Babak Anvari's Adaptation of Nathan Ballingrud's Wounds @Screamfest!!!

Two films. Babak Anvari has made two feature-length films, and after seeing his second, Wounds, earlier this evening at the penultimate night of Screamfest 2019, I am floored by how exquisite a filmmaker he has become in so short a period of time.

I first read Nathan Ballingrud's The Visible Filth back in late 2015. I've read it at least three more times since. It is one of my favorite pieces of prose and was a very large inspiration in my completing my first book of short stories, A Collection of Desires. To say it is a very important work of fiction to me is an understatement. That means I went into viewing Wounds with extremely high expectations. The film met every one of those expectations. It lands on Hulu this Friday. Watch it. Then, go read The Visible Filth, which is now available in a collection of six stories, conveniently titled Wounds. (you can order signed copies from Malaprop's Bookstore in NC HERE or Amazon HERE)

Thanks to Screamfest for bringing this to the big screen, if only fleetingly; in a perfect world it would receive a much wider release. Also thanks to Screamfest, Tuesday night I saw the Soska Sisters' remake of David Cronenberg's 1977 film Rabid. This is another film I'd anticipated for a long time, and it did not disappoint. My quick-take review on Rabid is up as a short episode of The Horror Vision Horror Podcast, available in the usual places:

The Horror Vision on Apple

The Horror Vision on Spotify

The Horror Vision on Google Play

There will be a Wounds review up tomorrow as well.

**

31 Days of Horror:

10/01: House of 1000 Corpses/31

10/02: Lords of Chaos

10/03: Creepshow Ep 2/Tales from the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 1

10/04: IT Chapter 2, AHS 1984 Ep. 3

10/05: Bliss/VFW

10/06: Halloween III: Season of the Witch/Night of the Creeps/The Fog

10/07: Halloween 2018

10/08: Hell House, LLC

10/09: Dance of the Dead (Tobe Hooper; Masters of Horror Ssn 1 Ep 3)

10/10: Creepshow Episode 3

10/11: Jenifer (Dario Argento; Masters of Horror Ssn 1 Ep 4)

10/12: Poltergeist/Phenomena

10/13: AHS 1984 Ep 4/In the Tall Grass
10/14: Invasion of the Body Snatchers ('78)
10/15: Rabid (2019)
10/16: Wounds

**

Playlist from the last few days:

Bauhaus - The Sky's Gone Out
Talking Heads - Sand in the Vaseline (Disc One)
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
Ritual Howls - My Friends Bury Their Souls for the Devil to Find
Ritual Howls - Their Bodies
Flipper - Album - Generic Flipper
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Opeth - In Cauda Venenum

**

No card today, mainly because it's 2:29 AM and I am exhausted beyond reprieve. 

Bauhaus - Antonin Artaud

A little Bauhaus to start our day. LOVE this track, and Burning From the Inside will always hold a special place in my Bauhaus heart because it was the first of their albums I ever heard.

**

AHS 1984 is shaping up to be one fucking fantastic ride! We're not even halfway through the season and I'm left wondering just where the hell this is going. A lot like Roanoke, I feel like the story/setting/characters established in the first part of the season is soon going to shift into a totally different direction.



**

31 Days of Horror:

10/01: House of 1000 Corpses/31

10/02: Lords of Chaos

10/03: Creepshow Ep 2/Tales from the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 1

10/04: IT Chapter 2, AHS 1984 Ep. 3

10/05: Bliss/VFW

10/06: Halloween III: Season of the Witch/Night of the Creeps/The Fog

10/07: Halloween 2018

10/08: Hell House, LLC

10/09: Dance of the Dead (Tobe Hooper; Masters of Horror Ssn 1 Ep 3)

10/10: Creepshow Episode 3

10/11: Jenifer (Dario Argento; Masters of Horror Ssn 1 Ep 4)

10/12: Poltergeist/Phenomena

10/13: AHS 1984 Ep 4/In the Tall Grass

**

Playlist from 10/13:

Windhand - Eternal Return

Allegaeon - Apoptosis

White Lung - Eponymous

Zombi - Shape Shift

**

Card of the day:

Another reminder as I struggle to shift things around in my outline for Books Two and Three of Shadow Play: remember the grid!

New Swans Track!

New Swans! From the album Leaving Meaning, out October 25th; support a truly independent artist and pre-order a signed copy of the new album directly from Gira's Young God Records HERE.

Being that Swans founder/brainchild Michael Gira stated upon its release that 2016's The Glowing Man would be the final Swans album from my personal favorite incarnation of what is one of the longest-running, consistently changing bands ever, I am extremely curious to hear where this new album leads.

**

Friday night K and I saw Joker. I was on the fence with this one, but now that I've seen it there's no reason to even review my reservations. Joker is easily going to be in my top ten films of the year. Easily. If you have superhero/comic book franchise fatigue like I do, take it from me: don't let that keep you from seeing this one in the theaters. Nothing remotely 'comic book' about this film. The hype is real - annoying - but real. I'm the trailer below, but my advice is to not even watch that, just go see it. Wow. Phoenix is absolutely amazing. Makes me want to re-watch PTA's The Master, which I'll probably do in early November.

Oh, and I absolutely loved the juxtaposition/influence on Joker from Scorcese's King of Comedy, which I just watched again recently.



**

31 Days of Horror:

10/01: House of 1000 Corpses/31
10/02: Lords of Chaos
10/03: Creepshow Ep 2/Tales from the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 1
10/04: IT Chapter 2, AHS 1984 Ep. 3
10/05: Bliss/VFW
10/06: Halloween III: Season of the Witch/Night of the Creeps/The Fog
10/07: Halloween 2018
10/08: Hell House, LLC
10/09: Dance of the Dead (Tobe Hooper; Masters of Horror Ssn 1 Ep 3)
10/10: Creepshow Episode 3
10/11: Jenifer (Dario Argento; Masters of Horror Ssn 1 Ep 4)
10/12: Poltergeist/Phenomena

**

Playlist from the last few days:

Deftones - Koi No Yokan
1919 - The Complete Collection
Dr. John - Gris Gris
Queens of the Stone Age - Rated R
The Nukes - Why Things Burn
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F#A# (Infinity)
Various - Joker Soundtrack (Playlist)
Bauhaus - The Sky's Gone Out
Ritual Howls - Their Body
Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh
Turn Pale - Kill the Lights

**

Card of the day:

Direct reference to an under-developed aspect of my outline for Shadow Play Book Two. Duly noted.

1919 - The Scream

Chalk this one up to another group I'd never even heard of from that beloved Post Punk era of the early 80s. Fantastic stuff.

**
The first issue of Batman's Grave, that Warren Ellis/Steve Hitch twelve-month series came out this week, and I'm doing everything I can to not go into The Comic Bug and buy it. My mantra? Wait for the trade. Wait for the trade. Ellis always reads better in trade. Always.

I know, I know. We've seen this shot a million times by a million artists. What's special about this one? The artist is working with Warren Ellis, that's what.

**

31 Days of Horror:

10/01: House of 1000 Corpses/31
10/02: Lords of Chaos
10/03: Creepshow Ep 2/Tales from the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 1
10/04: IT Chapter 2, AHS 1984 Ep. 3
10/05: Bliss/VFW
10/06: Halloween III: Season of the Witch/Night of the Creeps/The Fog
10/07: Halloween 2018
10/08: Hell House, LLC
10/09: Dance of the Dead (Tobe Hooper; Masters of Horror Ssn 1 Ep 3)
10/10: Creepshow Episode 3

I didn't have it in me yesterday to watch more than the new episode of Creepshow before I passed out for the night.

**

Playlist for 10/10:

Sam Hain - November Coming Fire
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - In Summer EP
The Smiths - Meat is Murder
Mark Morrison - Return of the Mack (single)
Deftones - White Pony
Doomriders - Black Thunder
Pigface - A New High in Low (Low Disc)
Opeth - Deliverance
Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh
Deth Crux - Pears of Anguish EP
1919 - The Complete Collection
Ain Soph - Rituals
Bauhaus - Burning From the Inside

**

Card of the day:

Very good to see the Four of Wands today, which I'm taking as a direct nod to the fact that if I keep at it, I'll finish the first pass on the outline of Book Two this weekend. There's bound to still be some tweaking needed afterward, but as long as I have all the points on the grid, I'll be able to use it as a map to start actually writing the prose. This is the first time I've ever outlined anything this heavily, but what a difference it has already made.

Doomriders - The Chase

The Playlist for Joe Begos' new film Bliss has turned out to be the gift that keeps on giving! I've spent the last twenty-four alternating between Deth Crux's Mutant Flesh album and Doomriders' Black Thunder. Both these records are start-to-finish fantastic, and I haven't even had time to dig into some of the other bands with killer tracks on it. Here's the embedded full playlist - if you dig it, follow some of these folks on BandinTown, Spotify, Bandcamp or Apple Music.



**

31 Days of Horror:

10/01: House of 1000 Corpses/31
10/02: Lords of Chaos
10/03: Creepshow Ep 2/Tales from the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 1
10/04: IT Chapter 2, AHS 1984 Ep. 3
10/05: Bliss/VFW
10/06: Halloween III: Season of the Witch/Night of the Creeps/The Fog
10/07: Halloween 2018
10/08: Hell House, LLC
10/09: Dance of the Dead (Tobe Hooper; Masters of Horror Ssn 1 Ep 3)

Wow. When Masters of Horror aired back in the mid-'00s, I cursed not having cable. I looked forward to the inevitable DVD releases with a sort of frantic fan devotion. I mean, here was a series that assembled most of the greatest living horror auteurs, new and old, in one place. How could that be bad?

When all was said and done, I enjoyed the few I saw (Carpenter's Cigarette Burns, Coscarelli's Incident On and Off a Mountain Road, and Stuart Gordon's Lovecraft adaptation Dreams in the Witch House) but somehow never got around to the rest.

It's as if I knew.

Last year, I went back to the series for the first time in forever, primarily because at ~an hour each, MOH provides a great way to check a box for 31 Days of Horror on a work night. Yesterday, with a late start and an early wake-up time, I sought the series out again, opting to buy the first season digitally on Prime. Once acquired, K and I settled in for one of the episodes I had always anticipated but never got around to: Tobe Hooper's Dance of the Dead.

Dance is an adaptation of an old Richard Matheson short story of the same name that I first read in the early 90s; in fact, Matheson wrote the teleplay to adapt the story for Hooper, so everyone involved with this film is in my 'good book.' That makes it even stranger that I absolutely hated the finished product.

I didn't hate the way the story was adapted. No, what I disliked, and what I now wonder might hold true for more of the MOH series - and maybe even a lot of Mid-'00s, big-name Horror in general - is the aesthetic. I can't speak to that broader picture yet, but let's take a look at Dance of the Dead as a possible microcosm of the overall macrocosm of 2000s Horror.

Dance of the Dead suffers from an extremely dated adherence to mid-'00s culture: the guys in DOD all look like Bros, the attitude of everyone seems an extrapolation and acknowledgment of 'extreme' culture - something horror was DEFINITELY guilty of trafficking in; remember the Dimension: Extreme imprint? - and their messy hair, mountain dew attire, piercings, tattoos, etc. really just look embarrassing for the costume designer and producers. After a similar cultural rift, a lot of us look back on this same broad-stroke cluelessness on 80s youth culture as endearing (bandanas, shoulder-hoisted ghetto blasters, switchblades, etc), so maybe that will happen with the 2000s as well.

Though I doubt it. The schism is a little hard to explain, but if you were socially cognizant during the 00s, you'll know what I mean.

Along with the above, DoD sports an overly enthusiastic reliance on digital effects and awkward, heavily effected camera work that manifests as constant shaking-and-trailing of the picture frame, superimposed imagery, and a general frenetic editing pace that directly detracts from the film's visual exposition, in my opinion. During this period, I remember having a theory that everyone in Hollywood thought the entirety of youth culture suffered from ADD.

Finally, this befuddlement of youthful values and mores leads to a palpable and frankly ugly mean streak, especially when looking back from higher ground. Horror is horror, but in my experience, 'mean' generally doesn't hold up in the light of hindsight.

I fully intend to watch more of the first season of Masters of Horror, so I can only hope some of the other films contained therein prove me wrong.

**

Playlist from 10/09:

Tones of Tail - Everything
Various - Bliss Soundtrack Playlist
Bauhaus - In the Flat Field
Doomriders - Black Thunder
Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh
Twin Tribes - Shadows
Ritual Howls - Into the Water

**

No card today.

Playlist to Joe Begos' Bliss

From the soundtrack to Joe Begos' Bliss, a film that I absolutely had a blast with on the big screen at the Egyptian last Saturday night. Producer/Editor/Actor Josh Ethier posted a link to the Spotify playlist, and various tracks from that will probably be popping up here for the next few days because it is loaded with great stuff that really fleshed out the aesthetic of the film and helps re-live it.

**

31 Days of Horror:

10/01: House of 1000 Corpses/31
10/02: Lords of Chaos
10/03: Creepshow Ep 2/Tales from the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 1
10/04: IT Chapter 2, AHS 1984 Ep. 3
10/05: Bliss/VFW
10/06: Halloween III: Season of the Witch/Night of the Creeps/The Fog
10/07: Halloween 2018
10/08: Hell House, LLC

Hell House, LLC was a very nice surprise. I really dug this one; while K liked it but feels most found footage movies feel like re-treads because the original Blair Witch did it already and did it better. I agree to a point, but there's something about the MO of a found footage flick that seems to lend itself to making genuinely scary moments - when handled correctly. Hell House, LLC has a couple of deep, sustained moments of, "What the fuck, ah!" horror, my favorite of which became hard to watch as one of the characters, when faced with inexplicable entities directly in front of their face, chose to pull the covers over their heads and, I guess, hope for it to go away.

I would post the trailer, but it really doesn't do it justice. My advice? If you're interested, turn off all the lights in your home and watch in the dark.

**

Playlist from 10/08:

Type  Negative - Life is Killing Me
Various - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me OST
Perturbator - New Model
Dr. John - Gris Gris
How to Destroy Angels - Welcome to Oblivion
Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh
A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head
John Carpenter - Lost Theme II
John Carpenter - Prince of Darkness OST

**

Card of the day:

Change is a'coming. Isn't that always the case? I'm reading this more as the thirteen and reference to Thanatos Energy, Death Energy, which is to say transformative energy.

Some Spooky Dr. John for your October 8th

Chalk another awesome recommendation up to Mr. Brown. Of course, I've been aware of Dr. John's music for a pretty damn long time and never really dipped a toe in, but when Brown recommended this to me yesterday as a left-field pick for some Halloween music, I jumped right in and found myself fully submerged in Gris Gris, the Doctor's first Voodoo-infused take on his Night Tripper persona. Really good stuff, and you'll see a lot of where Tom Waits pulled from when he left the drunken piano-schtick behind.

No offense meant to Waits, he'll always be one of my favorites. But the influence is on his sleeve, for sure.

**

31 Days of Horror:

10/01: House of 1000 Corpses/31
10/02: Lords of Chaos
10/03: Creepshow Ep 2/Tales from the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 1
10/04: IT Chapter 2, AHS 1984 Ep. 3
10/05: Bliss/VFW
10/06: Halloween III: Season of the Witch/Night of the Creeps/The Fog
10/07: Halloween 2018

**

Playlist from 10/06:

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (digipak)
Ritual Howls - Rendered Armor
1919 - The Complete Collection
Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me
White Zombie - Astro-Creep 2000
John Carpenter - Lost Themes II

**

Card of the day:

I always kind of think of the Twos as the spicket through which the Cosmic Perfection of The Crown trickles into Reality. What that means for me today, I'm not sure, but I'm hoping it bodes well for my writing session scheduled for this evening.

Joe Bob Briggs Halloween Hootenanny

Shudder just announced what we all pretty much knew was going to happen. Friday, 10/25 Joe Bob returns!

**

31 Days of Horror:

10/01: House of 1000 Corpses/31
10/02: Lords of Chaos
10/03: Creepshow Ep 2/Tales from the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 1
10/04: IT Chapter 2, AHS 1984 Ep. 3
10/05: Bliss/VFW
10/06: Halloween III: Season of the Witch/Night of the Creeps/The Fog


**

Playlist from 10/06:

Carpenter Brut - Leather Teeth
Otis Redding - The Very Best of Otis Redding

**

No card today.

Joe Begos Double Feature at Beyondfest!

Let's start the day with something from Chris Connelly's pre-Ministry project Finitribe, from his Edinburgh days. I dug out an old single I have on vinyl yesterday and enjoyed the hell out of it, and was super pleased to see some of their stuff up on Apple Music.

**

Another wonderful evening at Beyondfest last night, where we saw a double feature of Joe Begos' two new films, Bliss and VFW. Both are FANTASTIC! Bliss is on VOD right now and I urge you to support it; VFW is slated to drop sometime around the end of the year; I'm sure I will post about it again then.



We were able to record a quick-take review of both of these, plus Joe Bob Briggs' How Rednecks Saved Hollywood and Stewart Raffill's Tammy and the T-Rex for The Horror Vision - check it out!

The Horror Vision on Apple

The Horror Vision on Spotify

The Horror Vision on Google Play

**

31 Days of Horror:

10/01: House of 1000 Corpses/31
10/02: Lords of Chaos
10/03: Creepshow Ep 2/Tales from the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 1
10/04: IT Chapter 2, AHS 1984 Ep. 3
10/05: Bliss/VFW

**

Playlist from 10/05:

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Digipak)
Testament - Souls of Black
Steve Moore - The Mind's Eye OST


**

No card today - it's late, I've been up for closing in on twenty-four hours, and I have a Tom Atkins triple feature to be at in Hollywood at 11:00 AM tomorrow. And hey, Tom Atkins will be there in person! How's that for a thrill, eh?

New Chromatics!

You can order the digital version of the new album Closer to Grey HERE. Not sure if there's a physical one looming, which would be a shame, because the album art is a fantastic take on old Giallo poster art.

K and I saw IT Chapter Two last night. I had a few issues, but overall I really dig it. Very horrific, with a nice mix of jump scares and sustained fear, my real issue was simply that it felt light on plot and more a succession of scenes where Pennywise attacks but doesn't really harm all the characters. Of course at some point that stops being true, and the filmmakers offset that with a healthy dose of new children who serve as fodder for the monster, so I'm wondering if upon second viewing this might flow better for me. Regardless, this isn't a negative review - I dug a lot of what the film does.



The score is pretty cool, too. Benjamin Wallfisch hits a sweet spot that seems to draw on a lot of horror's greatest composers; this track reminds me a bit of Pino Donaggio and Joey Bishara, a pedigree guaranteed to get a result from the audience.


**

31 Days of Horror:

10/01: House of 1000 Corpses/31
10/02: Lords of Chaos
10/03: Creepshow Ep 2/Tales from the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 1
10/04: IT Chapter 2, AHS 1984 Ep. 3

**

Playlist from 10/04:

Type O Negative - Dead Again
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Ghosteen
Bauhaus - This is for When (Live)
Opeth - In Cauda Venenum
Type O Negative - The Origin of the Feces

**

The reminder I needed today to stop and pay attention to the moment. Not the surface moment, but those things going on below the surface, which I have very much been losing sight of lately.

Type O Negative, Creepshow, and Tales from the Crypt!

I've been in full October mode, and of course, that means lots of Type O Negative. This song, the final track on their final album before Peter Steele's death, really hit me this morning. Released in 2007, I've always really liked Dead Again, but I never quite warmed up to it as much as Life Is Killing Me, their previous and my favorite of their albums (I just take Bloody Kisses out of the running for that - it's perfect and stands on its own in a timeless continuum of awesome). Last year at this time, however, I felt myself coming around a bit more, and this year, well, I may now consider it the band's best album (again, eschewing BK). The song structures and arrangements are fascinating and far from obvious; listen to the soft countermelody Josh plays on the climax of this track -  I feel like one in a million rock keyboardists would write something like that there.

That said, this increased infatuation with Dead Again is what makes hearing Steele sing "All Hail and Farewell to me..." at the end of the song so emotional - I'm willing to bet the reason Dead Again took me so long to fall completely in love with is I'm a bit of a saver. In other words, living with the knowledge that this was their final album (I had a hunch even before Steele passed), I believe I saved this album to have one last record to fall in love with over the years. Now that this love has come to pass, I'm sad. But only so sad, because none of Type O's record ever get old.

**

The second episode of Shudder's Creepshow aired last night. Fantastic! There's a ton of schlock here, but that's how it's supposed to be. I especially liked "The Finger," with DJ Qualls. Breaking the fourth wall doesn't often work, but it did here. As a complementary flavor, K and I followed Creepshow with the first episode of the first season of HBO's Tales from the Crypt. Unlike many of my contemporaries, I didn't see much of this show back in the late 80s/early 90s when it aired. This episode, The Man Who Was Death, proved relevant in several ways. First, William Sadler is one of the stars of Joe Begos' VFW, which we'll be seeing tomorrow night at Beyondfest, and two, Sadler's out-of-work executioner narrates this episode by continuously breaking the fourth wall. A great double-feature in a weekend that will be filled with double and triple features!


**
31 Days of Horror:

10/01: House of 1000 Corpses/31
10/02: Lords of Chaos
10/03: Creepshow Ep 2/Tales from the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 1

**

Playlist from 10/03:

Type O Negative - Dead Again
Various - Lords of Chaos Soundtrack (Playlist)
Sisters of Mercy - Floodland
Miranda Sex Garden - Suspiria
Neon Kross - Darkness Falls
Claudio Simonetti and Fabio Pignatelli - Phenomena OST

**

Card of the day:

Taking this as a nod that spending yesterday after work catching up on sleep instead of working was the correct plan of action. I feel revived, refreshed, and ready to continue outlining Shadow Play Book Two!

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Ghosteen Premiere

I'm not sure how long this is staying on youtube, but I wanted to post the link. I don't have the time to listen tonight - I'll probably just listen to it tomorrow when it hits digital platforms.

New Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Premieres on Youtube 10/04

The new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds album will be streaming at 2:00 PM HERE. Physical copies drop Friday, October 8th, and you can pre-order HERE.

**

31 Days of Horror:

10/01: House of 1000 Corpses/31
10/02: Lords of Chaos



**

Playlist from 10/02:

Type O Negative - Dead Again
Various - Halloween Playlist
Rob Zombie - Hellbilly Deluxe
Claudio Simonetti and Fabio Pignatelli - Phenomena OST
Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets
Perturbator - Dangerous Days

**

Card of the day:

I needed a clarification on this but didn't have time to do a full, three-card spread, so I pulled one more:

So the Seven of Wands refers directly to my wavering attempts at getting back on track with my recently re-energized attempts to put myself back on an active path with Magick. I've had a nearly impossible time getting my breathing back under control - and I was doing so good! I'll have to try and pull another card later to get some idea what I need to do to get myself going again. 

31 Days of Horror Begins!

"It's the most wonderful time of the year..."

That runs through my head pretty much from the time Beyondfest begins at the end of September, all the way through November 1st, and this year it's even more pronounced. Because of the late night at Joe Bob and Tammy and the T-Rex Monday night, I took October 1st off, which in turn gives me a nice head start on 31 Days of Horror. I started with a Rob Zombie double feature: I chose House of 1000 Corpses to kick the entire month off as a tribute to Sid Haig. From there I segued into 31, although that essentially played in the background as I started my writing day. BIG breakthroughs on the second book of Shadow Play, now I just have to work them into my outline, rejigger a few things, and then commence writing.

**

Finally: here's a newly expanded version of that Halloween Playlist I've been listening to for the last year or two.



**

31 Days of Horror:

10/01: House of 1000 Corpses/31

**

Playlist from 10/01:

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
Ritual Howls - Rendered Armor
Opeth - Deliverance
Claudio Simonetti and Fabio Pignatelli - Phenomena OST
Zonal - Zonal (Single)
Dean Hurley - Anthology Resource Vol. II: Philosophy of Beyond
Mark Korven - The Witch OST

**

No Card today.

Joe Bob Briggs @ Beyondfest 2019!

It's 3:31 AM as I begin this post. I've been up for nearly 24 hours. This is what I'm listening to - Paul Zaza's score for the 1981 My Bloody Valentine. I'm tired, but I have to tell you all something... shhh... lean in close...

I saw Joe Bob Briggs live tonight! He was amazing! Seriously, if you know who Joe Bob is, you probably know he's semi-touring the states doing his How Rednecks Saved Hollywood lecture. I expected it to be in-depth and scholarly, but holy cow. How Rednecks Saved Hollywood is nearly three hours long and, well, professorial is the word I would use. I mean, Joe Bob traces the roots of the 'Redneck' back to late the late Elizabethian era of England, then winds up through the Beverly Hillbillies, Deliverance, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Burt Reynolds. It's fascinating, educational, extremely entertaining, and well worth your time if he comes anywhere near your town.

Following JBB we hung around the Egyptian Theatre for the second Beyondfest feature of the night, the newly restored, gore-encrusted version of Stewart Raffill's Tammy and the T-Rex. Now this, this is also worth your time, but in a completely different way than Joe Bob. This is camp done in a hysterical intellectual capacity, and it really has to be experienced to be believed. You'll read about it, or hear someone talk about it, but you will NEVER understand its magic until you see it.

Playlist from 9/30:

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Digipak Version)
Type O Negative - World Coming Down
NIN - The Downward Spiral
Nocturnal Projections - Complete Studio Recordings
Type O Negative - Dead Again
Monolord - No Comfort
Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets
Paul Zaza - My Bloody Valentine OST

**
Card of the day:

I still have to get back to taking care of business, and she's a reminder. I have tomorrow off, so it should be productive.

Sunday, September 29th

Two albums after this song made its way into the world on Black Gives Way to Blue it gets a video, and I'm reminded how much this band continues to steal my heart, against all possible odds. Jerry Cantrell - I love you. All you guys. Thank you for a lifetime of amazing, touching music.

**

Grady Hendrix and Will Errickson's Paperbacks From Hell does an amazing job recontextualizing horror literature over the last forty or so years, and Errickson's blog Too Much Horror Fiction has been chronicling lost corners of the genre for years. We know this, and while a large part of the charm of reading PfH is seeing all those wonderful paperback covers in one place, there's also decades worth of pulp Sci-Fi/Fantasy cover art lining the shelves of history. In the interest of celebrating and cataloging some of those covers time forgot, I'm starting a new segment here on the blog: Sunday Sci-Fi Cover Art. This should be fun.



I'll kick it off with this gem, Daniel Galouye's Dark Universe, which I know nothing about, but after reading a short synopsis I definitely intend on tracking down and reading:

**

Playlist 9/28:

Black Sabbath - Sabotage
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Halloween Playlist

**

A call to arms - I need to organize and devise new systems of routine, as last week's illness has completely thrown my systems out of whack and it's proving difficult to get them back online. See all that red? Martial - tough love is needed.

AHS 1984 Ep 2...

... is going to serve as the episode that marked my fervor for this season. Without treading into spoiler territory, the scene with a certain female character and Richard Ramirez having a heart-to-heart, and the darkness it hints at in said character, blew me away. From this point, I'm in, and what's more, I'm rabidly awaiting the next episode!

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I dug out my first edition of Stephen King's Night Shift - which I found in a Las Vegas thrift store years ago - and re-read Gray Matter, the basis for the first episode of Shudder's new Creepshow series' inaugural story. The reading confirms it - Creepshow's version is a fantastic adaptation of a lesser-known King story, both versions being creepy as all hell.

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Playlist from 9/27:

Opeth - In Cauda Venenum
Emilie Autumn - Opheliac
Heaven and Hell - The Devil You Know

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No card today.

Opeth - Next of Kin

Opeth's new album In Cauda Venenum dropped this morning and after listening to it, I find it's the first of the 'prog' Opeth that I really like. Maybe enough time has passed that I'm not still pining for the Opeth that gave us Blackwater Park and Deliverance, or maybe I've just come around some kind of corner with the band, but I'm digging this record.

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If the first episode is any indication, Shudder and Greg Nicotero absolutely NAILED Creepshow. Talk about forty-five minutes of heaven. You can hear The Horror Vision's spoiler-free reaction/discussion at any of the links below:

The Horror Vision on Apple

The Horror Vision on Spotify

The Horror Vision on Google Play

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New Desert Sessions? Fantastic news!

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Playlist from 9/26:

Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II

Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III

Imperial Teen - Now We Are Timeless

Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley

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No card today.

The Color Out of Space West Coast Premiere

There's not even a trailer yet, so all I can give you at the moment is this beautiful poster image, which is quite indicative of the film. I attended the West Coast Premiere of Richard Stanley's adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's The Color Out of Space last night at Beyondfest. A great film! I stayed up late putting together a quick, under five minute review of the film for The Horror Vision, you can link to it below. In a nutshell, as with several other movies of late, I liked The Color Out of Space just fine for the first two acts, with only one or two small gripes, but when the third act rolled around, it cinched the entire film together for me and I ended up really liking it. Specifics at the links below:

The Horror Vision on Apple

The Horror Vision on Spotify

The Horror Vision on Google Play

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New Foals! Like the first Part in this pair of albums, they sound as lush and haunting as ever.

New album, that second part of Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost drops October 18th, pre-order HERE.

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Recent Playlist:

Sausage - Riddles Are Abound Tonight

Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II

Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger

Air - Talkie Walkie

Carpenter Brut - Leather Teeth

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Card of the day:

Fire of Fire. Charge forward, pick your battles, and focus Will and Intellect. I'm taking this as confirmation I should finish something I've been hesitant to, a story that has languished in a state of perpetual 'almost finished' for some time. One last charge, then it hits the idea limbo for the foreseeable future.

RIP Sid Haig

Moments after I posted yesterday's page here I learned that Sid Haig passed away. This seemed inescapable after all the reading I'd done late last week about why he had such a small role in Rob Zombie's 3 From Hell, and sure enough, one week to the day after the film's release, we lost Captain Spaulding. I can think of no great tribute than the scene I've posted above; other than the intro to Way of the Gun, this is possibly my favorite to any movie ever.

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This record is absolutely fantastic!

After stumbling across it's premature release late last week and posting about it here, I ended up truncating my first listen; last week was my on-call shift at work, and during those weeks I always refrain from smoking, which I knew I wanted to do for my first go-through on this one. So yesterday, after turning the phone over to the next person in the rotation, I returned home after work and hit the ol' dugout, then put on my headphones and lay on the bed listening - and I mean full-attention, not doing anything else listening - to the album all the way through.

It's epic. My favorite Blut Aus Nord record since Memoria Vetusta II, probably because this feels like a direct sequel to that record, even more than Memoria Vetusta III does. Epic, cosmic, and majestic,  Hallucinogen takes me straight to the stars, and I love it.

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NCBD: This will be the first week in number of weeks that anything I read comes out, so I'm pretty excited:

After mis-reporting it last month, here it is, just in time to coincide with my re-read of the series: Black Science ends with issue forty-three!

Two Remender books in the same week - always a great thing!

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Playlist from 9/23:

Air - Talkie Walkie
Carpenter Brut - Leather Teeth
Rob Zombie - Hellbilly Deluxe 2
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

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Card of the day:

Despite not having a formal writing session yesterday, I did a pretty good deal of research and I had a massive breakthrough on a major aspect of the overall Shadow Play story. It would seem the suggestion for today is to do a little housekeeping and translate some of those notes into actual story Bible material.