dunes remake of Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel's seminal Horror film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. For context, I actually owned this movie when it first came out on video. I didn't buy it - an ex bought me a two-pack DVD set of the original film and this. I no longer remember if that was how I first saw Nispel's film, a blind gift given to me. I will say, back then, before my feelings about Michael Bay had solidified, I still regarded this film as a mixed bag. It's also important to note that 2003 was also before we'd become completely inundated with remakes. So take all that into consideration, and I find that, despite ranting and raving about how bad this film is for years, my feelings remain pretty much the same today. 

A mixed bag.

First, you have to ask, right? Why would anyone remake a classic like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a film that, by its very mangled, outsider nature, you'd have no hope of repeating its cultural impact? Well, because, like the proverbial mountain, it's there. Hollywood has something of a 'pave the world' ethos; they can and will remake everything. 

My reaction to this film over the intervening 20+ years has been one of general disdain, primarily for two reasons: Final Girl Jessica Biel's performance, which, true to form, starts and stops at looking great in a pair of low-rise jeans, and the melodramatic fashion flavor to much of the violence is off-putting at best and downright laughable at worst. Biel stabbing Mike Vogel's Andy through the chest is among the most melodramatic Horror deaths I've witnessed this side of Hammer. 

And yet, I saw this pop up on Shudder recently and something moved me to give it another go. This is something I do quite often with films I don't like. Because I can and often am wrong. So I reevaluate. 

This time, I felt a little better about Nispel's film. Honestly, I've realized that part of my issue with Jessica Biel isn't about this film at all, but more a combination of disdain for her performance in this film and in another, Pascal Laugier's bafflingly bad The Tall Man from 2012, a film that, to this day, I still cannot believe came from the same man as Martyrs 2008 and 2018's Incident in a Ghostland. I'm not going to eat crow and say I think Biel's performance in TCM is good, but it's certainly not nearly as bad as some others I've witnessed in Horror from the 00s (Prom Night remake, I'm looking at you). 

Biel is adequate, and so is pretty much everyone else. I've been a fan of Eric Balfour since his role on Six Feet Under as Clair's troubled boyfriend Gabe, and I've always thought he should have lived a lot longer than most of the cast. Also, after roles on Justified and Hannibal, Jonathan Tucker has become a recent favorite character actor of mine, and he shows a bit more range outside of 'deluded psychopath' here. 

The elements to really love about this film are the lighting and the camerawork. There are something like five or six wide shots of the Hewitt house during various parts of the day/night, and each one is a thing of majestic beauty. 

Now, that's not really enough to hang a movie on, but there are some other things about this one that work for me. I like the structure of the family and the town, which appear to be one and the same. Like the original, we meet various people in various places that seem like they might help, only to find out they're in on it, too. Here, though, those tendrils of malevolence feel like they stretch farther. Maybe it's the inclusion of R. Lee Ermey as the Sheriff, a position that makes the Hewitts' reach feel more omnipotent, or maybe it's the trailer with the two women, a scene that might pack the most creep factor in the whole movie. Either way, the conspiracy - and it has always been a conspiracy in this franchise, hence why Henkel goes so far as to add the Men in Black to part four - feels way deeper and, ultimately, perfect for a Horror film: inescapable.

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*That probably didn't happen until around the time the first of his Transformers movies came out; I had not seen any of his 90s films, so M.B. was basically unknown to me when I saw this TCM

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l Jane Schoebrun has a novel up for pre-order! Public Access Afterworld will be released by Penguin-Random House on October 27! You can pre-order this now wherever you get your books.

The "visionary director" moniker gets bandied about pretty loosely these days, so I'm usually hesitant to add to that quagmire. Schoenbrun is one where the term is appropriate. No one else has been able to translate the weird flavors of the post-millennial liminal space occupied by Hauntology in the early-to-mid 2000s the way Schoenbrun has, and it speaks to my soul. Those were weird, dark years - hilarious by comparison to now - and something We Are All Going to the World's Fair and I Saw The TV Glow have both helped me process and even reconnect with. 

Wow. It occurs to me more of my life has been lived in 'dark times' now than light. But I digress. Here's the solicitation, which thankfully tells us gloriously little, but just enough to stoke the flames of my anticipation:

"A mysterious realm on the other side of our screens. A dark force that draws victims into its static. The unlikely hero called to save them and herself from this electric hell." 

Can't wait.

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Playlist:

John Carpenter w/ Alan Howarth - Prince of Darkness OST

Steeve Moore - Bliss OST

White Reaper - Only Slightly Expanded

Grotus - Mass

Flogging Molly - Live at the Greek

Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1 

Carter Burwell - Blood Simple OST

Atticus Derrickson - The Black Phone 2 OST

Meat Puppets - Dusty Notes

Tossers - In the Valley of the Shadow of Death

Tar - Roundhouse

Grotus - Slow Motion Apocalypse

PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love

Poe - Hello

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Two of Pentacles

• King of Wands

• Queen of Swords

The Two of Disks, followed by the King of Wands, might suggest imbalance.  The Queen of Swords reminds me that intellect, not emotion, will serve as the appropriate antidote.

I'm thinking this is a direct nod to an imbalance in my life regarding creative pursuits. I.E., too many podcasts, not enough writing.

Evil Dead Burn

Have we talked about how the Butthole Surfer's lost album, After the Astronaut, finally sees release next month on Sunset Blvd Records? This is one that, back when Napster was a thing, I used that platform to find as many of these tracks as I could and assemble the closest thing I could figure was the actual intended release as possible. Now I finally get to have this on vinyl? Damn!

I actually dug out my old burned CD and compared it to the track listing - looks like I got pretty freakin' close!

Pre-order After the Astronaut for a June 26th release HERE.

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Evil Dead Burn. I am going to go out of my way to avoid this and every other trailer for this film between now and July 10th, when I plan to plop my arse in the theatre and wait for  Sébastien Vaniček's entry in the ever-expanding Evil Dead Universe. But I watched this twice and really dug it, so now I'm excited.

I get old school 80s Exploitation videos just from the opening shot of the house here. Reminds me of Don't Go In the House, or House at the Edge of the Park. And the entire sequence plays like something out of a Puppet Combo video game. Vaniček's Infested was in my top five of 2024, so when I saw his name get attached to this, my excitement began. This 'trailer' only ramps that up. I just hope that what happened to Evil Dead Rise doesn't happen here. The total saturation of that film's trailer just killed so many of the otherwise insanely disturbing images. Let's not do that again, okay?

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NCBD:

Pretty big week. Let's go grab some comics!!!

Sharkticons and the pit of judgment? I'm still not sure I'm feeling the Quintesson War being as big a deal as it purports to be, but I'll show up for that on the cover, no problem!

This Spawn: The Dark Ages book by Liam Sharp has been a gorgeous reminder of what comics can be. I'm still stoked at all the Wrightson-worship with Sharp's character design, and honestly, this has been a pretty cool ride. One more after this. I can't say I'm invested in the story, but I'm enjoying the hell out of it regardless.

The second issue of The Peril of the Brutal Dark felt like it took twice as long to reach my hands as it actually did, so that definitely means this book has me. Outer Dark Crime Noir? How can that go wrong? especially in the hands of the That Texas Blood creative team. The short answer is, it can't. 

I really dug both the Baroness and the Crimson Guard silent issues. The Zartan was so-so. But Copperhead getting his own issue? One of my all-time favorite Cobras, who really has not had hardly any 'screen time' since his creation over 40 years ago. Color me super jazzed.

One more after this! I have my bet on who is going to walk out of this alive, so let's see if I'm right.

I finally did that one-sitting reread of Event Horizon: Dark Descent and really liked it, so when I saw we're getting another chapter, this one a sequel to the film, I couldn't help but add it to my pull list at Rick's. I dig the fleshing out of the EH story, and am super curious to see what they do with this new chapter. 

Easily the weirdest comic I've read in some time, I can't wait to get into more Death Fight Forever!

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Playlist:

Steve Moore - Jimmy & Stiggs OST

Grotus - Mass

Grotus - Luddite

Garbage - Eponymous

Marilyn Manson - Mechanical Animals

MC50 - 10xMC5 Live

John Carpenter w/ Alan Howarth - Prince of Darkness OST

Massive Attack - Mezzanine

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Nine of Pentacles

• Knight of Cups

• XVIII: Death

Finish it. Don't drown in self-satisfaction, but recognize and celebrate the win. It will lead to the next thing.

New Music from Boards of Canada!!!

A few years ago, the IG account bocpages began posting about hints that Boards of Canada were preparing to release their first record since 2013's Tomorrow's Harvest. I didn't get my hopes up, but I've been trying to keep my eyes peeled for more news. Slowly this faded from my radar, and my hopes went silent until last week when brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin dropped the eerie "Tape 05." No word on a date or pre-order yet, but my eyes are not straying far until they appear. 

I am a huge fan of Tomorrow's Harvest. I know a number of old-school BOC fans who didn't like the 2013 album, but for me, well, it's my favorite in their catalog. That's not an embellishment or an easy choice because all their music is fantastic, but Harvest feels the most like an '80s horror score, and for that, it wears the crown. 

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RZA's debut film One Spoon of Chocolate played at Beyond Chicago a few weeks back, but it conflicted with other plans, so now I'm anxiously waiting for this to roll out in theatres. I'm assuming that the "Quentin Tarantino Presents" banner pretty much ensures that it will. 

I expect this flick to be every bit as bombastic as one would expect from RZA. 

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Walk:

Two Wednesdays ago, Mr. Brown and I got to hang out with a very old friend. This was the first time the three of us had been together in the same room since the late 90s. When you're fifty and you hang out with your old friends, funny things happen. Mortality comes up, but also, the past. You just can't get away from it. None of us have ever been the kind of guys to sit around reliving our "glory days" because, honestly, the glory days are still happening in my book. Still, there were good times and some pretty crazy adventures, and it comes up. A reminder of who we were to better appreciate who we are, I guess. Or something like that. One of the things that came up from the past is a place I haven't seen or really even thought much about in the last thirty years, except, I dreamt about it recently, so it was fresh on my mind.

As teenagers and then young adults, we spent a lot of time up to no good, hanging out in the Cook County Forest Preserves. When we were just out of High School, we found something incredible in the woods surrounding the Cal Sag canal. I'm not going to say exactly where this was, and it doesn't really matter anymore, as you'll read in a moment. But out there in the middle of the woods, away from even a noticeable path, we discovered a place colloquially known as Stonehenge. This place consisted of a circular clearing with a flagstone floor and a slightly raised dais in a half-circle upon which sat flagstone thrones. 

Thrones. Exactly zero BS here. Some enterprising stoners before us had built this place as a communal space, a liminal gathering spot of the locals cool enough to be let in on the secret.

Unfortunately, Stonehenge is gone. Long gone. Destroyed, I stood in the center of that dias and saw nothing but piles of rubble. My guess is the Forest Preserve patrol destroyed it to dissuade folks from hanging out in the middle of the woods at night. 

Regardless, the fact that the three of us sought it out, actually did the trek and problem-solved our way into this now nearly unreachable place, well, it made for something special. So I guess it didn't really matter what shape Stonehenge was in, after all. It was more about the shape we were in as decades-long friends who could have just as easily sat in a bar or around a tv. Instead, we chased a dream.

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Playlist:

Steeve Moore - VFW OST

Blackbraid - Celestial Womb EP

Flying Lotus - 1983

Massive Attack & Tom Waits - Boots on the Ground (single)

Fozy Shazaan - Dark Blue Night

A SOMBER FUNERAL - Since You Left These Shores

Nine Inch Noize

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

White Noise - White Noise 90s Minutes

Anthrax - Spreading the Disease

Megadeth - So far, So Good... So What?

Pestilence - Consuming Impulse

Flying Lotus - Yasuke

Gylt - I Will Commit A Holy Crime Random: Tandem

Gylt - In 1,000 Agonies, I Exist

Drug Church - Prude

Melvins & Napalm Death - Savage Imperial Death March

Anthrax - Persistence of Time

Deftones - Diamond Eyes

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Seven of Pentacles

• Five of Cups

• XIII: Death

Completing a long-running goal leads to emotional disruption, which in turn leads to a complete overhaul in what is deemed important. Disrupt success and learn from it, rethink goals and grow into something new.

Another on-the-nose writing prompt. I have to stop looking at what I'm working on as being the thing I think that it is and allow it to become the thing it is meant to be. 

Tom Waits & Massive Attack! 'Nuff Said!!

Tom Waits and Massive Attack??? Holy Christos - this is... wow. Just wow. 

No idea if this is harbinger to a full collaborative album. Most likely, Waits is on one track from the previously hinted at new Massive Attack album. Either way, listening to this on headphones while I type, this feels like balm for my soul.

You can read more about this single HERE.

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I finally had the chance to sit down and watch Steven Kostanski's reimagining of Roger Corman's Deathstalker. Not to dismiss a Corman flick from the 80s, but Kostanski's film renders the original irrelevant - especially with how goddamn hung up it is on SA.

The FX here are, as one would expect, top-notch. There are images in this film that unearthed shit from my imagination that must go back to early childhood. In particular, the red "licorice" armor guys. Coppola's Dracula in his wolf armor tickled this same nerve, too, but the feeling I get from Kostanski's work is vestigial. Add to this the surreal touches and odd humor he instills in everything, and we have us a winner.

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About a third of the way through Stephen King's The Drawing of the Three, and it's even better than I remember it being.

"...but it was too late - they were tumbling backward thorugh that doorway, and the droning hum of New York City at night, so familiar and constant you never even heard it unless it wasn;t there anymore, was replaced by the grinding sound of the waves and the grating, questioning voices of dimly seen horrors crawling to and fro on the beach."

In my original discovery of these books, I think the "real world" of the titular three's world (our world) felt like a left turn when I read this, and of course, the year I read this, Wastelands came out, and that book has remained my favorite of the DT books since. Reading book two again now, I'm floored by how this hits the ground running. The whole beach/lobstrosity sequence ("Dad-a-chack? Did-a-chick? Drum-a-chum?") has stayed with me since that first read, and it's every bit as effective now, but the Eddie Dean on the airplane stuff is pure page-turning goodness. I can't wait to get deeper into this one, and the series in general. This is the reread I've been planning for years, and I'm jazzed about doing it now. 

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Playlist:

Zombi - Shape Shift

Steve Moore - VFW OST

Liars - Drum's Not Dead

Atticus Derrickson - Black Phone 2 OST

Plague Bringer - As the Ghosts Collect, the Corpses Rest

Corrosion of Conformity - Good God/Baad Man

Steeve Moore - Jimmy & Stiggs OST

Tangerine Dream - Sorcerer OST

Genghis Tron - Dream Weapon

sunn O))) - Loser

Blackbraid - Celestial Womb EP

Massive Attack & Tom Waits - Boots on the Ground (single)

Nine Inch Noize

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Nine of Swords

• XI: Justice (Lust in Thoth)

• Eight of Wands

Nine of Swords = deception. Eleven here is Justice, a primordial urge we lust for in 2026, fighting against the tyrannical mega corporations that define our increasingly suffocating existence. But wait - there's a way out. But it's a formidable act of Will, and not easily achieved from within the belly of this giant, dying machine called society that's bleeding out and drowning us in its blood. 

New Music From Genghis Tron!!!

 

From the forthcoming album Signal Fire, out June 12th on Relapse Records. Pre-order HERE.

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NCBD:

Here's my NCBD pull for Wednesday, 4/15/26:

Thus far, I love this adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's The Thing on the Doorstep. 

I'm not really sure why we're side-stepping the next issue of Ordained to do a zero-issue one-off for the hitman called in to take out Father Roy, but I dug the first two issues of the regular Ordained series, so by all means, toss in a few one-shots. This feels like it might have been inspired by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's Preacher series, the way many of the characters had one-shots or mini-series; it just seems like, after only two issues, this is a bit premature. Either way, I paid to see a Priest kick Mob arse, and I've no complaints so far, so let's deep dive the man that I'm assuming is a total badass.

Another Bad Idea book. There was a preview of this one in Ordained #2, and honestly, seeing David Lapham and Bill Sienkiewicz's names attached, this could be a Rainbow Bright series, and I'd probably pick it up. 

A silent Zartan issue? That worked really well back in G.I.Joe ARAH #85, so I can't wait to see what Hama and team do with it here.

Pivoting back to Scarlett and Storm Shadow? This reminds me how much I'm digging this book and don't really need the reliance on "Ninjas" that the original ARAH book did. Still, I feel like, although this book started off lukewarm, it's kind of hit a stride, so I'm cautiously optimistic here.

After reading last month's Batwoman #1 by Greg Rucka and Dani, I picked up the DC Compact edition of the run this new book continues, named Elegy. I didn't love it the way I love some of Rucka's stuff, so I'm hanging onto my sub for this new chapter for a month or two more, hoping it really grabs me

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Playlist:

Mountain Realm - Stoneharrow

Mountain Realm - Shadowlorn

Blackbraid - Nocturnal Womb EP

Melvins & Napalm Death - Savage Imperial Death March

Boards of Canada - Geogaddi

sunn O))) - Domkirke

Metallica - Kill 'Em All

Type O Negative - Dead Again

Type O Negative - World Coming Down

Plague Bringer - As the Ghosts Collect the Corpses Rest

Mercy Girl - Closer EP

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Card:

First spread since returning home from my trip, I thought since I've been using my mini-Thoth while away, I'd come home and plug back into the legacy deck. 

• 4 of Disks: Power

• Prince of Swords

• 10 of Wands: Oppression

Establishing a power base is great, but once done, something has to navigate how you use that power. Will without intellect can go awry, as it is as raw a force as nature offers, only on a human scale. Things go wrong when Will is ruled by Earthly desires. Read: There has to be something bigger. 

RIP Peter Steele - 16 Years Gone

 16 years. Mind-blowing.

I don't think I knew there was a video for this track before today. My discovery of Type O's music dovetailed with my discovery of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. That was back when Tale of the Body Thief was the newest entry in the series. I remember listening to this album, and this track in particular, as I read Louie's narration in Interview with a Vampire, just synced with Steele's voice, so that in my head, Louie sounded like Steele.

No wonder the movie never worked for me. 

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Wide Eyes Towards The Sky

Mr. Brown, our friend Hellman and I hit the Forever Deaf Fest this past Saturday, thus rounding out my Chicago stint. We bought tickets for Plague Bringer - their first show in ten years and the first time any of us had seen the legendary Chicago Industrial-Death band live.

Worth every f*cking penny!

Also on tap, we caught Year of the Knife, who were fantastic as well. 

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There's not a helluva lot Marvel does anymore that I care about, but the 'street level' stuff still hits me in the old-school sweet spot. While I've only seen the first episode of Daredevil Born Again season two, that's a priority now that I'm back from my Chicago jaunt. There's confirmation that DD season three is filming now, Spider-Man: Brand New Day has me cautiously optimistic, giving me the kind of anticipation tingles that the MCU used to give me during its first couple of years. And now... Frank gets an R-rated one-shot!

Bernthal IS Frank Castle to me, and I'm super excited about this. Also, there are apparently some easter eggs in here I would never have caught, one in particular that pertains to the possible eventual relaunch of the X-Men. I know, that's getting into the weeds of stuff I'll probably only avoid and/or be disappointed by. Still, as a now forty-year comic reader, this shit is hard-wired into my blood. 

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Read:

Huge haul this past Friday while I was hanging out at Amazing Fantasy Books & Comics. I'm not going to post everything, but here are some highlights:

Here's something I don't think I knew existed, but I had to have the moment I saw it. Props on Amazing Fantasy for always carrying not only the best selection of comics, but an awesome selection of non-comic stuff. 

Oni Press ruled 2025, but I don't think I've read anything from them so far this year. That changes now that I have the first issue of Time Daniel, David Andry and Maan House's Estuary: A Ghost Story. I know nothing about this, but it's another three-issue Oni Press Horror mini-series, so that's all I really need to know. Also, with a quick glance, House's art - which I am unfamiliar with - is as moody and atmospheric as the cover art promises, so this was an easy 'yes.'

I have wanted this for quite some time now, and I was happy to grab it at my favorite shop! Stokoe's art is beyond almost anything else, and when applied to Godzilla, well, it's unlike anything I've ever seen before.

Now here's the only one I had time to read while I was still in Chicago: Matt Kindt and David Lapham's Hero Trade: Project Chimera. I've been keeping an eye on Bad Idea's second-wave releases (I think that's what it's called; basically everything after Planet Death rolled out last year). Despite that, I don't remember hearing about this one. The cover caught my eye, and seeing Lapham's name made me open it and upon doing so, the B&W presentation made me think I was looking at Stray Bullets for a second. 

So yeah, it came home with me. 

This was originally published last year, two issues, and by the time you hit the end of the second issue, you know it's just going to be two issues. Further research shows that there are multiple series within the overall Hero Trade umbrella, starting back in 2020, all two-issue or one-shot length. I liked this enough that I'll probably keep my eyes peeled for future issues or any back issues I can find out in the wild.

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Playlist:

Mountain Realm - Stoneharrow

Jim Williams - Alpha OST

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Melvins & Napalm Death - Savage Imperial Death March

Gorillas - The Mountain

Radiohead - Kid A

Radiohead - Amnesiac

The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis - Eponymous

Neurosis - An Undying Love for a Burning World

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

King Gizard and the Lizard Wizard - Infest the Rats' Nest

Anthrax - Anthems EP

Anthrax - Best of Both Worlds

Gylt - I Will Commit a Holy Crime: Tandem

Gylt - In 1,000 Agonies I Exist

Baroness - Red

Baroness - Chicago Music Exchange

Year of the Knife - No Love Lost

Plague Bringer - As the Ghosts Collect, the Corpses Rest

Corrosion of Conformity - Good God Baad Man

Anthrax - Spreading the Disease

Deftones - private music 

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Card:

Loud and clear.

Blood Mother - The Night Fires

 

Blood Mother is the new project from Rick Giordano, composer/former member of a group called The Lion's Den, which ended last year. I was unfamiliar with both until two days ago, when I stumbled upon this track and it led me down a little bit of a rabbit hole that crescendoed in reading this.

 

Interesting snapshot of the state of things for an independent band in 2025/26. 

Part of that rabbit hole was discovering The Lion's Den's music, and I'm pretty blown away. I'm sure I'll post some here eventually, but in the meantime, you can check out their catalog on Bandcamp HERE.

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Watch:

I wasn't sure how I would feel about this new Faces of Death flick hitting theatres this week, but being that I'm in Chicago and can see it with friends, I figured we should cover it for The Horror Vision.

Other than its omnipresent shadow in the 80s/90s as a kind of specter-ish rite of passage I never succumbed to, I have no real relationship with the original films beyond feeling they're just kind of gross and indicative of everything that's wrong with humanity. That said, the writer in me is fascinated by this kind of thing, and when I found out it was the team that did Cam, my tentative curiosity began to pulse with a bit more anticipation. 

Ultimately, this film is fine. I can't say a hell of a lot more than that. I don't want to see things that I can't unsee, but I feel like by the very nature of what this is, it should have left me at least a little haunted. Nope. Definitely an engaging slasher/thriller, but in the end, I don't know, while I'll issue the blanket, "Support Horror in the theatre," I just didn't really care that much. There's a bit more breakdown and discussion on the latest episode of The Horror Vision, which you can hear on YouTube or wherever you stream your stories. There's also a widget to the right that will play it here.

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Playlist:

The New Pornographers - Brill Bruisers

Motörhead - 1916

Nitro - O.F.R.

Skid Row - Slave to the Grind

Testament - Para Bellum

Mountain Realm - Stoneharrow

Blood Mother - The Night Fires (single)

The Lion's Den - Bath House

Black Sabbath - Technical Ecstasy

Black Sabbath - Sabotage

Deftones - private music

Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous

Portishead - Third

Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me

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Card:

Still away from home, so I'm using my mini-Thoth. 

• Ace of Swords

• Two of Wands: Dominion

• V: The Hierophant

Collaboration from a breakthrough of the Will dissolves the mundane and creates something new. This is SPOT ON. I can't say much more yet, but it involves A) a promise I made to myself about my 50th year, and B) the day in the woods I described above.

Julia Ducournea's Alpha!!!

Writing this Tuesday at 11L12 AM CST. Starting my first morning on the Southside with Black Sabbath's Paranoid. This is a regular ritual when I return to the soil from whence I came - Sabbath helps me reconnect to this area; I literally feel the harmonization singing in my blood. 

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Watch:

Yesterday, my Horror Vision cohost Missi and I hit a local big-box to see Julia Ducournau's new film, Alpha. I walked in knowing NOTHING and, as usual, that was the best way to go in.

Alpha is an arduous journey that had me squirming and contorting in my seat for its entire run time. The subject matter was a surprise to me, as was the unrelenting twist of the mundane into horrific body horror beyond almost what I could stand. It's not a gory film or a disturbing film in any capacity I could have expected. My elevator pitch would be, "Requiem for a Dream done by David Cronenberg if he were French." That's a bit of a cop out, but most elevator pitches are. Suffice it to say, this will easily be one of the 'best' films I see this year. 

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NCBD:

I am out of town, and so I won't be bringing any of my books home to read this week. I will be swinging into Amazing Fanasy sometime this week, so there may be an addendum post, but here's all the great stuff I will have waiting for me upon my return to Clarksville:

I said this on a recent episode of Drinking with Comics, but it kind of blows my mind that for as long as I've been a devoted, weekly comic reader (since July of 1986), forty years on, most of my pull list are titles based on 80s childhood IPs that I love.  There have certainly been titles for all of these characters running most of those forty years, but it wasn't until Robert Kirkman (of course) acquired them that I actually started reading them. 

Continuing the longest-running continuity the Turtles have ever had! I know they zeroed out the count back in 2024, but I still look at this by the 'Legacy' number, which would be issue 177. And while there's definitely a modicum of status quo creeping back in (Splinter's alive (I think), the four brothers are back together as a team (I think!), all the Jenika and mutanttown characters have been moved to their own books (which I don't read), I'm still pretty pleased with how this is going.

On our way to issue 50! No lie - I'm going to have to reread a lot of these "history" issues, but that's fine. SIKTC remains a modern, non-childhood favorite. In fact, my childhood might not have made it out of this book's world alive!

Tim Seely, Ryan O'Nan, Paolo Armitano and crew's Pretty Hate Machine will be my first comic from Mad Cave Studios, and how could I not buy this? Look at that cover - gnarly! And then, what was the other eye catcher... oh yeah. The title! Naming comics of movies/novels off of popular music titles is a tricky gambit, but I will give this one a fair shake because... finger knives!

Speaking of needing a reread to reorient myself, year. That's this one, too. Regardless, can't wait to jump back in and reexperience all the steeping paranoia and terror that is The House At... series.

Last week's Baroness one-shot that kicked off the month-long Silent Missions "Event" exceeded my expectations by a mile. I've always loved the Crimson Guards - especially Larry Hama's CGs with their plastic surgery, swappable domestic identities - so I'm fully expecting this to be on par.

And we close this week with the latest issue of Larry Hama's long-running ARAH. Last issue was probably my favorite Joe comic in a long time, and that makes sense. I dig the more fantastical elements of the Energon Universe Joe book, but nothing beats that time-tested Hama realism. While I haven't read this book since circa 1991, coming back to it with issue 300 showed me that some more SciFi elements had snuck in here, too, and it's always great to get something that reminds me of why I loved this book as a kid.

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Playlist:

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

Black Sabbath - Technical Ecstasy

Blood Mother - The Night Fires (single)

Gylt - I Will Commit A Holy Crime: Tandem

Young Widows - Power Sucker

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Tender Prey

Jozef Van Wissem - Praise Shall Sound From Shore To Shore... (single)

Afghan Whigs - House of I (single)

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• VII: The Chariot

• Pince of Wands

• Princess of Wands

Fast action results in swift and positive results.

Beyond Chicago!!!

I am LOVING this new sunn O))) record! Something about the big, thick sonic slabs that these guys' music on vinyl produces as it leaks like scorched engine oil from my speakers and spreads out over everything around it! I had to leave my record player behind for a few days to drive up to Chicago, but that's not killing the absolute joy this release has left me with.

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What a F*cking Weekend!

Beyondfest's Beyond Chicago turned out to be a blast from start to finish! Here's what I saw and what I thought:

Friday, 4/03:

I knew nothing about Writer Derek Kolstad's Normal going in other than Bob Odenkirk was in it. I can vouch for the trailer above - it does not ruin any of the surprises. Still better to avoid trailers, but I post them here for posterity anyway, so if you need a little bit of a whetting, this should do it. Especially when I confirm that this flick is every bit as action-packed, clever and funny as it looks. I'm a moderate fan of both Kolstad's John Wick flicks and his other Odenkirk-collaborations Nobody, but this? This I fucking LOVE! 

Saturday, 4/04:  

Not sure I am qualified to make this statement, because I'm definitely not the most versed person in the history of Martial Arts flicks, but still, I feel okay speculating that Kenji Tanigaki's The Furious might have the most ambitious fight choreography ever filmed. This flick is a FIREBALL; The Furious sets up quick and then takes off and never gives the audience a breath. No exhales, just a straight line of amazingly choreographed (and oddly mostly non-lethal) violence for most of the movie's runtime. 

Absolutely GLORIOUS!!!

Sunday, 4/05: 

A double feature of David Kittredge's new documentary, Boorman and the Devil, and the film it discusses, the oft-maligned Exorcist II: The Heretic. 

I'd never seen The Heretic before. I'd always heard it was "awful," but honestly, that wouldn't stop me. Really, this one has always kind of been in short supply, and also, as one of the few films that actually scares me, I just never thought The Exorcist needed a sequel. Combine that with my vitriol for part 3, and I've spent my life avoiding this one. But how, oh how dear reader, could I pass up seeing this on Easter Sunday? 

Seeing Kittredge's documentary gave me so much context for finally seeing The Exorcist II; not just how Sir John Boorman ended up directing it, or why the studio went in such a unique direction with the sequel to one of the most successful films ever up to that point, but also, Boorman's often ignored place in "New Hollywood" and how this film fit into that era. 

Excellent documentary that I would recommend to everyone, regardless of how you feel about the sequel. And I can say that because I did not love The Heretic. Again, Kittredge's film gave me the context to appreciate a lot about Boorman's film, but my major hang-up was Richard Burton, and he was a major hang-up. I won't be disrespectful, but I can tell you that, as much as I loathe George C. Scott's performance in part 3, I dislike Burton's more. 

Didn't think that would be possible.

As a whole, however, I'll take The Heretic any day over Legion. Any day. With The Exorcist II, John Boorman created a truly unique film, and I respect the hell out of his vision, even if the end result doesn't turn out to be super palatable. 

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Read:

I finished Stephen King's original The Gunslinger in just three days. An unbelievably wonderful experience, re-reading this for the first time in over twenty years, opening the exact copy I acquired circa 1990, the large grain of the paper it's printed on in and of itself a beautiful, evocative memory.

Before moving on to The Drawing of the Three, I realized that I have had Bev Vincent's The Road to the Dark Tower: Exploring Stephen King's Magnum Opus on my shelf since it was published in the early 00s, and I've never read it!

So, after finishing The Gunslinger, I opened Vincent's book for the first time with the idea that after every one of King's installments in the Dark Tower series, I would read the corresponding chapter in Vincent's book.

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Playlist:

Bakermat - The Ringmaster

Mascara - Going Postal

Blut Aus Nord - 777 Cosmosophy

Jozef Van Wissem - Praise Shall Sound From Shore to Sea

Justin Hamline - The House With Dead Leaves

Nabihah Iqbal - Weighing of the Heart

Idles - Crawler

Dire Straits - Money For Nothing

Boston - Eponymous

Dead Maus - Random Album Title

Firewater - Gett Off the Cross... We Need The Wood For The Fire

Talking Heads - Remain in Light

Cop Shoot Cop - Release

Corrosion of Conformity - Good God/Baad Man

Flying Lotus - Yasuke

Flying Lotus - Los Angeles

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• 8 of Discs - Prudence

• XVIII: The Moon

• 2 of Disks - Change

Lots of Earthly concerns and the neurosis they conceal. Diligence, balance and a keen eye so as not to be caught unaware by my own shortcomings. Already sussed this out a few days back, so I'll take this spread as confirmation.

New Music from Monolord

New music from Monolord. I've always been a bit on the fence with these guys. Nothing on them, I think they came into my awareness at the same time a bunch of other similar bands did, back around twelve years ago. This track is pretty cool, though. New album, Neverending, is out May 29th on Relapse. Pre-order HERE.

 

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Watch:

I cannot believe that James Gunn has made me care so much about characters I loathe in all previous iterations, and just aesthetically in general. But that's where we are.

I get the kind of chills watching this, I used to get from Marvel's trailers waaaaay back before they sank the ship with Civil War. And while Gunn is the "showrunner" here, no small debt to Director Craig Gillespie, whose I, Tonya and 2011 Fright Night remake both rule (yeah, I like the remake. Deal with it!).

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Playlist:

Steve Moore - Jimmy & Stiggs OST

sunn O))) - Loser

High On Fire - Cometh the Storm

Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous

The Mountain Goats - Bleed Out

Barry Adamson - Scala! OST

White Hex - Gold Nights

Saigon Blue Rain - Oko

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Live God

Double Life - Indifferent Stars

Mascara - Going Postal

Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain

The Replacements - Tim

Spoon - The Want My Soul

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Card:

Quick pull before I headed out on my trip:

• 5 of Swords: Defeat

• VI: The Lovers

• XV: The Devil

I drove up to Chicago today. This trip started out as a "holy shit, we made it to 50!" celebration for Mr. Brown and me, and that's still essentially what it is, but it's also become a "Holy shit, Beyondfest is now in Chicago, too!" trip. I'm staying with my sister and her husband through Monday morning, at which time I will drive down to the South side and set up camp at Mr. Brown's until we see Plague Bringer on Saturday. First show in 10 years, and first show for either of us. Can't wait.

In the interim, I'm just soaking in not going to work for seven days (!) and Chicago! This pull tells me two things: I'm lessened without K with me (she didn't want to take this many days off work), and I'm open to squashing pre-conceived notions and receiving new, possibly 'heretical' ideas.

Bring it on!!!

Doves Vs. Yeti

 

Doves have a greatest hits coming out, and that's great. I'm not really a greatest hits guy (there are a few), but this... what the hell is this track? I mean, recording session at St. Benedict's Abby? This is GLORIOUS!

You can order the best of HERE. Or, my advice, seek out their albums and get to know their music that way. 

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NCBD:

Light week, which is fine with me. 

The past two issues of this book have been incredible, especially when you consider it costs only $2 more than most books from the big 2. 

I skipped most of the GIJOE team-focused silent issues from a few months back - I think I only picked up the Beachhead one - but the upcoming Cobra-centric issues are a must! First up - that sexy, leather-clad terrorist herself, Anastasia DeCobray, AKA, the Baroness!

There appears to be a reciprocal relationship between how much I don't like the cover of an issue of this series and how good that issue is. Issue four was a book I nearly passed on, and it ended up being the best single issue of a series I've read so far this year. If that's any indication, this should be a fantastic issue!

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Watch:

Here's one of the flicks I'm going to be attempting to get tickets to for Friday's Beyondfest line-up.

I know nothing about this (didn't watch the trailer), but I'm intrigued by the little I've heard.

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Playlist:

Steve Moore - Jimmy & Stiggs OST

Steve Moore - VFW OST

Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years

sunn O))) - Domkirke

sunn O))) & Boris - Altar

Tangerine Dream - Sorcerer OST

Anthrax - Persistence of Time

sunn O))) - Loser

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• 9 of Disks: Gain

• 7 of Disks: Worry

• XIV: The Sun

The ebb and flow of Earthly assets disappear in the blinding light of understanding.