The Horror Vision: Quick Spoiler-Free Review of Brandon Cronenberg's Possessor

It's 3:33 AM and I'm exhausted. I've been up since 5:18 AM - woke up late on purpose knowing full well I'd be up well beyond what I am normally capable of on a work night, regardless of the fact that I am off tomorrow. After work, my good friend Ray and I went to the opening night of Beyondfest 2020. Not really opening night, as the rest of the fest doesn't start until 10/02, but still, the crazy MF's that run the fest brought out the big guns for the West Coast Premiere of Brandon Cronenberg's new film Possessor. This was one of if not my most anticipated film this year, and it did not disappoint. This is also only the second time I have hung out in person with a friend since March (last weekend K and I went out to finally see our other Horror Vision host Anthony, his girlfriend, and their new baby), so it was very much a 'win-win.'

Beyondfest is calling this year's festival the "Fuck COVID Edition" and in keeping with that, they obviously were not going to be able to have it at the Egyptian as usual and observe social distancing, so instead, the fest this year is being held at the Mission Tiki Drive-In Theatre. What a great place! Granted, it's 50+ miles from our home, but Ray drove and we made the trip in roughly an hour and twenty (considerably less on the way back), and a fantastic time was had by all. Above is our ten-minute, spoiler-free review on youtube. You can also hear it - and all our other episodes - on any Podcast Platform, including Spotify which, if you look in the upper right-hand corner of this blog, you will see a widget for that will take you directly to the review. 

What we don't discuss on this quick-take episode, but Ray and I both plan to bring up on the next full-length Horror Vision is that tonight's show was a double feature, and the second movie was an old John Frankenheimer film starring Rock Hudson from 1966 called Seconds. This was also fantastic, so here's the trailer:

Okay, I've still got a new Deftones record to try and get through before I go to bed... Nope. I'll save that for tomorrow. 

Isolation: Day 195 - New Zeal and Ardor!

Musick:

Fuck yes! I'm loving these new songs. These plus "Baphomet", whick K and I heard the band premiere live at the Roxy two years ago now, are going to make for a great new set of tunes.

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Watch:

I'll be driving out to Montclair this evening for the Premier of Brandon Cronenberg's new film Possessor, and in celebration of that, last night I rewatched his first film AntiViral.

There is no other film out there like this film. It's a fucking masterpiece, and so much closer to reality than I can believe. However, I remember thinking the same thing when I watched it eight years ago, and since we haven't progressed into this future anymore in that time, I'd have to say Antiviral feels almost like an alternate timeline Earth, albeit one that really brushes up against ours.

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Playlist:

The Veils - Total Depravity

The Thirsty Crows - Hangman's Noose 

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - The Valley (pre-release single) 

Zeal and Ardor - Tuskegee (pre-release single)

Ozzy Osbourne - The Blizzard of Ozz

Also, I don't want to sound like I'm kneeling before the algorithm, but this week's Apple Music "Favorites Mix" based on my listening turned out pretty sweet. I spent a good deal of time the last two days with Audible's Sandman adaptation - yes, I'm going through it very slowly to make it last, however, once I hit The Doll's House - my favorite Sandman story and one of my favorite stories ever regardless - I've been unable to get it out of my head. here's that mix:

 

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Card:

A nice inclination for my first night out in the world since this entire 2020 fiasco began. I can't pretend I haven't become a little agoraphobic again, and driving 54 miles out to spend an evening in a drive-in theature, while inherently awesome sounded, fills me with a small modicum of dread. Here's to holding this card's image in my head all day and using it to sooth any 'rough patches.'

Isolation: Day 194

Musick:

 

Well, I fell down a Mastodon hole yesterday and am having difficulty climbing out. When I first spun Medium Rarities, I thought it was cool, but being that Mastodon is such a great 'album' band, I didn't see getting all that attached to an odds and sods compilation. Also, listening at work on my blu tooth speaker, I was in and out of the office and missed quite a few parts. I know this because I had not even realized that Mastodon faithfully covers The Flaming Lips' A Spoonful Weighs a Ton. I'm not sure how the hell I missed both hearing the track and noticing the name on the tracklisting - one check in the 'con' column of digital music, I'd say, is that you don't have the liner notes in your hands for careful consideration before even playing the damn album! Anyway, it was the ever-vigilant Mr. Brown who mentioned it to me, and since hearing their rendition, I've pretty much fallen in love with Medium Rarities.

For comparison's sake, here is the original:

 

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NCBD:

Of particular interest this week is the fact that Gideon Falls #25 comes out. Now, every week we get a new issue of Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino's Weird Fiction/SciFi/Horror mash-up is a great week, but this week's issue comes hot on the heels of the recent revelation that the series comes to its grand finale in December with an 80-page issue #27! Holy cow, I'm starting that re-read SOON just to be prepared.

Next, here's a new book from Vault I'm looking forward to, a book about Autumn that takes place in Chicago:

Issue Three of a series I've very much been digging so far:

And finally, I'd recently found myself wondering whatever happened to that Sam Keith Batman/Maxx crossover that began last year. I missed issue three, but four and five never came out. Now, they're on the horizon, and I'll be picking up this bargain-priced Compendium of the first two issues to prepare for it:

I wasn't crazy about the first two issues - you can't go home again - but The Maxx is one of those things I'm a completionist about, so they get my $$$!

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Playlist:

The Veils - Total Depravity 

Mastodon - Medium Rarities 

Marilyn Manson - We Are Chaos 

The Dean Ween Group - The Deaner Album

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower 

Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun

Dance with the Dead - Loved to Death
John Carpenter and Alan Howarth - Prince of Darkness OST       

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Card:

 Stability and control, because I've finished the first draft of the first act (of three) of Shadow Play, Book Two! Onward to part two!

Isolation: Day 193

Musick:

Michael Gira, the brainchild behind Swans, announced recently that their 1987 album Children of God will be re-released via Gira's own Young Gods Records in cooperation with Mute. This is Jarboe-era Swans, arguably the most lauded, and one I am not nearly as familiar with as I would like. You can pre-order the CD or Vinyl from Gira HERE.

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Watch:

Being that The Mandalorian Season Two is on the horizon, I will be signing up for Disney+ again soon. After Marvel/Disney released this trailer for the upcoming WandaVision show yesterday, looks like I'll be sticking that sub out for as long as it takes to see this show as well, because folks, this looks insane! I'm not entirely sure what the premise, set-up, or plot of the show is, but I'm definitely digging the almost Doom Patrol vibe I'm getting (notice I said almost Doom Patrol, as in irreverence for the medium and conventions). We'll see if WandaVision is as weird as it looks, but as Mr. Brown observed to me recently, with the MCU flicks making a 'Bajillion' dollars, Marvel may have the elbow room to indulge in some weirder ideas for a while, and that, I'm all for.

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Playlist:

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower 

Sepultura - Quadra 

Le Butcherettes - Don't Bleed 

Mannequin Pussy - Patience 

Exhalants - Atonement 

Earth, Wind, and Fire - I Am 

Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath 

Carpenter Brut - Trilogy

Mastodon - Medium Rarities 

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Card:

On the nose as usual, being that I should be completing the first of three acts in Shadow Play, Book Two this week. 

Isolation: Day 192 - New Sepultura!

 

I had no idea we were getting a new Sepultura album this year! Of course, that's probably because for the most part, the band's been off my radar since, well, since 1993's MASTERPIECE Chaos A.D. While I never took a side in the schism between Max Cavalera and the rest of the band because I didn't follow it that closely, Sepultura lost me with Roots, which has some amazing tracks on it - even korn-boy couldn't sully that track with Patton it - but overall felt like a sinking ship. NOTE: Many people have told me to give Roots another chance, and I suppose now's as good a time as any, what with this new track completely blowing my mind. The new album, Quadra, is available now from Nuclear Blast Records.

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Read:

Dipping back into The Hellbound Heart, and I'm completely smitten with it. My love of Barker is stronger this year than it's been in a while, and revisiting this one on the heel of rewatching the first three movies several times over the few years, I find myself very interested in his adaptation process.

Look at Barker's original cover art; this should have never been changed. I'm currently reading this one on Kindle, but I'll have to keep an eye out for a copy of the original. 

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Playlist:

Angel Witch - '82 Revisited

Dance With the Dead - Near Dark

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (digipak)

Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine - White People and the Damage Done

Iggy and the Stooges - Raw Power

Isaac Hayes - The Isaac Hayes Movement

Japandroids - Celebration Rock

Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey

Alice in Chains - Dirt

Sepultura - Quadra

Gloom Balloon - All My Feelings for You (single)

John Carpenter - Skeleton/Unclean Spirit (single)

Blueneck - Repetitions
Frank Sinatra - In the Wee Small Hours

Uniform - Shame         

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Card:

Different deck, same card as my last draw. I suppose this underlines my explanation from the nineteenth, however, today was a fairly productive day, as I clocked several hours of solid writing time on Shadow Play, Book Two. This is what I always have to remind myself when I start something this big - the Flow will only come if you wait through the off times. Day one might suck; day two might suck; day three might suck, but it won't suck as bad. Then, before you know it, the polarity reverses and the Work gets better and easier, more rewarding. But you have to hammer through the Strife. 

Sunday Bandcamp: Dance With The Dead

As the wait for the next Perturbator records near neigh interminable lengths, and the knowledge that James Kent is leaving his former 'genre' behind, I've begun to clamor for more dark, brooding synthwave. Bandcamp remains a fantastic place to find what I'm looking for. Case in point, this week's Sunday Bandcamp spotlight on Dance With The Dead. I haven't made it very deep into their discography, but after absorbing Near Dark yesterday, I intend to do so in the very near future.

Isolation: Day 190

Musick:

I had NO idea Mastodon recorded a song with Gibby Haynes. Kinda made my day. Apparently, only released originally as a download from the Adult Swim website, Atlanta appears on the just-released Medium Rarities album, which is pretty fun all around, with instrumental versions of some songs, live versions, and this. Oh yeah, and this too:

 

Nice to have this on youtube, because having sat through that ATHF movie once, I'm in no hurry to do so again!

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Watch:

I finally got around to Craig William Macneill's Lizzie, the Lizzie Borden dramatization starring Chloë Sevigny, Kristen Stewart, and Kim Dickens. Slooooow burn, but ultimately a very well-made, well-acted film that airs on the side of discretion and atmosphere. 

Also under the umbrella of watch, a late-week announcement that Beyondfest would indeed be happening made my year! Instead of the historic Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood - which obviously would not be conducive to social distancing, those crazy fuckers that run the show are having it at Mission Tiki Drive-in Theatre, fifty-four miles from me in Montclair, California. This presents massive logistics issues, and I was not able to get everything I wanted because of that. However, what I did get, is awesome!

 

And...

I can't really complain, because this is a STACKED couple of days. This coming Thursday is the Possessor premiere, and I'll definitely be doing a quick, spoiler-free review of it for The Horror Vision, after the showing, so watch for that next Friday!
 

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Playlist:

Electric Wizard - Let Us Prey

Portishead - Third

Death Valley Girls - Under the Spell of Joy (pre-release single)

Death Valley Girls - Hold My Hand (pre-release single)

Cocksure - K.K.E.P.

Doves - The Universal Want

White Lung - Paradise

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Card:

A lot of Swords lately. Here, the Five of Wands - or Strife as Crowley dubbed it in the Thoth - appears to point toward my internal struggle over my work on the second Shadow Play book. It's been a difficult two weeks, which surprises and infuriates me, as with the intricate outline I previously created for this book, the writing is not that difficult. Yet, somehow, I struggle with it nearly every time I sit down to work on it. I've tried all my tricks - my timers and focus apps and whatnot - and I've tried just putting my head down and pummeling into it. All of this works in getting writing done, but none of it works in making the process gel in my head. I know this will come, it's just frustrating waiting for it.