New Music From Deafheaven!!!

Deafheaven dropped a new EP a week or so ago, and it's brutal A.F. I'm posting this "film" that accompanies the opening track, "Hunter," but I haven't watched it yet. Regardless, love that we got this!  The POWER in this track, in George's voice and the overall mix - it's just awesome. 

You can order a copy of At Work In The Fields Of The Bomb directly from the band HERE.

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31 Days of Halloween:

One of the flicks I watched over the weekend was Joko Anwar's 2019 Impetigore. I could have sworn I'd watched this before, back when it first hit Shudder during or shortly before the pandemic. I absolutely watched the opening, which is one of the best openings in Horror of the last decade. No previous Letterboxd entry, though, and I did not remember the overall plot, so I guess I started it and never went back. Regardless, this is a fantastic flick, and it represents everything I have come to love about Indonesian Horror over the last half dozen years or so. The darkness of a steaming jungle lit only by torches and the claustrophobia of such a wide open space. The brutality, and, of course, the insane ritualistic mechanics of the haunting/possession or, in this case, curse.

 

Despite not being a Slasher, elements of this hearken back to Peter Carter's Rituals, The Final Terror and Just Before Dawn for me. The Folk Horror elements are strong, but do not constitute the point of the film. For that, read about the impetus that inspired Graham and I think it adds an entirely new level of respect to the final product. 

I followed Impetigore with one I had seen and loved before, and Jordan Graham's Sator 100% holds up. This is the definite of a slow burn; the horrific elements steep, and while they do, we're treated to some of the most breathtaking nature cinematography in recent years.

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

2) V/H/S/ playlist (Amateur Night; Safe Haven; Slumber Party Alien Abduction; Bone Storm; Dreamkill)

3) The Warriors

4) Big Trouble in Little China

5) Dreamscape

6) Infirmary

7) Beware Boiúna

8) Milk & Serial

9) Pumpkinhead

10) Deathgasm (The Last Drive-In Presentation)

11) Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings

12) Carrie (Mike Flanagan)/ John Carpenter's The Thing

13) The Roost / Return of the Living Dead III

14) Trigger Man

15) Evil Dead Burn

16) Pulse/ Lord of Tears

17) Impetigore/ Sator

18) My Soul To Take/ The Serpent and the Rainbow

Sunday night Kirsten asked about a Wes Craven movie neither of us had ever seen, so we rented My Soul to Take on Prime. 

Despite some atmospheric shots peppered throughout the film, this one was a stinker. You can literally feel Craven chasing his next big hit, modifying previously used formulas to the degree that this feels like a mismatched amalgamation of several of his previous films. Because this was so bad, I had to follow it with my favorite Craven film, and one that reminds me how great he could be, 1988's The Serpent and the Rainbow. Here's an old tv spot from its original theatrical run:

I've known this film for most of its life, first seeing it on WGN channel nine's weeknight movie at 7:00 PM back circa 1989 or 1990. I love it, and it always strikes me as containing some of the most horrific images I've ever seen. 

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Play:

I was minding my business this past Friday when I saw an article on Fangoria that mentioned this new game Directed by Andrés Borghi, whose team handled the FX in Demián Rugna’s When Evil Lurks. The game, Tenebris Somnia, has live action cut scenes. I really didn't need to hear anything more.

 

I've not played as much as I would have liked over the weekend, but I played enough to look forward to more. The game play is taking a bit getting used to, but it's in my wheelhouse as far as styles go, and I'm not much of a gamer, so that should in no way be considered a judgement on the game itself. So far, it's doing what it promised and providing an intriguing Horror premise (alternate dimensions?). The cut scenes have been cool - nothing crazy yet, but again, I'm still early on in the game play. I'll report back when I advance further.

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Playlist:

Miranda Sex Garden - Fairytales of Slavery

Goblin - Suspiria OST

The Damned - Night of 1000 Vampires

Big Black - Lungs

Type O Negative - Dead Again

NIN - Further Down the Spiral

Bauhaus - In the Flat Field

My Apple Music Halloween Playlist

Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar

Lustmord & Dave Lombardo - The Pulse of Atoms

Deafheaven - At Work In The Field Of The Bomb EP

Genital Shame - Wellness Plan (pre-release singles)

Fvnerals - Let the Earth be Silent

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Card:

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

• Eight of Cups

• Page of Wands

• 03: The Empress

Let curiosity counter writer's block, but rapid prototype things - don't be afraid to entertain new ideas and walk away from them quickly if they don't work.

Great advice. As I write this, I have a whole new angle on the third act of Shadow Play 2 in mind, but it's a stretch and I'm not sure it will work. Time to find out.

Fever Ray Live in an Abandoned Factory

I guess I had completely forgotten that Fever Ray released a new record earlier in the year. 

Historically, this is the time of the year when I go back and see what I missed or forgot about, and this was a big one. Great record. Even better - seeing them perform here for 

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NCBD:

Here's my Pull for yesterday's week's NCBD!

This final issue of the That Texas Blood spin-off/prequel The Enfield Gang Massacre will be out of my reach for a while, as my Drinking with Comics cohost Mike Shinabargar will be pulling it for my box over at Amazing Fantasy in Frankfort, Il. No sweat, I haven't had time to read all four of the preceding issuues yet, so I'll probably just wait to do the entire series in one fell swoop once I have them all. Not like I don't have a ton of stuff to read, regardless.

Very excited to be two issues into the return of Phantom Road. I adore this book, and can't wait to see where this crazy ass alternate-dimension/Grindhouse story is going. 

Well damn. The last issue of X-Men: Red. I'm both bummed and excited to see how this Arrako civil war ends up, especially after that final panel last month.

Also, a couple of surprises, which I talk about at length on the newest episode of Drinking with Comics: NCBD & A Beer!!!

Really digging the Gargoyle of Gotham!

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Watch:

In preparation for an episode of The Horror Vision we're recording later today, I rewatched Demián Rugna's Terrified and When Evil Lurks. I can honestly say that the latter elevates the former and also that When Evil Lurks is an early-in-the-running nominee for best Horror film of the decade. 

Much like Steven Kostanski and Jeremy Gillespie's The Void did in the 2010s, this one inspires nothing less than tireless awe every time I watch it.

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Playlist:

Baroness - Stone

Fever Ray - Radical Romantics

Yawning Balch - Volume One

Yawning Balch - Volume Two

Amigo the Devil - Everything is Fine

Kings of Leon - Because of the Time

Blut Aus Nord: Disharmonium: Nahab

Rodney Crowell - Christmas Everywhere

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Card:

My bandwidth is LOW, so today, just one card from Missi's Raven Deck:

VIII - Contemplate routines and make adjustments where needed. Interesting, as I feel like that's exactly what I just did by taking the shorter route for this Pull. 

New Music from Rein!!!

 

From the forthcoming album God is a Woman, out November 30th. You can pre-order the album from Rein's Bandcamp HERE.

I first discovered Rein at 2022's Cold Waves, and was pretty blown away by her performance. Since then, REINCARNATED has been in regular rotation, so I was happy to see this new track and subsequent announcement of the follow-up.

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31 Days of Halloween:

The next chapter in Womp Stomp Films's Friday the 13th sequel series, Never Hike Alone dropped today! I backed this on Indiegogo a couple years ago and can't wait to receive my Blu-Ray copy. Until then, it's free for everyone on YouTube. Give these folks some love! Not only are Director Vincent Disanti's films better than, oh, probably 98% of F13's actual studio-produced films, but he managed to entice Thom Matthews back to play Tommy Jarvis in the ultimate rematch. Here's the trailer:

Pretty sure I'll be rewatching Never Hike Alone and Never Hike in the Snow tonight right before this 'final chapter' drops. 

Was supposed to take K to see When Evil Lurks last night at the local Regal, but our 7:30 PM show was canceled last minute, so I'm hoping we'll have a chance before it leaves the theatre next week. I know it hits Shudder on the 27th, but I really wanted her to see it on the big screen and to send the message to the theatre that YES! There are people here who want to see crazy Argentinian Horror at the movies!!! Due to the cancellation, we went with Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. This is one I never thought I'd watch, however, I was editing the first episode of the new Drinking with Comics when this came on Shudder TV in the background. I got sucked in, then realized Joe Bob had done this film (and part 5) a few years ago in his "Halloween Hootnanny," so I promptly restarted it with Joe Bob. Truth be told? I don't care much for any of the original Halloween films that feature MM (love part 3; Atkins forever!), so this was... whatever. 

1) When Evil Lurks/VHS 85/Adam Chaplin

2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 6 "Collection Complete"

3) VHS

4) All You Need is Death

5) Slashers (2001)

6) The Beyond/Phenomena

7) The Convent

8) Evil Dead 2

9) The Autopsy of Jane Doe

10) Totally Killer

11) Ritual (Joko Anwar)/The Final Terror/Grave Robbers

12) Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (w/Joe Bob)

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Watch:

Holy cow, guess what? Drinking with Comics is back! The impetus for this is simply, I read a lot of comics I'd like to talk about, but many of them do not fit into either The Horror Vision or A Most Horrible Library, so here we go!

This was a lot of fun to do, so much so that I even gave it a few tweaks and threw it up on the new Drinking with Comics TikTok page. Yeah, that's right - DwC is on TkTk, and now I feel like I need a shower.

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Playlist:

NIN - Year Zero

Type O Negative - Dead Again

Fields of the Nephilim - The Nephilim

Bauhaus - The Sky's Gone Out

Halloween Spotify Playlist

Umberto - Prophecy of the Black Widow

Ritual Howls - Into the Water

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Card:

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

• Page or Princess of Pentacles (Disks)

• Justice (Lust)

• XVII - The Star

Creative force alone is not enough; Passion must be tempered against the Lust of Result by rigorous manifestation of idea through Will.

Okay, that's oblique, to say the least. To properly read this, I need to go back to Crowley and Harris's version of the Seventeenth Trump:

This card shows Nuith, Cosmic Mother, manifesting personified. This is not a concept; this is a PERSON. That's the clue here. You take the Earthly "go-get-em!" of the Page or Princess of Pentacles, literally the Earth of Earth, and when you begin mixing it with the creative process and achieve any degree of success, you get excited. I finished the second draft of Black Gloves and Broken Hearts the other day, and I felt like I could punch a planet in half. However, as soon as that charge comes in, so does the lust of result, which any Magickian worth his salt will tell you is exactly how you fuck things up. So, draw inspiration from Nuith, the personification of Night, of space, of turning the ineffable into the tangible. It takes work! Look at her; here's a goddess and she's bailing water, scooping up source material and turning it to crystals or glass or whatever the hell that is the pool around her feet is becoming. Becoming - that's the word. 

No Sleeping at Beyondfest Triple Feature!

The only time I'd ever heard of Sleep Token before this past Saturday night was when my friend Josh asked if I'd heard of them, as his algorithm maintained a consistent recommendation. Driving back from a friend's house in Santa Clarita, my friend Bridget played several songs, and I almost instantly became intrigued. When Ray dropped me off at the hotel, I had a head full of smoke and laid down with their first album, Sundowning, on my headphones. I was transported somewhere I had never been before. This is the reaction I am most fond of with music, and based on that, I'm kind of an overnight fan here, despite the fact that some of the textures Sleep Token employs in its genreless music are coopted from styles of music I don't particularly care for. That said, in the context of this band's music and mythology, most of it works. 

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31 Days of Halloween:

Thanks to Beyondfest, I was able to kick off 31 Days of Halloween yesterday with a triple-feature over at the Aero. Here's what we saw:

 

Having just rewatched Demián Rugna's 2017 film Terrified, I wasn't entirely certain what I was in for with When Evil Lurks. Turns out, When Evil Lurks won the day. This film is relentlessly dark, it doesn't hold your hand, and it pays back what it demands of the audience with one of the most original and gnarly Horror flicks of the year, if not of the last few.

Next, the latest installment in the V/H/S series:

 

As I've stated here previously, this series is always a mixed bag for me. When I saw Gigi Saul Guerrero, David Bruckner and Scott Derrickson attached to direct segments in V/H/S/85, I had hope for a really solid anthology film, and I got one.

The one thing about the VHS that still wears on me is how they play with the mechanism of the format. Tracking lines, pops, squiggles, dither and interrupted interstitial elements - these contrived artifacts add little at this point, and I think take up far too much time. I know having these creates the VHS illusion. However, they're just such a given at this point it does nothing for me. I also thought a few of the shorts had some pacing issues, but overall, this is easily my favorite all-around entry into the series since the original. Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill's "Dreamkill" was easily my favorite here, with its bloody set pieces that felt right out of an early 80s Video Nasty.

 Finally, the night ended with Emanuele De Santi and Giulio De Santi's 2011 bloodbath, Adam Chaplain:

This movie would make an absolutely perfect double feature with Gabriel Bartalos's Skinned Deep. It's low on budget but a veritable "how to" lesson on shooting and FX when you have more Will than money.

As with last year's 31 Days, I'm aberrating my usual a-movie-a-day format due to the fact that I'll still be in a hotel room until the evening of the ninth. I always bring my firestick with me when I travel, however, working and seeing people come first, so I cannot guarantee I'll have the time every single day to watch something. With that said, Day #1 takes care of the next 3 days (not to say I won't try to watch something every day, it's just doubtful.

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Playlist:

Jóhann Jóhannsson - Mandy OST

Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh

Baroness - Stone

The Warlocks - Vevey Live

Sleep Token - Sundowning

Sleep Token - Take Me Back to Eden

Voyage - Paradise (single)

Voyage - Second Light

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Card:

I'm on the road, so all my Pulls will be from my mini Thoth deck for the next two weeks. Not a bad thing, but wanted to put up a reminder that Grimm's new Tarot Deck, The Hand of Doom Tarot, is both gorgeous and live on Kickstarter until Tuesday, October 3rd. Here's the LINK.

• II: The Priestess

• Three of Cups: Abundance

• IX: The Hermit

Another pretty easy one - an abundance of emotion can lead to isolation. This is, I believe, another tip for dealing with issues at work. It's pretty easy to become overwhelmed and transported right back into the "Manager Mode" that made me successful while I was still living and working here in L.A. That's a mistake, and I appreciate the Universe's constant reminders that is no longer my role.