The Cramps - Surfin' Dead Live!!!

Howzabout one of my favorite tracks by The Cramps to kick off Monday? I'm off Thursday and Friday this week, and you can betcher arse I'm going to be listening to more of these guys! Originally published on - get this - their Gravest Hits album, which came out before their debut full-length, Songs the Lord Taught Us. Think of it the same way Joy Division's Substance Collection is a collection of early singles that predate the recording of their two studio albums. Either way, Surfin' Dead blew up when it was included on the soundtrack for Dan O'Bannon's 1987 Return of the Living Dead. This particular version is from the Smell of Female live album.

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31 Days of Halloween:

I hate that we're not even a week out from the end of October! I'll be cruising directly into Noirvember again this year, and plan to try Dreamcember after that, but 31 Days of Horror is my favorite. 

I must say, for a film I did not care much for upon first seeing, Rob Zombie's Argento-esque Lords of Salem has become a favorite of mine. This film is so insanely blasphemous that it sometimes feels dangerous. Now that's a feat of no small measure. 

Mr. Zombie really created something special with this one. I like most of his films to varying degrees, but there's usually something I roll my eyes at in each one. Not here. This is dead serious in the way it handles its subject matter. That attitude, combined with the stunning setting, cinematography, and John 5's score, really make this a must-watch every year. Hard to believe I lived so long without it.

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1) Incident On and Off a Mountain Road///The Funhouse (theatrical viewing)

2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1 Ep 4, "Dig That Cat... He's Real Gone"///Cabin in the Woods

3) Satanic Hispanics

4) Creature From the Black Lagoon 3D///Lucky McKee's May

5) The Strangers

6) [REC]

7) The Autopsy - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities///[REC]2

8) Where the Devil Roams

9) The Roost

10) Good Boy///The Viewing - GDT Cabinet of Curiosities

11) Blood Moon (aka Wolf Girl)///All Hallows' Eve (The Last Drive-In Helloween)

12) The Shining///The Simpsons Ssn 6 Treehouse of Horror V

13) Stream (2024)

14) Creepshow (1982; theatrical viewing)

15) They Live in the Grey///John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness (theatrical viewing)

16) Black Phone 2

17) Scream 2///Mayhem (The Last Drive-In Blu-ray

18) The Exorcist

19) The Wolf of Snow Hollow///The Taking of Deborah Logan

20) Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight (theatrical screening)///Cellar Dweller

21) The Black Phone///"Dream Kill" (segment in V/H/S85

22) The Transfiguration///Black Phone 2

23) Shelby Oaks

24) Clown in a Cornfield/// Jack-O (The Last Drive-In Splatterween double feature)

25) Ken Russell's Gothic/// Inferno/// Lords of Salem

26) Night of the Living Dead 1990/// Night of the Demons

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Read:

Persistence paid off this week. Previously, I'd cursed Netflix for a seemingly small theatrical opening for Guillermo Del Toro's Frankenstein. I'd just about given up hope of seeing such a clearly cinematic film on the big screen when, lo and behold, our local arthouse theatre, The Belcourt, added screenings to their website. I procured passes for this coming Thursday, and in the interest of freshening up my recall on Mary Shelley's original novel, I began an impromptu re-read. 

Some readers may recall from previous posts I did a few years back that I have in my possession the hardback edition illustrated by Bernie Wrightson. This one is on display with several other key pieces of Frankenstein memorabilia, so I tend to eye it every day and briefly flirt with the idea of revisiting it. Now is the perfect time.

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Playlist:

Type O Negative - World Coming Down

Lebanon Hanover - Let Them Be Alien

Bauhaus - Burning From the Inside

Perturbator - Age of Aquarius

The Cure - Pornography

Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me

Beastmilk - Climax

Steve Moore - Jimmy & Stiggs OST

Dream Division - Beyond the Mirror's Image

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Suspended in Dusk edition)

Various - Return of the Living Dead OST

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Card:

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

And Grimm's Kickstarter for The Eldritch Lace Tarot deck is live for just a handful more hours! You can go check it out and support it HERE.

• XII: Hanged Man

• Five of Pentacles

• Page of Swords

Decisions will need to be made that might result in a conflict over money. Stay firm and prepare to be combative. Hold your ground and you will persevere.

Perfect timing. Waging a bit of a war with payroll at the moment. 

Ashen Grey Clouds of Doom Bring Purple Rain

As I continue to work my way through that stack of records that Relapse Records put out in 2020 and that I won for their 20th Anniversary, one of the bands I had no experience with whatsoever is Inter Arma. Garbers Days Revisited is an all-covers record, and I have to say, my first listen was super fun. Opening with Ministry's "Scarecrow" - super relevant to my recent listening habits - the group move through versions of "Southern Man", "March of the Pigs",  and "Running Down a Dream", to name a few. All these versions range from sludged-up to more or less straight forward, such as the above Prince track. 

Very cool record with one of my favorite album covers in a while, so I'll definitely be digging deeper into the Inter Arma catalogue.

 

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Read:

Not realizing that Bernie Wrightson's graphic novel adaptation of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein is out of print, I ordered what I thought was a copy from Amazon a few days ago. What arrived instead was the illustrated novel that features 40 of Wrightson's drawings.  Needless to say, I was a bit disappointed - I've read Wrightson's sequel, Frankenstein Alive, Alive,  but never that original. What makes it worse - the book goes for a minimum of $150 used with the nice version garnering between $300-$500 - is Bernie Wrightson's Frankenstein adaptation was a book that routinely sat on the shelves at the borders I helped manage for years, and I just never got around to buying it. 

Regardless of the letdown,  looking at the illustrated novel, I realized it's been since Junior High since I actually read the original, and this new version has a bunch of cool supplemental material - a forward by Stephen King, a "historical context" essay and timeline, and the 1831 introduction by the author herself. Needless to say, this is my next read.

Looking through the illustrations, I realize what a shame it is I came to really appreciate Wrightson so late, as Mr. Wrightson's work is only describable as exquisite.

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Playlist:

Bit of a 90s parade of late, but that doesn't happen all to often, so I'm going with it:

Death - Human

Faith No More - The Real Thing

Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction (Deluxe)

Deafheaven - 10 Years Gone

Disappears - Pre Language

Garbage - Eponymous

The Maine - You Are OK

Inter Arma - Garbers Days Revisited

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Card:

As I often view this card as a nod toward saving money or 'nesting,' I've taken recent interpretations to possibly reference avoiding tempting social situations. I've had about five social outings - all super small with only one or two other people outside my own household - in the last year (hence this blog's brief stint titled 'Quarantine Junkie'), but recently, I've felt the urge to see a friend or two. Nope. Time to batten back down that Will and get the course set straight ahead. I recently came across this article that should serve as enough of a reminder. The idea of our air quality being so adversely affected by a record number of cremations is baffling - we're living in the setting for a Sci-Fi Horror Film, and not even aware of it on a day-to-day level. 

Bernie Wrightson & Steve Niles' Frankenstein Alive, Alive!

image courtesy of comixology.com

Issue #3 of the sequel to Bernie Wrightson's original visual adaptation of Mary Shelley's classic novel hit the stands this past week and as such is the topic of discussion in this week's edition of Thee Comic Column, over on Joup!