The Beast Inside

 

I rewatched Kevin Tenney's 1988 classic Night of the Demons the other night, and ever since, Dennis Michael Tenney's closing credits anthem "The Beast Inside" has been stuck in my head. What was it about late 80s Horror flicks practically requiring a rock anthem? Did it begin the year before with Dokken's Dream Warriors, from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors? Probably. I'd be curious to make or find a list of other flicks from this era that adhere to that trope. I'll bet there are many.

---

---

---

31 Days of Halloween:

1) VHS 94 (don't waste your time)

2) The Mutilator

3) Demons 

4) Vortex

5) Possession

6) The Black Phone

7) Slumber Party Massacre

8) Antlers

9) No One Gets Out Alive

10) A Nightmare on Elm Street 84*

11) A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010

12) A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

13) Satan Hates You

14) Night of the Demons

15) Lamb

16) The Company of Wolves

* Followed by The Movies That Made Us: Nightmare on Elm Street; not a Horror flick, but worth noting

---

---

---

Read:

I've been pretty behind on my reading of late, partially because I've struggled with books I haven't really liked. Here's a breakdown of what I read and liked and what I've decided to give up on.

I was not expecting to dig this as much as I did.  Not since Grant Morrison's 3 years on New X-Men has anyone made the X-Books relevant to me again. Hickman's approach is a genius way of rebooting a major franchise without actually rebooting it, i.e. this new version doesn't eschew the long and varied history of the X-Men, but instead, strikes a vein of gold at that classic continuity's heart that we never knew was there but works perfectly to re-create these characters.

The first past of this two-part (oh why aren't there more?!?) Sandman/Locke and Key crossover came out back in March or April, so I almost missed this second part. I went back and re-read the whole thing in a sitting and was completely blown away. Can we get an ongoing Sandman title written by Joe Hill and illustrated/colored by Gabriel Rodriguez and Jay Fotos? Please? Preferably one that goes back to the days of Morpheus, although, with that line-up, I'd read a Brute and Glob book.

I didn't get a chance to grab these variants, however, I had to post them here just to share their beauty.

Now, onto a HUGE disappointment. Granted, when we're talking Clive Barker, I have to wonder if it's my own baggage that I'm bringing to the table that is preventing me from connecting with this one, however, The Scarlett Gospels just feels... like Barker paid someone else to write this in an approximation of his tone that gets the Horror and Gross shit, but totally misses the nuance.

Lastly, I don't know John Palisano very well, but I consider him one of my favorite people I met while hanging out with the L.A. chapter of the Horror Writer's Association, and his latest novella Glass House proved an interesting experience.

This is, I think, a deeply personal piece of experimental fiction that, through its first-person narrative, really digs into the uncertainty of modern life lived in L.A. I can't say everything about this book worked for me, however, it's a damn interesting trip, with some lovely prose throughout. 

---

---

---

Playlist:

My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife

Dennis Michael Tenney - Night of the Demons OST

Type O Negative - October Rust

Type O Negative - World Coming Down

Crowded House - Don't Dream It's Over (single)

Unto Others - Heroin

 

Thanks to my good friend Jacob for turning me onto Unto Others, even though he did so with a degree of hesitation. And I totally understand that. There's something about this band - and from what I've heard especially this new album - that while I like it, leaves a question of authenticity lingering behind it. Maybe that will dissipate, maybe not. It reminds me a lot of Fear Factory, whose records never quite made the impression on me that a live performance at the beginning of their career did (opening support for Sepultura's Chaos A.D. tour). Either way, for the moment, while I'm getting to know Unto Others, I'm digging it, and especially their new album Strength, which was released a few weeks ago on Roadrunner Records and can be purchased HERE.

---

---

---

Watch:

Hoping to catch this one at some point this weekend:

 

I've begun to get a bit suspicious of A24, and I'm not really sure that's fair. It started with Saint Maud's original trailer, which felt as though it was screaming the proclamation, "THIS IS THE NEXT HEREDITARY!!!" Because of that, I skipped seeing it at the 2020 Drive-in edition of Beyondfest, only to watch it earlier this year when it hit streaming and, turns out, I really liked it. So I don't know what my problem is. Hopefully, Lamb will prove me 100% wrong.

 

---

---

---

31 Days of Halloween:

1) VHS 94 (don't waste your time)

2) The Mutilator

3) Demons 

4) Vortex

5) Possession

6) The Black Phone

7) Slumber Party Massacre

8) Antlers

9) No One Gets Out Alive

10) Nightmare on Elm Street 84*

11) Nightmare on Elm Street 2010

12) Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

13) Satan Hates You

14) Night of the Demons

* Followed by The Movies That Made Us: Nightmare on Elm Street; not a Horror flick, but worth noting

---

---

---

Playlist:

Type O Negative - October Rust

Unto Others - Mana

Unto Others - Strength

Allegaeon - Apoptosis

---

---

---

Card:

A quiet moment of union amidst an ever-expanding storm of chaos. 

Emma Ruth Rundle - Blooms of Oblivion

 

New music from Emma Ruth Rundle, off the fourth-coming album Engine of Hell. Pre-order HERE.

 

---

---

31 Days of Halloween:

1) VHS 94 (don't waste your time)

2) The Mutilator

3) Demons 

4) Vortex

5) Possession

6) The Black Phone

7) Slumber Party Massacre

8) Antlers

9) No One Gets Out Alive

10) Nightmare on Elm Street 84*

11) Nightmare on Elm Street 2010

* Followed by The Movies That Made Us: Nightmare on Elm Street; not a Horror flick, but worth noting

---

---

---

Playlist:

The Ritual Howls - Into the Water

Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers + Queers

Trouble - Snake Eyes (single)

Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me

Ghost - Prequelle 

Dr. John - Remedies

King Woman - Celestial Blues

Steve Morse - VFW OST

Type O Negative - Origin of the Feces

Type O Negative - World Coming Down

Type O Negative - October Rust

Specimen - Azoic

The Final Cut - Consumed

The Sisters of Mercy - Floodland

Fields of the Nephilim - The Nephilim

The Wake (US) - Nine Ways

Anthrax - Spreading The Disease

Unto Others - Mana

---

---

---

Card:

 

Always a welcome image, although I really have no idea how to interpret this at the moment. Things have been slow AF since I returned from Nashville/Chicago. As I write this, it's the first time I've been able to sit down and work on writing. The day job has been difficult, to say the least, and it's draining my creative juices on a pretty much continuous fashion. Ad to that almost a week straight of Beyonfest - NOT complaining - and I just haven't had time to set anything up for success. 

Antlers Ablaze

Some more Type O is appropriate for this Autumn-ish LaLaLand weather we've had since K and I returned from Chicago. 

---

---

---

NCBD:

This book gets crazier with each freakin' issue. Ghost-powered military weapons, weapons of destruction made from haunted houses, spectral Monopoly dogs. WTF

Kang. 'Nuff said.

I almost skipped the first issue of Maze Book. Then, after subscribing to Jeff Lemire's substack newsletter and getting a "process" entry that detailed how he came up with and executed the look of the book, I ran back out and picked it up. Turns out, I loved that first issue, so I am in!

The penultimate chapter of this cool little throw-back Spidey title. I loved seeing the Puffball Collective in this story, and the last issue sent me running to dig out my copy of Incredible Hulk #377. How cool is that?

The end of this War of the Bounty Hunters series. Pretty cool, but I'll not be continuing on with any more Star Wars books for now.

After reading House of X/Powers of X on the plane last week, I am SO into this new, Jonathan Hickman-revamped X continuity. I won't be picking up most of the ongoing titles, so this is the book for me.

---

---

---

Watch:

Monday night was closing night for Beyondfest 2021, and they went out big with the world premiere of Guillermo del Toro and Scott Cooper's long-awaited nightmare Antlers. 

My quick, spoiler-free review just went live via The Horror Vision,

That puts my 31 Films of Halloween list here:

1) VHS 94 (don't waste your time)

2) The Mutilator

3) Demons 

4) Vortex

5) Possession

6) The Black Phone

7) Slumber Party Massacre

8) Antlers

9) No One Gets Out Alive

---

---

---

Playlist:

Dr. John - Gris-Gris

Dr. John - Remedies

Rebirth Brass Band - Why You Worried 'bout Me? (single)

Mastodon - Leviathan

White Lung - Eponymous

White Lung - Sorry

Type O Negative - World Coming Down

To Answer The Black Phone, You Must Walk On Guilded Splinters

A couple of years ago, Mr. Brown turned me onto Gris-Gris, one of the darker Dr. John albums, and it's become a staple of my annual Halloween listening. Check out the album closer, "I Walk on Guilded Splinters" creates a creepy A.F. atmosphere.

---

---

---

Watch:

Last night was my second night at Santa Monica's Aero Theatre for Beyondfest 2021, where we saw Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill's new film The Black Phone.

Based on a Joe Hill short story from his debut anthology 20th Century Ghosts, Derrickson and Cargill's adaptation is fantastic. It lengths the fairly concise short story without weakening it. In fact, the flick is so strong that, re-reading the story this morning, I'd have to say it's the perfect kind of adaptation that takes nothing away from the story, but stands strong on its own.

In typical Beyondfest fashion, after the credits rolled and the lights came up, we were treated to an hour+ discussion where Mike Flanagan came out and spoke to Cargill and Derrickson about their creative approached to the film, what Joe Hill and his family thought of the adaptation of his story, ("Joe called us and said, ""Yeah, dad liked it.""), and all kinds of other great stuff.

31 Films of Halloween:

1) VHS 94 (don't waste your time)

2) The Mutilator

3) Demons 

4) Vortex

5) Possession

6) The Black Phone

7) Slumber Party Massacre

---

---

---

Playlist:

Mastodon - Teardrinker (pre-release single)

Sam Hain - November Coming Fire

The High Confessions - Turning Lead Into Gold with the High Confessions

16 - Dream Squasher

My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife

John Carpenter - Lost Themes III: Alive After Death

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon

---

---

---

Card:

The cards are re-iterating what they told me yesterday because the event in question is later today. Just keep telling myself, "One and done. One and done."

Possessing the Vortex of Mercy

 

My trip has pushed my October waaay back; I'm only just now starting on any semblance of an attempt to do 31 Days of Halloween. My good friend Missi suggested doing 31 Movies instead of days, that way, I can make up for the days I miss by watching extra on the days I have time. Sounds like a pretty good plan, but before I get into my list, here's an often-overlooked track from Sisters of Mercy's seminal Floodland album, always an October staple in our house.

---

---

---

Watch:

Last night was my first night of Beyondfest 2021 at Santa Monica's Aero Theatre (The Egyptian is, sadly, still under construction). This will most likely be my last Beyondfest, since we're aiming at completing Operation: Escape From L.A. by April of next year. That said, if I get to keep working for the same company I do now by reconfiguring my position to be solely work-from-home, I might be able to persuade my boss to fly me out next year. One can hope. Anyway, last night we saw Gaspar Noé's new film Vortex. Starring Dario Argento, Françoise Lebrun and Alex Lutz, Vortex is an insanely profound piece of Cinema that painstakingly chronicles the daily lives of an elderly couple in Paris who are slowly succumbing to the Horrors of age. Not a Horror film proper by any imagination, I still think it will easily be the scariest film I've seen in years. I say this because, of course,  I may love Horror flicks, but adulthood and life experience make it pretty hard for a movie to scare me (not impossible, though). What does scare me? Losing my memory, my mind, my youth, and my health. And of course, putting topics like this on display is Noé's bread and butter.

Next up was the West Coast Premiere of the new 4K restoration of Andrzej Zulawski's 1981 classic Possession. I hadn't seen this film until earlier this year - not for lack of trying, mind you - but last night was my third viewing in six months. Seeing Possession with a crowd put an entirely new spin on it for me - while there are obvious absurdities in the film that evoke mild laughter, a lot of the more serious aspects of the failing relationship between Sam Neil's Mark and Isabelle Adjani's Anna came coaxed pretty big laughs from the crowd, and of course, that can be infectious. During my previous two viewings I had interpreted many of these same scenes as dire to the point of anxiety, so it was interesting for a different interpretative lens. That's not to say the entire film had that effect. Quite the contrary. This is a harrowing film, and that sentiment was never very far away,

So, here's the list thus far:

1) VHS 94 (don't waste your time)

2) The Mutilator

3) Demons 

4) Vortex

5) Possession

 

---

---

---

Playlist:

The Chameleons UK - Strange Times

Crowded House - Eponymous

Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Blood Lust

The Sisters of Mercy - Floodland

Deafheaven - Infinite Granite

David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust

Rebirth Brass Band - Why You Worried 'bout Me?

Rebirth Brass Band - Rebirth of New Orleans

Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years

Motley Crüe - Theatre of Pain

---

---

---

Card:

The Wheel, in my current mindframe, tells me what I already know: I'm repeating myself. I need to politely step away from a pretty nice opportunity that may come up tomorrow. Tempting, but it's not the road I currently plan on walking. No need to go around and around again, expecting different results.

Monkey Chow Mein

 

I know nothing about the band Cherubs, but the Apple Music algorithm threw this track at me yesterday and I really got into it. From the 2015 album 2 Ynfynyty off Brutal Panda Records.

---

---

---

NCBD:

I really dug the first issue of Marvel's Alt-Timeline story Dark Ages, so I'm picking up number two!

Funny, there's clearly a 'Dark' aesthetic at work for October over at the House of Ideas. Here's the beginning of this Darkhold storyline which is supposed to feature Dr. Doom pretty front and center. It's been a while since I've read a story with Doom, so this should hit the spot!

The story in this book is pretty bizarre. I don't know that I think the scripts are 100% doing it justice IMO, however, the art reminds me so much of JH Williams III's work on his and Alan Moore's Promethea that I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Look at that cover!

Love this book, so far. You can hear Chris Saunders and I talk about it more in-depth on one of the most recent episodes of A Most Horrible Library Podcast HERE or wherever you listen to Podcasts.

This book gets increasingly addictive with each issue. I can't wait to see how this all plays out.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Tunic - Quitter

Cherubs - 2 Ynfynyty

Windhand - Soma

Cash Audio - The Orange Sessions

Immortal Lee County Killers - These Bones Will Rise To Love You Again

Gram Parsons - Grievous Angel

Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Type O Negative - Dead Again

---

---

---

Card:

Operation: Escape From L.A. is formerly underway at our house, and I feel as though this is a reminder that although the next five months will be hectic as we begin to shed possession and streamline our lives for the move, we need to apply focus and aim for accuracy. If not, I'll end up getting rid of a lot of stuff that might bite me in the ass down the road. Plus, chaotic energy can damage a plan as surely as not having a plan can unravel what should otherwise have structure.