Somehow I totally missed this stunning single the Whigs released in 2017.
Watch:
Maika Monroe is really on my radar of late. True, she was fabulous in both The Guest and It Follows, and both were years ago. Seeing this year's Watcher a few months back at a Beyondfest screening, she really stole the show. And now this:
I signed up for Paramount + again recently so K and I could finish Evil, Season 3, and looks like I'll probably hang onto it a bit longer to catch this on Friday, October 7th.
Playlist:
Various - Return of the Living Dead Soundtrack (Playlist)
The Cramps - Songs the Lord Taught Us
The Cramps - Psychedelic Jungle
The Misfits - Legacy of Brutality
Idles - Joy As An Act of Resistance
Melvins & Lustmord - Pigs of the Roman Empire
Card:
Re-engaging with Magick this weekend could lead to a breakthrough, but it may also lead to Ruin. I'm pretty sure I know exactly what this is talking about, and my intention remains to stay away.
And for day 7 of our 7 Days of Ozzy, I had to go with something a little bit different. Love the first Infectious Grooves album, and especially this track, which benefits enormously from Ozzy's vocals. I'd say this is similar to Sting's contribution to Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing" - you just can't imagine the chorus being sung by anyone else.
Watch:
Saturday night Beyondfest & the American Cinematheque held a free advance screening of Chloe Okuno's new film Watcher at the Aero Theatre. Holy smokes - a fantastic psychological thriller with a gut-punch ending. LOVED it!
The cinematography and direction in this one are fantastic, as are all the performances. The film really gives you a feel for the slow-motion paranoia that upturns Maika Monroe's Julia's life after she moves with her husband to Bucharest - a city she's never been to where most people speak Romanian - a language she doesn't speak. This isolation feeds directly into her paranoia, so you really don't have a sense of what's real and what's imagined in Julia's escalating panic, stoked by the fact that a serial killer stalks the city in the background of their lives.
Afterward, Maika Monroe and Karl Glusman did a Q&A moderated by Heidi Honeycutt. The two stars discussed filming in Romania during the Pandemic, the endless beauty of Bucharest, and how they prepared for the isolation and paranoia of the film.
I can't recommend this one enough.
Distributed by IFC Midnight, Watcher opens wide June 3rd on 500 screens - the company's largest theatrical opening to date.
Then, in keeping with the themes Watcher introduced, K and I took in a matinee of Alex Garland's new film Men.
Bold Horror Statement*: If The Witch and Midsommar kicked off the current zeitgeist resurgance of Folk Horror, Men is it's apex. Not to say it's better than them, but it seems to coelsce so many of the themes and images into an entirely new thing.
It's been a minute since I listened to Dum Dum Girls' 2014 Too True. Such a fantastic record, which also served as the band's last before dissolving. I can vividly remember staring out the window on a Greyhound bus early on in my relationship with this record. None of the band's other releases ever hit me quite as hard as this one, possibly because of such a sustained period of isolation and reflection with it on that bus, headed from Chicago to Dayton, nearing the end of a particularly long era of my life. When I listen now, my head doesn't automatically go to the whys and wherefores of that bus ride, just the deliciously peaceful Midwest scenery
Watch:
There's something inherently creepy about the word "watcher."
I don't know much about director Chloe Okuna, except that her segment of last year's V/H/S '94 - apparently entitled Storm Drain - was the only segment in the film that I enjoyed. And I really enjoyed it, so I'm very curious to see her new full-length film Watcher.
NCBD:
A thankfully abbreviated NCBD this week, as I actually went back in last week and ended up grabbing the new trade paperback of the Jeff Lemire/Greg Smallwood 2016 run on Moon Knight that Marvel recently released.
Now, onto this week's pull, which starts with another issue of our 90s rock tactical military ghost war comic, Home Sick Pilots!
This book continues to be insane, and I realize now that I should take the opportunity to pass on the fact that if you're so inclined, you can go HERE to read the first issue of the series for free online. The only reason you should absolutely not do this is if you don't want to get sucked in and immediately shell out the dough for the first two trades ($10 and $17 respectively).
The changes that adapting author David M. Booher has been making to Joe Hill's Rain have made this limited series a nice companion for someone like me, who just finished reading the original novella a fw weeks before this series hit the stands. Rain is a different kind of apocalypse story - thankfully - and in spite of the changes, the massive heart that comprises its DNA are brought our wonderfully by Zoe Thorogood's art.
More Silver Coin, and this month, we get a sequel to a previous issue's story. Hot damn!
A new number one from Image that sounds like it has serious potential. From the solicitation copy on Image's site:
"Stetson is a nightmare hunter. A dream detective. She runs a shoddy back-alley business where she helps clients sleep at night by entering their dreams and killing their nightmares. But Stetson’s past comes back to haunt her when she tracks down a literal living nightmare—a serial killer that murders people in their sleep.SLUMBER is an ongoing series from the twisted minds of writer TYLER BURTON SMITH (Kung Fury, Child’s Play) and rising-star artist VANESSA CARDINALI."
I don't know about you, but that description buys it at least one issue with me.
Playlist:
Drug Church - Hygiene
Metallica - Kill 'Em All demos
Metallica - Ride The Lightning
The Cure - Three Imaginary Boys
Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous
Dum Dum Girls - Too True
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works
Revocation - The Outer Ones
Card:
Discretion when dealing with the Physical World is a commonly held interpretation. It's generally NOT mine. To me, the Fifteenth Trump Card of the Tarot is usually a nudge to pay attention to wisdom that comes from a possibly dodgy source.
UPDATE on yesterday's three-card spread: Exactly as I thought, I stopped what I was doing pretty much on the spot, broke out a short story I've been trying to finish since 2018, and finished it!
