From the soundtrack to the new Darren Aronofsky film, Caught Stealing, which I was interested in seeing until I was subjected to the trailer before every movie I've seen at the theatre for the last month and a half. Still, great song. Always cool to get some new music from Idles!
Watch:
Stephen Kostansky's remake of Roger Corman's Deathstalker finally received a trailer and it. Looks. AWESOME!
In theatres October 10th, I am crossing my fingers I'll get to see this on the big screen!
Tracked a copy of Ryan Gosling and Zach Shields' 2009 Dead Man's Bones last night. Super excited. This is one of those weird, one-off records from the 00s that I adore but often forget about. With all the bands currently pulling their music from Streaming, I've been thinking a lot about musical sustainability. I've always preferred physical media, but have come to rely on streaming a lot over the past decade. I think a healthy mix of the two is the best way to navigate the world in 2025; however, the idea that some music could disappear from my life scares me terribly. This is one of those albums I need to make sure I always have access to, even if I don't access it a lot.
NCBD:
Huge pull this week. Damn! Let's get into it:
We're inching closer to the Quintesson War, and for those who don't see Void Rivals as a monthly Transformers book, you're wrong.
On the fence with this one-shot from Image. Here's the solicitation from League of Comic Geeks:
"A nightmarish terror once again haunts the shadowy woods of a small town community. Three young friends have to confront their own childhood fears, undead creatures that stalk the living, an enigmatic tree that seemingly collects souls, and an ancient forest entity that seeks to reclaim these lands as its own. It's Tom Sawyer meets Pan's Labyrinth meets It in this coming-of-age tale of redemption and courage in the face of pure evil."
Sounds fantastic, but it's already a tall week in the duckets column. We'll see.
I love Zander Cannon's Sleep so much that it's become one of my most anticipated reads every month.
Jeff Lemire's Minor Arcana continues to be one of the books I most look forward to each month. Not Horror, but more of a 'supernatural drama,' if you will. The idea of a real psychic taking over her fake psychic mother's psychic shop in a small, podunk town really resonates. Maybe it's the dabs of Seaside Horror that I pick up in this one, but it just feels so mysterious. Love it so much.
It's awesome to see this final iteration of Greg Rucka and Michael Lark's Lazarus come out on the nose every month. I've been buying these but not reading them, as I still have not begun my reread of the previous two series. That's coming soon, though!
JG Jones and Phil Bram's delightfully twisted Dust Bowl horror, Dust to Dust, returns. I'll admit that I'm going to require a re-read to move forward, but I look forward to revisiting this one. A very nuanced tale of Americana Horror that would make a great "double feature" with Scott Snyder and Scott Tuft's Severed.
While picking up issue 1 was something of a lark, so far, I'm enjoying this. Even though the importance of these "Death of" books is all self-invented and transient. Still, it's been a while since I read anything with the Surfer, so this five-issue mini-series is a nice dalliance with a character I've always admired from afar.
The final issue of this Black Metal piss-take. I've really enjoyed Dark Regards.
Watch:
Monday night I hit the local theatre for a re-release of 2013's The Conjuring. This is a flick I really liked when it came out, but that all the spin-offs and sequels had convinced me was no longer worth my time. My disdain for the handling of the property crept backward, and when I saw it would be on the big screen again, like I saw it the first time, I figured, let's give it a day in court, shall we?
Glad I did. James Wan's original The Conjuring 100% holds up as one of the best haunted house flicks of the modern era. Yes, the spin-offs and franchising has dragged the overall name down, but this first film... It's almost breathtaking at times with the sequences of sustained fear peppered throughout.
Here's short IG video I did to sum up how I felt directly after leaving the theatre Monday night.
The Body - All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Three of Cups
• VI: The Lovers
• XVII: The Star
Love brings abundance and a positive turning point. Oh boy. This may be directly related to something in Black Gloves and Broken Hearts. I can't say anymore at this point, but I may have to spend part of my writing time this afternoon addressing this.
I was taken aback when I saw Scott Ian's post recognizing that Persistence of Time came out 35 years ago yesterday. I mean, I remember buying that cassette like it was yesterday. Persistence was my first Anthrax album, and I bought it the year it came out, 1990. Since then, it has always remained my favorite of the band's records.
Watch:
I rewatched Michael Sarnoski's Pig this past Saturday night. What a fantastic film!
First, Cinematographer Pat Scola photographs the Pacific Northwest in a way that really sends me there. You can practically smell the trees and feel the misting rain. Even the neighborhoods come alive with an extra dimension - the brief scene where Cage's Robin revisits his old home really put me there, on the sidewalk along the side of the house, into the backyard.
Alexis Grapass and Philip Klein provide a score that is wondrous - it moves through the different scenes of the city and moods of the characters in a way that really enhances the performance without ever dictating emotion. And emotion is where Nick Cage comes in. There's something starkly beautiful about his sorrow and persistence. Robin is motivated by love and loss, and I feel that so acutely that my eyes harbor tears for most of the film.
Alex Wolf and Adam Arkin are no slouches, either. Both have an arc that moves me in a secondary way to Cage's story, so that it all comes together in one of those simple films that feels so robust, as though it can encompass every emotional state of the human experience.
Read:
With secondary hype from the Fantastic Four film I'll probably never see, I'd gotten back around to thinking about the mid-80s Walt Simonson run on the book. I didn't read it at the time, but I was very aware of it all throughout my burgeoning comic book-collecting years, which really hit hyperdrive in 1986, the same year Simonson took over "The World's Greatest Comics Magazine."
As I said on a recent Drinking with Comics, I was a total Marvel Zombie as a child, and I bought into the hype on the FF even if I didn't have the allowance to venture into reading it. So over the years, while I've grabbed an issue here or there, I've never had a concentrated plan of attack for going back and reading some of that stuff.
Until now.
I finally pinned down Simonson's first issue as Writer and Artist and started there, snagging a copy of #337 off eBay a few weeks ago. I wasn't sure how this would read to my eyes in 2025, but I needn't have worried; Into the Time Stream is a fantastic jumping-on point, as well as a great example of Simonson's art and writing complementing each other. The issue is heavy on the 80s Marvel time-travel talk, but honestly, it all sounds very modern. The terminology reminded me a lot of reading Grant Morrison circa 2000. And the thing is, Simonson's art matches that heady, scientific approach perfectly!
I feel like, when you stop to consider the image above, you see how adept Walter Simonson is as an artist of the abstract. This image really sells the "mumbo-jumbo" Reed Richards spouts in this issue, and helps us 'buy into' the weird, fringe science as a reality because, hey, we can see it right there. Similarly, I love this panel as well, where the FF and their Avengers counterparts enter the 'time bubble' from an unknown future that has jeopardized their present.
Even though I didn't read his run on FF until now, Walter Simonson's art was among the first I marveled at outside of 80's G.I. Joe comics because he did a big stint illustrating his wife Louise's run as writer on X-Factor, the first X-Book I picked up. I dug a few of those out this weekend as well. It's cool to really dip back in on his 80s work - both what I know and what I don't - and celebrate one of the artists that made me the comic fan I am.
Playlist:
Deftones - private music
Testament - Infanticide A.I. (pre-release single)
Testament - The New Order
Testament - Titans of Creation
Walter Rizatti - House By the Cemetery OST
Sam Cooke - One Night Stand! Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Page of Swords
• VIII: Strength
• Six of Swords
When attacked on Earthly grounds, the Strength of Science will be the best defense.
Okay, that's pretty vague from the outside looking in, but I'm picking up what these 70s Wizard cards are putting down. To fight a good fight, keep emotional responses from poisoning logic.
The first track off Testament's upcoming fourteenth studio album, Para Bellum, is out October 10th on Nuclear Blast Records. You can pre-order a copy HERE.
Fourteen albums? That just blows me away. I've dodged in and out of keeping tabs on these guys. Most of their records still sound fantastic to me, and if this first track is any indication, Para Bellum will be no different.
Watch:
Last night I saw Shinji Higuchi and Hideaki Anno's 2016 Shin Godzilla on the big screen for the second time in three days.
Unlike many of my friends, I did not grow up with Godzilla. Certainly, I knew what the monster was. Who doesn't? The big G has occupied a fairly lofty space in the cultural lexicon for longer than I have been alive. I'm not sure that, without that layer of nostalgia, I'll ever be able to go back and embrace the Godzilla movies of the past (maybe, though), but between this and Minus One, hot damn am I a convery. This movie is STUNNING. Some of the best effects I have ever seen theatrically. They build a world and destroy it and, although I know I'm not watching half a dozen skyscrapers in Tokyo topple, I believe that's exactly what I'm seeing.
Read:
I'm halfway through Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, and to complement it as research for Shadow Play Book Two, I've also procured a $10 Kindle copy of Richard Ellmann's celebrated biography of Wilde, Oscar Wilde:
This is often shown titled as Oscar Wilde: Pulitzer Prize Winner; however, I find that adding the book's accolade to the title is a bit churlish, to say the least.
I've pretty much accepted that despite the literal tower of books on my 'to-read' pile, the remainder of my 2025 reading will most likely be reserved specifically for research. Two exceptions are the Nathan Ballingrud and Laird Barron novellas due next month. Other than that, I'm all in on researching both Victorian and Elizabethan England, which have winnowed their way into my novel as main characters of the second act.
Playlist:
Windhand - Eternal Return
Sleep - Dopesmoker
White Zombie - La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1
Steve Moore - VFW OST
Blackbraid - Blackbraid III
Testament - Infanticide AI (single)
Mastodon - Leviathan
Testament - The Gathering
Portishead - Third
Faetooth - Remnants of the Vessel
Hall & Oats - Rock 'N' Soul, Part 1
Deftones - private music
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• XVII: The Star
• XX: Adjustment
• Eight of Swords
Struggling interrupts the path to enlightenment.
That's a pretty vague interpretation, but I'm picking up what I'm putting down. This is a work-oriented Pull, letting me know that the theoretical middle finger roadblocks I'm throwing in certain folks' direction are perhaps counterproductive. I would argue that corporate backstabbing and rigamarole are also counterproductive, but that's just it - stop pointing that out and try to work past it.
News of former Mastodon founding member Brent Hinds' death filtered in this morning and really kind of left me aghast. Hinds had recently left the band, and from a lot of the videos my algorithm tries to feed me but I avoid, he'd gone on something of a tear speaking out against his former bandmates. Whatever drama ensued, it's all over now, and a very talented artist is gone. Crazy how monumental shifts can follow one another so quickly, or perhaps one brings on the other.
The new album from Revocation lands in under a month and I'm pretty psyched. I've especially taken to this pre-release single "Cronenberged," the name of which almost immediately signified how I would feel for it. And with a title referencing the Godfather of Body Horror, Revocation and Director, Cinematographer and FX guru David Brodsky 100% delivered!
You can pre-order the new album, New Gods, New Masters, from Metal Blade Records HERE.
NCBD:
Another Wednesday, another NCBD pull list! Super excited about these, so let's get into it!
So excited for the next chapter in this cosmic game of thrones (not a reference to George R. Martin). Hickman brings his trademark complexity, but also, he once again manages to infuse it with a sense of excitement I've not seen anyone bring to the big two in quite some time.
G.I.Joe issue #9 was, I think, the best of the series thus far, so despite the instant exhaustion I feel looking at a cover displaying Cover Girl and Baroness as the stars of the issue, I have high hopes. I'd just really like to move on from them soon.
I feel a re-read coming on for Exquisite Corpses. Interesting to note that issue 3 had Pornsak Pichetshote and Valentine De Landro were credited as Writer/Artist, so I'd kind of assumed this might be a project that Tynion and Walsh had conceived, set up and handed off; however, that's not the case. League of Comic Geeks' entry for this issue shows the founders back on board for the next few solicitations.
The first issue of Catacombs of Torment was a blast, so I've been jonesing to read #2, due out today! There is nothing quite as satisfying as a fantastic Horror Anthology, especially when it's in comic book form (This is probably based on the fact that I saw Creepshow as a very young child, and it imprinted on me forevermore).
Watch:
After rewatching Osgood Perkins' The Monkey this past Sunday night, I was reminded just how much I'm looking forward to his next film, Keeper, due in theatres November 14th!
I'm continually amazed at not only how fast Mr. Perkins works, but how he's really matured as a filmmaker of late.
Playlist:
The Knife - Silent Shout
The Knife - Shaking the Habitual
The Knife - Deep Cuts
Blackbraid - Blackbraid III
Drug Church - Prude
King Woman - Doubt EP
Steve Moore - The Mind's Eye OST
Steve Moore - Christmas Bloody Christmas OST
Revocation - New Gods, New Masters (pre-release singles)
Helmet - Aftertaste
Spotlights - Love & Decay
Kate Bush - Hounds of Love
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• XVI: The Tower
• XII: The Hanged Man
• 7 of Disks: Failure
It'd been a minute since I put hands on my Thoth deck, so that's what I pulled for today. Looks like to change a paradigm, I'm going to have to go through a sacrifice and fail once or twice. Not sure what this is alluding to; might be the new methodology I've been tweaking for working on Shadow Play Book 2. Might be work-related.
I love that Steve Moore has done an original score for every movie Joe Begos has made except his first. I love everyone of those scores, own them all on vinyl, and am happy to share the news that Terror Vision.
My god do I love the design on this one! You can pre-order the soundtrack HERE, and from what I'm seeing, Jimmy and Stiggs is still in wide release up until Thursday when the new stuff comes out. I'm going to try to drive into Nashville to see it again, and I have to implore the rest of you to make the effort as well. It's not a perfect film, but it's made for the big screen and supporting something so DIY in big box chains is VITAL to our way of life as fans.
Watch:
Pierre Tsigaridis's new film Traumatika is getting a lot of hype coming out of recent festival screenings, and I'm super curious. I really liked his previous film, Two Witches, which I watched on the Arrow Streaming service back when it first landed in 2022. I can't say I remember the film very well, but that's definitely not the movie's fault. It usually takes a viewing or two for things to stick.
Early reports and all the promotional material make Traumatika sound pretty daunting, but we'll see. I watched about a third of this trailer and it was enough to get me further on board, so I'm hoping come September 12th, this pops up on a big screen in my neck of the woods. The blurb on Letterboxd mentions two phrases that always suggest a promising formula for Horror: "Night Terrors" and "Demonic Possession."
Read:
I finished Stephen Graham Jones' latest novel The Buffalo Hunter Hunter over the weekend. This is the kind of novel that leaves a deafening vacuum when it ends, where you just look at the other books on your shelf or in your queue and can't quite bring yourself to replace it right away.
Luckily, while I've begun picking at my Sandman re-read again, my main focus for the next few months and possibly the remainder of the year will be on a list of titles I have determined I need to read to continue to work on the sequel to Shadow Play. Some of these are books I've known I'm going to have to read for a few years now, and some are new to the list. The point is, I'm finally working through this project the way I should have been all along.
First up: The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde. It's a shame I haven't already read this, anyway, so I'm finally making up for lost time. a handful of chapters in, I'm hooked, even if it did take me a few to adjust to the more flowery, 'purple' prose style. Once I readjusted, it fit like a glove.
I'm just reading the cheapie Kindle edition, so I thought I'd post one of the more interesting covers from previous editions here, published by Penguin Clothbound Classics in 2000. Yeah, not the best 'vintage' for a book with this much history, but honestly, after google image searching this one, I don't know that it ever received a cover I actually like.
Playlist:
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Nell' ora blu
Secret Chiefs 2 Traditionalists - La Mani Destre Recise Degli Ultimi Uomimi
White Zombie - Astro-Creep 2000
Zombi - Shape Shift
Ruin of Romantics - Self Control (single)
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity
Fvnerals - Let the Earth be Silent
Brittany Bindrim - Ever So Slowly (single)
Revocation - The Outer Ones
The Body - No One Deserves Happiness
Fantômas - Delirium Cordia
In Slaughter Natives - Sacrosancts Bleed
Ministry - Houses of the Molee
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
ISIS - Panopticon
White Zombie - La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1
Steve Moore - Jimmy and Stiggs OST
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Knight of Pentacles
• XVI: The Tower
• XI: Justice
I saw the Knight of Disks - which I often equate with saving money, and knew exactly what I had to do. I had literally been thinking about it just before the pull, so this was an easy one. Especially after adding in The Tower and Justice.
