The second single from the upcoming album I Want Blood, out next Friday, October 18th. Pre-order HERE.
31 Days of Halloween:
Last night, K and I watched Anouk Whissell, RKSS, François Simard, and Yoann-Karl Whissell's Summer of 84 for the umpteenth time. This has emerged as one of my favorite films over the last couple years. It hits EVERY TIME. At first, I dismissed this as capitalizing on Stranger Things' popularity; however, it quickly became apparent that this was not the case. In the same way that Twin Peaks adopts the veneer of the TV night-time soap opera to subvert the genre, Summer of 84 does the same to the "kids on bikes" aesthetic popularized by Stranger Things.*
Summer of 84's ending is, in my opinion, one of the greatest in recent memory.
1) The Killing of a Sacred Deer
2) The Houses October Built (2011)/Texas Chainsaw Massacre (50th-anniversary theatrical screening)
3) Loop Track
4) It's What's Inside/LONGLEGS
5) The Babysitter/Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
6) The Hitcher/Lost Highway
7) GDT's Cabinet of Curiosities: Graveyard Rats
8) V/H/S Beyond
9) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10) Terrifier 3
11) Summer of '84
* Yes, technically Kids on Bikes was invented and popularized in the 80s. By NO means am I suggesting ST invented it. I'm 48 - I grew up during the 80s. However, it didn't become an acknowledged "genre" - for better or worse - until later, and not a checklist-ready template until after ST.
Playlist:
Various - My Halloween Spotify Playlist
Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja
Bauhaus - The Sky's Gone Out
Count Gorgann - Corpse Eater: Satanic Misery Live for the Dead
Steve Moore - Christmas Bloody Christmas OST
Card:
Taking a break from the single card studies for a pull from Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
What's it say that the first card I lay down has my new friend here on it?
Back in 2022 my good friend and co-host on The Horror Vision Ray turned me on to Dreamkid's eponymous album. I liked it, but this guy doubles down on the '80s stuff a couple years after a lot of other people already resurrected that vibe and ran it into the ground, so while I dug the record to a degree, there remained a distance with it for me. I listened to it off and on for a while, then forgot about it.
I Went to see Terrifier 3 this evening. Sold out show. Every seat taken. As I walked up to the ticket taker, there was a man dressed as Art - no mask - and his daughter dressed as the child demon from part 2 waiting to have their tickets scanned. They looked awesome! I mean, I don't know if I should be watching these, let alone a girl who probably wasn't more than 8 years old, but it is what it is and we like what we like. It's not that much different than the shit we watched at that age.
Except... maybe it is. The practical FX here are out of this world, but the cruel depravity of these flicks gives me a bit of pause, even if I've really enjoyed seeing these last two on the big screen. In the theatre, Terrifier 2 and 3 have been some of the most immersive films I've seen in ages. There's the gore, but there's also some incredible sound design. It's as good as the practical FX, in my opinion. Plus, the colors, locations, clothes, props, and music. Paul Wiley's score is fantastic. Sick and dreamy. It all works together to make a super fun watch - even if it also kind of skeeves me out.
Dreamkid's "Chrissy" is sort of the theme of T3, and it sounded amazing on the big screen. Still not super sold on the overall sound - it's good, just a bit tough to get past the affectations for someone who grew up in that era. But again, we like what we like and I'm psyched he got his stuff in such a huge movie.
31 Days of Halloween:
Well, I pretty much said everything I wanted to about last night's viewing up above, so let's just log the list and move on.
1) The Killing of a Sacred Deer
2) The Houses October Built (2011)/Texas Chainsaw Massacre (50th-anniversary theatrical screening)
3) Loop Track
4) It's What's Inside/LONGLEGS
5) The Babysitter/Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
6) The Hitcher/Lost Highway
7) GDT's Cabinet of Curiosities: Graveyard Rats
8) V/H/S Beyond
9) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10) Terrifier 3
NCBD:
Man, I've been so hyped on 31 Days of Halloween that I forgot to post my comic pull yesterday. Better late than never.
I forgot to put this one on my pull last month, so I had to have the guys order me a copy. That's fixed now; I Love these books that Lemire writes and illustrates; they have their own style and it's unlike any other.
After the tease at the end of the last issue, I was just here for Cobra Commander (well, I was here because I read the first four issues). I was not disappointed.
Another super solid triptych of Black Suit-era Spider-Man stories. Love it, and the editorial staff really seem to know how to choose artists whose style works super well with the color format.
Netho Diaz, in particular, blew me away.
New arc and it's Starscream's origin? His real name is what now? This was a super cool issue. Lots of early Cybertron stuff AND a HISS tank? Oh man, we're starting to really cross the streams now...
Playlist:
Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Suspended in Dusk Edition)
The Final Cut - Consumed
Saigon Blue Rain - Oko
Skinny Puppy - Too Dark Park
Baroness - Stone
The Smashing Pumpkins - Gish
The Cramps - Songs the Lord Taught Us
The Cramps - A Date with Elvis
Orville Peck - Pony
Various - Lost Highway OST
Boy Harsher - Careful
Dreamkid - Chrissy (single)
Dreamkid - Daggers
Dance with the Dead - Neon Cross (single)
Dance with the Dead - The Shape
The Veils - The Ladder (pre-release single)
Card:
Today's card is XIX - The Sun:
This is what I love about Aleister Crowley. From The Book of Thoth:
"This is one of the simplest of the cards; it represents Heru-ra-ha, the Lord of the New Aeon, in his manifestation to the race of men as the Sun spiritual, moral, and physical."
Simplest? Oh, of course! Heru-ra-ha. Yeah. Easy.
This is a card of epiphany. Rejoice! The answers you seek have arrived. Of course, that can also bring with it unwanted knowledge. So the dance we see is one of balance, a theme much more common in the cards than I previously realized.
It's definitely sacrilege to some, but I much prefer the versions of Gang of Four's classic selection of tunes that appear on 2005's Return The Gift LP to the original versions. I have read that members of Gang of Four were never happy with the early recordings, and I, for one, agree. Entertainment! sounds flat AF compared to these updated recordings, and "I Love a Man in Uniform" - easily my favorite song by the band - well, there's just no comparison at all. Same here.
31 Days of Halloween:
1) The Killing of a Sacred Deer
2) The Houses October Built (2011)/Texas Chainsaw Massacre (50th-anniversary theatrical screening)
3) Loop Track
4) It's What's Inside/LONGLEGS
5) The Babysitter/Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
6) The Hitcher/Lost Highway
7) GDT's Cabinet of Curiosities: Graveyard Rats
8) V/H/S Beyond
Watch:
Unrelated to Halloween (perhaps), K and I went with my Father to see Todd Phillips' Joker: Folie à Deux last night. Three stars and a heart on Letterbxd (review HERE); this doesn't deserve the scorn it's getting. That said, I LOVE the first Joker film, and feel giving this one three stars is enough of a statement as to my disappointment. It's not horrible, I don't even know if it's bad, but it's nowhere near what the original was. Also, this just doesn't need to exist. We were at a free screening of the first film in December 2019 at the Aero in L.A. This was part of Beyondfest's year-round programming, and Director Todd Phillips came out after the film for a discussion and a Q&A. It was at this event that Phillips told the crowd that while WB had been trying to entice him to make a sequel, he wasn't going to.
I bring this up because I'm pretty sure everyone involved, Phillips himself, set out to make sure there would not be a third. Again, it's not a bad film, but the prize here is, of course, Joaquin Phoenix and the movie makes no bones about not having much to say aside from presenting a platform for him to blow our minds with his performance. Also, Lady Gaga is fantastic. Hell, everyone is fantastic. It just didn't need to happen.
Playlist:
Various - Lost Highway OST
The Cure - Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me
Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja (pre-release single)
Walter Rizzatti - The House By The Cemetery OST
Tones on Tail - Everything!
Fields of the Nephilim - Dawn Razor
Gang of Four - Return the Gift
The Trapezoid & Six Ex - Cannibal Children of the West (single)
The Seven that, in my mind at least, lines up perfectly with its associated place on the Tree of Life, the Seventh Sephiroth, Netzach.
Netzach is Victory, and while valour is a different word, the two are linked. The general definition of Valour is "Great Courage in the face of danger, especially in battle," and what is life if not a battle? That might not have been true for the first twenty-five or so years of my life, but it's definitely become increasingly true over the subsequent twenty-three.
So the Seven of Wands is courage to use the Will in the face of battle. Whether that's the battle to change your life on a micro or macro level or perhaps just to get out of bed in the morning, it suggests you can do it. You WILL do it.
The final song on Human Impact's new album Gone Dark, which dropped this past Friday, October 4th. Fantastic record and the final two tracks really seal the deal.
I knew this was former Unsane guitarist/vocalist Chris Spencer's band. However, I did not realize that the other members hail from equally awesome groups, with Cop Shoot Cop's Jim Coleman on Electronics, Daughters' drummer Jon Syverson and Eric Cooper from Made Out of Babies. Syverson and Cooper replaced Drummer Phil Puleo and bassist Chris Pravdica, both of whom previously played with Swans.
31 Days of Halloween:
Holy cow. What. A. Fucking. BANGER!
I don't know what to say other than what I always say: I went in 100% blind, you should too!!!
1) The Killing of a Sacred Deer
2) The Houses October Built (2011)/Texas Chainsaw Massacre (50th-anniversary theatrical screening)
3) Loop Track
4) It's What's Inside/LONGLEGS
5) The Babysitter/Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
6) The Hitcher/Lost Highway
Read:
I pulled out some of my old issues of Craig Miller and John Thorne's Wrapped in Plastic to prep for a new episode of The Horror Vision Presents: Elements of Horror, where we're going to deep-dive David Lynch's Lost Highway.
If you don't know, Wrapped in Plastic was a bi-monthly magazine published by Win-Mill Productions, which also published Spectrum magazine. WIP was published for 13 years, from 1992 - 2005. I came into it around issue 17 in 1995. This was pre-internet for me, and I no longer even remember how I became aware of the publication, although smart money is on Amazing Fantasy Books & Comics - still my Chicagoland shop of choice - as I remember them having it on their shelves, and '95 would have been about the time I began frequenting A-F every week. Issues 28 and 29 hit hot on the heels of Lost Highway's theatrical release, and I probably read these issues half a dozen times each. My idea in pulling them out was to supplement this next viewing with some outside analysis, and I have to say, it added a lot.
Incidentally, WIP went digital a few years ago, and you can now buy a digital bundle on their website HERE.
Playlist:
Moon Wizard - Sirens
Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous
The Mystery Lights - Purgatory
Human Impact - Gone Dark
Double Life - Indifferent Stars
Ministry - Hopium for the Masses
System Of A Down - Eponymous
The Mysterines - Afraid of Tomorrows
Various - Lost Highway OST
Wilco - A Ghost is Born
Iggy Pop & James Williamson - Kill City
Ministry - The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste
Card:
My card today for exploration today is 7 of Cups - Debauch:
I think I've found a better way to do these research entries. I've been treating them like a Pull, in other words random. Here now, though, I think grouping them from here out might be better. I didn't pull this card from the deck today, I specifically chose it to follow the 7 of Swords.
From Crowly's Book of Thoth: "The Seven of Cups... its mode is poison, its goal madness. It represents the delusion of Delirium Tremems and drug addiction." False pleasure.
From the forthcoming album Night Life, out March 21st. Pre-order HERE. Been a minute since I caught up with The Horrors. In that time, according to this video, the singer turned into Alice Cooper. Pretty cool, just like the song.
31 Days of Halloween:
I woke up while it was still dark Wednesday morning. Couldn't fall back asleep, so I do what I always do in that situation - headed up into my office/nerd dungeon, flipped out the sofa bed and fired up Shudder TV. I can usually find something I've seen and then I just pass back out. At that time, , however, there wasn't really anything on Shudder TV, and I saw they'd added a metric shit-ton of flicks for October, so I chose The Houses October Built. Not the two made in 2014/2016. No, this is the original low-budget mockumentary-found footage film from 2011 that scored enough attention to get the filmmakers the dough to make those other flicks. I knew nothing about this franchise - I've never seen any of them.
Man, I don't know if it was going in with low expectations or the middle-of-the-night thing, but this really stayed with me. There are those who will bemoan the ending, and yeah, there could have been more. However, I dug it. Reminded me of the end of the original Blair Witch Project, which is a film I like, so that's a good thing.
Also, got to see the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre on the big screen as part of the 50th Anniversary celebration. How awesome is that?
This flick is still, fifty years after its release and twenty-something years after my first viewing, completely unhinged, frightening, and, still feels dangerous. There are not many films that I'll watch that I can say that about. William Lustig's Maniac springs to mind. And honestly, that's one of the things I've grown to appreciate about Damien Leone's Terrifier series - the only modern films that don't cross my major lines but come close enough to remind me of that dangerous, transgressive feeling films like Maniac and TCM inspire in me (to this day).
Last night, I watched Loop Track on Shudder. This was one I saw added a few weeks back, but the name is off-putting, to say the least. Turns out, I really liked this one.
I'd post the trailer, but after watching it just now, it gives away too much. I went in knowing fuck all, and I would suggest others do the same. Really tense psychological thriller that becomes something completely different in the third act and still manages to be fun.
1) The Killing of a Sacred Deer
2) The Houses October Built (2011)/Texas Chainsaw Massacre (50th-anniversary theatrical screening)
3) Loop Track
Playlist:
Beastmilk - Climax
Fields of the Nephilim - The Nephilim
Gwar - Scumdogs of the Universe
Ian Lynch - All You Need Is Death OST
Bauhaus - Gotham Live
Ritual Howls - Rendered Armor
Moon Wizard - Sirens
Hellbender - Side A
Misfits - Collection One
Miranda Sex Garden - Carnival of Souls
George Thoroughgood and the Destroyers - Greatest Hits
Deftones - B-Sides & Rarities
Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me
Card:
Today's card: 7 of Swords - Futility:
Sevens line up with Netzach on the Sephirotic Tree of Life, and thus, my initial reading always entails Victory. That said, one of my big take-aways from Crowley's The Book of Thoth is, "This card... suggests the policy of appeasement." In other words, compromise. So this is a Victory by compromise, which might not really feel like a Victory at all.
From Synthesizer, out digitally this Friday, 10/04, with the vinyl to follow on 10/27. You can pre-order the standard album HERE or the insane edition that has a build-your-own synthesizer as the cover direct from Oliver Ackerman's Death By Audio HERE. They even have a test video demonstrating the synthesizer.
I'm probably not springing for this, but hot damn, I am tempted.
NCBD:
Really cool pull this week.
Issue three. This one is taking a bit to get rolling, but tension is beginning to build.
My money's on an insane body count for the final issue of Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows' Get Fury. Look at that cover!
One more issue after this one. Better to leave us wanting more than to over stay your welcome, but man, it's going to suck seeing this one go.
Something new from Brian Azzarello and Vanesa R. Del Rey. I'm looking forward to giving this one a shot. From the solicitation by way of League of Comic Geeks:
"In nature there are gods older than the devil... Nothing can prepare you for what's coming in this violent, electrifying descent into this bloody, black metal-infused revenge saga.
Val, an American metalhead attending a festival in Oslo, begins her penumbrous pilgrimage into the vast depths of vengeance.
After her victimization at the hands of a charismatically vile local band, the Old Gods of Norse Mythology guide her along her path in the name of women everywhere."
31 Days of Halloween:
Regal has partnered with A24 during the month of October for "Eerie Series," a weekly program of A24 films that pair nicely with the season. Last night, I caught Yorgos Lanthimos' The Killing of A Sacred Deer. This was my second time seeing the film, first time on a big screen.
I haven't seen all this man's films, but I can pretty much guarantee this is always going to be my favorite. It has such a tense, unyielding eye. The camera moves almost all the time; shots start close and slowly zoom out or start afield and slowly crop in. There's such an ominous feeling of dread, and everyone acts slightly out of whack. It all adds up to an offputting, sometimes hysterical experience in trauma voyeurism, and I love it.
1) The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Playlist:
Alice in Chains - Jar of Flies EP
Dead Man's Bones - Eponymous
Misfits - Static Age
A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head
Cristobal Tapia De Veer - Smile OST
Flipper - Album - Generic Flipper
Odonis Odonis - Post Plague
Beastmilk - Climax
Card:
Today's card is the 5 of Disks - Worry in the Thoth deck:
Fives represent complications or imbalance; the perfection of the fours shivers with an added element - change is constant, nothing coasts for very long. This creates worry in some, however, this is down to how we look at change. Fives tell us to be ready, roll with the punches, adapt and thrive. Applied to Disks, the change we can expect is usually in terms of monetary or Earthly matters.
The Cramps, live in 1986. One of my greatest musical regrets is not seeing these guys live. Goddamn.
Posted to YouTube by Travisbickle1963. Check out their channel HERE - LOTS of awesome stuff.
Watch:
Robert Eggers' Nosferatu gets a trailer (that I'm not watching yet, as this will likely be inescapable in the theatres for the next three months):
Curiosity is driving me mad, but I'm going to attempt to stick to my guns here. I'm really looking forward to this one; I loved The Northman, The Lighthouse and The Witch, and what little imagery we've seen of this remake so far has done nothing to convince me I won't love this as well.
Playlist:
Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh
Ritual Howls - Turkish Leather
Various - Rocktober Blood OST
The Cramps - RockinnReelininAucklandNewZealandXXX (Live)
