7 Days of Badalamenti: Day 6 - She Would Die For Love

 

"She Would Die For Love," from Julee Cruise's 1993 album The Voice of Love, produced by Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch. The instrumental version earned considerably more momentum as the opening credit sequence soundtrack the year before in Lynch's much-maligned prequel film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. The the latter is the version I am more familiar, and taken, with, but both have their merits.

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Cast:

This morning The Horror Vision launches a new spin-off podcast, The Horror Vision Presents: Elements of Horror. This is a project that brings in my good friend Missi, as well as the other THV folks when they're able. My 2022 Wrapped from our hosting platform Anchor shows The Horror Vision created more content this past year than 77% of our contemporaries, and that felt good. This new show is something I'd been wanting to do for a while: a place where we could talk non-genre flicks that contain Horror Elements. And oh, what a list we have so far! The first episode is on Jim Jarmusch's beautiful, beautiful film Only Lovers Left Alive, but from here we have some films I cannot wait to talk about. Here's a small tease:

Ryan Gosling's Lost River

Nicholas Verso's Boys in Trees

Adam Rifkin's The Dark Backward

David Lynch's Lost Highway

And a whole lot more beyond those. That's just scratching the surface! The first episode is now on all streaming platforms - you can even hit play up on the little Spotify widget in the upper right-hand corner of this page. 

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Watch:

Saturday night I caught Lorcan Finnegan's new film, Nocebo:

Another solid film from Finnegan, who popped onto my radar with his Without Name. 

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Read:

I finishe Irvine Welsh's The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs last night in one Heruclean jaunt of reading that lasted most of the evening and well into the small hours of the night. Just like the first time I read it, back in 2006 upon its release, I could not put those last two hundred pages down. Having only gotten back into reading Welsh after a self-imposed hiatus (his voice tends to affect my own writing, and I wanted to steer clear of that for most of the projects I've been on for the last decade), I'm temped to say this is Welsh's best behind Glue, which will most likely always remain my favorite. Secrets is fantastic though, and creates such unrelenting pathos for all the characters through rotating first-person accounts from nearly the entire cast, that when you reach the last act, well, it's fraught with tension. He sets up several really great "gotta-sees," and balances them in such an expert way that you often lose sight of one for whichever is currently "on screen," only to have Welsh juggle them in front of you again and immediately re-ignite your curiosity for what's been in the background for several chapters. 

Really great book. Now, I'm feeling that void of having just finished a great book and really wanting to jump into one of Welsh's newer books that I haven't read. Not sure that will happen before the end of the year, so I will most likely pick Will Carver's Psycopaths Anonymous back up. 

I began it directly after I finished Hinton Hollow Death Trip and quickly realized my genre interests had shifted a bit. From what I did read, there's a definite Fight Club influence here, although not in an egregious way. I loved HHDT, so I'm very much looking forward to more Carver!

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Playlist:

Zombi - Shape Shift

Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me

Lustmord - Dark Matter

Beach House - Depression Cherry

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

Rodney Crowell - Christmas Everywhere

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

More on the money front, which has been an open loop for a while. I need to square this CC bill soon, before the no-interest period runs out, but hidden costs continue to keep the balance level. This is nothing dire, but it would definitely be nice to be at 0 by year's end. 

Lynne Davison's Mandrake

 

Opeth isn't the only band that breathes November to me. TV On the Radio has also long been synonymous with the penultimate month of the year, though I'm not entirely sure why. With both bands, I think it goes back to the first couple of years after I moved to L.A. I was really digging in and establishing myself, and I spent a lot of time listening to music (as I always do). Whatever the reason, TVOTR is always a band I "feel" more when the skies are grey and the air has a nip to it.

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Watch:

Yesterday I watched the latest film to hit Shudder, Lynne Davison's Mandrake. Super solid Irish Folk Horror. 

If you dig flicks like Lorcan Finnegan's Without Name or George Popov's The Droving, you'll dig this one. Very subtle, brooding and ominous. Here's the press solicitation:

Mandrake follows probation officer Cathy Madden, who is given the task of rehabilitating notorious killer ‘Bloody’ Mary Laidlaw back into society after twenty years of jail. Cathy has always believed that every client deserves a shot at redemption, but her beliefs are firmly tested when two children disappear near Mary’s farm.

This is the kind of movie where the setting is as much a character as the actors, and Davison and crew could not have chosen wiser. Mary's "farm" has so much character, you can practically smell the place whenever the film takes you there. Mary herself, played by Derbhle Crotty could not be creepier in her stoicism, leaving you wondering about her motives and machinations pretty much from the first time she appears on screen. Likewise lead Deirdre Mullins's aforementioned Officer Madden. Mullins plays this character so close to the chest that you can feel the disappointments in her history before they're ever mentioned in the film. 

Over the last year, Folk Horror has become such a thing that I went from being excited by it to having a healthy dose of skepticism whenever a new film hits. Mandrake, however, is quite solid and a definite recommendation for those nights when you're looking for something more cerebral and less bombastic. Not that there isn't blood, because there most certainly is that, too.

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Playlist:

Opeth - Watershed

Electric Wizard - Dopethrone

Boy Harsher - Lesser Man

Revocation - Teratogenesis EP

Revocation - Netherheaven

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

A lot of emotional work ahead in order to advance to a place where those 'feelings' won't interfere with my better judgment.