Lustmord Lombardo

When From the recently released The Pulse of Atoms, out last Friday on Ipecac Recordings. Order a copy HERE. 

The idea of these two juggernauts teaming up blew my mind when I first caught wind of this as an upcoming release earlier in the year, and the end result does not disappoint.

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31 Days of Halloween:

When I first saw the trailer for Beware Boiúna at the theatre last month, I was torn. Creature features are not always my jam, and with the unavoidable surface-level comparison to Anaconda - a film I've still never seen and have no intention of seeing - I wasn't very jazzed. That said, there was something about this trailer that felt a bit like Thai/Indonesian Horror. Specifically, David Sodergren's Death Spell. That may be way off, but it flashed through my brain and kept me at least somewhat interested. Then I saw that Mike P. Nelson Directed this. His Silent Night Deadly Night reimagining last year was one of my favorite films (I LOVE seeing nazis die, and that movie had a lot of that!). So last night, I caught a late-ish screening.

The jungle. That's what gives me those creepy, Indo-Thai vibes. The two regions share the geography of hell - i.e. jungle so thick and hot and wet and filled with alien species it would break a westerner like me in probably minutes. And Nelson's film perfectly telegraphs that. Also, it's not just a creature feature; there's some pretty smart human drama going on in the spine of this thing. And gore! This may be the most visceral theatrical viewing since Primate earlier in the year.

Overall, I very much enjoyed it am definitely glad I caught it on the big screen. I'd love to see a making of featurette on this one, just to see/hear what filming was like and how they did some of it. 

1) George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead

2) V/H/S/ playlist

3) The Warriors

4) Big Trouble in Little China

5) Dreamscape

6) Infirmary

7) Beware Boiúna

8) Mile & Serial

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Read:

So here's something I did not expect. I ended up grabbing copies of Marvel's three new "Midnight" series debuts this past Wednesday. The X-Men and Spider-Man aren't really worth talking about, but holy cow did I dig this one:

So let me clarify. It's not like the X-Men: Midnight and Spider-Man: Midnight were bad; they were fine. But FF really grabbed me. Imagine Reed as a pill-poppin' scientist obsessed with opening a rift between worlds and willing to do anything - including sacrifice his assistant Victor - to do so. Now imagine Sue Storm as the head of a dangerous corporation who also want that door between dimensions open, plucking Richards from the maw of the law and putting him to work on this dangerous project, probably for nefarious ends.

Yeah, this one I'll be reading.

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Playlist:

Lustmord & Dave Lombardo - The Pulse of Atoms

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Shapes of Midnight

Swallowed - Lunaterial

Joy Division - Closer

Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

The Sword - Age of Winters

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Blood Lust

Testament - Para Bellum

The Cramps - Gravest Gravy

Ritual Howls - Ruin

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Card:

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

• 16: The Tower

* Five of Swords

• Five of Cups

Change sometimes begins as a disappointing defeat, but to use that as the beginning of something new...

A definite reference to an endeavor I've had a hand in over the last year coming to an end. Or is it?

31 Days of Halloween Begins NOW!!!

 

You know, I was beginning to think I did not like this new album from Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats. The production this time really stripped away some of the charming grime that gives the band their sound. I deleted it from my Apple Music and abstained for a week or so, and when I came back yesterday, I found I really liked it. This song especially. With these kind of low-key 80s synths that start the song and then haunt the mix's background, I don't think I've heard anything like that before.

 

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31 Days of Halloween:

I conceived the idea of beginning this Halloween season with George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead - the greatest zombie movie in the history of zombie movies, in my opinion, months ago.

This is one of those seminal films for people my age. I'd like to think Romero's work - especially on Night-Dawn-Day - transcends my age, but regardless of that, it really is difficult to think of a more astute social commentary with high level practical FX and cinematic swagger. I love everything about this film, from Ken Foree, to Fly Boy to the Hare Krishna Zombie. 

And so, let the list begin!!!

1) George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead

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Playlist:

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Suspended in Dusk)

John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter & Daniel Davies - Cathedral

Metallica - ... And Justice For All

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Shapes of Midnight

Dance with the Dead - Malombra

Blood Mother - Eponymous

Godflesh - Decay

Sisters of Mercy - Floodland

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Card:

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

• Seven of Wands

• Queen of Pentacles

• Eight of Cups

A postive result indeed yesterday at the GI doctor, where I finally found someone willing to talk about fatty liver with me. Despite imaging showing mild/early signs of fatty liver in July (prompted by blood in my urine that turned out to be the herald of this dreadful kidney stone that still has not passed), the doctor brought up the point that all my labs done in March for my annual showed normal liver function. So yes, positive result, especially when you add in the almost three months (four by the time I'm finished) of no alcohol I've adhered to since. Now, Queen of Pentacles denotes stability, but the Eight of Cups reminds me not to rest on my laurels, i.e. I need to shake the inner voice telling me I should just have a beer now if everything is so normal.

Give it time.

Godflesh - Living/Ending

From the just-released penulimate Godflesh record, Decay, which you can order from Relapse Records HERE. This went directly to the top of my list for favorite albums so far this year, and I doubt anything still to come will unseat it. This track in particular, with its heavy breathing at the onset, really speaks to where JKB is at this point. Or so it would seem from an outsider's perspective. 

Kudos on the packaging for this, as well. The record came with a slip mat, sticker and poster. All the bells and whistles, as my grandmother might have said (had she been into Godflesh, which she was not).

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NCBD:

A nice, easy week, but thrilling nonetheless:

The Amazing Spider-Man issue 1000. Wow. I think the first issue of this book I ever bought was #289, so that gives you some perspective. I have zero idea what is going on, continuity-wise, in this book. Doesn't matter. As always, I'm taping in and will tap back out after. But I couldn't miss this one.

I LOVED the first issue of Rick Remender and Steve Epting's Hammerfist SO MUCH that I've been thinking about it all month. 

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Read:

I'm all but tuned out on Shudder of late, and all my issues (see HERE) are only exacerbated by the fact that it's been obvious to me they've slowed down on funding good, new films. There was a time a few years ago where Shudder originals landed constantly, like one a month. And most were excellent, even if they weren't all to my taste. I'm not sure that's true anymore. This, however, looks worth waiting for.

first, there's praise from Stephen King on this one currently circulating where he compares the film to "The Thing meets Silence of the Lambs."

Second, it's co-written and directed by Jordan Downey, whose Headhunter I bought when it came out after we covered it on what I'm realizing now is a very early episode of The Horror Vision. That's enough for me. 

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Playlist:

Steve Moore - Jimmy & Stiggs OST

John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter & Daniel Davies - Cathedral

John Corigliano - Altered States OST

Glenn Danzig - Black Aria

Danzig - Danzig III

Godflesh - Decay

Fear - Live... For the Record

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Card:

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

• 04: The Emperor

• Ten of Pentacles

• Page of Wands

Imposing structure only goes so far - I'm lacking a flash of inspiration in my writing this new and unexpected section of Shadow Play Book 2. Hoping that comes on soon.

New Music From M83!

After not really following anything Anthony Gonzalez has done with M83 since Hurry Up, We're Dreaming (not true - I adore the soundtrack to Knife + Heart), I happened to see the band's 10th album just dropped and upon hitting play I was literally blown away by album opener "Blister Sunrise." 

M83 OWNED my heart for much of 2009-2012, and then just kind of disappeared for me. I saw them live at the Fonda Theatre in 2011 and I think I wept for about half the show, from the moment they opened with "Intro" and brought Zola Jesus out on stage all the way through a set that included pretty much everything I wanted to hear. That was the pinnacle for me.

I'm typing this Thursday night at 11:51 PM CST, listening to the new album I Wrote You A Letter for the first time, humming with excitement at possibly having a new record by this band to adore. 

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Watch:

I did something I had to kind of come around to in my head this past week. I bought a bootleg copy of The Last Drive-In season one on Etsy. 

Let's talk about this for a moment. 

I am steadfastly against pirating any media. I mean, I grew up making cassette dubs and burned discs, but that's different (or so I tell myself). I'm talking about pirating. I never have, I never will.

Except.

In the case of The Last Drive-In, after AMC forced Shudder to cancel it (that's still my read on the situation), all my fandom and good will for Shudder disappeared. I believe I mentioned here previously how I cancelled the annual Shudder sub I've had since 2018 and, as timing would have it, grabbed a limited deal for one year of AMC+ at $30. Now, the optics of that make no sense - AMC is the parent company, so it makes sense to ascribe the blame for the cancellation to them. Why then, would I take punitive measures against Shudder and then turn around and give AMC money?

Well, because I want access to The Last Drive-In, of course. 

Here's the thing, though. Most of the original movies Joe Bob has hosted on that show have long since disappeared. They just don't renew the rights. Even worse, I've noticed when they do add movies back to the service, they often do not replace the Joe Bob episode. This has happened a number of times, most recently (that I noticed) was with The Prowler. 

All of this antagonizing me to no end. Further goading my decision to buy a bootleg copy of the show is the fact that I'd be willing to wager AMC ultimately owns The Last Drive-In and profits off of it. I'd hope Joe Bob and Darcy make money from residual viewings, but if the movies are not kept on the service, that wouldn't be possible. 

Ultimately, I just want to cancel AMC+ and be done with it altogether. I've been slowly moving away from the endless decision-making of streaming - it's literally killing my love of movies - and this will be a HUGE step toward that end. 

So the other night I received my purchase and sat down to watch TLDI Season 1 Episode 1 Movie 1: C.H.U.D.

  

The movie is just as bad as I remembered it being, and there really is no reason to watch it without Joe Bob. But will I watch it again with him?

You betcha!

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Read:

I finished the seventh and final book in my reread of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. The final book, appropriately titled The Dark Tower, was a helluva a ride, and like I anticipated, I remembered almost none of it from my first and only reading back when it was first published in 2002.

I loved this book, with the caveat that, even more than the first time I read it, I did not care for the ending. Well, that's not entirely true. I loved everything up until Roland and the Artist, Patrick Danville, reach the tower and are besieged by the Crimson King. This part felt very hokey to me. Complicating this is the fact that I think this was intentional on King's part. I feel like this ending shares an unintentional kinship with the end of the Sopranos, where the final ten minutes or so feel like the creator saying, "There's no good way to end this, and these are characters, so let's play with that a bit in an over-the-top way." Which is fine. This was truly all about the journey. Also, with the final reiteration of Roland's perpetual cycle we see during the book's coda shoring up the fact that this time, he does have the horn of Eld, perhaps Mike Flanagan can take a page from the other Gunslinger movie (which I never saw) and start as the final iteration. If anyone can take what King has done and create an epic ending, it's Flanagan.

What I did love about this book is everything from page one to about page 794. From Jake and Callahan fighting for their lives in the Dixie Pig, to the underground chase to the Chassit door. All of the Maine stuff, which I thought worked so much better in this book than in Song of Susannah (not that I had any problems with book six), to the battle at Blue Heaven, Ted Brautigan, seeing Stanley again - all of it! The deaths hurt, and so did the parting, but in the end, the epilogue was, as the author suggests at the start of the coda that follows it, the place to stop. 

Interestingly enough, this took me way longer than I anticipated, and about the time Roland and Suze turn down Stuttering Bill's offer of a vehicle to complete the final leg of their journey, I realized I was doing the same thing the characters were doing - putting off going faster simply because I did not want this to end. Even after all the heartache, even in the throes of loss, I just wasn't quite ready. As a result, I pecked at the final one hundred pages, drawing them out over more than a week. And now that I have finished? Well, I just cracked the revised edition of Book 1: The Gunslinger for the first time, and after that, it's time for The Talisman again!

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Playlist:

Ramones - Road to Ruin

Ramones - End of the Century

Steve Moore - VFW OST

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Shapes of Midnight

Godflesh - Purge

The Cramps - Gravest Gravy

Godflesh - Decay

The Misfits - Walk Among Us

The Ocean - Solaris

Anthrax - Attack of the Killer Bs

Type O Negative - October Rust

Godflesh - Decline and Fall

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Card:

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

• Knight of Swords

• Ten of Cups

• 09: The Hermit

Simple: I'm writing while I did this Pull, and this tells me in no uncertain terms to cut down on the exposition and throw in some kind of action. 

Reminders like this can be crucial. It's really easy to get lost in explaining the story - especially when the 'world' is as big as what I'm attempting with the continuation of my Shadow Play series. 

New Music from Godflesh!!!

 

The new album Decay is out next Friday!!! Pre-order your copy HERE.

 

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Watch:

First trailer for one of my most anticipated films of the year - Takashi Miike's Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo. 

Probably about a year out of high school I saw the first, Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant for the first time and was enamored with it the same way I was enamored with a lot of that 80s/early 90s crime cinema. Except, Bad Lieutenant had a considerably more "What the actual fuck?" factor I never could pin down until a rewatch about twenty years ago: there's no plot. I mean, I guess you can say the Nun or Keitel's gambling debt serves as something of a plot, but really those are background threads. The main film is just a diary of debauchery and I love it.

When I saw Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Ports of Call, I was once again blown away. This is back in the 00s when probably 70% of what Nick Cage did constituted hard passes for me, but Herzog drew me in and he did not disappoint. Neither did Cage, whose performance is frenetic, funny, and at times, heartfelt. "That was my favorite crack pipe." Need I say more?

I'm not a huge Takashi Miike fan; frankly, I'm afraid of many of his films. But what I've seen I've dug and this just seems like the best idea. Or, at least as good an idea as NWR doing Maniac Cop. 

What a glorious age of cinema we live in, even as the proprietors of the business perpetually attempt to destroy it.

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Playlist:

Windhand - Eternal Return

Black Sabbath - Sabotage

Black Sabbath - Vol. 4

Chat Pile - Who Loves the Sun

Hangman's Chair - Saddiction

Steve Moore - Jimmy & Stiggs OST

Goatsnake - Black Age Blues

The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicenter

High on Fire - Cometh the Storm

Blut Aus Nord - The Mystical Beast of Rebellion

The Afghan Whigs - Soft Control

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Card:

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

• Ace of Cups

• King of Swords

• XVI: The Tower

A breakthrough of intellect will topple outdated ideas I have about something close to me and open a new path. 

I'm doing a pretty deep rethink on a certain aspect of the Shadow Play sequel, and I believe this is a direct reference to making more progress with that.

There is Hope! New Music from Arab Strap!!!

 

My favorite track (so far) from Arab Strap's just-released ninth studio album Half-Told Tales. This one snuck up on me, so I haven't really had a chance to give it a proper listen, but this first time through? God DAMN! This could be a contender. 

You can order this from Arab Strap HERE.

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Watch:

Last night I sat down in my local big box theatre and was treated to one of the best theatrical experiences of the year. I'm talking about Na Hong-jin's new film Hope. I'm posting a trailer here, but I'd advise you just forego this and go see Hope on the big screen it is a BANGER!

When I posted about this previously, I mentioned that the "Quiet Place" vibes the trailer gave me were probably specifically achieved for the trailer, i.e. what better way to roll out a Korean monster movie in the theatre than by alluding to something that did well and could be somewhat comparable. I dig the two A Quiet Place films I've seen quite a bit, but this is definitely not that. Hope is its own thing, and I absolutely  loved it. So much fun!  

This entire film is about momentum; once it starts, it really goes hard, with only a few "lulls" in the fast-paced action. There's next to no exposition thrown at you, and the ending comes out of nowhere. This has already made it into my top five of the year, and I'm hoping I can go back and see it one more time before it leaves the big screen.

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Watch:

A double watch today, before I get too far away from last weekend's viewing experiment to properly mention it.

A few months back, I wrote about how many Warner Brothers DVDs from 2008-2010 were manufactured substandard materials and had all largely gone bad. I also wrote about how I'd discovered via online discussion threads about this travesty that there exists and email whereby you can contact the company and they will replace your discs.

That turned out to be bullshit. 

I'm rather attached to the packaging for the Blade Runner five-disc box set that Mr. Brown gave me circa 2011, so I ended up tracking down the set on Blu-Ray from eBay and swapping the BR discs into the DVD packaging. Next up, had to take a test toast, and I figured what better excuse to finally sit down over the course of a couple of days and watch all major versions of the film for comparison's sake. 

I was extremely surprised by the results.

First, the Theatrical Cut: This ended up being an aborted attempt at watching the film the way I saw it first, way back as a little kid. Even back in the 90s when new versions sans voice over were surfacing, I defended (not preferred) this original cut simply out of nostalgia and, in hindsight, because the narration was probably the first time I was introduced to that particular Noir trope which does work well on occasion (of all the dames in all the offices, she walks into mine). 

Watching this now - or perhaps more accurately attempting to watch this - I just couldn’t do it. There are a bunch of hinky moments in Ford’s performance I see now that I was either previously blind to or just didn’t want to admit - this film’s iconic footprint allows it to hold itself up by the bootstraps in A LOT of respects - and the narration, which at times feels forced, tired, half-arsed and downright goofy, only accentuates that. So I turned this off, waited a day and starter back in on the Director’s Cut. Something about this viewing or the Director’s Cut felt off. Part of it was I started it after waking up in the middle of the night, made it to JF’s intro and fell back asleep. Finished later that day, and it felt unfamiliar and a little hokey. Especially some of Ford’s mannerisms. Interruptions are never good for watching film, but the answer would reveal itself upon my subsequent viewing of the Final Cut, which is definitely my preferred version.

Director's Cut: This viewing or the Director’s Cut felt off. Part of it was due to the fact that I started the viewing after waking up in the middle of the night. I made it to about where William Sanderson's JF shows up and welcomes Darryl Hannah's Pris into his apartment* and then fell back asleep. I finished the viewing later that day, but something about staring it in the middle made it feel overall unfamiliar and a little hokey. Especially some of Ford’s mannerisms. Interruptions are never good for watching film, but the answer would reveal itself upon my subsequent viewing of the Final Cut, which is definitely my preferred version. (* Where's his other brother Darryl?).

Final Cut: This has been the version of the film I've watched in the last twenty-five years or so, so maybe it's just deep-rooted familiarity, but THIS feels right. I mean, compared to some folks' fandom with this film, I've probably only seen it six or seven times in my life, and probably four of five of those were either Theatrical or Director's cuts, but this Final Cut feels so cohesive, and one of the big factors I landed on for that in thinking about it is the color grading. It's perfect!

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Playlist:

John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter & Daniel Davies - Cathedral

Sumerlands - Dreamkiller

Windhand - Eternal Return

Boards of Canada - Inferno

Yerusalem - The Sublime

Fear - Live... For the Record

Blut Aus Nord - 777 Sect(s)

Blut Aus Nord - 777 The Desanctification

Blut Aus Nord - 777 Cosmosphy

Arab Strap - Half-Told Tales

The Jesus Lizard - Liar

The Damage Manual - Special Edition

Dance with the Dead - Malombra

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Card:

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

• Page of Wands

• Seven of Pentacles

• Page of Pentacles

Baggage. Frugal.

I have a ghost, or a demon, or a virus. I don't feel like I spend an exorbitant amount of my money on the amazing but admittedly frivolous things that I populate my space with - music, movies, books, comics, plastic, etc. I spend more than I probably should from time to time, but I've looked at the numbers and it just doesn't add up, the fact that I have such a hard time saving money. So, for this pull, I did something I almost never do. I held an exact question in my mind when I shuffled and chose. And I'd say the result is pretty on the nose. In the grimoire, I actually have "A difficult period in material life" as the entry for the Seven of Pentacles. I have "Baggage" among the qualifiers for the Page of Wands, and I have "Frugal" for the Page of Pentacles. Plus, two of the three cards are Pentacles, i.e. disks, i.e. material concerns. 

So what does this tell me, other than this is an uphill climb? 

New Music from Chat Pile!!!

Thanks to a big tip-off from Mr. Brown, I realized that Oklahoma City's Chat Pile dropped a new album this past Friday. I was really hot on their first album, God's Country, back in 2022, then the band kind of fell off my radar. This new one puts them back on in a BIG way; I'd have to say, this is the band I'd vote most likely to take up the mantle currently occupied by Godflesh in my life. With the penultimate Godflesh record arriving in just a few weeks, and the final one coming next year, I have a feeling Chat Pile is more than likely going to enter my regular rotation and stay there.

You can order the new Chat Pile record, Who Loves the Sun, HERE.

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NCBD:

A nice mix of the IP stuff and original series this week. 

This is homework from my DwC cohost Shin. Apparently this fascimile is the book where the Joker went from being the Cesar Romero version to a more psychopathic, modern version. 

The grand finale of the Event Horizon sequel! I've really enjoyed this book, considerably more than the prequel, but it will be cool in a few months to have the final series in this triptych begin and pave the way for an eventual full read-through centered around the film

Underwater action is always appreciated in the GIJOE universe, and this cover has me excited for it!

Odin took a little hiatus but is back. There's so much I love about this book, and dead nazis is only the start! Whatever nether realm these characters have found themselves in is creepy as hell, and this issue's cover is freaking me out just looking at it!

I've been waiting for this penultimate issue of Chris Condon, Andrew Enrich and Charlie Adlard's Of the Earth of a month and hot damn I cannot wait to dig in!

Thundercracker as part of Superion. Robert Kirkman continues to do all kinds of awesome new stuff with these characters. 

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Watch:

I saw Fall 2: Deadpoint this past Monday. This is the sequel to 2024's Fall, which I did not see. Honestly, I initially assumed I would skip this, too, until I saw the trailer on last month's Dread  Broadcast (watch our reaction HERE) and realized, my lack of gusto for this might be a defense mechanism. I mean, supernatural Horror is essentially comfort food at this point, but this? Absolutely terrifying.

The film on the big screen, at least, is just as terrifying and tense as I'd thought it might be. This is going to open a new line of thinking for me: rethink the Horror I dismiss. Next up will be October's adaptation of Daniel Kraus' Whale Fall, which also was an initial dismissal, but subsequently makes me feel really uncomfortable.

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Playlist:

Alabama Shakes - I Must Be Dreaming

Marilyn Manson - One Assassination Under God Chapter 2

Carpenter Brut - Leather Temple

Chat Pile - Who Loves the Sun

Steve Moore - Jimmy & Stiggs OST

Jim Williams - Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched OST

Roughly Enforcing Nostalgia - Front Door Doxologies

Fear - Live... For the Record

Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine - Enhanced Methods of Questioning

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Card:

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

• Knight of Cups

• Ace of Wands

• Knight of Pentacles

Follow the heart, as it will lead to breakthroughs that. Just don't be afraid to work for it (or through it, if there's pain involved).

I'm not really sure what this is trying to say, but I have an idea it might not be for me at all. 

Erykah Badu & The Alchemist - Witch Doctor

Take about stumbling across something you never expected. Skulking around on Bandcamp last Friday, I found this track from Erykah Badu & The Alchemist's album Before the World Blows Up. I was instantly hooked. I backed off a bit after an initial full listen to the overall album - I'm sorry, but it's pretty hard to take anyone seriously when they're still dropping N-bombs, especially on a modern soul record. There are a few other unfortunate instances of hip hop tropes that gum up the album's flow for me, but overall, this is pretty freakin' solid. 

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Watch:

By sheer chance, I read about Glenn McQuaid's new film, The Restoration at Grayson Manor in one of the most recent issues of Fangoria magazine shortly before ordering McQuaid's 2008 film I Sell the Dead during a recent Vinegar Syndrome sale, not realizing the latter was by the same filmmaker at all. I'd seen I Sell the Dead back when it first came out on video in the through-the-mail Netflix days, had thought about it now and again, and was excited to see it get a new transfer and release via VS's Glass Eye Pix/IFC partner labels. 

The Fangoria article definitely put Grayson Manor on my radar, and now I'm happy to see the possibility of a wide theatrical release. Full disclosure - I only watched about twenty-five seconds of the trailer but that's all I needed. There's something about the overall style here, combined with McQuaid's humor and the idea of "hand horror" in an Irish country manor that all combines to make me think this is going to be a great one.

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Playlist:

Young Widows - Decayed: Ten Years of Cities, Wounds, Lightness and Pain

Godflesh - In All Languages

Matthew Pusti - Onslaught OST

Erykah Badu & The Alchemist - Before TheWorld Blows 

Godflesh - New Flesh In Dub Vol. 1

Godflesh - Post Self

Chat Pile - Who Loves The Sun

The Cramps - Gravest Gravy

Gnarls Barkley - Atlanta

The Cramps - RockinnReelininAucklandNewZealandXXX 

Isaac Hayes - The Isaac Hayes Movement

Miles Davis - Ascender pour l'échafaud

Chat Pile - God's Country

Lustmord & Dave Lombardo - Paleomagnetic Resonance (pre-release single)

Purest Form - Resistance EP

Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire

Dance with the Dead - Malombra

Ghost - Skeleta

The Jesus Lizard - Down

Carpenter Brut - Leather Temple

Pino Donaggio - Her Private Hell OST

Black Pyramid - The Paths of Time are Vast

Iggy and The Stooges - Raw Power (1973 David Bowie Mix)

Chelsea Wolfe- She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She

Alabama Shakes - I Must Be Dreaming

Orville Peck - Bronco

Steely Dan - Aja

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Card:

Back to my trusty old Thoth deck this morning:

• 7 of Disks - Failure

• Ace of Cups

• 3 of Cups: Abundance

I need to change something proven. It will cause an upset that will feel like a failure at first, but will eventually lead to a breakthrough that will make my heart soar.

It's never a great thing to see a card like the 7 of Disks at first, but context always softens it. In The Book of Thoth, Crowley briefly breaks this card down as a warning as to what happens when all work stops. Dreams can die here. Thus, it takes emotion and will to keep the thread going and make something out of the nothing that sloth offers as a reprieve to working.

I love the obvious writing ones, that come directly after a session I can relate them back to. 

John Carpenter - Cathedral

I'm not sure I ever posted about it here, but early in the year John Carpenter announced a new album and an accompanying graphic novel. Cathedral - the fifth record for Carpenter as a recording artist, accompanied by Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies - is the soundtrack to a graphic novel based on a dream the auteur says he had. I pre-ordered this from Sacred Bones and after receiving it a few weeks back, I have to say, this is probably the best Carpenter album not associated with a film.  Here's the obvious single from the record, which plays like one of those great Carpenter film themes. 

A few nights after receiving this, I sat down and read the novel while listening. It's pretty good. I haven't been very interested in some of the other comic work I've seen come out over the last decade or so from Carpenter, but I tuned out his films after the 80s as well (with Cigarette Burns being the one exception I can think of). Overall, though, I enjoyed this entire experience. 

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Watch:

Running on empty tonight, so I'm just going to post the original, 1981 trailer for my favorite Slasher flick: 

I just watched this again last night, and it never disappoints. I think one of the main thing that sets The Burning apart from other slashers of the era - other than Tom Savini's awesome FX - are how likable the camp characters are. For the most part at least. 

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Read:

Last week I put paid Stephen King's penultimate Dark Tower novel, The Song of Susannah and immediately cracked open the seventh and final novel in the series, The Dark Tower.

I'm approaching the resolution of this series - the second time I've taken the entire journey, and the first in one consecutive collection of readings - with some trepidation. I don't want it to end. And for the final book, this one hits the ground running; the opening scene with Jake and Callahan at the Dixie Pig really telegraphs that we're approaching the end, and shit is getting heavy. Very much looking forward to this re-read in particular, because even more than with Song of Susannah, I have only read this once, and not since its original publication, way back in 2003.

I will say, right off the bat, there is a lot of deus ex machina in these last two entries in the series. I know King took great pains to build that in when he wove himself and our world into the story, but Ka is starting to do a lot of really convenient things for our Ka-tet. And that's fine; not really a complaint, just an observation I would not have been astute to make upon my first reading of these last two books.

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Playlist:

Carter Burwell - Blood Simple OST

Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest

The Fixx - Reach the Beach

Arab Strap - The Red Thread

John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter & Daniel Davies - Cathedral

The Ocean - Precambrian

The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir

Claudio Simonetti, Massimo Morante & Fabio Pignatelli - Tenebrae OST

Carpenter Brut - Leather Temple

Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss

The Cramps - Psychedelic Jungle

Foxy Shazam - Dark Blue Night

The Cramps - Gravest Gravy

The Fixx - Phantoms

Turnstile - GLOW ON

Killswitch Engageg - The End of Heartache

Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears

Spotlights - Seance EP

Sepultura - Arise

Rammstein - Reise, Reise

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Card:

From my Thoth deck:

Let things develop before making another move. Not going to lie, this is not a super welcome card to see right now. 

New Music from Chelsea Wolfe!

 

Dig the track, not 100% sure how I feel about the music video. Usually, when the performer begins writhing suggestively on a bed, the end is nigh. Hopefully that's not the case here. New album The Dark is out Friday, 8/21. Pre-order HERE.

 

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NCBD:

Short stack this week. The wallet says thank'ee!

New ongoing series from Sean Murphy! Here's the solicitation copy from League of Comic Book Geeks:

"As technology in America advanced, cities began creating the GRID — a robotic transportation system that not only made cars obsolete, it made them illegal. But an outlaw named “Clutch” has no choice but to get behind the wheel one more time. What starts out as a race to save his granddaughter's life quickly turns into a rebellion against technology, fascism, and the future of a divided America."

Every issue of If Destruction Be Our Lot moves it higher on my year-end list. 

Not in love with this cover, but the others aren't much better. Still, big issue as far as the story goes, so we'll see. 

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Watch:

I forgot to mention it here, but I finally got around to watching Mark Savage's 12 to Midnight. If you'll remember, this is the werewolf flick with Charles Bronson doppelgánger Robert Bronzi.

 

I'd waited for this after posting about it over two years ago. I waited for this to hit streaming for what felt like forever, then it toggled off my radar. I'm not sure when it hit Prime, but it's included there now, so run out and watch this one if you want to see a man that - goddamn, does he look like Charles Bronson! Call me crazy, but I actually really enjoyed this flick. Even more, I enjoyed recording an Irreverent Deep Dive on it for The Horror Vision recently. That drops at the end of the month, so I'll update here when that happens. In the meantime, give it a whirl.

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Playlist:

The Caretaker - A Stairway to the Stars

The Caretaker - Theoretically pure anterograde amnesia

Justin Hamline - This Machine Kills Music

Brown Whörnet - Stroke the Apechild

The Besnard Lakes - Until in Excess, Imperceptible UFO 

Glitchtrip - Sometimes Silly (single)

Mountain Realm - Beastbane

Empusae & Maris Anguis - Onryōtan

The Cramps - Gravest Gravy

Brainiac - Hissing Prigs in Static Couture

Brainiac - Electro Shock for President EP

Roughly Enforcing Nostalgia - Front Door Doxologies

Frankie and the Witch Fingers - Data Doom

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Card:

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

• Two of Wands

• King of Pentacles

• Six of Pentacles

See, this is nuts. 

I couldn't write anything of an interpretation last night when I finished this entry around 10:40 PM and scheduled it to post at 2:30 AM. I was spent and resorted to one of those crappy fortune-cookie interpretations, which is banal and pointless and not what I'm about in terms of Tarot at all. Gotta stop that.

Anyway, I couldn't muster anything, so I posted the cards and left it. I do this from time to time, intending to come back later to really think about the cards and come up with something. Well, today I woke up at 3:43 AM and have been up since (currently 6:03 AM). That's what I get for having three days in a row of 8+ hours. So here I am, thinking about the cards as the small hours wane, and I come across the "Dawn; sunrise" interpretation for the Six of Pentacles (Disks), and I'm just blown away. Because I was just watching the sunrise before I found that entry. 

This has me cross-referencing with Crowley's The Book of Thoth, where, on page 215, his brief dalliance with the Six of Disks mentions the colors on the Thoth version of the card as "... a suggestion of Tiphareth fully realized on Earth."

Not sure, but I think that's an indication that my health troubles are winding down. Tiphareth is The Yellow House, a place of beauty, where the within and without or microcosm/macrocosm, balance in harmony. No small feat. Yet, guided by the Two of Wands, which is being in control of yourself and the King of Pentacles, which Crowley, in turn, cross-references with the I Ching hexagram Kien (53rd) as "... slow, steady emancipation from repressive conditions," makes me think I'm going to pass this fucking stone soon and then all the other shit will just disappear. 

One can hope. 

The Good, The Bad and the Acid

 

From the forthcoming album Shapes of Midnight, out September 18th on Killer Candy Records. I'd tell you to pre-order HERE, but all formats have been sold out since about three minutes after it went on sale last month. I grabbed mine day-of release from the bezos corp. 

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Watch:

Either the kidney stone returned (still haven't found a "doctor" that can tell me if it passed, or my fatty liver acted up and I was couch-bound for much of the weekend. So what do you do when you're in mildly agonizing discomfort? Watch the Sergio Leone Spaghetti Westerns, that's what!

I started Saturday with A Fistful of Dollars. I have this one on DVD, and it felt like coming home again, with the scratches on the film and an almost vinyl-like hiss on the soundtrack at times. I watched these with my Dad when I was a kid, and have revisited a few times over the years; they've always remained somewhat holy to me, but I don't often find the time to sit down and give myself over to the unique rhythms of Leone's classic trilogy. 

When I reached For A Few Dollars More, I watched part on DVD, then moved downstairs and had to resort to Prime, which currently includes all of these. I will say, as much as I love the nostalgia of those old DVDs, seeing the restored picture on these... wow. There's just no comparison.

This sequel is probably my favorite of the three. Lee Van Cleef's Col. Mortimer is a fantastic addition, and Leone embraces the first film's popularity and uses the resultant bigger budget wisely. Nothing showy, but you can see the money and the fact that Leone is becoming a better filmmaker.

Now, we get to the best film of the three. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is a damn masterpiece, and the only thing that gives For A Few Dollars More the upper hand in my heart is that, while it's awesome to watch Leon really up the ante on this third one (the bridge!), I feel like the late-in-the-game Union/Confederacy battle with hundreds of extras could have been cut. Again, I think it's Leone stretching his legs and settling into the role of a Hollywood filmmaker. Eli Wallach's Tuco, however, really helps keep the third movie in the series neck and neck for my favorite. 

Either way, while I'm not happy about being in discomfort and getting next to nothing done all weekend, rewatching these felt like a great reset and recharge. Nothing like reconnecting with something from your deep past. 

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Read:

Yesterday I reread Peter Milligan and Kieron Dwyer and Dennis Janke's three-part Dark Knight Dark City that ran through Batman 452-454 in August and September of 1990.

During that initial publication period, I was buying Batman, Detective Comics and the newly launched Legends of the Dark Knight more than ever before. Some of this was still riding the wave of buzz Tim Burton's Batman had generated a year and some odd months prior, and some of it was a succession of storylines within these titles that caught my eye. Even at 14, I had a fairly robust interest in the Occult (still tempered by the dying clinging of religion at that point), so this was a no-brainer. Couple that with the buzz that this series would feature a decidedly more "Adult" version of a pretty goofy character, and Dark Knight Dark City proved similar to J.M. DeMatteis and Mike Zeck's Kraven's Last Hunt in that some of what I found in those pages blew my mind.

18th century devil-cults that  featured Thomas Jefferson as a member? Scantily clad sacrificial victims on black altars? A cartoonish villain that executes innocent security guards with a bullet between the eyes? Batman forced to perform slit a choking baby's throat in an emergency tracheotomy? Zombies????

Of course, all is not as it appears, but the journey to the revelation is quite the ride. This Barbatos (aka Barbathos) would reappear in Grant Morrison's epic seven-year run, which endeared me to it even more. But this dark storyline was possibly the first place I saw Batman run up against such devilish forces, and it thrilled me!

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Playlist:

Marilyn Manson - One Assassination Under God Chapter 2

Zeal and Ardor - Devil Is Fine X

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - House By the Grave (single)

Blackbraid - III

Blackbraid - II

Roughly Enforcing Nostalgia - Front Door Doxologies

Servotron - No Room For Humans

Brown Whörnet - Emena Pesticide

The Ocean - Solaris (pre-release singles)

The Ocean - Holocene

The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir

The Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium

The Caretaker - A Stairway to the Stars

Primus - Frizzle Fry

Man Man - Life Fantastic

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Card:

One from the Thoth deck:

Balance creative fire with ambition and mastery.

New Music from Godflesh!!!

From the forthcoming record Decay, out September 25 on Relapse Records. Pre-order HERE. 

Going back to that health update from Justin K. Broadrick back in early March, this is the penultimate Goflesh record. That gives me chills.

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R.I.P.:

We had an erroneous sneak peek at this post on Wednesday when I pasted in the wrong code, but here's my tribute to Reggie Fucking Banister. R.I.P. 

Back in 2016, I got to briefly say hello to Reggie (from a distance - lots of people and I was extremely concerned with adding to the swarm) on the sidewalk outside L.A.'s Egyptian Theatre. Beyondfest premiered Phantasm: Ravager as part of a double feature with the then-newly restored original Phantasm. I remember reading shortly thereafter that he'd had some health concerns, so maybe ten years on, this was for the best. Either way, sucks to lose such a legend. I always wished we might get a Reggie/Ash crossover at some point when Don Coscarelli began talking about doubling down on Phantasm again in the early 00s. Nothing really came of that, but maybe someday we'll see a comic or something. Either way, I bring it up because Reggie is up there with Campbell for me, as far as 80s Horror Hero Icons.

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Watch:

Last night K and I went to see the 20th-anniversary 4K restoration of Neil Marshall's 2005 film The Descent. Here's the trailer released in anticipation of this new theatrical run:

As a diehard Dog Soldiers fan from shortly after it hit video in 2002, I'd been waiting for a new Marshall film and was overjoyed that his sophomore film received the huge theatrical rollout his first film should have. I don't necessarily have to agree with the consensus that seems to consider this his best film - I dig it, especially after seeing it again on the big screen 20 years later - but it's no Dog Soldiers. It's always bothered me that I've pretty much never cared for any of Mr. Marshall's subsequent films, but he is a definite craftsman and I always (almost) give them a chance.

Watching this for the second time on the big screen, twenty years later, a couple of things occurred to me:

    A) I don't think I've seen this since its theatrical release in 2006, and considering the impact it had on me then via what I've carried with me since, I think I missed A LOT of subtext and nuance that first time around. 

    B) Much like Open Water, The Descent affects me. I have a thing about tight, underground spaces (never been in one, not wanted to be in one) the same way I have a thing about large bodies of water. The film exploits that - to great effect, and the result is a genuinely visceral experience. Everything from the point in the film where Holly takes point, all those claustrophobic shots of the girls wiggling into and through some of the most insanely tight holes - not gonna use the word passages for anything that small - is tantamount to any fear I reserve from a viewing of Friedkin's The Exorcist. But it's a different kind of fear, one that I feel less in my mind's eye and more in my body. This serves the film well, so that when bones start a'breakin' and blood lettin', I'm already there.

One final note - for a 4K restoration, the film looks fantastic, but the sound is abysmal. Maybe the worst sound I've ever heard in the theatre. The dialogue through the first act of the film - i.e., pre-cave - is buried so deep in the mix of the score I gave up trying. The mix gets a bit better once we're inside the cave, but even then, everything feels like it has a thin layer of sonic gauze over it. Shame, because this is otherwise a five-star film. Not sure if that's a problem with the source that couldn't be fixed or if my theatre somehow dropped the ball with their equipment. Either way, it definitely detracted from the overall experience.

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Playlist:

Steve Moore - Jimmy and Stiggs OST

Carlos Rafael Rivera - They Will Kill You OST

Godflesh - Selfless

The Cramps - RockinnReelinInAucklandNewZealandXXX

The Cramps - A Date with Elvis

Godflesh - Purge

The Cramps - Flamejob

Man Or Astroman? - Intravenous Television Continuum

Godflesh - Living/Ending (single)

The Ocean - Fogdiver

Godflesh - Eponymous

Mastodon - Live at the Aragon

Justin Hamline - This Machine Kills Music

L7 - Hungry for Stink

Sewer Mutant Podcast - Sam Keith Tribute

Jarvis Cocker - Further Complications

Blackbraid - Arte Concert Summer Breeze Live Stream

 Spotlights - Seance E.P.

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Card:

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

• Nine of Cups

• Seven of Swords

• Nine of Swords

Be careful what you wish for? The strategic victory you spent so much time finagling may make things worse.

Definitely a work pull. 

New Music from The Ocean!

From The Ocean's forthcoming record Solaris, out September 25 on Pelagic Records. Pre-order HERE in the States or HERE elsewhere. 

I knew there had been a bit of an exodus from the band within the last year or two, but hadn't seen the new line-up until this weekend when I stumbled on the pre-release singles. Nothing against those who left, but this is the most excitement I've felt for an Ocean release since 2013's Pelagial.

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Watch:

I say this as someone who checked out on Marvel's MCU pretty much with Civil War, which I wasn’t a very big fan of. I’ve liked some things about a few subsequent films (of which I’ve only seen a few), but overall have been saddened to watch a carefully planned, confident approach to a blockbuster universe become tiresome, meek and rudderless. 

I LOVED Brand New Day and consider it the first Marvel movie I’ve actually liked - one that gave me repeated chills - since Age of Ultron (I really dug Raimi’s Dr. Strange: Multiverse of Madness, but not as a Marvel movie, as a Sam Raimi movie. Regardless, even that didn’t come close). 

I’d go so far as to say Brand New Day is the second best MCU movie thus far, coming in right behind the original Avengers film. Was it long and prone to indulgences? You betcha. But I was here for all of it. Best of all, almost none of the cameos were fan service - they all (mostly) played a role in the overall story. Which, after the exhausting (but not un-fun) Deadpool Loves Wolverine, was nice. I'm still all about street-level Marvel, which basically, at this point, means DD, Frank Castle and Spidey. Would be nice to see something else added to that list eventually, but for now, I'm happy keeping up with this little corner of things.

There are a couple huge ideas/plot points this film intentionally leaves hanging, and I'm a bit bummed that I'll have to wait until all the Avengers: Apocalypse Now Buddy B.S. is over before we likely get another proper Spidey flick. I find myself begrudgingly curious about Dr. Doom and Battleworld, so maybe I'll eat my words and watch that simply to stay in with Spidey's adventures in the "big potatoe" tier of the still hobbling overall MCU. I'd love it if they just left Peter alone and firmly entrenched at street level, but I guess that was never going to happen, so...

All right, Doom. Thrill me.

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Playlist:

Quicksand - Bring on the Psychics

Face to Face - Don't Turn Away

Firewater - Ponzi Scheme

Justin Hamline - This Machine Kills Music

Show Me the Body - Alone Together

Zeal and Ardor - Devil is Fine X

Pigface - Gub

Pigface - Welcome to Mexico Asshole

SOD - Speak English or Die

Anthrax - Cursum Perficio (pre-release singles)

John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter & Daniel Davies - Cathedral

The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir

The Ocean - Precambrian

Aphex Twin - Richard D. James Album

Various - The (S)hit Factory: Disc 1

Sepultura - Chaos A.D.
Sepultura - The Cloud of Unknowning EP

The Ocean - Pelagial (Instrumental)

The Ocean - Solaris (pre-release singles)

Bohren and the Club der Gore - Sunset Mission

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Card:

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

• Four of Wands

• Six of Pentacles

• Knight of Cups

Completion and success, but at a cost.