From their 1995 Masterpiece, A Northern Soul. K and I listened to this out under the stars Saturday night and it proved balm for the weary soul. Been too long; I need to work this one back into the rotation for a while.
Watch:
Noah Hawley's ALIEN EARTH gets a trailer!
Still no exact release date for this one yet, just a reiteration of "Summer 2025." I have a feeling I'll be avoiding this until then, but I had to watch it once.
Read:
My good friend and co-host from The Horror Vision, Anthony (also known as Butcher), recently started reading Jeff Lemire and Andrea Torentino's Gideon Falls, and this has provided the perfect excuse for me to launch my own re-read.
This will be the first time I've read this since it was monthly, so it will be a much more revealing experience. I've forgotten a lot, but not enough to have lost the reverence for this series I hold.
Can't wait to really get into it for discussion's sake, as there will be a Hororr Vision down the road where Anthony and I deep-dive this.
Playlist:
Baroness - Blue Record
OLD - The Musical Dimensions of Sleastak
Blood Incantation - Absolute Everywhere
Dreamkid - Daggers
Oranssi Pazuzu - Live At Roadburn 2017
Tad - Inhaler
Nirvana - Bleach
My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife
Starting the day off with some old school Baroness. Thanks for the prompt, Mr. Brown!
Was super excited to find live footage of this one with Gina. Thanks to Feet First Productions for posting this. I'd urge everyone to check out their channel HERE. Tons of great live footage.
Watch:
In a bizarre turn of events, I'm off today for "Good Friday." Ah, okay? Not complaining - I'll take the day and recharge. Currently sitting outside with the cats, but I'm going to head inside in a little bit, get baked and watch a few movies to charge up for what I hope will be an epic editing session later today. Black Gloves & Broken Hearts will be finished this weekend, so I can send it to my favorite beta reader!
First up:
After that, not sure where I'll go. But wherever I do, I'm certain it will be a place both wonderful and strange!
Play:
I've seen the trailer for David Sandberg's upcoming adaptation of the game Until Dawn a few times now, and although I'll need to see it for The Horror Vision, I'm just not looking forward to it. Then I had the idea that, maybe if I played the game, it might help.
Understand that, while I bought a Switch a few years back, it's the first gaming system I've owned since the original Nintendo, so I've missed nearly 40 years of gaming history.
The problem here is that Until Dawn is a PlayStation game. I looked into buying a used one, because there are a handful of other games I might like to play on the system. After briefly watching snippets of a play-through video, I was reminded of how much I dislike the Uncanny Valley look of many of these kinds of games. It's just not for me; I'm a Metroidvania/2D survival Horror kind of guy, and I really don't want to buy another video game system at this time. So I nixed the entire idea, but this got me thinking: What other Horror games are available for Switch?
I started HERE and now I'm second guessing my Uncanny Valley prejudice, because I'm not sure I can pass this up:
Maybe my aversion to this graphic style will abait after more exposure? Whataever the case, this is currently $7.99 on the Nintendo online store, and I'm thinking about grabbing it.
Holy cow - new music from Stereolab!!! From the forthcoming album Instant Holograms on Metal Film, out May 23rd on Duophonic UHF Disks and Warp Records . Pre-order HERE.
Watch:
A full trailer for Danny Boyle and Alex Garland's 28 Years Later dropped while I slept, and just seeing the thumbnail, I'm excited. I'm not going to actually watch this trailer, mind you. But just knowing we're that much closer to this brings me joy.
My fear is this will play before every movie I go to the theatre to see until the film's release on June 20th.
Playlist:
OLD - The Musical Dimensions of Sleastak
Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me
Primus - Pork Soda
Killing Joke - Eponymous
Stereolab - Aerial Troubles (single)
Type O Negative - Dead Again
Tad - Inhaler
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• XI: Justice
• Knight of Cups
• Nine of Swords
Balance creativity or sleeplessness could result.
I actually think this is telling me this so I do the opposite - I've wanted to work on some projects at night the last two weeks, but I'm finding it impossible to stay awake later than 11:00 PM most nights. I think I need to generate a fervor to inspire some 'sleeplessness.' Or at least, some sleep-delay.
I am waaaay behind on posting new music here. Mr. Brown alerted me to Pulp's new single last week, along with news of their forthcoming first album in... a really long time! More drops on June 6th. Pre-order from Rough Trade HERE.
NCBD:
Very excited to hit the shop later today. Here's what I'll be bringing home:
Really digging A.J. Lieberman and Mike Henderson's The Hive. The first issue was something I grabbed on a lark, but it was enough to get me to come back for two, and now here I am waiting on issue #3! A street-level crime comic with a very subtle, maybe "Black Mirror-like" Sci-Fi twist.
I'm going to have a boatload of these Z-News waiting for me in Chicago next time I'm on the South Side long enough to shop at Amazing Fantasy. The cover story here is on Joe Kelly helming the recent re-launch (yes, again) of Amazing Spider-Man with a new number one. I saw that on the shelf last week and almost went for it (there were certainly enough covers and copies), but they didn't get me this time, so it will be cool to read Kelly's plans or whatever this "interview" will be.
I feel like this book is tri-monthly at this point, and that's okay with me. Take it slow.
Justin Jordan and Maan House's Mine Is A Long Lonesome Grave is now one of my most anticipated books every month! A creepy A.F. supernatural revenge story, I'm really hoping this runs longer than next issue, which is the last I see solicited. I suppose if it doesn't, we'll have a tight little tale easy to push onto others. Always better to leave 'em wanting more than give 'em too much. Still, this could unfold in some pretty crazy ways. I trust Mr. Jordan implicitly, so I'm here for it either way.
Watch:
I'm not entirely sure how I made it to 2025 without seeing 1994's Brainscan, but I watched the flick for the first time last night and instantly fell in love with it.
With a screenplay written by Andrew Kevin Walker taken from a Brian Owens story, Director John Flynn leaves his 80s Action roots behind and crafts what I can honestly say is the only film I know of that delivers to me the same vibe that Robert Englund's 976-Evil does, and if you read these pages, you know how much I adore that film.
This a 90s film that feels like a natural progression from 80s Sci-Fi Horror; the suburban neighborhood, children who lead a seemingly adult-less existence and do just fine, and an otherworldly entity that singles them out for Horror that feels, at times, theoretically very frightening. I mean, the opening "kill" sees the film's Protagonist Mike (Edward Furlong) commit a savage murder first-person by way of a 'radical new video game.'
If you've read my story "Literal Death", I'm sure you'd think this film burrowed its way into me way back. That, however, is not the case.
So, of course, after watching Brainscan, I had to follow it with 976-Evil.
How could I not? Perfect timing, because I missed this one last year during 31 Days of Halloween, so I was overdue.
I don't know what it is about Englund's sole Directorial excursion that I love so much. It captures not an era, but an era as portrayed by Hollywood so perfectly, balanced on the precipice between when Horror and Exploitation were kind of studio-ish (Post-Terminator) because there were still successful, but still malleable, small studios with widespread distribution. The kids in 976-Evil are exacerbated stereotypes of 80s nerds and hoodlums like we see in so many other films (Return of the Living Dead springs immediately to mind), but combined here with Howard Berger's FX and the faux-small town but still recognizably urban environments the Art Director and Set Designers create, there's an etheral tone I've not seen many other places. Except in Brainscan, where Flynn updates the look to early 90s-but-still-oh-so-close-to-the-80s Suburbia, but still retains that 80s Kids in Danger vibe.
Playlist:
Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Suspended in Dusk version)
Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me
MadLove - White With Foam
Chelsea Wolfe - She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Five of Swords
• Two of Pentacles
• XXI: The World
Routine can be damaging, but it can also help establish a new foundation from which new vantages reveal comprehensive comprehension.
Or something like that. In other words, stay the course.
Recently, I was back in Chicago for my good friend and Horor Vision cohost Professor John Trafton's Moving Histories Panel at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (CSMS) conference hosted at the Freemont Hotel in downtown Chicago. The panel was on Saturday, so I drove in solo on Friday, and my sister Kim and I met John for pizza and beers at Piece Brewery/Pizzaria. Great food, great beer.
After dinner, Kim and I took John to one of the few Wickerpark legends that remains from back in the day - Estelle's. The 5:00 AM on the weekend lounge still has great ambience, a killer jukebox, and an all-around air of history to it. In service of my second point, QOTSA-project Desert Sessions track Subcutaneous Phat came on. I couldn't place it at first, but as soon as I did, I knew I'd be digging out my CD copy of Desert Sessions Vol. 9 & 10 upon returning home.
Absolutely killer track!!!
Watch:
How did I miss that Ari Aster's fourth film, a contemporary Western set during the recent pandemic, is on the horizon? Here's the teaser trailer, the only thing I'll be watching in the run-up to this film's eventual release, which has yet to be announced:
Also, check out this poster. This has to be my favorite film poster in years:
Can't wait for this one to hit theatres. I know Aster's third film, Beau's Not Afraid, did not get the kind of love his first two films, Hereditary and Midsommar, did, but I loved it and, while I'd love to have Aster back in the Horror genre, I'm there for anything the man does at this point.
I had not read this since it was monthly, and although I remembered it being just as good if not better than most of Ellis' work, I'llbedamned if this isn't one of my favorite arcs the man wrote. Maybe it's Williams' art, but the concept and execution are thrilling, kind of a Hellblazer-meets-the-spy-genre-meets-weird-fiction.
The problem with starting these posts days ahead of actually posting them is I'm always behind and it often makes it easy to forget import anniversaries. Like this one. 15 fucking years? Unbelievable. Miss you, sir.
More new Ghost! I'm waiting to listen to this and anything else they drop between now and April 25th, when Skeletá releases. Pre-order HERE.
Watch:
I had a mini Lucio Fulci marathon yesterday that included two films I'd never seen before. First up, I caught the last third or so of The Beyond on Shudder.TV. This one is an old favorite (thanks, Anthony), and it inspired the marathon.
Next up, The New York Ripper. I'd caught a few scenes of this here and there over the years but never watched it in its entirety. Truthfully, I had this one on in the background while I edited the latest episode of The Horror Vision, one earbud in, but with how downright mean and sleazy Ripper is, I got the gist, and it was more than enough.
Is it just me, or is there an exorbitant number of scenes in this flick of two men walking and talking exposition? Fulci uses that device often, but here it was cranked to eleven.
Finally, A Cat in the Brain. Man, this might be the grossest film by the gore master I've seen yet.
There's a kind of lackadaisical chill to some of the gore, and it did wonders for the creep factor. This was a late-night watch, so I passed out during parts and need to go back to fill in the gaps. Probably. This is not a great flick, but I'd like to sit through it at least once, even if just to see Fulci as the lead.
Read:
Now that Jeff Lemore and Garbriel H. Walta's Phantom Road is back monthly, I took the opportunity to re-read volumes one and two in one sitting, plowing right on through to last week's issue #11.
This book is up there with Tynion's SIKTC as one of the most readable books to come out since Kirkman's The Walking Dead. Every issue flies by but packs a whole lot of Mystery and Horror in its pages. I love the character development and how it's taking place, and there are just all kinds of threads to pull on and unravel.
Another thing - this book has so much Twin Peaks influence in it! It's not overt, but it's very much decipherable if you're a fan of Lynch and Frost's epic, only we've transported the weirdness from the forests of the Pacific Northwest to the desert roads of middle America.
Playlist:
Bedridden - Moths Strapped To Each Other's Backs
All Them Witches - Lightning At the Door
Marilyn Manson - The Pale Emperor
Dreamkid - Daggers
Slow Crush - Aurora
Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power
Yawning Balch - Volume Two
Miles Davis - Birth of the Blue
The Thirsty Crows - Hangman's Noose
AC/DC - Highway to Hell
Preoccupations - New Material
Preocccupations - Eponymous
Baroness - Stone
Beastie Boys - Check Your Head
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• XI: Justice
• Knight of Cups
• Nine of Swords
What does it say that Crowley turned XI Justice in Lust? Justice is certainly something people lust after in certain situations. My notes from way back talk about primordial forces underlying existence, and while I'd definitely mark Lust as one of those, I can't say my 49 years on Earth have proven to me that Justice is comparable.
Taken here as the first step on a path that advances to the Will of Emotion and culminates with a foundation of Intellect, I'd say the point to today's Pull is to remember to temper with the underlying push/pull of emotions connected to our view of the world with a healthy dose of Intellect. Not everything is as it seems, we know this, but knowing and abiding or using that knowledge is most definitely not the same thing.
