2018: October 12th

Here's a track off one of my seasonal go-to's this time of year, The Final Cut's 1992 Consumed, which also happens to be my pick for today's edition of The Joup Friday Album, which you can read over HERE on Joup.co.

Continued 31 Days of Horror last night with Killer Klowns form Outer Space. Man, John Vernon is the shit, isn't he?

31 Days of Horror:

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space

Tonight? I'm thinking either George A. Romero's Day of the Dead or Dario Argento's Phenomenon. But we'll see.

I didn't talk about NCBD yet this week, primarily because I've been too busy to stop in and pick up the one thing that came out on my pull. But oh what a 'one thing' it is:

This original Hardcover Graphic Novel from the creators of recent favorites of mine Fatale, The Fade Out, and Kill Or Be Killed, My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies ties into the Criminal Universe in a small way via that series' first arc, Coward. Interestingly enough, I just read Coward for the first time a few days ago. I couldn't have timed that better if I'd tried! Criminal is the only Brubaker/Phillips series I've yet to engage with, and this little serendipitous jaunt should catapult me further into it nicely. Thanks to my good friend Joe.Baxter for lending me his trades and getting me started!

Playlist from yesterday:

Monolord - Rust
The Black Queen - Infinite Games
In Solitude - Sister
Blut Aus Nord - Memorial Vetusta II - Dialogue with the Stars

No, that damn second part of the novel still isn't finished, but I did come up with the plot point I believe it has always been missing. The somewhat clunky elements that haunted a certain character's motivations have now been replaced with what I can joyously say is a new, elegant arc that puts everyone where I need them to be for the plot to resolve in part three. I spent a good deal of time yesterday re-writing chapters in part one in order to massage this element in and it sent me skyrocketing into the second half with renewed vigor. So here's to that!

Card of the day:

Mind distracted at times you say? Why yes! All that writing time yesterday was hard-earned in between being distracted by this and this and this.

Bastards!

2018: October 11th

Finally. Last night showed K Mike Mendez's The Convent for the first time. Probably about the twentieth viewing for me since I first discovered it circa 2001. Still in my top five favorite movies ever; every moment is joy to me. Especially Frijole and the Lords of Darkness. Brilliant, and easily the best horror-comedy ever. Coincidentally it's playing in theaters this evening as the second in a double feature with Sweet Sixteen as part of Bloody Disgusting's RetroNightmares. I'm not going, and I'm sad.

31 Days of Horror:

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent

Playlist from yesterday:

Windhand - Eternal Return
Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog
Blut Aus Nord - Memorial Vetusta II - Dialogue With the Stars

No card today either.

2018: October 10th

Thought I'd start today off with another under-appreciated Type O track. I know, I know... wrong holiday. Still, it fits the season.

The first episode of The Horror Vision is now available on Apple Podcasts HERE. Also available on The Horror Vision website HERE. The audio is good but not great; tweaks coming for the next episode, which we recorded last night and will land next week. #2 is a discussion of our Halloween go-to watches, from the standards to the more individualized, left-of-center picks we watch every year.

31 Days of Horror continued yesterday. Since I was out doing the podcast last night, K and I opted to continue to push back Mike Mendez's The Convent back, and instead I treated myself to an afternoon viewing of Ti West's first feature film, The Roost. LOVE this one, and it'd been a while. Holds up and then some. K watched The Haunting of Molly Hartley, liked it but said it kinda resembled a Lifetime movie if they did horror.

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost

Playlist from 10/09:

High On Fire - Electric Messiah
Nothing - Guilty Of Everything
The Skull - For Those Which Are Asleep
Type O Negative - October Rust
Type O Negative - Dead Again

No card today.

Pet Sematary Trailer!

Whoah. Thanks to my good friend Missi, I finally read Stephan King's Pet Sematary about five or six years ago. It immediately became my favorite non-Dark Tower King novel. It is chilling. End of story. And the scenes that brush up against the Wendigo - if that's what it is - SO spooky. So well done! The flick looks great - the directors previously did Starry Eyes, so that's a great sign in my book. Another upscale King Adaption on the heels of last year's IT. While I'll admit to a certain soft-spot for the original Pet Sematary, this looks to be a vast improvement.

2018: October 9th: New High on Fire

With all my elation at Windhand's Eternal Return dropping last Friday, I forgot High on Fire's new album Electric Messiah also hit the 'shelves.' After giving it a couple spins I dig it - Matt Pike and crew didn't reinvent their wheel here, but there's some digging around inside the confines of their patented sound that there's some growth here. As usual, it's pummeling and a bit exhaustive. Not a bad thing.

31 Days of Horror continued yesterday with another first timer for me (we opted to save The Convent for tonight):

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species

Species is one of K's favorites. I'd never really had any interest in seeing it until I recently read that the monster was based on an H.R. Giger design - obvious, but I guess I just thought it was a case of Hollywood cribbing the design on the Alien monster. Either way, I enjoyed Species in spite of it being very 90s- everything from the camera work to the overwrought score reeked of X-Files influence. Forest Whittaker overdoes his role as this search-and-destroy team's empath, although I suspect that was the product of direction more than his personal choice. Also, the use of ground fog where there shouldn't be any is very much a trope of the 90s.

Playlist from 10/08:

The Jesus and Mary Chain - Automatic
Corniglia - Eponymous
High on Fire - Electric Messiah
High on Fire - Snakes of the Divine
God is LSD - Spirit of Suicide

I ended up baulking on finishing the second part of the novel last night due to sheer exhaustion. After work was reserved for a big ol' nap! Today's card for the day reflects my adjusted expectations:

Also, there's the balance of contrasts inherent in this card, which ties into the book's attempt to balance YA adventure-horror with a touch of a literary pedigree.

2018: October 8th

I am still very much in love with this Corniglia album. If you dig it too, here's the link to the band's bandcamp.

31 Days of Horror continued last night with the 80s classic Night of the Demons. I still dig this flick, however, Mike Mendez's The Convent is always going to be the better version of this. I know they're not exactly the same set-up wise, and I know NOTD came first and Mendez was influenced by it, but to me, The Convent is one of my favorite movies ever and is close enough that watching NOTD really just makes me want to watch it instead. That said, good viewing showing Demon to K for the first time, and tonight we'll be doing Convent.

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-Animator
10/07) Night of the Demons

Playlist from 10/07:

Stellar Corpses - Respect the Dead EP
Windhand - Eternal Return
The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir
Goblin - Dawn of the Dead OST

Card of the day:

Indeed. Second part of the book will be done today. Success!

2018: October 7th: Good Omens Trailer

Looks like they dropped the, "The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Anges Nutter, Witch" part of the title, but this looks awesome! I've been waiting for this one for what feels like forever. I remember back in the late 90s when, if I remember correctly, Mr. Brown and I were excited at the rumors of Depp and Robin Williams playing the angel and demon. We didn't get that, but this casting looks great. I mean, David Tennant is becoming one of my favorite actors of late. Actually makes me want to re-watch the Fright Night remake, just to see his character.

31 Days of Horror continued last night with Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator! It'd been years since I last saw this one, and in the interim my experience seeing the musical version - also directed by Stuart Gordon and starring Chris McKenna, who I knew previously from Gordon's King of the Ants - kinda overtook the film as the ultimate version of the story beyond the original source material by Lovecraft, which is very different. Apparently enough time had passed though, because I dug the flick a lot, and there's a ton of extras on the Arrow Blu Ray I recently picked up, so I'll have a good time going through those.

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06 Re-Animator

Playlist from yesterday:

Windhand - Eternal Return
Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me
The Final Cut - Consumed
Sisters of Mercy - Floodland
Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar

Card of the day:

The Airy aspect of Water - combining intellect and emotion in a functional way. This is exactly where I'm at writing, as I'm killing my darlings from a previous version of the novel and streamlining it into a much tighter version of the story. My goal is to have a literate, young adult novel that contains aspects of the adventure genre, as well as the horror and suburban fantasy genres (that second one there is, to my knowledge, a term I coined). And it's coming along nicely as I round the corner on wrapping the middle of three sections, I feel confident and strong on this one in a way I never did before.