The first non-Twin Peaks David Lynch film I watched, way back when Twin Peaks the original series had only recently ended and sent me into an obsessive flurry for more of his work, was 1986's Pacific Northwest Small Town Noir Blue Velvet. I wasn't sure what I was in for, but Angelo Badalamenti's grand opening credits theme immediately told me it would be more greatness.
Watch:
Last week, I watched Travis Stevens' new film A Wounded Fawn. Then I watched it again. Then I watched it again.
I am nothing shy of completely blown away. Everything about this one is fantastic; sure, there will be cries of "elevated horror" but f*ck that; if you read these pages you know I like my Bill Lustig as much as I do my A24. There is such a staunch tone to this film, from Ksusha Genenfeld's camera work to VAAAL's enigmatic but resonating score, that A Wounded Fawn instantly became my favorite of Travis Steven's films - no easy task considering how much I dug last year's Jakob's Wife.
Playlist:
Jim Williams - Possessor OST
Zombi - Shape Shift
Lustmord - Dark Matter
Metallica - Lux Æterna (pre-release single)
Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror
In Slaughter Natives - Plague Walk My Earth (single)
In Slaughter Natives - Ventre
Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (digipak)
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Pretty blunt - transformation through the sacrifice of earthly matters; in other words, a direct answer to an anxiety loop open in my mind: Knuckle the f*ck down and pay off the credit card before the no-interest period expires early next year.
New Zombi! I'm still blasting last year's aptly titled 2020 and here there is, more on the way! Pre-order from Relapse Records HERE.
Watch:
Our entire household received our first doses of the Pfizer Vaccine on Thursday afternoon and it subsequently knocked me on my ass. I had flu-like body ache, fatigue and borderline nausea until yesterday. Which was fine, because I called out from work on Friday and other than having to work five hours on Saturday - which sucked - and interviewing comics artist and entrepreneur Jay Fotos for A Most Horrible Library afterward (episode out now), I basically watched a bunch of stuff, read a lot, and got some writing done. Oh yeah, and sleep. I slept A LOT.
Watch-wise, first up was Andrzej Zulawski's Possession, which I'd been wanting to see for a long time but is fairly hard to come by. Luckily, Anthony from The Horror Vision has several European Region copies and I now have a Region-Free player, so the stars aligned and my mind was literally blown.
I'm seriously planning a second viewing of this one SOON, because I really need to unpack it.
Friday night, Joe Bob Briggs returned with the first episode of The Last Drive-In. I'm a huge fan of JBB, however, after about thirty minutes of Lloyd Kaufman's Mother's Day, I jumped ship. I respect the hell out of the Kaufman's and Troma, but thus far, I've never had a single one of their movies work for me. This one was no different, so instead, K and I rented Travis Stevens' new film Jakob's Wife.
Starring Barbara Crampton and Larry Fessenden, there was pretty much no way this one would miss for me, and it didn't fail. Solid Five Stars on Lettrbxd.
I'm finally going back and re-watching all the Marvel MCU flicks that I missed due to total Superhero burn-out. If you're keeping track, I loved Ms. Marvel, and now loved Spider-Man: Homecoming!
Wow. I knew these flicks would all be good, however, damn! This one was awesome. K and I both LOVED Homecoming and now can't wait to watch Far From Home.
Finally, Saturday night we watched Michael Kennedy and Christopher Landon's Freaky. Everyone told me this one was great, and they were all 100% correct. Loved it!
As my good friend Missi said, "Vince Vaughn was born to play a seventeen-year-old girl!" Amen!
Playlist:
Steve Moore - VFW OST
Small Black - Cheap Dreams
Zombi - 2020
Tomahawk - Tonic Immobility
K's 70s Playlist
Kensonlovers - Keep Rolling
Kate Bush - The Dreaming
Lustmord - The Dark Places of the Earth
Selim Lemouchi and His Enemies - Earth Air Spirit Water Fire
Anthrax - Persistence of Time
Christopher Young and Lustmord - The Empty Man OST
Soul Coughing - Irresistible Bliss
Pilotpriest - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
John Carpenter - Lost Themes III
Judas Priest - Hell Bent for Leather
Mrs. Piss - Self Surgery
CCR - Bayou Country
Greg Puciato - Child Soldier
Numenorean - Adore
Alice in Chains - Facelift
Judas Priest - Painkiller
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
Revocation - Teratogenesis
Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction
Zombi - Shape Shift
Zombi - Escape Velocity
Voyag3r - Doom Fortress
Voyag3r - War Mask
Various - Valerie and Friends
Card:
Definitely feels like a Victory that A) I received that first dose of the vax, and B) I'm back into a pretty great vibe with Shadow Play Book Two!!!
I've been digging into Revocation's back catalogue on my writing sessions, and this FNM cover popped up at the end of 2011's Chaos of Forms. Great album, great cover! My writing music has been an example of the pendulum effect I complain about everywhere else in life; if I told you to consider Revocation and Lustmord as two nodes on the graph, you'd get the idea, yeah? It makes for some interesting ideas, one of which pretty much just changed the entire course of the third act for the better! Now I'm chasing that down and preparing for the final edit, which seems a bit like the ghost house that I relentless walk toward but never achieve. I have faith, though. Faith, and a killer work ethic. And music like this to keep me properly motivated (That and gallons and gallons of coffee, which I think is starting to fuck with my nervous system).
**
Bandcamp did another Artist Relief day this past Friday. I snagged the new, Digital Cocksure EP and a vinyl copy of their 2014 debut T.V.M.A.L.S.V., along with a copy of a single the Living Nudes released a while ago. I paid more for all three than asked for, because, while I didn't have a lot of money to throw at all the independent artists I love, I had some, and wanted to make it go as far as possible for the artists, not my collection.
So much new music this past week because of the Bandcamp relief, it was hard to narrow things down. I think I did pretty good, though.
**
After missing it at last year's Beyondfest, I finally got around to watching Travis Stevens' Girl on the Third Floor. I dug this one quite a bit; reminded me a lot of a kind of cross between American Horror Story and The Shining.
Dark Sky films can pretty much do no wrong in my eyes.
**
Playlist:
Revocation: Chaos of Forms
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Wasteland
Cocksure - T.V.M.A.L.S.V.
Blut Aus Nord - The Mystical Beast of Rebellion
Void King - Barren Dominion
Man Man - Dream Hunting in the In-Between
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
Lustmord - Hobart
Klangkarussell & GIVVEN - Ghostkeeper
