Babak Anvari's Adaptation of Nathan Ballingrud's Wounds @Screamfest!!!

Two films. Babak Anvari has made two feature-length films, and after seeing his second, Wounds, earlier this evening at the penultimate night of Screamfest 2019, I am floored by how exquisite a filmmaker he has become in so short a period of time.

I first read Nathan Ballingrud's The Visible Filth back in late 2015. I've read it at least three more times since. It is one of my favorite pieces of prose and was a very large inspiration in my completing my first book of short stories, A Collection of Desires. To say it is a very important work of fiction to me is an understatement. That means I went into viewing Wounds with extremely high expectations. The film met every one of those expectations. It lands on Hulu this Friday. Watch it. Then, go read The Visible Filth, which is now available in a collection of six stories, conveniently titled Wounds. (you can order signed copies from Malaprop's Bookstore in NC HERE or Amazon HERE)

Thanks to Screamfest for bringing this to the big screen, if only fleetingly; in a perfect world it would receive a much wider release. Also thanks to Screamfest, Tuesday night I saw the Soska Sisters' remake of David Cronenberg's 1977 film Rabid. This is another film I'd anticipated for a long time, and it did not disappoint. My quick-take review on Rabid is up as a short episode of The Horror Vision Horror Podcast, available in the usual places:

The Horror Vision on Apple

The Horror Vision on Spotify

The Horror Vision on Google Play

There will be a Wounds review up tomorrow as well.

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31 Days of Horror:

10/01: House of 1000 Corpses/31

10/02: Lords of Chaos

10/03: Creepshow Ep 2/Tales from the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 1

10/04: IT Chapter 2, AHS 1984 Ep. 3

10/05: Bliss/VFW

10/06: Halloween III: Season of the Witch/Night of the Creeps/The Fog

10/07: Halloween 2018

10/08: Hell House, LLC

10/09: Dance of the Dead (Tobe Hooper; Masters of Horror Ssn 1 Ep 3)

10/10: Creepshow Episode 3

10/11: Jenifer (Dario Argento; Masters of Horror Ssn 1 Ep 4)

10/12: Poltergeist/Phenomena

10/13: AHS 1984 Ep 4/In the Tall Grass
10/14: Invasion of the Body Snatchers ('78)
10/15: Rabid (2019)
10/16: Wounds

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Playlist from the last few days:

Bauhaus - The Sky's Gone Out
Talking Heads - Sand in the Vaseline (Disc One)
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
Ritual Howls - My Friends Bury Their Souls for the Devil to Find
Ritual Howls - Their Bodies
Flipper - Album - Generic Flipper
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Opeth - In Cauda Venenum

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No card today, mainly because it's 2:29 AM and I am exhausted beyond reprieve. 

2019: July 4th - The Soska Sisters Share Rabid Trailer!

RABID from FrightFest on Vimeo.

Big awesome surprise to wake up yesterday and see the Soska Sisters had released the trailer for their upcoming remake of David Cronenberg's Rabid. I'm a fan of the Cronenberg film, but definitely feel there's room to remake it. And who better than the body horror twins who gave us American Mary? Can NOT wait!

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Wednesday night we saw Midsommar, Ari Aster's brilliant and crippling follow-up to last year's Hereditary. I loved it, probably consider it a modern masterpiece, a film in the ranks of an Apocalypse Now or The Shining. Aster is a visionary.

Before the show, the newest issue of Fangoria arrived on my doorstep. I took one look at the cover and knew I'd be waiting until after seeing Midsommar to crack this 40th Anniversary issue open.

When I did open the issue, I found a stunning article that consists of Jordan Peele interviewing Aster about Midsommar. Jesus, what the hell more could a horror fan ask for? Totally worth the price of subscribing, which you can do HERE.

Immediately after our Midsommar viewing, my co-host Anthony Guerra from The Horror Vision and I did a reaction episode. We split it into a non-spoiler and spoiler section, very clearly delineating it for anyone that wants to listen but hasn't seen the film yet. My advice is go in as blind as possible, then listen, but either way, here are those links:

The Horror Vision on Apple

The Horror Vision on Spotify

The Horror Vision on Google Play


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By now, hopefully everyone reading this who cares about the spoiler will have heard that Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard's The Walking Dead came to a surprise end with this week's issue #193. For the price of a regular issue, 193 delivered a triple-sized issue that was everything I could have wanted from the series finale for one of my all-time favorite comics, plus there's a long letter in the back of the book from Kirkman, talking about the reasons for ending the series here, the emotional tribulations of doing so, and a bit of a peek behind the curtain on his writing process over the years.

I can't even begin to describe the void losing this series creates in my life, but I will attempt to tonight at 9:00 PM Pacific Standard Time, when Mike Wellman and I do a surprise Drinking with Comics Memorial to The Walking Dead. We'll be streaming live on the Drinking with Comics Facebook Page, so stop by - you might just see me cry.

Funny thing, that this happened just after my existential crisis a few weeks back, the one about collecting comics and a life's worth of accumulated stuff. By my calculation, with all the books I read that are either definitively ending or are on indefinite hiatus, I'm going to be down to about six or seven monthlies by the fall, and that suits me just fine at the moment.

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Playlist from the last two days:

Uniform and The Body - Mental Wounds Not Healing
The Body - No One Deserved Happiness
Black Polygons - Lobélia
Willie Nelson - My Way
The Go Gos - Beauty and the Beat
Calexico - The Black Light
The Beatles - Abbey Road

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No card today.

2019: February 4th - New Chasms

New music from Chasms, whose new album The Mirage comes out February 22nd on the always amazing Felte Records. Pre-order it HERE, and see them live if you can, as they are wonderful.

Subterranean Press has a very limited number of copies of Warren Ellis' novella Dead Pig Collector, something I have been wanting to read for years but forgot about some time back while waiting for a physical copy to emerge. Said copy has emerged, but the door is closing quickly. Order it HERE.

February is Women in Horror month, and to kick things off, K and I hosted 3/4ths of The Horror Vision crew this past Saturday for a viewing of Jen and Sylvia Soska's American Mary. Damn, I love this film. The empowerment that comes through the story and performances is intoxicating, and seeing it again has me even more excited for the Soska's upcoming remake of David Cronenberg's Rabid, about which there is a pair of marvelous articles in the latest issue of Fangoria Vol. 2.

You can listen to the newest episode of The Horror Vision on Apple, (although I think there's a lag in the episode uploading to Apple at the moment) Spotify, Google Play, or our website.

Playlist from 2/03:

Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jarmusch - Concerning the White Horse (on repeat for like an hour while I finished the new story)
Boy Harsher - Careful

Card of the day (despite the fact that the day's almost over; I'm curious):

Perfect and funny for so very many reasons at the moment.