New Music from Rein!!!

 

From the forthcoming album God is a Woman, out November 30th. You can pre-order the album from Rein's Bandcamp HERE.

I first discovered Rein at 2022's Cold Waves, and was pretty blown away by her performance. Since then, REINCARNATED has been in regular rotation, so I was happy to see this new track and subsequent announcement of the follow-up.

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31 Days of Halloween:

The next chapter in Womp Stomp Films's Friday the 13th sequel series, Never Hike Alone dropped today! I backed this on Indiegogo a couple years ago and can't wait to receive my Blu-Ray copy. Until then, it's free for everyone on YouTube. Give these folks some love! Not only are Director Vincent Disanti's films better than, oh, probably 98% of F13's actual studio-produced films, but he managed to entice Thom Matthews back to play Tommy Jarvis in the ultimate rematch. Here's the trailer:

Pretty sure I'll be rewatching Never Hike Alone and Never Hike in the Snow tonight right before this 'final chapter' drops. 

Was supposed to take K to see When Evil Lurks last night at the local Regal, but our 7:30 PM show was canceled last minute, so I'm hoping we'll have a chance before it leaves the theatre next week. I know it hits Shudder on the 27th, but I really wanted her to see it on the big screen and to send the message to the theatre that YES! There are people here who want to see crazy Argentinian Horror at the movies!!! Due to the cancellation, we went with Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. This is one I never thought I'd watch, however, I was editing the first episode of the new Drinking with Comics when this came on Shudder TV in the background. I got sucked in, then realized Joe Bob had done this film (and part 5) a few years ago in his "Halloween Hootnanny," so I promptly restarted it with Joe Bob. Truth be told? I don't care much for any of the original Halloween films that feature MM (love part 3; Atkins forever!), so this was... whatever. 

1) When Evil Lurks/VHS 85/Adam Chaplin

2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 6 "Collection Complete"

3) VHS

4) All You Need is Death

5) Slashers (2001)

6) The Beyond/Phenomena

7) The Convent

8) Evil Dead 2

9) The Autopsy of Jane Doe

10) Totally Killer

11) Ritual (Joko Anwar)/The Final Terror/Grave Robbers

12) Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (w/Joe Bob)

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Watch:

Holy cow, guess what? Drinking with Comics is back! The impetus for this is simply, I read a lot of comics I'd like to talk about, but many of them do not fit into either The Horror Vision or A Most Horrible Library, so here we go!

This was a lot of fun to do, so much so that I even gave it a few tweaks and threw it up on the new Drinking with Comics TikTok page. Yeah, that's right - DwC is on TkTk, and now I feel like I need a shower.

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Playlist:

NIN - Year Zero

Type O Negative - Dead Again

Fields of the Nephilim - The Nephilim

Bauhaus - The Sky's Gone Out

Halloween Spotify Playlist

Umberto - Prophecy of the Black Widow

Ritual Howls - Into the Water

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Page or Princess of Pentacles (Disks)

• Justice (Lust)

• XVII - The Star

Creative force alone is not enough; Passion must be tempered against the Lust of Result by rigorous manifestation of idea through Will.

Okay, that's oblique, to say the least. To properly read this, I need to go back to Crowley and Harris's version of the Seventeenth Trump:

This card shows Nuith, Cosmic Mother, manifesting personified. This is not a concept; this is a PERSON. That's the clue here. You take the Earthly "go-get-em!" of the Page or Princess of Pentacles, literally the Earth of Earth, and when you begin mixing it with the creative process and achieve any degree of success, you get excited. I finished the second draft of Black Gloves and Broken Hearts the other day, and I felt like I could punch a planet in half. However, as soon as that charge comes in, so does the lust of result, which any Magickian worth his salt will tell you is exactly how you fuck things up. So, draw inspiration from Nuith, the personification of Night, of space, of turning the ineffable into the tangible. It takes work! Look at her; here's a goddess and she's bailing water, scooping up source material and turning it to crystals or glass or whatever the hell that is the pool around her feet is becoming. Becoming - that's the word. 

No Love Lost on Grave Robbers

Traditionally, my love of Joy Division becomes particularly strong in Autumn. Or at least that's how it was before I moved to L.A. Well, order appears to have been restored because it's October and Substance is once again running in my veins. Here's "No Love Lost," which always sounded a lot more like Warsaw-era to me.

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31 Days of Halloween:

I basically rode Shudder TV's Slashics for the majority of the evening. Here's what I saw:

 

This movie is nuts. I caught it from about ten minutes in, but you get it right away. Well, you don't 'get it' until the end, but that's what ended up turning this one into a positive viewing because otherwise, Joko Anwar's Ritual goes to some places I don't normally like to go. I'd definitely count this one as a "recommend," but you have to come with your game face on because there's some rough shit here.

Next, A rather passive rewatch of Andrew Davis's brilliant Backwoods Slasher/Survival flick The Final Terror: 

 

I posted the same trailer a few months ago, after the first time I caught this one. A really solid film that does what a lot of Backwoods Slashers try to do and fail (F13 - looking at most of your early works). Also, young Joe Pantoliano and Darryl Hannah, and some really beautiful photography by the Director, who doubled as Cinematographer. Susan Justin's score is pretty bitching as well, and all of this adds up to produce a flick I'd rank up there with Jeff Lieberman's Just Before Dawn and Peter Carter's Rituals with Hal Holbrook.

Finally, Slashics ended my night with Rubén Galindo Jr.'s 1989 clusterfuck Grave Robbers:

 

I'm sorry. Did I say the last movie was nuts? Nope. THIS flick is nuts. I think Rubén Galindo Jr. saw every 80s Slasher, Possession and Zombie flick and his brain just blendered them into a crazy, gory, Satan Smoothie, and I'm here for it. This is criminally underseen, but it's on Shudder, so seek it out. Just make sure your expectations don't stray above, "Get f*cked up and gawk at the ludicrous."

1) When Evil Lurks/VHS 85/Adam Chaplin

2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 6 "Collection Complete"

3) VHS

4) All You Need is Death

5) Slashers (2001)

6) The Beyond/Phenomena

7) The Convent

8) Evil Dead 2

9) The Autopsy of Jane Doe

10) Totally Killer

11) Ritual (Joko Anwar)/The Final Terror/Grave Robbers

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Read:

Oh man, it arrived:

After only reading one 'issue' of the Weird Walk zine, I was absolutely smitten. Paying for the shipping, though, was often daunting. When I saw the creators were compiling many (or maybe all? This one's thick!) of the floppies into a tome, I immediately pre-ordered it. And forgot it, which was cool, because when I opened the box yesterday, there was a moment where I felt like a kid receiving a fabulous Christmas gift. Can't wait to dig in.

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Playlist:

Cristobal Tapia De Veer - Smile OST

Walter Rizzati - House By the Cemetery OST

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Blood

Joy Division - Substance: 1977-1980

NIN - Not The Actual Events

Halloween Spotify Playlist

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Ten of Cups

• Queen of Cups

• Four of Pentacles

My parents are poised to sign a contract to sell their house, and that means A LOT of work and stress up ahead for the remainder of the year as we take the steps to move them and find them a house. No sweat, but there's the inevitable emotional deluge that will hit me at some point, the one people have asked me if I've felt yet. We moved into that house in 1986 when I was ten. That's a long time, and I love the house, the area, everything. The part of Palos I grew up in is essentially a tiny enclave in the middle of a forest preserve (if you reaed Shadow Play Book One, yep, that was the inspiration for Gallows Hill). Anyway, I read this as a warning that emotions are going to step in and gum stuff up for me; can't let that affect the work. 

Hell, now that I 'say' that out loud, this might also be a warning about interrupting my writing. I just finished the second draft of Black Gloves and Broken Hearts, my *ahem* Young Adult Giallo novel, and I'm hoping to have it out by Christmas or, at latest, January 1. I need to keep that in my sights regardless of what happens with the move.

All I Ever Wanted Was A Totally Killer Autopsy

 

I'm back from L.A. and ready to go full October. Let's start with some Bauhaus. For my money, one of the greatest songs this band ever recorded. Not easy to say, becuase 98% of all their songs could fall into that category. I mean, there are really no less-than-stellar Bauhaus songs, and yes, I'm counting Go Away White when I say that. Something about this one, though, really resonates in a timeless manner. Maybe it's the title, maybe it's the upright bass, maybe it's the genuflective lyrics that seque into nonsense - conceivably to stress how ridiculous existential contemplation actually is. Whatever the case, this is one for the ages.

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31 Days of Halloween:

I re-watched The Autopsy of Jane Doe on Monday night. I don't know; the first time I saw this film, it floored me, but every subsequent viewing has just rubbed me the wrong way. I love the performances, but there are little things about the script that irk me. Like the Sheriff's timelock of "I need a COD by morning because otherwise, I can't explain her presence at the crime scene to the press." What? How are the press gonna know? 

Honestly, I'm being a bit of a prick here. I think my real issue is that, between my first and second viewing of this flick, I saw the Director's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and hated it so much it spoiled this. I need to give Troll Hunter another shot because that's one I've only seen once and long before either of those others. Interestingly enough, my prejudice wasn't strong enough to spoil this year's Last Voyage of the Demeter, so maybe my issues with Jane Doe are legit. I don't know.

Next up, last night's movie was Nahnatchka Kan's new Amazon Original Totally Killer. This one was at Beyondfest, and my Horror Vision Cohost and I almost went; however, the day it played ended up being a low-key one, so we did not. Here's a trailer:

I was certain I would dislike this, however, turns out I really enjoyed Totally Killer. It's clever, but not in an overly ostentatious manner. Also, it's just a lot of damn fun! If you're afraid this was going to be another cutesy Blum House take on the post-modern Slasher, well, yeah. It kind of is. For me, however, it's one that really worked. Also, they freakin' NAILED gym class in the 80s.

1) When Evil Lurks/VHS 85/Adam Chaplin

2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 6 "Collection Complete"

3) VHS

4) All You Need is Death

5) Slashers (2001)

6) The Beyond/Phenomena

7) The Convent

8) Evil Dead 2

9) The Autopsy of Jane Doe

10) Totally Killer

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Playlist:

BADBADNOTGOOD - IV

Nabihah Iqbal - Dreamer

Harsh Symmetry - Imitation

Boards of Canada - Geogaddi

Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right to Children

Sleep Token - Take Me Back to Eden

Van Halen - Eponymous

Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous

Boris/Merzbow - 2R0I2P0

Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh

Medeski, Martin and Wood - Uninvisible

Bauhaus - The Sky's Gone Out

Final Light - Eponymous

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Card:

Just one card, this time from Missi's Raven Deck, for today:

A reminder to think BIGGER! Literally, just before pulling this card, my thoughts were mired down in a very localized, small facet. This is a reminder to "I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. And I've started to focus out beyond the edge of the board. On a bigger game."

Deth Crux - Phantom Blood

 

I'll be leaving L.A. later today, and I take that leave with a heavy heart. Not sure when or if I'll be back. My company is moving our department to Arizona, so I won't have a free ride out anymore. Because of this, I wanted to post an L.A. band that brings out the best of the city's vibes, and that band is definitely Deth Crux. I found these guys through Joe Begos, who used them first in Bliss, and then again for the soundtrack to Christmas Bloody Christmas. I tracked down a vinyl copy of their debut album Mutant Flesh and just love it from start to finish. Hoping we'll hear more new music from them at some point. In the meantime, it's in this band's grimy post-punk that I find the perfect balance for my love/Hate relationship with the City of Angeles.

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31 Days of Halloween:

1) When Evil Lurks/VHS 85/Adam Chaplin

2) Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 6 "Collection Complete"

3) VHS

4) All You Need is Death

5) Slashers (2001)

6) The Beyond/Phenomena

7) The Convent

8) Evil Dead 2

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Watch:

Kids show or not, you tell me Boys in Trees director Nicholas Verso has a new show on HULU, and I'm watching it. 

 

I'm not even going to bother watching the trailer or reading about Crazy Fun Park, as I want to go in blind and hope that, if this is a success, we might finally get a Bluray release of Boys in Trees, which I feel should be in most Horror fans annual October viewing schedule.

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Playlist:

Sylvaine - Nova

Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous

Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh

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Card:

I keep seeing this Defeat Five of Swords card. This coupled with the Queen and Three of Cups leads me to believe this is a picture-perfect snapshot of my emotional state at the moment - I am ready to be home and feel like the longer I'm here in L.A., I'm undoing or defeating all the progress I've made in the last year.

New Music from Mars Red Sky!

From the upcoming album Dawn of the Dusk, out December 8th on MRS and Vicious Circle. For whatever reason, I can't seem to find a link to pre-order the physical media, but I'm sure that will arrive before the record's release. In the meantime, digging this new track.

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31 Days of Halloween:

My friends and I had the absolute privilege of rounding our 2023 Beyondfest out with a double feature at the lovely Los Feliz 3. 

First up, Documentarian Paul Duane's first narrative film, All You Need is Death. Please believe me when I say this one was revelatory! 

If you search go HERE, you'll see the inception of my stated fascination with "British Occult Films" - this is what I was using to discuss what has essentially become branded as modern entries in the resurgence of Folk Horror. Back when I was seeking out films like The Droving, Without Name, and the like in the wake of seeing Ben Wheatley's Kill List, Folk Horror hadn't yet become a household word, so English or UK Occult. Regardless of genre tags, these films were entries in a much more nuanced attempt to use the pre-Christian origins of modern society as the soil from which to mine Horrors born of folklore and the swirls mists of the pre-English, pre-industrialization world. That is very much the impetus for Duane's All You Need is Death, which explores the world of people who collect ancient folk songs. There's no trailer for this one yet, as in talking to Mr. Duane after the film he stated XYZ Films is releasing All You Need Is Death to the U.S. in mid-March. I'll definitely be watching for it, so when more info becomes available, I will post it here. In the meantime, here's a poster:

Next up was the new remaster of Maurice Devereaux's 2001 game show parody Slashers. This is one Terror Vision is putting out on BluRay in a couple of months. I couldn't find a trailer I could report, so here's the opening sequence:

This is a fun little gem from the early 00s and also, a movie my good friend Dennis had recommended to me over and over back when we'd hang out once or twice a week and watch flicks. I never saw it back then, and it had actually been on my mind about a week before Beyondfest announced this screening; fortuitous indeed.

The tally for 31 Days of Halloween so far:

1) When Evil Lurks/VHS 85/Adam Chaplin

2)Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 6 "Collection Complete"

3) VHS

4) All You Need is Death

5) Slashers (2001)

6) The Beyond/Phenomena

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Read:

I'm still slogging through Clive Barker's The Scarlet Gospels; truth be told, I haven't had much chance to read since I've been in LaLaLand, but there's also not a lot of excitement for me to finish the final 80% of the book. That said, I saw my A Most Horrible Library cohost Chris Saunders the other night, and as he always does, Chris gifted me a small handful of books he found thrifting. I'm mailing most back home to Tennessee so I don't have to weigh my luggage down with them, however, one that I'm keeping out in case I have some time and can't bring myself to return to the Gospels is this old gem: 

Originally published in 1990 and edited by Steve Niles long before he hit it big with 30 Days of Night,  I've seen this one around for years. I might have even had a copy at some point. Either way, what a great line-up of authors for one Anthology. Pretty excited to dig into this. 

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Playlist:

Led Zeppelin - Get the Led Out Playlist

Spotlights - Seance EP

Mars Red Sky - Dawn of the Dusk (pre-release singles)

Frankie and the Witch Fingers - Data Doom

The Damned - Evil Spirits

Wire - Pink Flag

Pigface - Notes From the Underground

Gang of Four - Entertainment!

Drug Church - Hygiene

Gang of Four - Songs of the Free

Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - Talk About the Weather

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Card:

Sometimes, what looks like defeat is actually a breakthrough (if you're wise enough to see that). Not entirely certain what this is in reference to. I'm tempted to read everything as being about work at the moment, but that's just because I'm on-site in person and a little baffled by the manner in which things are changing. I guess we'll leave it at that.

Leaders of Men

 

I don't have a lot in me at the moment, so here's some old-school Joy Division, one of my favorite tracks from the Warsaw days.

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31 Days of Halloween:

1) When Evil Lurks/VHS 85/Adam Chaplin

2)Tales From the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 6 "Collection Complete"

3) VHS

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NCBD:

Here's what's waiting for me when I finally make it into a comic shop:

I still haven't started this series yet, so I will inevitably wait for all five issues to come out before I read. That kind of sucks, but the fact is this had a crazy low print run, thus my problems acquiring issue one (which I still don't have, hence why I haven't started it).

Finally: Apocalypse!!! I have no idea where this is going to lead; I'd originally expected old En Sabbah Nur to show up in X-Men: Red, where his wife is waging war on Storm and her people. Having him show up here has me questioning a lot of what I thought was going on. 

Daniel Warren Johnson doing a new Transformers comic that takes place in Robert Kirkman's Energon Universe? No way I'd miss this. I'm pretty selective with what I acknowledge, let alone spend time/money on as far as The Transformers; the only books I've read are the original Marvel comic and the Simon Furman continuation of that about ten years ago, Regeneration. Movie-wise, it's just 86 and the cartoons that predated it. Nothing else, so the fact that this ties into that world - or at least as far as I think I understand this Energon Universe - is a pretty big selling point. Of course DWJ at the helm is the other.

We finally get to see more of what Orchis is doing to Scott. There was a time I would have welcomed his torture, but call me crazy, Cyclops has actually become a pretty solid character in the post-Hickman continuity. I love how all the characters I found the least interesting or downright annoying are now stalwarts of my interest.

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Playlist:

Damone - From the Attic

Ruby the Hatchet - Fear is a Cruel Master

Umberto - Prophecy of the Black Widow

Spotlights - Seance EP

Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun

Young Widows - Old Wounds

Siouxsie & The Banshees

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No Sleeping at Beyondfest Triple Feature!

The only time I'd ever heard of Sleep Token before this past Saturday night was when my friend Josh asked if I'd heard of them, as his algorithm maintained a consistent recommendation. Driving back from a friend's house in Santa Clarita, my friend Bridget played several songs, and I almost instantly became intrigued. When Ray dropped me off at the hotel, I had a head full of smoke and laid down with their first album, Sundowning, on my headphones. I was transported somewhere I had never been before. This is the reaction I am most fond of with music, and based on that, I'm kind of an overnight fan here, despite the fact that some of the textures Sleep Token employs in its genreless music are coopted from styles of music I don't particularly care for. That said, in the context of this band's music and mythology, most of it works. 

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31 Days of Halloween:

Thanks to Beyondfest, I was able to kick off 31 Days of Halloween yesterday with a triple-feature over at the Aero. Here's what we saw:

 

Having just rewatched Demián Rugna's 2017 film Terrified, I wasn't entirely certain what I was in for with When Evil Lurks. Turns out, When Evil Lurks won the day. This film is relentlessly dark, it doesn't hold your hand, and it pays back what it demands of the audience with one of the most original and gnarly Horror flicks of the year, if not of the last few.

Next, the latest installment in the V/H/S series:

 

As I've stated here previously, this series is always a mixed bag for me. When I saw Gigi Saul Guerrero, David Bruckner and Scott Derrickson attached to direct segments in V/H/S/85, I had hope for a really solid anthology film, and I got one.

The one thing about the VHS that still wears on me is how they play with the mechanism of the format. Tracking lines, pops, squiggles, dither and interrupted interstitial elements - these contrived artifacts add little at this point, and I think take up far too much time. I know having these creates the VHS illusion. However, they're just such a given at this point it does nothing for me. I also thought a few of the shorts had some pacing issues, but overall, this is easily my favorite all-around entry into the series since the original. Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill's "Dreamkill" was easily my favorite here, with its bloody set pieces that felt right out of an early 80s Video Nasty.

 Finally, the night ended with Emanuele De Santi and Giulio De Santi's 2011 bloodbath, Adam Chaplain:

This movie would make an absolutely perfect double feature with Gabriel Bartalos's Skinned Deep. It's low on budget but a veritable "how to" lesson on shooting and FX when you have more Will than money.

As with last year's 31 Days, I'm aberrating my usual a-movie-a-day format due to the fact that I'll still be in a hotel room until the evening of the ninth. I always bring my firestick with me when I travel, however, working and seeing people come first, so I cannot guarantee I'll have the time every single day to watch something. With that said, Day #1 takes care of the next 3 days (not to say I won't try to watch something every day, it's just doubtful.

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Playlist:

Jóhann Jóhannsson - Mandy OST

Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh

Baroness - Stone

The Warlocks - Vevey Live

Sleep Token - Sundowning

Sleep Token - Take Me Back to Eden

Voyage - Paradise (single)

Voyage - Second Light

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Card:

I'm on the road, so all my Pulls will be from my mini Thoth deck for the next two weeks. Not a bad thing, but wanted to put up a reminder that Grimm's new Tarot Deck, The Hand of Doom Tarot, is both gorgeous and live on Kickstarter until Tuesday, October 3rd. Here's the LINK.

• II: The Priestess

• Three of Cups: Abundance

• IX: The Hermit

Another pretty easy one - an abundance of emotion can lead to isolation. This is, I believe, another tip for dealing with issues at work. It's pretty easy to become overwhelmed and transported right back into the "Manager Mode" that made me successful while I was still living and working here in L.A. That's a mistake, and I appreciate the Universe's constant reminders that is no longer my role.