2019: July 25th Zombieland: Double Tap Trailer

I almost didn't post this. For one, I usually do not post entries this late in the afternoon (it's 5:30 PM as I edit this). Second, I don't love this trailer, and I absolutely adore the first Zombieland. I'm hoping this long-overdue sequel is better than it looks; Harrelson is about as close as I come to a big-name actor who can do no wrong with me, so I really want to like this. We'll see.

**

So Rutger Hauer passed away yesterday. I can't say I know a lot of his films, however, like so many other men my age, Blade Runner is near and dear to me, and a lot of that is Hauer. I know everyone is posting this scene as a memorial, but my upkeep on this site is primarily for myself, as a sort of diary or historical record, and I'd regret it if I didn't follow suit with "Tears in Rain" speech:



And let's chase that with a favorite musical reference to the film:



I've not been in a Blade Runner mood of late, but I have a Hobo With a Shotgun viewing coming real soon.

**

I've watched SO much Friday the 13th lately, and while I found The Final Chapter (IV) a chore, Five went down pretty smoothly. Not Sierra Nevada smooth, but, say, Coors Light. Which is to say not very, but at least I got through it in one sitting. Part Six though, I remember watching Friday the 13th Six: Jason Lives a couple years ago with a friend and both of us realizing, A) if we'd ever seen it before the details were completely lost to the fog of time, and B) it's a marginally self-aware comedy. Which means, thus far, it's my favorite of these first six Friday flicks. I'll be continuing with the viewings soon - this is all research for something I'm going to write, and, a bit of a self-dare, as I've never watched the Fridays in chronological order before.

**

Playlist from 7/24:

Sausage - Riddles are Abound Tonight
Ghost - Prequelle
Zeal and Ardor - Stranger Fruit
Telekinetic Yeti
Spotlights - Love and Decay
Sleep - The Sciences

**

Card of the day was

Interesting, in that I just referenced the King of Swords yesterday in Ciazarn. Modeling a character after that Court Card's attributes.

2019: July 24th Telekinetic Yeti - Colossus

Just discovered Telekinetic Yeti via photographer FlowerfromStatic's IG page, which you can link to and check out from her website HERE. Telekinetic Yeti's album Abominable is available on their Bandcamp HERE. I've been listening to it for several days straight - it's fantastic!

**

NCBD - yet another title on my already trimmed-down pull list ends this week with A Walk Through Hell #12. And the return of the now-quarterly Lazarus, a book that packs so much extra material in this format I would NEVER even think of giving it up:

**

Watchlist continued over the last few days as K and I continue to plow through Veronica Mars Season One; it's been so long since I've seen this, I forgot how good it is. I mean, I knew it was good, but really, the writing on this show is kind of ridiculous. Can't wait to get through to the new season on Hulu.

Other than that, I've been taking spare time here and there over the last month or so to re-watch/watch all of the Friday the 13th flicks in order. I've seen a bunch, not seen a few, and can never remember which is which, other than part one (for obvious reasons) and Jason Goes to Hell, which I stand by as my favorite of the series.

RE: the rest of the series, there are highs and lows. I'm a bit stuck at the moment on number IV, The Final Chapter. This one's rough, and I'm really only picking at it in ten minute chunks. That said, Part IV does contain the single greatest scene in motion picture history:



**

Playlist from the last few days:

Sausage - Riddles Are Abound Tonight
The Dandy Warhols - Welcome to the Monkey House
The Dandy Warhols - Essentials
Aerosmith - Pump
The Soft Moon - Criminal
Telekinetic Yeti - Abominable
Willie Nelson - My Way
Fast Romantics - American Love
Lightning Born - Eponymous
Class Actress - Journal of Ardency EP
Deafheaven - From the Kettle Onto the Coil
Deafheaven - Sunbather
U2 - War
Motörhead - Ace of Spades
Ghost - Prequelle
The Jesus Lizard - Liar

**

Card of the day:

Hmmm.. I don't have time to decipher this at the moment, but interesting that it keeps coming up lately.

2019: July 22nd - The Dandy Warhols Used to Be Friends

It's not surprise that once K and I began Veronica Mars (from season 1 because she's never seen it and I haven't seen it in a long time), I'd gravitate back toward The Dandy Warhols. These guys helped define my early 2000s, and although it's not exactly where my head is at the moment, it's great to get back into the mood for these guys in the height of summer. Fits.

**

Saturday morning I caught Peter Ricq's horror comedy Dead Shack on Shudder TV. Fun little flick; parts of it irritated me initially, but I've grown a bit fonder of it in hindsight. And it has a fantastic concept. You can check out my brief review on my new Letterboxd account HERE.

Yeah, just what any of us need - more social media. But it's movies... anyway, here's the Dead Shack teaser trailer the director uploaded to his youtube account:



**

Sunday, K and I went to the theatre and saw Crawl. Absolutely fantastic, fun flick to see in a theatre. The storm effects are amazing. And there is zero fat on this one - as Anthony from The Horror Vision said in his review, it is a tight 87 minutes that does not mess around.



**

Playlist from the last few days:

Black Polygons - Lobélia
Public Image Ltd. - This is What You Want...
Sigur Rós - Variations on Darkness
Aerosmith - Pump
The Soft Moon - Criminal
Zombi - Shape Shift
The Soft Moon - Zeros
Drab Majesty - Moder Mirror

**

Card of the day:

A little troublesome; I finished that final read-through/edit on Shadow Play the other night, but advice from a friend in the biz is making me reconsider releasing it myself. This is a highly respected, published horror author who advised me once a book is published, no publisher will touch it, unless, like Hugh Howey, you sell a million copies on your own. I hadn't really considered seeking a publisher that seriously, but it was never out of the question. I find myself reflecting on whether this card is warning of trouble if I do self-publish, or if I don't.

2019: July 20th Shudder's New Creepshow Series Get A Trailer!!!

I've been pretty excited for the new Shudder Creepshow series, and if this first trailer is any indication, it's going to be better than my expectations even. Not easy to do, when reviving something so iconic, but based on everything I've seen from the streaming service so far, they are 100% up to the task.

**
New episode of The Horror Vision went up yesterday. This is a special 'Double-sized' edition, where Ray, Anthony, Tori, and myself tell our listeners a little bit about ourselves. After that, topics of discussion ended up revolving around Luca Guadagnino's 2018 Suspiria remake and the merit/non-merit of remakes in general. Finally, our movie of the episode reaction bit is on Matthew Holness' film Possum.

The Horror Vision on Apple

The Horror Vision on Spotify

The Horror Vision on Google Play

**

Continuing on into the heart of Robert S. Wilson's Ashes and Entropy anthology, I read John Langan's short, Breakwater earlier today. Fantastic short fiction; kind of a mash-up of the Crime and Horror genres, I blew through Breakwater at a pretty quick clip, and caught my breath when it ended. After a complicated relationship with Langan's novel The Fisherman, I'd been wanting to read something else by the man, and this story definitely pointed me in the direction of his newest collection, Sefira and Other Betrayals:

Look at that cover art - unnerving is an understatement for artist Santiago Caruso's image, more of which you can find on his website HERE. Mr. Langan's website is HERE and you can order a beautiful limited cloth edition of Sefira directly from Hippocampus Press HERE.

**

Playlist from the last two days:

Talking Heads - Remain in Light
Iggy Pop - The Idiot
High On Fire - Snakes of the Divine
Godflesh - Post Self
Crystal Castles - II
The Soft Moon - Criminal
The Soft Moon - Deeper
The Raveonettes - 2016 Atomized
Dean Hurley - Anthology Resource Vol. II Philosophy of Beyond
Blur - 13
The Blues Brothers - Briefcase Full of Blues
Bavaria Buam - Live

**

Card of the day:

Balance. I need this right now. Trying to balance my interests has put things out of whack, creatively.

2019: July 18th IT Chapter Two Final Trailer

I've been avoiding a lot of trailers of late, as I find they usually give too much of the movie away. I find the best viewing experiences are the most uninformed ones. That said, I'm glad I watched this IT Chapter Two final trailer, simply because after the disappointment of Pet Sematary, I needed something to remind me how good this IT adaptation has been. This looks fantastic, plus I don't really feel like the trailer gives too much away. September 6th is not that far away...

**

As soon as I finished my re-read of Grant Morrison and Richard Case's Doom Patrol run, I jumped back into the Robert S. Wilson edited anthology Ashes and Entropy and read Autumn Christian's The Shadowmachine. Awesome story. Probably my favorite in the collection so far. There's an almost Neil Gaiman-esque approach to reality here, without the more baroque or 'flowery' aspects of Gaiman's writing (not a shot - I love Gaiman. I'm merely making distinctions). The story itself doesn't tread Gaiman territory, though; Christian spins a pretty terrifying tale of technological seduction and it's eerie as all hell. Based on this I've added her newest novel, Girl Like A Bomb, to my must-read list; it's available HERE.

Ashes and Entropy is turning out to be my favorite anthology in ages, and I can't recommend it enough. Available directly from Nightscape Press HERE.

Also, Nightscape Press has started an emergency GoFundMe anthology titled Horror For the Raices, where a $10 donation or more will get you an advance, uncorrected book copy of the anthology as soon as it's ready. The book is edited by Robert S. Wilson and Jennifer Wilson. Donate HERE.
**

Playlist from 7/17:

Frank Black - Teenager of the Year
Jenny Hval - Blood Bitch
Adam Kesher - Local Girl (Hatchmatik Remix)
Beak> - L.A. Playback
M83 Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Track Back The Radiance

**

No card today.

2019: July 17th 3 From Hell Trailer

Although I've been waiting for this, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Rob Zombie returning to the Firefly Clan characters. Why? Well, A) they pretty clearly died at the end of The Devil's Rejects, and B) it's weird when filmmakers put you in a position of rooting for such ultimately disgusting characters. Also, this looks like Zombie has added Natural Born Killers into his blender, so that may run the risk of feeling overly borrowed from. We'll see. Normally, Zombie can more or less mix in the stuff he 'samples' from his influences in a way that feels like homage instead of theft. Hopefully, that will be true here as well.

As for the 'how did they survive?' question, I noticed a quick flash at 0:20 in the trailer of a newspaper headline that reads, "Satanic Recovery," and I'm wondering (Read: Hoping) the recovery is pulled off via some weird call-back to Dr. Satan and all the strange, quasi-supernatural stuff that happened in the final segment of House of 1000 Corpses, all of which was completely ignored for The Devil's Rejects. That absence was disappointing at the time Rejects was released, however, over the years I have grown to understand and applaud the decision as a matter of tone - Dr. Satan and all related characters would never have fit into Rejects; the one deleted scene with the Doctor was definitely best left out. Now, however, this might be a great way to bring him back.

**

Frank Black Appreciation Week concludes today with another of my favorite songs from The Catholics-era Black. Released on the album Dog in the Sand, this was, I believe, the first time Black had recorded with Pixies guitarist Joey Santiago since the break-up of the band. The resulting material - especially this particular track - is a doozy. I remember hearing around the time of this album's release that the lyrics were about how, after Black's father passed away, when it came to the task of going through his home, dozens of guns were found, all loaded with only a single bullet.

Creeeeeepy, but awesome.



**

Playlist from 7/16:

Frank Black - The Cult of Ray
Preoccupations - Eponymous
Jim Jarmusch and Jozef Va Wissen - The Mystery of Heaven
The Jesus Lizard - Liar
White Lung - Eponymous
Uniform and The Body - Penance (Pre-release single)
Uniform and The Body - Mental Wounds Not Healing*
Sunn O))) - Life Metal


*I totally just figured out that this album is named after a lyric in Ozzy's Crazy Train. It made me love both these bands even more than I already do.

**

Card of the day:

Feeling like this is a good sign that I cross a finish line today.

2019: July 16th New Chelsea Wolfe!

New Chelsea Wolfe Video, from the forthcoming album Birth of Violence, out September 13th on Sargent House. Pre-order HERE.

**

Frank Black Appreciation Week continues today with a live rendition of my favorite track off the third Frank Black solo record, The Cult of Ray. Filmed in 1996, this footage isn't great, but the performance sure is. Great to see Lyle Workman in his prime here.



**

Playlist from 7/15:

Aerosmith - Pump
Motörhead - 1916
Frank Black and the Catholics - Eponymous
Pixies - Bossonova
Pixies - Come On Pilgrim
Pixies - Head Carrier
Drab Majesty - Modern Mirror
Shellac - The End of Radio
The Misfits - Static Age
Minsk - The Crash and the Draw
Spotlights - Love and Decay
The Bangles - In Your Room
David Bowie - Hunky Dory

**

No card today.