New Puppet Combo Game Coming to Switch!!!

Spent a couple hours playing Myrkur's back catalogue yesterday, and it reminded me how much I dig their music. 

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Play:

Holy smokes - another new Puppet Combo game coming to Switch! Check out this trailer and the amazing announcement that accompanied it:

    

"Night at the Gates of Hell combines the 1980s Italian zombie aesthetic of Lucio Fulci, with nail biting survival horror gameplay. Players must navigate desolate Mediterranean cities in search of clues, weapons and items to make an escape. Encounters range from crazed cultists to flesh hungry zombies to massive abominations - all must be taken down with extreme precision, because only headshots kill these maggot-filled monsters." 

 I'll admit - I haven't gotten very far in Stay Out of the House, however, I'm finding that my interest in these games isn't so much about solving them, as it is just experiencing the amazing environments they put players in. This looks to be no different, so I pre-ordered mine the moment I saw this in my youtube feed!

Night at the Gates of Hell is a full-on Lucio Fulci love letter that drops September 9th!

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Watch:

A new trailer for John Pata's second feature-length film, Black Mold, dropped yesterday. 

I've been waiting for this one for a while, although I no longer remember whatever put it on my radar to begin with. This looks as though it will be quite a ride, and I'm hoping maybe this is one I'll get to see at this year's Beyondfest, if all the cards fall in my favor.

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Playlist:

Pale Dian - Narrow Birth

Pale Dian - Feral Birth

Myrkur - M

Myrkur - Eponymous

Myrkur - Mareidt

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Undreamble Abysses

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium Nahab

Godflesh - Purge

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Oracle:

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

• Seven of Wands

• Ten of Swords

• Three of Swords

 

A stabilizing victory over calamity sows new, stronger ties. This, I believe, is a direct answer to a question I have a character in the book stuck in. Only through betrayal and arrival at the precipice of disaster do they find the relationship that will ultimately unlock triumph. 

Or something like that.

Day of the Dead

 

As is my custom, here's Opeth's Dirge for November to initiate our Day of the Dead. I'm not quite sure how Opeth became my official band of the month November, but it happened. I'll be digging into the band's back catalogue all month, and Blackwater Park is always where I start that particular journey.

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31 Days of Halloween:

10/1 - Trick 'r Treat

10/2 - Barbarian

10/3 - Hellraiser ('84)

10/4 - Phenomena

10/5 - Hellraiser (2022)

10/6 - The Dark Backward

10/7 - Sick/The Beyond

10/8 - Werewolf By Night

10/9 - Something in the Dirt

10/10 - Let the Right One In Episode 1/Lux Aeterna

10/11 - My Best Friend's Exorcism/Grimcutty

10/12 - Smile

10/13 - Monstrous/VHS (Amateur Night segment)

10/14 - Halloween Kills

10/15 - Halloween Ends/Ed Wood/Plan 9 From Outer Space

10/16 - Spider Baby/101 Scariest Horror Movie Moments/Night's End/Behemoth

10/17 - Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

10/18 - Random Acts of Violence/Two Witches/Let the Right One In Episode 2

10/19 - Footprints on the Moon/976-EVIL

10/20 - Alison's Birthday/Tone Deaf

10/21 - Elviria's Haunted Hills/Popcorn

10/22 - Resolution

10/23 - The Endless

10/24 - VHS 99

10/25 - Tigers Are Not Afraid

10/26 - Bliss

10/27 - Deadstream/Host

10/28 - The Convent

10/29 - Lot 36 (GDT's CoC ep. 1)/George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead 3D/Return of the Living Dead

10/30 - Lords of Salem

10/31 - 31/Treehouse of Horror XXXIII/Hocus Pocus/Night of the Living Dead (68)

That's a wrap on yet another 31 Days of Halloween. Of course, my love of Horror movies doesn't stop there - I'm actually taking K to see Smile this evening - but there's a TON of non-Horror I need to get to, and November/December is typically the time of year when I get psyched for the, ahem, 'Prestige' pictures the studios release, and that carries over into my daily life as well. 

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Read:

Still inspired by seeing Lucio Fulci's The Beyond: The Composer's Cut at Beyondfest last month, I returned home from Los Angeles and began re-reading Eibon Press's outstanding The Beyond series, where Stephen Romano and Pat Carbajal adapt and explore Lucio Fulci's masterpiece:

I've been wanting to do this re-read for some time, as it will dovetail nicely with me finally ordering a copy of the recently released Escape From The Beyond #1.

I very much dig Romano's extrapolation of the over-story Fulci thinly draped across his three "Gates of Hell" films, and can't wait to see where he takes the sequel, now firmly new territory. The previous books from Eibon - The Beyond, The Gates of Hell, and House By the Cemetery - are all adaptations with flourishes that hint at being further advanced in this new series. 

Whether by intention or after sight, Fulci built an extremely ripe mythos with these three films, and it's awesome to see so talented a creator as Romano - who clearly loves the material - do what the master himself never got the chance to do. 

Bring it all together. 

There will, of course, be those who say the ending of The Beyond is perfect and shouldn't be messed with. To that, I'd say I agree with the first half; if someone were to remake or plan a film sequel, I'd be a lot more trepidacious. Swapping mediums gives Romano and now artist Jeff Zurnow an unlimited bag of visual tricks, so let's see what they do with it. If you don't end up liking it, these books need not affect the film at all. But imagine the possibilities; we've all wondered what happens after John and Liza end up in Schweik's painting...

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Playlist:

Various -Shawn's Halloween Playlist

Ritual Howls - Turkish Leather

John Carpenter - Lost Themes

John Carpenter - Lost Themes II

John Carpenter - Lost Themes III: Alive After Death

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Card:

Being that November 1st is, in some manner of speaking, the beginning of my new year, I wanted to make this pull pretty comprehensive. To that end, I began with the Raven Tarot:

I see this as denoting a return on the investments of my time/energy on various projects.

Next, to move beyond the general scope, I wanted to pull a spread using Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, (which you can buy HERE.)

Ace of Cups and Swords both imply breakthroughs, with the addition of the Eight of Cups telling the breakthroughs may come in the form of recognizing my errors and thus, correcting them. Again, this all seems to point to my current project. 

Jehnny Beth - I'm The Man

 

I have a very push/pull with this video. Two days ago my good friend Jacob sent me a link to Jehnny Beth's debut record, To Love is to Live. You may remember her from Savages, whose 2013 debut Silence Yourself still resounds as one of my favorite records of the previous decade. Savages' follow-up Adore Life came out in 2016 and just kind of left me flat. I go back to it every now and again, but the 'a-ha' moment has never come. Still, I hold out hope that one day it might. 

So too, my first couple of attempts at listening to To Love is to Live were completely unsuccessful. I put the record away, went about my business, and came back to it later for a fresh perspective. This time, I perused the track listing before jumping in from the beginning, as I am most often wont to do, and decided to start with the fifth track on the record, "A Place Above", simply because the listing said featuring Cillian Murphy, and I was curious what that would sound like. You can actually hear that track in the video above for track six, "I'm The Man", as it serves as something of a prologue to the song. I'm happy to report, from this track on, the album opened to me in a way that very much made me appreciate Ms. Beth in a way I don't think I have before. The video above, directed by Anthony Byrne, is gorgeously shot and lit, even if the theatrics themselves that comprise the narrative of the video's run time leave me a little harumphed. 

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Watch:

If you've listened to any of the recent episodes of The Horror Vision - we've been weekly for a month or two now - you'll have heard me talk about Eibon Press's four-issue comics expansion/adaptation of Lucio Fulci's The Beyond. I loved the book, and immediately ordered the trade paperback collection The Gates of Hell, which does for Fulci's City of the Living Dead what the aforementioned comic did for The Beyond. There's a big picture here, and it excites the F*CK out of me. One of the things that converted me to such a huge fan of Fulci's Gates of Hell Trilogy is the mythos, the larger picture that can be glimpsed beneath the films. It reminds me of HP Lovecraft's mythos, and I think Eibon Press is breaking serious ground by going in and fleshing it out. 

After talking about this on our show, Eibon Press founder Sean Lewis hit me up online. There will be an interview coming up down the road, but before that, some more reviews, as he sent review copies of a lot of other Eibon books with my Gates of Hell trade. 

First up was House By the Cemetery, three issues that further my favorite Fulci film in ways that directly connect it to the other two movies in the series. Next, that Gates of Hell trade is calling my name, so first, K and I re-watched City of the Living Dead last night.

Easily the poorest of the three films in this cycle, the comic will only be able to improve the story, for which there is only the barest hint of in the film. Don't get me wrong, I still dig it, but even that clipped, nightmare logic that makes The Beyond work so well kind of fails here, as we move from scene to scene with a pretty transparent disregard for anything but the gore and atmosphere. 

Interestingly, while this is the weakest of the three Gates of Hell flicks as far as story is concerned, City contains the best FX in any of these: Bob's drill-through-the-head death scene doesn't suffer from the usual tail-end let down present in most of these movies, where you can see how the actor is replaced by a close-up of the model. Below, compare Bob's death with the infamous 'gut-spewing' scene from this same movie, where you can clearly see the actress replaced by a dummy (again, not badmouthing here, just saying).

I should add, these are some especially gross-out clips (okay, really just the second one), so press play at your own risk:

 

 

Anyway, as I said, Eibon press's Gates of Hell comic can only improve on this one, so I can't wait to dig in later today.

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Playlist:

Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

Me and That Man - Songs of Love and Death

Queens of the Stone Age - ... Like Clockwork

Curtis Harding - Face Your Fear

Venue - One Without a Second

Deafheaven - 10 Years Gone

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Card:

Twos are often an indication of balance, I can't help feeling that is a spot-on assessment of the morning so far. 

Two's also indicate cycles, shorter cycles, and I feel a few loops closing in the near future. This is good, as I seem to constantly be opening more of them.

Isolation: Day 143

The Two Minutes to Late Night covers EP is up until Midnight tonight and it is packed with goodness! Here's my favorite track. Download HERE. Remember, proceeds go to The Cancer Research Inst. and the artists who contributed!

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I just went back and looked at yesterday's post - the HTML embed codes I used didn't translate! This is because Blogger is changing its interface, and I have to say, the new one SUCKS. It's taking me forever to write these now, so after more years than I can remember off the top of my head, this site may end up closing up shop. We'll see.

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Last week Eibon Press released the fourth and final issue of their adaptation/expansion of Lucio Fulci's The Beyond. I ordered issue one a few weeks back, loved it, and went back and ordered the rest yesterday.

There are several editions of these, with various bells and whistles. I went for the basic ones - no signature or art prints - simply because I'm not really one for all the extras. Just give me the book.

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Playlist:
Mike Patton - Mondo Cane
Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers - L.A.M.F.
Contours - 20th Century Masters
NIN - Pretty Hate Machine
NIN - Ghosts VI: Locusts
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Soviet Soviet - Endless

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Wow. Okay already.

What is happening here, what I am trying my best to follow through on, is submitting query letters for the new book. I sent my first yesterday. I'll send another today. The Hierophant represents the established order - ie the traditional publishing industry - and although I've eschewed it for my two previous releases, and will sidestep it again if I don't drum up any agent or publisher interest by October - I'm attempting to use the new book to go down that route. We'll see. I'd rather just publish it through The Horror Vision Press, but why not try the other way, too?

Isolation: Day 131 New Jaye Jayle!

Another track from the forthcoming album Prisyn, out August 7th on Sargent House. Pre-order HERE.

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I've had Fulci on the mind of late. Yesterday after work I threw on The Beyond, and my love of this flick - which is still pretty new, as previously I just did not get it at all - prompted me to go to Eibon Press and finally order one of their Fulci comics, specifically the first issue of The Beyond, the signature edition that comes with the premiere of the US version of the film's soundtrack by Mitch and Ira Yuspeh.



The edited, US version of the film, re-titled 7 Doors of Death, was the only one available here until Quentin Tarantino helped Grindhouse Releasing put out The Beyond in its original form in 1996. The 7 Doors of Death version eschewed Fabio Frizzi's soundtrack for one by the Yuspehs.

The comics Eibon Press makes all look fantastic. I've been curious about their Fulci stuff for a while, but I've been unsure if the books are simply adaptations of the films or extensions of them, the latter what I'd be interested, the former not so much. Either way, the inclusion of the score on this package - even if its not vinyl - is what ended up sealing the deal for me. And worse case scenario, I have a cool comic based on the film, too!

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Playlist:

Stereolab - Mars Audiac Quintet
The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
The Smiths - Louder Than Bombs
The Smiths - Meat is Murder
La Matos - Summer of '84 OST
M.I.A. - Arular
Baroness - Gold and Grey
La Hell Gang - Thru Me Again
House of Pain - Same As It Ever Was

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Card:

I get it. I've been tempted to tinker with the finished product. I've seen this card enough lately to know I should just leave it alone and concentrate on moving on.

Isolation: Day 126 - Brandon Cronenberg's Possessor Gets a Trailer!

I feel as though I've been waiting for this trailer forever. Now that it's here, I really just want the movie. The real shame is, if not for COVID, Brandon Cronenberg's sophomore flick would most likely be premiering at Beyondfest. As it stands, I guess I'll be doing a big VOD event for it when the release is finally announced (please announce soon!)

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Late last week I caught wind of William Lustig's company Blue Underground having released a 3-Disc, 4K Blu Ray edition of Lucio Fulci's House By the Cemetery. I love this flick - while it took me a while to come around on The Beyond and City of the Living Dead (I love both now), House has always been a film that fascinates me. So as soon as I saw this, I ordered it. Pricey, but worth it.

The restoration is, as with all Blue Underground's restorations - gorgeous. If you go to this edition's page on Blu-Ray.com (HERE), you can read about the transfer and see some screen shot comparisons. The second disc is filled with extras, including a lot of interviews with the actors and crew, and the third disc is a CD edition of Walter Rizzati's brilliant score for the film.

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Playlist:

Walter Rizzati - House By the Cemetery OST
Primus - Antipop
M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
Moderat - II
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
Elephant Tree - Habits
Cypress Hill - IV
Flying Lotus - You're Dead!
Nine Inch Nails - The Slip
Agnes Obel - Citizen of Glass
Brainiac - Hissing Prigs in Static Couture
David Lynch and Marek Zebrowski - Polish Night Music

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Card:

Power struggles, internal or external. I'm taking this as a warning that discipline will be needed to fully reintegrate my writing time back into The Secret Life of Murder, now that my belabored short story Fixation on a Coworker is finally finished.

Coworker proved extremely difficult to write; I worked on the thing off and on for a year and three months. I finally brought it in at ~7700 words, then decided I wanted to try submitting it to a publication I recently discovered called Infernal Ink. Some of my stories skew into what I'd call Erotic Horror, and this story especially plays in that arena. There's an overarching theme - or character actually - that runs through these stories, so even though they are stand alone, they're part of a bigger story slowly forming in my head. Anyway, Infernal Ink's submissions cut off at 5K, so I knuckled down and decided to practice one of my favorite parts of writing - editing. I cut the story down to 6K, then down another thousand to 5K.

It felt good! The story as it was is probably perfect at 6K. Chopping it down more wasn't easy, but I eliminated a supporting character arc that originally dovetailed with the protagonist's, eased the throttle back on some of my more descriptive passages, and landed it clean. It was at that point I realized Infernal Ink's submissions are closed, as their upcoming October issue will be the magazine's final issue as they switch gears to focus on book publishing.

Waste of time? Not. At. All. The editing process really bolstered my confidence in a story that otherwise had me running in prosaic circles, and that's never a bad thing. Plus, I found an awesome publisher/magazine in the process (all the issues are on Kindle for under $3).