Man Man Week - Harpoon Fever (Queequeg's Playhouse)

 

From 2008's Rabbit Habits. THIS is the song that sold me to just how odd this band is. I mean, the boneyard percussion and vaudvillian creep-outs are one thing, but juxtaposed with the bizarre digital freak-out near the end of this song, well, it's old, it's new. It's unlike anything else (accept maybe a shared DNA with Mr. Bungle's "Desert Search for Techno Allah").

 

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Watch:

I caught the trailer for In A Violent Nature about a month ago at the theatre when I went to see Stopmotion, and it completely threw me at first. I seriously thought for a minute that the long-standing F13 legal battles had silently resolved and someone made a new film for the franchise in secret. Not the case, but that's probably a good thing. 

Writer/Director Chris Nash's feature film debut looks Brutal!  Total Video Nasty DNA. Hitting theatres May 31st, I will definitely be putting my arse in a seat at my local to watch this. 

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Playlist:

Zombi - Direct Inject

Zombi - 2020

Goatsnake - Black Age Blues

Anthrax - Among the Living

United Future Organization - 3rd Perspective

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, Grimm recently launched a Kickstarter for his new deck, The FaeBound Tarot, which you can marvel at and acquire HERE.

• Six of Pentacles 

• XX: Judgement

• Wheel of Fortune 

Earthly plateau - things are right where I want them in some respects, but XX shows it will be a balancing act to keep them there. The Wheel confirms this, but suggests it won't be quite as difficult as I think it will be. 

Ministry - New Religion

LOVING this new Ministry record. Somehow, Uncle Al almost never disappoints. This particular track, while I'm not in love with the video, is one of those Ministry songs where you can really hear the Killing Joke influence. This started back around 2003 with Animositisomina, which is interesting when you consider that Paul Raven didn't join the band until 2006's Rio Grande Blood. Not that there wasn't always a little Killing Joke DNA in Ministry, but occasionally, it really shines through.

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NCBD:

Light pull this week, but there are some goodies, so let's get into it:

A new Last Ronin series? Whoah! This slipped by my radar completely until about a week ago. Apparently, if I understand this right, this series is set a number of years after the original series and follows more grown-up versions of the four new turtles that Casey (Jr) was training. I love the Miller-esque dystopia of the first Last Ronin series, so definitely sign me up for this next round. I love to see the evolution of future worlds like this. 

Here's another one that slipped past me - David and Maria Lapham have a new series called Underheist and I missed the first issue! I'll be grabbing that as well as this week's number two. Everything the Laphams do is fantastic, so I can't wait to see what this new one has to offer.

Void Rivals returns! I honestly had only realized it must have been on hiatus - probably because I've been so preoccupied with the other Energon Universe series. I feel like this family of books is moving in to take over the fervor I've held but watched wane for the X-Books since Hickman. I don't know if my brain finds something to fill the, ahem, void, or if 

Speaking of the X-Book, I still haven't found any issues with Gerry Duggan and his X-Men. Solid, every issue. And what's this? Lockheed returns? Can't wait to see this. Where the core Fall of X books have been a mixed bag, Mr. Duggan continues to drive his RBI percentage up by turning in solid episodes of the core 'team' book in the family. Also, love seeing Kitty and Ilyana side by side with swords!

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Watch:

Recently, I was psyched to see that Shudder added the first three Coffin Joe movies to their ever-expanding roster. I am not super familiar with these, but back in 2004, my friend JFK (where are you?) mentioned these to me and I started a hunt that didn't end until I walked into either Generation Records or Village Revival Records in Greenwich Village, NY and found a copy of At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul. I picked that up and gifted it to JFK for Christmas that year, and after we watched it one night, I haven't seen a Coffin Joe flick since. Until now.

"The Brazilian Freddy Krueger" is how Coffin Joe is often described, and while there is a simple comparison there, that's a bit of a misnomer, and probably the reason I walked away from that first viewing twenty years ago less than impressed. So despite the fact that I myself have used that comparison recently, I offer here the caveat that Coffin Joe is not a supernatural being (at least not in the early flicks) and he doesn't invade his victims' dreams or materialize in gross and grandiose ways. He's a terribly evil human being, an undertaker with no empathy and a greedy soul, and he terrorizes the town in rural Brazil where he resides as a rich and powerful citizen. 

On the surface, these flicks feel a little quaint. At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul is from 1964 Brazil for god's sake, so that's to be expected. But, if you really pay attention and move past that surface layer, these are some pretty f**ked up films. What's more, let's think about that year of origin again: 1964 Brazil! These are also SO ahead of their time, even in the States, and slot in nicely with some of the other creators releasing Horror films at the time; if you google "Horror Films Released in 1964," you get a list that includes Roger Corman, William Castle, and Hershal Gordon Lewis.

Ultimately, Coffin Joe - the character created and portrayed by Brazilian cinematic jack-of-all-trades  José Mojica Marins - won't be for everybody, however, in rewatching the first film last night, I found a decidedly more cerebral and, honestly, disturbing experience than I remembered. Strip away some of the limitations of the day, some of the slightly archaic approaches to the accouterments of the Horror genre - maniacal laughter, spiders (no laughing matter for me), and female hysteria, and you have an amoral villain who commits grievous acts in the name of a rather messed up approach to child-rearing. Joe is an icon in Brazil - hence the real reason for the comparison to Mr. Kreuger - so Shudder adding these films is another way in which the service continues to promote a more well-rounded fan base for the genre. Something we're all the better for. 

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Playlist:

The Body & Dis Fig - Orchards of a Futile Heaven

Uniform & The Body - Mental Wounds Not Healing

Witchfinder - Hazy Rites

Black Sabbath - Volume IV

The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre

Justin Hamline - The House With Dead Leaves

Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire

Dio - The Last in Line

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Card:

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

• XI: Justice

• Four of Wands

• VIII: Strength

Approaching a situation or decision without bias leads to empowerment. Again, another character nod to the book I'm writing. I turned in a solid hour and a half last night - actually made it out to my old coffee shop and was really able to lose myself for the duration of the session. These characters are growing in depth and complexity, and the cards are assuring me I'm on the right path.

Abby Sage - The Rot

 

Abby Sage just climbed a little bit higher in my esteem when I saw the thumbnail for this one. WTF? Hot on the heels of seeing Robert Morgan, this grabbed me. Sage's predilection for larger-than-life, terrifying dolls and her generally dour delivery add a spot of Thomas Ligotti to her unique brand of smoky pop that seems to have more in common with the quaalude lounge life of the late 60s/70s than any modern female singer beyond maybe Beth Gibbons. 

I'm really loving seeing where Abby Sage's career has gone and look forward to seeing just how far it will go. I think far. 

The Rot is the title track from Ms. Sage's debut album, which you can link to HERE.

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Watch:

Despite the initial anticipation the trailer for Ryan Stevens Harris' Moon Garden created in me when it first dropped a little over a year ago, I totally forgot about this one. Imagine my excitement when I found out the film had finally dropped on Shudder earlier this week:

Reading over that post I made last February (linked in the text above), I am happy to see that all my initial expectations were not only met but totally blown away. Moon Garden is definitely a throwback to films like The Neverending Story and Labyrinth, but also an exciting visual amalgamation of a lot of fantasy ideas that really only get cross-bred in novels because of the less than 1:1 ratio that accompanies attempting to bring the dark, effervescent folds of the imagination into the visual form. Guess what? Somehow Harris does it; I feel like this is possibly the most "pure imagination translation" I've ever seen. It's just... so much, and all of it works together to create an experience that is both harrowing and life-affirming. Can't recommend this one enough. 

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Playlist:

John Carpenter - Lost Themes II

Witchfinder - Forgotten Mansion

Witchfinder - Hazy Rites

Blut Aus Nord - The Work Which Transforms God

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Dean Hurley - The Library of the Occult: Flower

The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre

Justin Hamline - The House With Dead Leaves

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Card:

A quick one-card pull for the weekend:

Six of Cups: Pleasure. Emotional Balance. I think this is something I've been having issues with, especially on the weekend. There are a lot of 'existential stressors' pressing in on me of late, no one's fault but my own mind. Still, that doesn't change the fact that they affect my weekends the most - the time when I have the most time to sit and think. A nice reminder then, to fill the well and keep the perspective balanced. Not easy to do in 2024, but it is possible if you actively manage the shit you're putting in your head. 

Chelsea Wolfe - The Liminal

 

My copy of Chelsea Wolfe's She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She arrived on Saturday and I managed to hold off listening to it until the precise criteria I insisted upon were met - Saturday night after recording the latest episode of The Horror Vision Presents: Murderboad - A True Detective Night Country Discussion, I placed the beautiful colored vinyl on the turntable in my office, smoked a quarter of a joint and laid out on the floor and let the sounds wash over me. This one's an immediate shoo-in for my top ten list this year. It's both similar and completely unlike anything Ms. Wolfe has done previously; similar, because her voice is unmistakable; different in that there are a lot of what I can only call "Industrial Trip-Hop" elements in these songs. 

I know, I know... it's not bad enough we subdivide music into oft-confusing subgenres, but now you're creating hybrids of those subgenres? Well... there's just no other way to say it. 

Industrial is appropriate because alot of the songs have a mechanical feeling to their percussion or groove, Trip Hop because the closest thing I can compare of the arranging on this album to is Portishead or Massive Attack. I can split hairs all day long on the sound, but believe me, this is a spectacular piece of work from one of the most interesting artists working in music.

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Watch:

I had the revelatory experience of watching Jennifer Reeder's 2019 Knives and Skin on Saturday night. Here's a trailer that I have vetted; it gives nothing away (also doesn't do this film any kind of justice, but you really can't encapsulate Knives and Skin in a trailer anymore than you can a Lynch film):

Ms. Reeder has been slowly moving up my radar ever since I watched 2020's Night's End hit Shudder back in the fall of 2022. I posted about her most recent film Perpetrator a few weeks ago, and that viewing, combined with this latest one, seals the deal: she's easily my latest "favorite directors." There's a moment in this trailer where the pull quote says, "Twin Peaks meets Donnie Darko." That's not exactly right, but it's not exactly wrong, either, and it's close enough to tell you why I like it so much and whether or not you have any hope of connecting with it. All I can say is K and I were absolutely mesmerized while watching.

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Playlist:

Matt Cameron - Gory Scorch Cretins

David Bowie - Black Star

David Bowie - The Next Day

David Bowie - Outside

David Bowie - Aladdin Sane

Turnstile - Glow On

Frankie and the Witch Fingers - Data Doom

Various - Learn to Relax: A Tribute to Jehu

Grace Jones - Warm Leatherette (single)

Daemien Frost - Corpus Demo

Donny Benét - Konichiwa (single)

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

The Veils - Total Depravity

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Card:

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

• VIII: Strength

• Four of Pentacles

• Knight of Wands

A lot of strength and foundation, which I feel like has been under assault in our house the last few days. Took K to the emergency room on Thursday night around midnight (she's fine), took our cat Sweetie to the pet urgent care on Saturday (we think she's fine), and something popped in my right knee that has left me in intermittent crippling pain since Saturday morning. All this, juxtaposed with this Pull, tells me we need to finally ante up and put our health back into the actively attending to column.

 

God I love this band.

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Watch:

The trailer for Indianna Bell & Josiah Allen's first feature You'll Never Find Me popped up in my youtube feed thanks to Shudder. While I've only watched the first 16 seconds of this, I instantly knew it was on my watchlist for March. 

Hell, this one drops on Shudder March 22 - days before my birthday - and I'm excited enough to know this will most likely be my birthday viewing, which is always something special. 

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Playlist:

The Damned - Evil Spirits

The Neighborhood - I Love You

Butthole Surfers - - Butthole Surfers + PCPep

Mannequin Pussy - Patience

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David Bowie - Move On

 

"Move On," the second track from 1979's Lodger, the final of the Bowie/Eno Berlin Trilogy. Easily my least favorite of the three records, Lodger has never 100% caught me, but there are moments that really resonate with the rest of the Trilogy, and I'd argue that track two, "Move On" is one of them. 

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Watch:

A couple of nights ago, I watched Jennifer Reeder's latest film, Perpetrator. Here's a trailer that I offer with the caveat you only watch the first minute:

Did you see the pull quote that said, "The meeting point between John Hughes and David Lynch?" Not too far off. I don't know that everything about this one 'worked' for me, however, I was distracted during the first forty minutes or so with some emergency yoga, and Perpetrator is SO insanely original, I'm definitely going to watch it again. 

Between this and Night's End - which I also loved - Jennifer Reeder is now a filmmaker on my "watch everything" list. 

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Read:

My Horror Vision Co-Host Anthony recently talked me into giving SIKTC's sister book, House of Slaughter, another shot. I read the first two arcs and wasn't super into it, despite really liking the concept. One character introduced that has stayed with me is Jace, and he is the focus of the third arc, Return of Butcher.

So far it's pretty good, but I'm still not sold. This got me thinking about why that is, and I think I've come up with a fairly easy answer. SIKTC is one hundred about the momentum of the story, which is ongoing as it follows Erika Slaughter. House of Slaughter is different; five-issue arcs that jump around to give us windows into the world Tynion has built; ostensibly a welcome idea, it just does not inspire the passion in me that SIKTC does. I've always taken more to books with ongoing continuity - my first comic love was, after all, Larry Hama's G.I.Joe:ARAH and I never really cared much for Special Missions. The exact same paradigms apply here - ongoing vs. individual stories that are a part of the overall tapestry but do not add momentum to it. 

Regardless, House of Slaughter is still a quality book, and in no way am I complaining about reading or purchasing it. I just don't feel the allegiance to this book that I do for its sister. 

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Playlist:

Marilyn Manson - We Are Chaos

Massive Attack - Protection

Cypress Hill - IV

David Bowie - Lodger

The Stooges - Eponymous

The Stooges - Funhouse

††† - Good Night, God Bless, I Love U, Delete.

Marilyn Manson - Mechanical Animals

The Damned - Machine Gun Etiquette

Killing Joke - Eponymous

Rein - God is a Woman

David Bowie - Black Star

The Cure - Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me

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Card:

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

• Eight of Swords

• XIX - The Sun

• Four of Swords

Okay, now I'm really paying attention. I was all set to move on from the Truce/Rest interpretation from yesterday because not only did I go to bed at 8:00 PM Wednesday night, but I stayed in last night as well, taking a nap after work that made me feel the best I have so far this trip. But here it is again.

It dawned on me that the Truce also might apply to a small situation at work, which I came in a skosh concerned about and have definitely applied the Truce aesthetic to. Things feel better there than they have in over a year, so there's that. Aside from those two instances, what do today's other two cards suggest?

Eight of Swords - Eight. Hod - Learning and Ritual in the real of the Intellect.

XIX The Sun - Interestingly, I noticed Grimm posted this card on social media recently, accompanied by the lyrics to Sabbath's "Nativity in Black," and I can't help wondering if there's something there. 

"Some people say my love cannot be true Please believe me my love, and I'll show you I will give you those things you thought unreal The sun, the moon, the stars all bear my seal!"

Maybe not, or, if so, that's a code my conscious mind probably won't crack. So while that simmers on the ol' brain stove, I'm looking toward the "Optimistic" interpretation and stepping back to apply all of this - wait for it - to my worldview. In multiple conversations since I arrived here and have had the chance to reconnect with folks I haven't seen or talked to in months, world events come up and I always begin with the "I'm a pessimist" clause. L.A. just brings it out of me. I walk the streets of West L.A. and just can't believe the filth. Yet, also, this time, I honestly think things may not be as bad as they were in October. Maybe. 

My pessimism probably isn't going to recede permanently, but maybe I can give it a rest at least for a little bit and try and, ahem, Think Positive Thoughts. The Sun, The Moon, The Stars. 

Rote Hexe - Black Wood Becomes White Wood

It'd been a while since I last jammed Rote Hexe's debut 12" Red Witch, a surprise find back at the old Amoeba Records somewhere in 2015, and which included a 7" flexi that had the above song on it. 

This one slams! I love the mixture of Doom and experimental Black Metal this two-piece traffics in. I wish I could find more music by them, however, from what I'm seeing online, this is it. That's cool - releasing an EP this great and dropping the mic just means they're legendary.

You can listen and purchase Red Witch on Rote Hexe's Bandcamp HERE, and check out their label Cricket Cemetery's site HERE.

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Watch:

Man, I feel like it's been a short eternity since Butcher from The Horror Vision saw Writer/Director Bomani J. Story's debut feature, The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster. Ostensibly a new take on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, I've heard nothing but good things about this one. Here's the trailer (that I haven't watched, which probably explains why it's taken me this long to post it here):

The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster hits Shudder on 9/22, however, it's currently a $5.99 rental on Prime, and I think I'd like to give my money to this one. Pretty excited.

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Playlist:

Jóhann Jóhannsson - Mandy OST

Dream Division - Beyond the Mirror's Image

Rote Hexe - Red Witch w/ 7" Flexi

Genghis Tron - Dead Mountain Mouth

Zombi - Shape Shift

Mercyful Fate - Don't Break the Oath

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Nahab

Fuck Buttons - Streeting Horrrsing

Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

Ghost - Impera

Anthrax - Among the Living

Bohren and Der Club of Gore - Sunset Mission

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Oracle:

Ugh - pardon the flash-accentuated picture:

• Queen of Cups - Water of Water, Emotional aspect of Emotion

• Seven of Disks - Failure: a Victory in its own right

• XIII - The Devil - Information - Good or Bad - from a suspect source

Jesus. This is my upcoming weekend in a nutshell. Things will get overly complicated emotionally if I fail to recognize a crucial piece of information as either valid but from a suspect source (I already have them in mind), or invalid from a trusted source (the worse of the two scenarios). 

New music from Helmet!!!

 

New music from Helmet! Holy smokes, thanks be to Mr. Brown for putting this one on my radar, because I've kind of fallen off Helmet the last few years. If their upcoming album Left is anything like this first single, we're in for a treat. Out November 10th on Earmusic, you can pre-order the vinyl HERE.

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Watch:

The V/H/S series returns to Shudder on Friday, October 6th. Here's the trailer that dropped yesterday:

 

I find this series super hot and cold. The most recent entry, V/H/S/99, proved pretty polarizing for me; I really dug a few of the stories and didn't care for the rest. That said, I'm always game to see what gets included in these flicks, and often find directors just starting out (Chloe Okuno comes to mind).

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Playlist:

Lustmord - Berlin

Walter Rizzati - House By The Cemetery OST

Telekinetic Yeti - Primordial

Blut Aus Nord - The Work Which Transforms God

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Blut Aus Nord - Disharmonium: Nahab

Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger

Fen - Monuments to Absence

Helmet - Holiday (pre-release single)

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Oracle:

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

• Knight of Swords

• Eight of Cups

• XVIII The Moon

Balancing the Creative energies with the Sharp edge of Intellect yields emotional transformation on matters at this point, unrecognized or obscured.

No idea how to apply this one at the moment, but then I guess that's why it's 'unrecognized or obscured.' The Moon is a favorite of mine - it tends to cast light in dark corners. Digging a bit deeper, I have a notation in the Grimoire that says the following for the Eight of Cups: 

"As advice - let it go. Don't cling to what's written." 

Well now, that would seem to add some clarification, as I just performed a major overhaul on something in the book, had to get rid of about eight thousand words of 'what's written.' Didn't cling, so I'm on track. Still not sure how that fits in with the other cards at the moment, so I'll be keeping my eyes peeled. 

Relax - Creepshow's Back!!!

Rewatched Brian De Palma's Body Double last week in preparation for the deep-dive discussion we just did over on The Horror Vision Presents: Elements of Horror. Man, I love this film. Body Double has to be my favorite De Palma film, and one of the things I love about it is the use of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Relax, a song I've dug since I first heard it as a child. Went looking for the video today, wondering if it might match up with the scene that features it in the film, but somehow it's actually a lot weirder than that! I must have seen this at some point in the 80s, but I definitely didn't remember what an odd spectacle Director Bernard Rose (yes, THAT Bernard Rose!!!) creates for the song. 

You can listen to that Body Double discussion on Apple Podcasts HERE, Spotify HERE, or pretty much anywhere else you stream podcasts.

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Watch:

Shudder is bringing Creepshow back for a fourth season! Here's the new trailer:

I'll admit, I'm excited despite the fact that each of the seasons so far feel like exercises in diminishing returns. Season One is the strongest overall season, in my opinion, but three had the best episode (Public Television of the Dead and its wonderful, Bob Ross-meets-Evil-Dead feel). Regardless of perceived shortcomings, I very much root for Creepshow, and am glad to see it coming back after a nearly two-year hiatus.

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Read:

Killing time Saturday afternoon in Chicago's south suburbs, I stopped in a Barnes and Noble for the first time in a long time. This particular store has been in Orland Park, Il, for years, and although my preferred big box bookstore environment was always the Borders that used to sit across the street, I've been in this B&N a handful of times. If you're familiar with the chain, you know that when you first walk inside most B&N stores, they have displays of their own publishing imprint, Fall River Press. These are normally public domain bargain books, but some of them are very nice. Case in point, this Hardcover H.P. Lovecraft edition that I picked up for $10:

This is by no means a 'complete' collection. What I've found with printed complete Lovecraft books is, they are so voluminous, the bindings are usually shite. This is a pretty smart-looking HC that collects six of HPL's more famous stories:

1) The Call of Cthulhu

2) The Colour Out of Space

3) The Haunter of the Dark

4) The Whisperer in Darkness

5) The Dunwich Horror

6) The Thing on the Doorstep. 

While I still consider the .99 "Everything" volume I have on Kindle (no bad bindings there, and it's really easy for cross-referencing between stories), it's nice to have six of the big ones on a slim, attractive bookshelf volume as well. 

 

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Playlist:

The Replacements - Tim

Hollywood Babble-On Ep. 406

Real Ones w/ Jon Bernthal - Living A Double Life: Lou Valoze

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

bunsenburner - Rituals

Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain

The Ronettes - Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes

Led Zeppelin - Presence

Ruby the Hatchet - Fear is a Cruel Master

Metallica - 72 Seasons

Baroness - Stone (pre-release singles)

Ministry - Goddamn White Trash (single)

GnR - Perhaps (single)

Steely Dan - Aja

Sigur Rós - Ágœtis Byrjun

The Blues Brothers - OST

Les Discarts - Prédateurs

Alice in Chains - Sap EP

Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger

Crime Weekly: D.B. Cooper A Man with a Grudge (part 1)

The Hives - Tyrannosaurus Hives

Crime Weekly: D.B. Cooper Mystery Money (part 2)

H6LLB6ND6R - Side A

            

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Card:

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

• 0: The Fool

• Three of Pentacles

• Ten of Pentacles

Lots of "Earthly" concerns, and that tracks; spent the weekend in Chicago for a wedding, however, a lot of the time was also spent thinking about moving my folks out of the house I grew up in and down by us. There's The Fool's new journey, Three's Growth and Ten's Endings/Closure all rolled into one!!!

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Godflesh - Army of Non

 

The mighty Godflesh has returned at last! I have a friend visiting from LalLaLand and as such, completely forgot that the new album Purge was released this week. Friday night as we left one of the three breweries we take all our visitors to, this popped up in my Apple feed and, after waiting for the conversation at hand to run its course while sitting in the parking lot, I warned everyone they were about to experience the new record at a rather loud volume while driving home. Wonderful; that's the only word here. We made it through about half, and with further conversating and what not once home, I refrained from playing the rest until I could do a nice, immersive listen on headphones, so that will be later today, and the vinyl I pre-ordered months ago doesn't ship until early July, so until all that happens, "Army of Non" is my current favorite track on the record.

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Watch:

Holy F*&K! Ted Geoghegan's new film Brooklyn 45 is fantastic! This one defied all my expectations

            

I don't want to say too much about this one; it's not as though there's a twist or anything, however, Brooklyn 45 really impressed me with the ambitious, and frankly unexpected dramatics that make up the meat of the film. Sure, there's a lot of Horror Fun to be had, but this one is more akin to Guillermo del Toro's film Pan's Labyrinth than it is Evil Dead (although there are moments...). This one dropped on Shudder last week and is WELL worth Your time, especially if you liked Geoghegan's 2015 film We Are Still Here as much as I did. Companion pieces in a way.
           

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Playlist:

Weird Studies - On Clive Barker's "Hellraiser" and "Hellbound Heart"

Colton Wall - Imaginary Appalachia

David Bowie - The Next Day

Ganser - Odd Talk

Iggy Pop - The Idiot

Blackbraid - Blackbraid I

Stormkeep - Tales of Othertime

Calderum - Mystical Fortress of Iberian Lands

CCR - Eponymous

Godflesh - Purge

Angelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me OST

Pastor T.L. Barrett & the Youth for Christ Choir - Like a Ship (Without a Sail)

The Flamingos - The Best of the Flamingos

Jenny Lewis - Joy'All

 

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Card:

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

 

• Four of Pentacles - completion of a job: I have set a goal for the first draft of the novel I'm currently writing, and it is next Tuesday.

• Ace of Swords - Breakthrough: Not sure if this is confirming success or a nod that setting this goal was the 'breakthrough.'

• Five of Wands - Marshall the forces of Will, 'cuz it's going to be a struggle. A worthy struggle, though.
 

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New Music from King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard!

 

New music from King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, and it rules! I'll admit, I've never really made a serious attempt at getting into these guys. I'm not really sure why. That said, my friend Josh sang their praises in a conversation last week and Josh is one of those people whose opinion on music is very important to me. Coincidence or cosmic alignment, here we are with a new track from a new album, Petrodragonic Apocalypse or Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of the Merciless Damnation, which you can pre-order directly from the band HERE.

This track RULES, so I think this was my fated window into KGLW!!! Thanks, Josh!

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NCBD:

A nice and light NCBD this week, and although I will most likely not show up at the shop until later in the week when I feel better, this is what will be in my box:

Looks like I jumped on The Seasons Have Teeth just in time last week, as number two hits the shelves today. 

X-Men 23 - I was wondering when we'd get back to Orchis, and look - the gangs all here. Even MODOK stuck around! I find it interesting that coming out of Sins of Sinister, I'd completely forgotten that Orchis's Ally Dr. Stasis is a Sinister - my bet is he's the one that we saw in 616 all through the 80s and the architect of the original Mutant Massacre and original Inferno, who did have quite the flamboyant personality the Krakoa era Sinister does. Also, apparently, writer Gerry Duggan is now helming Iron Man as well, and he's had Feilong take over Stark Industries, so that's an interesting asset for Orchis to have in their arsenal.

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Watch:

Still hanging around the house, letting the last of this vile illness loosen its remaining tendrils on me, so I watched some more flicks after a half day of work. 

First up, Richard Stanley's Hardware. Instead of reposting the trailer, which I've probably posted on here a handful of times previously, here's a cool little segment I found on the film's composer Simon Boswell's youtube channel where he talks to Stanely about scoring the film:

Next up, I've been diving into that Severin boxset All the Haunts Be Ours that I bought last year. Yesterday's film was Kåre Bergstrøm's Lake of the Dead, which I could not find a trailer for, so here's a poster:

From 1958 Norway, this is a tight little thriller, kind of a Nordic Twilight Zone murder mystery that I really enjoyed. Best of all, I now realize this is currently on Shudder! Not exactly what we think of as Folk Horror today, which is good, because I'm beginning to feel the genre is amassing a checklist. You know, "Add a ram skull, a forest, and a farmer and you have a Folk Horror flick;" not the case exactly, but it tends to happen to recently popularized genres. This is NOT that.

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Playlist:

Ghost - Phantom of the Opera (pre-release single)

Ghost - Jesus He Knows Me (pre-release single)

Ghost - Opus Eponymous

David Lynch & Marek Zebrowski - Polish Night Music

SQÜRL - Silver Haze

Spotlights - Alchemy

The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes are the Roaring Night

Kermit Ruffins and the Rebirth Brass Band - Throwback

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Card:

Still not feeling super up to anything, so I thought I'd just pull one card from my trusty Thoth deck. When that one card is the 7 of Disks Failure, however, it's hard not to want some context:

Just a warning about a planned surprise I have slated for K's birthday tomorrow. Duly noted, Monsieur Universe. Duly Noted.

 

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Ghost of Vroom!

New music from Mike Doughty's Ghost of Vroom! If you're a Soul Coughing fan like I am, this is the closest thing to that sound Doughty's done since their breakup back in, well, a loooong time ago. The new album, Ghost of Vroom 3 is out later this year, although no hard date has been announced.

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Watch:

Rewatched Kevin Phillips' Super Dark Times on Shudder last night. Man, this one is heavy.

I'm not going to post a trailer because I think it's best to go in cold on this one. Yes, that's my recommendation for every movie, however, we can't always control that. This one is from 2017, so if you haven't seen it you may already have an idea what it's about. If not, just watch it. Damn.

What I will say is A) Kevin Phillips NAILS high school. I mean, he just crushed it - so many little non-sequitur moments that surround the characters and mean nothing other than to reinforce where our minds are at this age. Anger, Angst and Rebellion. "No I don't need your fucking help, lady!" one background character screams at one point, and it's just spot fucking on. B) This deals with a trauma that an event in my life in high school shares some DNA with. Phillips nails the state of mind that followed it. Again, he CRUSHED it.

 

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Play:

Ask and ye shall receive: new Puppet Combo-like game No One Lives Under the Lighthouse by Torture Star and Marevo Collective hits a bunch of platforms - Switch included - this month!

 

Spooky AF! There are some images in this trailer that seared into my brain the moment they appeared on screen (@1:22 - WTF???). What a spectacular setting; an abandoned lighthouse island with rocky crags and descending spiral staircases lends itself so well to this aesthetic. I can't wait to play this game!

NOTE: if you read this post earlier and remembered it being longer, fret not! You are correct - I've expanded my "Lighthouse Horror as a burgeoning subgenre thoughts in a separate post HERE.

No One Lives Under the Lighthouse is out May 18th!

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Playlist:

Sleep - The Sciences

Windhand - Eternal Return

Earth - Live at Third Man Records

Dorthia Cottrell - Death Folk Country

The Sword - Warp Riders

Bongripper - Satan (single)

Crowbar - Planets Collide (single)

Gaupa - Myriad

Witchfinder - Hazy Rites

Witchfinder - Forgotten Mansion

            

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Card:

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

• 20 Judgement is Aeon in Crowley and Harris's Thoth deck. Regardless of which you go with, this is a card of Redemption. It also suggests a pivotal sequence and the holography of cause/effect.

• Seven of Pentacles is a card that denotes Victory/Completion of Earthly matters

• Queen of Pentacles, in this particular case, is offering the advice that I actually stop thinking with my emotions on Earthly matters and begin applying a more staunch lens of discernment.

In other words - I'm spending too much money on vinyl. 

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Bright New Disease Renders Martyrs Livid

 

Boris and Uniform? Holy F*ck - talk about a shot in the arm first thing in the morning! From the forthcoming album Bright New Disease, out June 16th on the always stellar Sacred Bones Records. Pre-order HERE.

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NCBD:

A short and sweet NCBD this week. Here are my picks:

And we are back to our regular 616, Krakoa timeline. Thank You! I started re-reading Immortal X-Men from the beginning yesterday just to prepare.

My suspicion is I won't be reading Sons of X beyond the first issue,  I'm curious about the overall transition back into the regular, Krakoa continuity from the Sins of Sinister timeline. I will say that I reread Sins of Sinister: Dominion a few days ago and had a slightly better experience with it, and I'm curious how Mother Righteous's role might develop in the reinstated timeline.

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Watch:

Looks like Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury's hard-to-find 2011 Masterpiece Livid is now on Shudder: 

 

I picked a region-free disc of this one up sometime in the last year or two and was completely blown away. There's such a Fairytale quality to this film - visually, Vivid reminds me a lot of the music from long-defunct band Miranda Sex Garden. Gossamer-thin realities that come across more like a fable out of time than a modern movie, except that's there too. 

 

Also, Livid isn't the only renowned but difficult-to-find Masterpiece that popped up on Shudder. It's not often that I dig a movie like Martyrs, but despite its unparalleled cruelty, Pascal Laugier's opus more than earns its place in the "must watch at least once column." Just be prepared - it's not easy.

When I watched Martyrs, it was back when Netflix still 'rented' movies through the mail. I wasn't certain what I was in for, but the film had come feverishly recommended to me by my good friend and Horror Vision Co-host Tori. I smoked up, sat down in the middle of the day, and for the first 45 minutes, felt like I was watching a movie that, well, before long, I realized I was not watching. Maybe that's a convoluted way of saying that from the onset, Martyrs seemed as though it was going to be the first great 'Haunting' film I'd seen in some time. Then something happens to a character and I suddenly had the prescience to see where the film was headed. I remember that feeling because my stomach literally dropped*. From there, my resolve was tested, until in the final moments of the film, Laugier blew my mind.

*****

*Incidentally, Laugier's 2018 Incident in a Ghost Land includes a moment that had a very similar effect on me. 

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Playlist:

Mastodon - One More 'Round the Sun

Beach House - Become EP

James - La Petite Mort

The Sword - Warp Riders

Slayer - Decade of Aggression

King Woman - Doubt EP

Windhand - Eponymous

 

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Card:

Since I utilized both my Thoth and Bound Tarot decks for yesterday's Pull, I specifically wanted to go to Missi's Raven Deck for today's Pull.

Buckle down. 

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Inertia Creeps

I had an unplanned Massive Attack day yesterday and it felt great! For a band - and in the case of Mezzanine specifically - an album that was long-time daily obsessions, it'd been a while since I dove into their murky sonic depths. Felt amazing to return to it and have it feel exactly the same.

Then, later yesterday (I typed this Friday during work), K and I sat down to Yellowjackets and lo and behold - "Inertia Creeps"! This and the use of Radiohead's "Climbing the Walls" - easily my favorite track from OK Computer - more than made up for having to hear papa couch in Season 2 Episode 1.

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Watch:

A new Season of Slasher??? Oh wow - check this out:

 

I ADORE the 2021 Flesh & Blood season that Shudder picked up, and now the same creative team is turning their creative energies to Victorian England and what looks like a Jack The Ripper copycat? Sign me up!

Slasher: Ripper starts with two episodes next Thursday, so that means the back half of my week is a Slasher/Yellowjackets combo! 

             

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Playlist:

Nabihah Iqbal - Weighing of the Heart

Massive Attack - Mezzanine

Liars - Drum's Not Dead

Motörhead - 1916

         

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Talking to Nomads

 

Was in a New York Dolls mood yesterday. I love the entire 2011 Dancing Backward In High Heels record, but this is one of the two or three best on there.

 

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Watch:

I noticed a movie from 1986 called Nomads dropped on Shudder last week. I also noticed that John McTiernan directed it.

 

Despite the fact that I believe McTiernan directed the two greatest action movies of the 80s (possibly of all time), I don't know anything about his work other than Die Hard and Predator, so I'll be watching this one sometime soon. Starring Remington Steele and Adam Ant, well, how can this go wrong?

 

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Playlist:

The Police - Outlandos D'Amour

Don Henley - Apple Essentials

New York Dolls - Dancing Backward In High Heels

James Brown - Black Cesar Soundtrack

Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery

Lustmord - The Others

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Card:

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

Emotional growth ebbs and flows while different aspects of the day-to-day push and pull on me. Pretty vague; that's the kind of reading I'd expect if I paid someone for a reading. However, I slept awful and my head's still a bit spongy, so that's the best I can do at the moment. I guess I'll be watching out for the more reactive side of my personality and be sure to keep it in check. 

Slashing/Back to 1984

 

Driving back from Indiana yesterday was a pretty serene experience. After an amazing weekend with my best friends in the world, I hit Route 31 and dug into a deserted drive back to Tennessee, accompanied for the first few hours by a handful of great Rock n' Roll albums. First up - Bowie's Diamond Dogs. I wasn't high, but I swear, I heard things in this listen that I hadn't ever before and really came out the other side with a new appreciation. Of particular mention, 1984, the arranging and production of which inspired a considerably great appreciation than on previous listens. There's a mindset to this album that it takes a very strong concentration to crack; I'm not saying I didn't dig DD before, but I guess I'd never listened to this one in such a concentrated, uninterrupted session before.  Aside from Rebel Rebel - which would have originally been the opening track on side two, and thus strategically placed to be the first song heard after the album is stopped and physically flipped over and re-started, there is a sonic and conceptual vein that runs through this record that almost makes it flow like one long song. 

I'm re-posting this track from youtube user Mister Sussux's channel, which, if you're a Bowie fan, you might want to check out and subscribe to, as it has some really cool Bowie clips.

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Watch:

I missed the trailer on this back a few months ago, but after catching it this morning on accident, I have to say, Slash/Back goes to the top of my Shudder watch list:

One part Stranger Things/Reservation Dogs, one Part The Thing or Slither - I purposely stopped watching the trailer the moment it looked like they might reveal the monster - this looks fantastic. This is the first feature from Slash/Back Director/Co-writer Nyla Innuksuk, who I know nothing about but have a feeling will be getting a spot on my radar after this one. 

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Playlist:

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs - Land of Sleeper

Telekinetic Yeti - Primordial

Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues

Cinematic Void Podcast - Episode 62

Trombone Shorty - Lifted

Television - Marquee Moon

Frank Black and the Catholics - Live at Melkweg March 24, 2001

David Bowie Diamond Dogs

The Police - Outlandos D'Amour

Dr. John - Locked Down

Beck - Odelay

David Bowie - PinUps

Various - Rocktober Blood Soundtrack

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Card:

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

Emotional recharge after letting go of the urge to try and control Earthly things we cannot. I'm not entirely sure what this is saying, but I have a feeling it ties into recent work/life stuff. 

Spooky Action At A Distance

 

In preparation for the recording of the first episode of our new spin-off podcast, The Horror Vision Presents: Elements of Horror, I rewatched Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive last night. I have to say, not only do I think this is one of the coolest films ever made, but I think about it almost every day. There is not a lot that moves the needle as far as inspiring me to make music again, but watching or thinking about this film does in a BIG way.

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Watch:

THIS will be in theatres? I won't hold my breath for it to come to Clarksville, however, I'm not averse to planning a trip to Chicago for this (if it even plays there).

 

This might tie Barbarian for the best trailer I've seen all year. Whether the movie lives up to the absolute lo-fi DREAD displayed here will remain to be seen. Below I've posted Skinamarink's summary, courtesy of the mighty Bloody Disgusting, whose article on the film is HERE: 

“Two children wake up in the middle of the night to find their father is missing, and all the windows and doors in their home have vanished. To cope with the strange situation, the two bring pillows and blankets to the living room and settle into a quiet slumber party situation. They play well-worn videotapes of cartoons to fill the silence of the house and distract from the frightening and inexplicable situation. All the while in the hopes that eventually some grown-ups will come to rescue them. However, after a while, it becomes clear that something is watching over them.”

If, like Christmas Bloody Christmas, which I had also planned to travel for, I can't make the trip north for Skinamarink, then the good news that, also like Joe Begos' new film, this will be released on Shudder is a welcome balm. I would drive back and forth twice a month if I could, but the logistics of life do have a habit of getting in the way of plans like that.

Really looking forward to seeing this, the first feature from Kyle Edward Bell.

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Read:

Last year at Severin Films' Black Friday sale, I picked up the Night of the Demon restored Blu-Ray and, perhaps more excitedly, Brad Carter's novelization that Severin commissioned in their possibly over-zealous roll-out for this widely unknown regional Horror film from 1980. 

After finishing Barry Adamson's Up Above the City, Down Below the Stars I was tempted to jump into David Lynch's biography, Room to Dream. I figured I could use a palate cleanser though; Adamson's book was the best book I read all year - or at least my favorite - and I need to put something genre between it and the story of another creator I adore. So I cracked open Brad Carter's translation of this bizarre little Bigfoot tale...

Confession: I've yet to watch the Blu-Ray. I'd seen a good deal of scenes from Night of the Demon a while back on youtube; not a place I generally go to watch movies, but before Severin's remaster, this film was almost as much a legend as Bigfoot itself. Now forty or so pages into the book, I have to say, it is quite well-written. I know the basic story here and it feels quite a bit more substantial as prose than film. Some of that is obviously the hindsight employed, but also I think it speaks to Carter as a writer, and I quickly cued up a few of his novels for future reading, in particular the novel Saturday Night of the Living Dead. 

As for Night of the Demon, I'm particularly interested in how the novel handles the "cult" subplot of the story, which didn't really get the treatment it deserved in what I saw of the film, which admittedly was not the whole thing. Carter gives all the characters involved extra development, which in some cases may have been a thankless task. Being asked to novelize a forty-something-year-old regional Horror film must be comparable to being asked to take agent listings of a house in need of updating. However, where someone else might have been happy to just recreate the schlock seen on the screen, Carter's extra level of care and attention really make this feel like it's going to be a far superior vehicle for the story.

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Playlist:

Beach House - Depression Cherry

Pete Shelley - Homosapien

Uriah Heep - Abominog

Metallica - Lux Æturna (pre-release single)

Revocation - Netherhaven

Tyler Bates - The Punisher OST

Fvnerals - For Horror Eats the Light

Fvnerals - Wounds

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Card:

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

Previous issues with my finances (intermittent but seemingly unending fallout from identity theft) will come to a resolution. 

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.