2018: October 31st - Happy Halloween!!!

I figured this would be appropriate.

31 Days of Horror's penultimate evening yielded two movies. The first, Trick r' Treat, which is always a viewing standard for the season. I almost passed it over last night, lured by ideas of exploring something new on VOD. After about three minutes though, I was all in. LOVE this film. My favorite segments would be the Bus in the Quarry and little Red Riding Hood. An autumnal cinematic institution I will never doubt again.

The second movie was 1931's Dracula, directed by Tod Browning and starring the inimitable Bela Lugosi. Had to get in at least one Universal Monster.

"I never drink....... wine."



Classic. The sets on the old Universal monster flicks are indelibly seared into my soul from watching them so much as a kid. It wasn't until K and I got together and she revived my love of those original horror franchises that I revisited them. Last year we did Frankenstein (still my fav) and The Creature from the Black Lagoon, this year Dracula.

31 Days of Horror

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle
10/15) Phantom of the Paradise
10/16) Candyman
10/17) Ghoulies
10/18) John Carpenter's Halloween

10/19) Halloween
10/20) Mandy
10/21) Satan's Playground

10/22) Flatliners
10/23) Jacob's Ladder

10/24) Halloween III: Season of the Witch
10/25) Ghost Stories
10/26) John Carpenter's The Fog
10/27) Suspiria (2018)
10/28) Suspiria (1977)

10/29) Beetlejuice/Pyewacket

10/30) Trick r' Treat/Dracula (1931)

You know how sometime in the 00s someone put out a DVD with logs burning in a fireplace, a kind of background mood-setter for Christmas? Well, Shudder has the Halloween equivalent: The Ghoul Log, one hour and three minutes of this:

So awesome! They added in night sounds (owls hooting and wind and stuff), and it's real-time, that is to say the camera is rolling, capture every flicker of the candle's flame. Once again, kudos Shudder!

Big plans for tonight, as I am off work tomorrow.  If it's foggy again like it's been the last few nights, I might just go for a midnight stroll in costume.

Playlist from 10/30:

Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (digipak)

Siouxsie and the Banshees - 

Fantômas - Director's Cut
Sisters of Mercy - First and Last and Always
Sisters of Mercy - Floodland
Windhand - Eternal Return
Ritual Howls - Their Body
Ritual Howls - Into the Water

Card of the day:

Success from hard work. Good to hear. I've been reinvigorated of late in streamlining Shadow Play Book #1: Kim & Jessie. Things felt a little strained yesterday, but I kind of squandered my inspiration, applying it later in the day than I should have. I won't make that mistake today.

One last video, my favorite Halloween song, which I probably post every year. It's worth the reiteration:



Happy Halloween everyone!!!

2018: October 30th

From the album Post Everything (great title) and featured in the movie Pyewacket, which I watched last night and absolutely loved. In a way I saw Pyewacket as an updated version of George A. Romero's Season of the Witch, kind of a cautionary tale about messing around with Black Magick. I loved everything about this film, from the camera work, which was diverse and pragmatic in its approach, i.e. if the filmmakers needed to create tension or up the tempo for the viewer, they did so with hand-camera work - never gratuitous - or odd angles. They used the score well, partially by playing with volume to accent moments of tension release or revelation, and they kept their locations tight but aesthetically aligned with what they were trying to do, as in the use of Autumnal colors and rustic buildings. Also, director Adam McDonald certainly knows how to play on the strained relationships of Mothers and their adolescent daughters. Nicole Munoz and Laurie Holden (who some of you will remember from The Walking Dead as Andrea) kill it in their roles, Munoz especially.



I also finished watching Beetlejuice last night. Man, I miss liking Tim Burton's stuff. Unlike his later stuff, Beetlejuice is pure imagination unconfined by the caricature the auteur has made for himself, which really just acts as a prison.


Thanks to my good friend Jonathan Grimm Art for the recommendation!

31 Days of Horror

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle
10/15) Phantom of the Paradise
10/16) Candyman
10/17) Ghoulies
10/18) John Carpenter's Halloween

10/19) Halloween
10/20) Mandy
10/21) Satan's Playground

10/22) Flatliners
10/23) Jacob's Ladder

10/24) Halloween III: Season of the Witch
10/25) Ghost Stories
10/26) John Carpenter's The Fog
10/27) Suspiria (2018)
10/28) Suspiria (1977)

10/29) Beetlejuice/Pyewacket

Playlist from 10/29:

Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets

Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - Wasteland

John Carpenter and Alan Howarth - Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Miranda Sex Garden - Suspiria

Exhalants - Eponymous

Trust Obey - Hands of Ash

Trust Obey - The Tides of Sin - EP

No card today. I keep forgetting my decks at home in the morning.

Well, that's almost it, as tomorrow is Halloween! Rejoice, oh you children of the night! The walls grow thin.

2018: October 29th

Whoah. I had ear-marked this Perturbator collaboration with LA-based Health sometime a week or so ago and then promptly forgot about it. Listening to it last night while writing, it made a strong impression. Which led to me checking out Health's 2015 album Death Magic (great title). Fantastic stuff. Reminiscent of Crystal Castles at times, very melodic and killer electronics.

31 Days of Horror rounded the final lap last night with attempts to watch two other movies as well. The first was Beetlejuice, which I rented from Amazon and which dropped out and sent me back to the start twice before I gave up. The second was Tod Browning's 1931 Dracula with Bela Lugosi, but by then it was pass out time, so I only made it 2/3 of the way through. Ugh.

31 Days of Horror

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle
10/15) Phantom of the Paradise
10/16) Candyman
10/17) Ghoulies
10/18) John Carpenter's Halloween

10/19) Halloween
10/20) Mandy
10/21) Satan's Playground

10/22) Flatliners
10/23) Jacob's Ladder

10/24) Halloween III: Season of the Witch
10/25) Ghost Stories
10/26) John Carpenter's The Fog
10/27) Suspiria (2018)
10/28) Suspiria (1977)

Playlist from 10/28:

Various Artists - Halloween playlist
Skeletal Family - Singles Plus One
Health/Perturbator - Body/Prison
Health - Death Magic
Ennio Morricone - Black Belly of the Tarantula

No card today.

2018: October 28th

A little Siouxsie and the Banshees in honor of Susie Bannion and the fact that we have now entered the final stretch toward Halloween. I still have quite a few movies I want to watch, so I'm going to start working some into the daylight, in the background. This is something I purposely never do, as a way to maintain the sacred reverence I try to hold for movies. That said, I'll look at it as a recreation of discovering horror on television as a kid. I have the original Suspiria on while I'm writing this, just as a counter point to Luca Guadagnino's version we saw last night. How was the new Suspiria?

Not an easy question, as there's a lot to unpack.

Guadagnino's iteration of Dario Argento's classic is not so much a horror movie, as it is a Film that happens to center around horrific events and characters; it's a horror movie in the same way Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is a horror movie, that is to say not  beholden to genre tropes and mores. I know some folks who would say my evening saying that is pretentious, but here's why I disagree.

Before Jaws, Star Wars, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Hollywood didn't manufacture blockbusters. With the European influence that came in to take the place of the drift that set in after the studio paradigm died, Directors became revered as Auteurs. Films were made with artistic intentions, and this was not considered a bad or pretentious thing. It goes to show how corporatized we are as a society now, with the number of people who roll their eyes to my oft-preached delineation between what constitutes a Movie and what constitutes a Film.

During this Auteur period, the box office was topped by films that got people talking. Think Chinatown, a movie that would most likely never be made by a major studio today. This championing of the Director as Auteur ended after Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate disaster bankrupted United Artists. From that point on, studios began to take control back from Directors, and simultaneously began looking for 'sure-things'.

Jaws, Star Wars, and Raiders provided the template for this.

I liken Guadagnino's Suspiria to the Auteur era; it's artistic yes, but not without purpose. One interesting note, without going into spoiler territory, is that Dario Argento's Suspiria takes place in 1977 Germany, and that makes the setting Divided Germany. This never factors into Argento's film, though. That's not a criticism, just an observation, and one that only ever occurred to me now because the new film hinges on this fact. As Susie Bannion's story plays out in the foreground, the background of the film is set against the climax of the Baader-Meinhoff kidnapping, and this too factors in, as does WWII, for Lutz Ebersdorf's character.

In the end? I thought Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria was an excellent film. Will it garner the fun, cult following the original has? No. Will it incite the same kind of celebratory, rewatch fervor Argento's film does? No. That doesn't mean you shouldn't see it, you definitely should. In a theatre if you can. But it does mean a lot of horror fans who hold the original Suspiria dear need to step around their expectations and keep an open mind.

31 Days of Horror

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle
10/15) Phantom of the Paradise
10/16) Candyman
10/17) Ghoulies
10/18) John Carpenter's Halloween

10/19) Halloween
10/20) Mandy
10/21) Satan's Playground

10/22) Flatliners
10/23) Jacob's Ladder

10/24) Halloween III: Season of the Witch
10/25) Ghost Stories
10/26) John Carpenter's The Fog
10/27) Suspiria (2018)

After the movie, K and I drove around Hollywood a bit, windows down, marine layer in the air. Closest thing I can remember to Autumn in Los Angeles in some time. The cool, moist air added a certain electricity to the evening that was only amplified when we arrived at the Horror Writer's Assoc. party. Robert Payne Cabeen and his wonderful wife Cecile put on a hell of a shindig - the entire front of the house was lavished with decorations that fit the season, music blared from the inside, and people in costumes strolled around the grounds. It was marvelous.

Incidentally, I finally procured a copy of Robert Cabeen's Stoker-aware winning novel Cold Cuts, so I'll be starting that shortly. I had been picking at short stories for the last week or so because despite beginning Neil Gaiman's much-lauded novel The Graveyard Book, I just cannot get into it at the moment. The plan is to move to Cold Cuts next and then go back to Gaiman.

Completely forgot to post here that the newest episode of The Horror Vision went up last Wednesday. Su nioj for Anthony, Chris, Ray, and my own picks for must-watch Halloween season movies. On Apple Podcasts and The Horror Vision.com now.

Playlist from yesterday was literally only my Halloween Playlist, which you can find on Apple Music if you follow me there. Cities of Dust is on it, as are a lot of other awesome tracks hand-picked to accentuate the Autumn mood I have to manufacture most days here in LaLaLand.

Halloween Playlist:

1) Black No. 1 - Type O Negative
2) Bela Lugosi's Dead - Bauhaus
3) Cities in Dust - Siouxsie & The Banshees
4) Park Around the Corner - Ritual Howls
5) The Monk Song - Miranda Sex Garden
6) The Days of Swine & Roses - My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult
7) Dead Man's Party - Oingo Boingo
8) Graveyard Girl - M83
9) A Dance for the Saints - The Final Cut
10) Mask - Bauhaus
11) Tear You Apart - She Wants Revenge
12) Skin of the Night - M83
13) Zemmoa - Ritual Howls
14) Everyday is Halloween - Ministry

Card of the day:

From the Grimoire, "Balance. Nine = Collected; stable. Cups = Emotion"

2018: October 27th

New Finn Andrews track! I love everything about this man's music. In the past two years, I've gone to so many concerts, that I've made a little oath to lay off in 2019, in an attempt to start saving some of the money I spend at shows. The two exceptions to this are The Veils, who I've only been into since David Lynch introduced them to me on Twin Peaks, and Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats. Well, I procured Uncle Acid tickets this past Wednesday, so that only leaves The Veils. Would Finn Andrews solo suffice? Of course.

31 Days of Horror was supposed to continue last night with Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, however between decorating for Halloween and baking Zombie cookies, K and I didn't think a 2+ hour film was realistic, so we went with John Carpenter's The Fog, a film I love but hadn't watched since Mr. Brown and I viewed it back in, oh, probably 2003. Jesus, time flies.



Tonight's film is already set in stone - Suspiria, at the Arclight in Hollywood. Excited does not even begin to describe my mindset. I believe this film will not be a remake at all, but a totally new and different film that will sit alongside the original as another fantastic piece of horror cinema.

31 Days of Horror

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle
10/15) Phantom of the Paradise
10/16) Candyman
10/17) Ghoulies
10/18) John Carpenter's Halloween

10/19) Halloween
10/20) Mandy
10/21) Satan's Playground

10/22) Flatliners
10/23) Jacob's Ladder

10/24) Halloween III: Season of the Witch
10/25) Ghost Stories
10/26) John Carpenter's The Fog

On a bit of a paperback kick right now, and finding that August Derleth's Cthulhu cycle stuff is not nearly as bad as I remembered it being (I say I remembered them being bad, but regardless I've always loved what I've read, just wondered about going back to it, which has been rewarding thus far).

Playlist from 10/26:

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Digipak)
The Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro
The Knife - Silent Shout
Fantômas - Director's Cut
Jóhann Jóhannson - Mandy OST

Card of the day:

From the Grimoire, "Culmination." Good, lots of spinning plates and I believe I just implemented something to streamline their results. Ten is also Malkuth, the world, and I guess, in a way, I'm announcing myself to the world today.

2018: October 26th

Taken from the album I'm mainlining this morning thanks to my good friend Sonny's edition of The Joup Friday Album. I found Julian Cope and the Teardrop Explodes late - like 8 or 9 years ago - and I was FLOORED I had never heard them before. This was the first song I heard, and it's probably still my favorite.

I've kind of fallen off the Protomartyr hysteria that 2014's Under Color of Official Right stirred in me. In fact, while I liked 2015's The Agent Intellect, 2017's Relatives in the Desert left zero impression on me. Granted, I only gave it one listen, so I'll go back to it eventually, but in the year or so since that album's release I've kind of ignored the band. Yesterday I received a message through Band in Town (best app) alerting me to the fact that Protomartyr and Preoccupations are releasing a split 7" in November, with Protomartyr covering Preoccupations' Forbidden, and Preoccupations covering Pontiac 87, one of my favorite tracks from The Agent Intellect. I'm pretty psyched.

You can pre-order the split HERE; below are the original tracks.





And the Protomartyr version they released on their youtube channel:



Last night K and I watched Ghost Stories. Pretty solid flick, and scary as hell at points. Like, legitimately scary. Not jump scares, but real, sustained fear-inducing tension. Loved that; didn't love the ending. But maybe you will. Worth a watch and it just popped up on HULU.



31 Days of Horror

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle
10/15) Phantom of the Paradise
10/16) Candyman
10/17) Ghoulies
10/18) John Carpenter's Halloween

10/19) Halloween
10/20) Mandy
10/21) Satan's Playground

10/22) Flatliners
10/23) Jacob's Ladder

10/24) Halloween III: Season of the Witch
10/25) Ghost Stories

Playlist from 10/25:

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Your Funeral... My Trial
Bauhaus - In the Flat Field
Miranda Sex Garden - Carnival of Souls
Grinderman - Grinderman 2
Windhand - Eternal Return
The Knife - Silent Shout

No card today. Happy Halloween weekend everybody!!!

2018: October 25th

I've read this video is awesome, however until the entire album is released, I'm playing it safe and not indulging in the any new songs from The Ocean Collective in five years (they had a split E.P. with Mono in 2015).

Last night's movie - Halloween III: Season of the Witch. SO good. Tom Atkins for president.



31 Days of Horror

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle
10/15) Phantom of the Paradise
10/16) Candyman
10/17) Ghoulies
10/18) John Carpenter's Halloween

10/19) Halloween
10/20) Mandy
10/21) Satan's Playground

10/22) Flatliners
10/23) Jacob's Ladder

10/24) Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Playlist from 10/24:

Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - Wasteland

Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - Blood Lust

Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - The Night Creeper

Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - Vol. 1

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - B-Sides and Rarities Vol. III

Jóhann Jóhannsson - Mandy OST

Card of the day:

This one again, eh? Lately, when I do these readings I'm rushed, so I never really dig into the meanings. Emotionally honed intelligence? Twice in three days? To get a court card like this twice in such close proximity obviously indicates something largely than happenstance, larger than the normal nuts and bolts of things. Contemplating it now I believe it may be recommending I kickstart something I keep telling myself I'm going to and don't, namely meditating. I've been very splintered, distracted to the point of anxiety. I know I can get ahold on this if I meditate, so I believe I'll begin today. 

2018: October 24th

I fell pretty hard into this Minsk record last night. Several of the guys in the band were in the Chris Connelly-fronted The High Confessions back in 2012, and I'd been meaning to check them out ever since.


31 Days of Horror continued last night with Jacob's Ladder. Such an underrated film. So damn creepy, and especially interesting when looked at as an extrapolation of the old, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge."

31 Days of Horror

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle
10/15) Phantom of the Paradise
10/16) Candyman
10/17) Ghoulies
10/18) John Carpenter's Halloween

10/19) Halloween
10/20) Mandy
10/21) Satan's Playground

10/22) Flatliners
10/23) Jacob's Ladder

Playlist from 10/23:

My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife
John Carpenter - Anthology (movie themes 1974-1998
Sisters of Mercy - Floodland
Miranda Sex Garden - Carnival of Souls
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - B-Sides and Rarities Vol. 3
Windhand - Eternal Return
Minsk -The Crash and the Draw
Legs Occult - Dark Rituals

Card of the day:

The ups and downs of life, fate, whatever you want to call it. Definitely feeling that right now. Relationships strain, others wane, others reform. I try to keep an even keel, regardless. If I know you and I speak to you in any form outside of my work life, I probably love you.

2018: October 23rd

From the B-Sides and Rarities Box set released back in the early 00s. Such a strange track; Cave definitely has a sense of humor - anyone that doesn't agree needs to absorb the entire And No More Shall We Part record - but rarely does it come off like this... not even sure how to describe it, other than it's awesome!

My friend Kristen Renee Gorlitz is the upcoming Drinking w/ Comics guest on Friday, November 9th at 9:00 PM. She also just launched a Kickstarter for the continuation of her comic The Empties. Best freakin' tagline EVER, "There are many ways to ruin a relationship. Turning into a zombie is one of them..."

Brilliant! Check out the trailer below and support her Kickstarter HERE



31 Days of Horror is quickly coming to the final stretch and I still have a handful of 'must-watch' movies left. Last night crossed off a big one. Regardless of a setting that, while being visually stunning, feels more ridiculous every time I watch it, Flatliners will always be one of my favorite movies, especially around this time of year. I love EVERYTHING about this one. And watching this last night means we have to watch Jacob's Ladder tonight, which although not standard Halloween fare, compliments Flatliners as part of a late 80s/early 90s sub genre that really only exists in my mind. Angel Heart and Serpent and the Rainbow would also fall into this same category.



31 Days of Horror

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle
10/15) Phantom of the Paradise
10/16) Candyman
10/17) Ghoulies
10/18) John Carpenter's Halloween

10/19) Halloween
10/20) Mandy
10/21) Satan's Playground

10/22) Flatliners

Playlist from 10/22:

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Rarities and B-Sides Vol. 1

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Good Son

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Let Love In

New Order - Power, Corruption, and Lies

Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - Wasteland

The Jesus and Mary Chain - Automatic

Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog

Killing Joke - Nighttime

Card of the day:

Emotion honed by intellect. This perfectly describes last night. Perfectly! For today, I'm looking at applying that same intellect to the emotional deluge I've felt of late in editing the first two parts of the novel for continuity, which is really difficult at the moment. 

2018: October 22nd

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds tore it up last night. The set list contained much of the standard tunes they're performing in the current incarnation, with one nice surprise of the non-album Shoot Me Down, one of my favorites from the B-Sides and Rarities Box Set released back in the early 00s. My favorite of the evening was probably From Her to Eternity. Love this new, extra cacophonous version.



Absolutely fantastic to see Warren Ellis play the flute on it live. And props to the guy in the audience wearing a perfectly fitted suit and dancing his ass off all night. Almost as much fun to watch as Old Nick.

Cigarettes After Sex opened the night, and while I'd had a bit of trouble getting into their music on the headphones at work - not the time or place when you need a tempo - I LOVED them live and intend on gorging on their music in the following nights.



Oh, and it turns out The Forum, while I still would 99 times out of a hundred skip stadium shows, really does a tip-top job with efficiency. I'd been carrying some anxiety about going to this, with the logistics of parking, seating, etc, but everything was easy peasy. The seats were fairly small and uncomfortable, but everything else was 1-2-3.

31 Days of Horror continued with Dante Tomaselli's Satan's Playground. I've been wondering for a while whatever happened to Tomaselli, who released three avant grade horror films back in the late 90s/early00s and then kind of disappeared after 2012's Torture Chamber, which I never bothered with based on the name and that era's predilection for torture porn flicks. But Desecration (which I've only seen clips of), Horror, and Satan's Playground, while having no chance of winning any acting awards, are enjoyable, unique little gems. Turns out, Tomaselli is currently working on a remake of Alice, Sweet Alice, the original having been directed by his cousin, Alfred Sole. Here's the trailer for Desecration, which is nuts:



10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle
10/15) Phantom of the Paradise
10/16) Candyman
10/17) Ghoulies
10/18) John Carpenter's Halloween

10/19) Halloween
10/20) Mandy
10/21) Satan's Playground

Playlist from yesterday was virtually non-existent, aside from Mr. Cave and the Bad Seeds live:
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Good Son

No card today.

2018: October 21st

31 Days of Horror continued last night with yet another viewing of Panos Cosmatos's Mandy. Also, finished Mike Flanagan's The Haunting of Hill House. Pretty damn tight. Being that this is a series, and they do kind of set it up for another season, I'll be curious to see where it goes.


10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle
10/15) Phantom of the Paradise
10/16) Candyman
10/17) Ghoulies
10/18) John Carpenter's Halloween

10/19) Halloween
10/20) Mandy

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds tonight. Can't wait! I've seen Cave solo and with Grinderman, never with the Bad Seeds. Not happy it's at The Forum, but we do what we must.

Saw the trailer for The Invitation director Karyn Kusama's new film, Destroyer. Looks fantastic, and Nicole Kidman looks as though she puts in the performance of her life.



Playlist from 10/20:

Windhand - Eternal Return
Black Sabbath - Volume 4
Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - Wasteland
Second Still - Eponymous
Bauhaus - In the Flat Field
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest

Card of the day:

Still one of my favorite cards. From the Grimoire, "Create within yourself a Universe."

2018: October 20th

A little something from the Trust Obey soundtrack to James O'Barr's graphic novel The Crow. This entire album is fantastic beyond words.

David Gordon Green's Halloween is pretty great. My post-viewing reaction, as well as the reactions of two of my cohosts on The Horror Vision podcast, can be heard on Apple Podcasts or our website. WARNING: This eleven minute mini-episode is FILLED with spoilers so beware.

31 Days of Horror:

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle
10/15) Phantom of the Paradise
10/16) Candyman
10/17) Ghoulies
10/18) John Carpenter's Halloween

10/19) Halloween

Playlist from 10/19:
Tones on Tail - Everything
Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - Wasteland
Zeal & Ardor - Stranger Fruit
Type O Negative - Dead Again
Not Waving - Good Luck
Beak> - L.A. Playback
Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers, and Queers
Queens of the Stone Age - Villains

Card of the day:

A problem solved. Hoping this pertains to my writing work today, which is all about reading and editing and thus, is rife with problems, chief among them, DISTRACTION.

2018: October 19th

Getting into the heart of the season, so I broke out the Tones on Tail yesterday. One of my favorite musical purchases ever, Tones on Tail's Everything. The second disc is probably one of my 'desert island' picks.

In preparation for seeing the new Halloween tonight, K and I did the original film last night. This one will never not hold up. A perfect movie, horror or otherwise.

31 Days of Horror:

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle
10/15) Phantom of the Paradise
10/16) Candyman
10/17) Ghoulies
10/18) John Carpenter's Halloween

Playlist from yesterday:

Tones on Tail - Everything
Ghost - Infestissumam
Ministry - The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats  - Wasteland
Steve Moore - Mayhem OST
The Veils - Total Depravity

Card of the day:

Journey into the blackest depths of my soul? Doubting that. However, I definitely need to get a look down in subconscious and do some weed pulling. Lots of distraction of late on the writing front.

2018: October 18th

It's an old school Ministry kind of day.

31 Days of Horror continued last night with Ghoulies, and it was AWESOME! Here's the trailer:



I hadn't seen this one since I was a kid and it first came out on cable. I didn't have cable, but the kid down the street did, and this was one of the movies I got to see at his house that I never would have been able to see at home. This was K's pick and I offer her much kudos for it; the only thing I remembered from that long ago viewing was walking around seeing it saying, "Hey dude, don't Bogart that joint!" even though at the time, I had no idea what a joint was.

31 Days of Horror:

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle
10/15) Phantom of the Paradise
10/16) Candyman
10/17) Ghoulies

Playlist from 10/17:

Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - Wasteland
Explode Into Colors - Quilts EP
Sunn O))) - Kanon
Steve Moore - Mayhem OST
The Veils - Total Depravity
Cocksure - Be Rich

No card today.

2018: October 17th - New Uncle Acid!

Man, feels like I just checked on the new Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats album a week or two ago and there was no pre-order up, then yesterday I realized Wasteland has indeed officially dropped. Of course ALL the nifty colored vinyl is gone over at Rise Above Records, so for now I'm just listening on Apple. Great record, and as you can hear above MAN! What an opening track!

31 Days of Horror continued last night with Candyman! Only the second time I'd seen this flick, it's a great example of a 90s horror flick that doesn't seem as dated as, say, Species.  Leave that to Bernard Rose's direction, Clive Barker's oversight, and poverty anachronistic staying power. That's the world folks.

31 Days of Horror:

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle
10/15) Phantom of the Paradise
10/16) Candyman

NCBD today and it's a great day because Gideon Falls returns!!!

Playlist from 10/16:

Second Still -
Windhand - Eternal Return
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Wasteland

No card today.

2018: October 16th: Some Music from the New Halloween

Pretty excited for Halloween on Friday. For a series I never wanted more from (because the first two, taken together are perfect), this forthcoming sequel feels right. It won't be until I see it if that feeling proves correct, and I'm still not sure why two had to be negated, but either way, if there has to be a new Halloween movie, which of course there does because, you know, that's Hollywood, then this is the one I would have held out for. Now someone PLEASE really blow our minds and follow this with a sequel to Halloween III: Season of the Witch!!! File that under the 'never gunna happen' header.

You can order the new score, composed by the man himself, along with his son Cody and Daniel Davies, on Sacred Bones Records HERE.

31 Days of Horror continued last week with my first ever viewing of Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise. Loved it! I guess I'm kinda pushing the boundaries out of horror a bit here, although I'd maintain this film fits, if for no other reason than it's a re-imagining of the horror classic Phantom of the Opera. But yeah, should bring it back in, so tonight I'll be going Horror with a capital 'H.'

31 Days of Horror:

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle
10/15) Phantom of the Paradise

Playlist from 10/15:

Zeal & Ardor - Stranger Fruit
Astronoid - Air
High on Fire - Electric Messiah
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Sunn O))) - The Grimm Robe Demos
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross - The Social Network OST
Them Are Us Too - Amends

Card of the day:

This worries me a skosh, but more as a warning or reflection of my current mood toward the book I'm working on than anything else. To me, the Knight of Disks is a card that always looks like a man who has arrived too late; the crop isn't quite up to par and something is barring him from continuing on his journey to the heart of the field to ascertain why. That felt a bit like writing yesterday - overwhelmed by the sprawl of the story. It's a good sprawl - I've cut it down considerably, trimmed the fat, that's what this re-organization of a book that took five years to write in the first place is all about. But yesterday, probably simply because I had three consecutive days off from working on it, I felt like it was beyond me to continue. That's nonsense of course, and when I draw two more cards for clarification I get Aeon and Swiftness, so that tells me I have to write everyday this week, rebuild momentum, and things will lock back into place.

2018: October 15th

Alien Sex Fiend - Not your father's Death Rock band. Well, then again, I suppose this very much could have been your father's Death Rock band. Never mind. Among the weirdest things I've ever heard.

31 Day of Horror continued yesterday, but I've already told you about The Apostle. Afterward, K and I plowed through the first five episodes of the Netflix/Mike Flanagan epic The Haunting of Hill House. I was a bit uncertain at first, but quickly came around. It has Flanagan's time weaving technique, the one that makes Occulus so unique. I dig it, probably not as much as I'd hoped I would, but for watching five episodes in a binge -something I haven't had the time to do in forever - it was good.

We wanted to make it through the first five because an article popped up last week HERE on Bloody Disgusting where Flanagan suggests people watch the first five, then go back and watch them again before continuing on to episodes 6-10. This is based on a revelation in ep. 5 that changes the way you will see things in the first half if you watch them again with that in mind. I don't feel this is necessary at all. Maybe some people will; I'm not usually the guy who figures out the twist ahead of time - I don't ever want to be - but I had this one in mind from about episode 3 or 4, so a re-watch wouldn't do anything for me. Now we just have to find the time to do the rest and a movie a day until the end of the month. It literally required me taking a mental health day from my weekend to do this much of the show - no grocery shopping, I skipped the HWA meeting, didn't even write. I needed it though, and so did K. 'Adulting' feels extra hard of late. Boo-hoo, right? Well, it's all relative.

31 Days of Horror:

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle

Playlist from yesterday? There wasn't one. All visual content.

Card of the day:

Do I have some rationalizing to do? I do; skipping life for a day to watch TV makes me feel a bit weird, especially the HWA meeting and writing, so I've been rationalizing it since. As my good friend Missi said in a text yesterday, "Sometimes u need a break. It's not a crime."

Words of wisdom Lloyd. Words. Of. Wisdom.

Thanks Missi!

2018: October 14th

I had not heard of Prospect previous to encountering the trailer on Bloody Disgusting earlier this weekend. Looks pretty good. I think Annihilation paved the way for more of this type of Sci Fi film getting major theatrical releases, and that's a good thing.

Zeal and Ardor absolutely killed it last night at the Roxy. Having seen them about a year ago at the Hi Hat, a smaller venue, this band proved it is going nowhere but forward. Very little talk between songs, except to express gratitude and joy at their 100th show and such an awesome turnout (if it wasn't sold out it was close), the ripped through pretty much everything you could ask them to. I was especially happy to hear Waste live, and they closed with a new song called Baphomet, which was fantastic. Also, like I may have mentioned a few months ago when I saw Windhand there, the Roxy really does a good job maintaining their beer taps. The Lagunitas Pils was exceptional.

Here's a video of Baphomet from Lowlands in August:



31 Days of Horror continued with the Director's Cut of Land of the Dead. I liked it about as much as I did the theatrical version back in 2005 on opening night, which is to say not very much at all. Recently, George A. Romero's widow announced he had left behind a lot of scripts. Now, not all of them are necessarily zombie movies. However, I've always been kind of bummed that George A. did such an amazingly cerebral take on horror - while creating a new monster/genre* with the zombie film, no less - devolved into the pretty straight up action film Land and then he re-booted the continuity with Diary and Survival of the Dead. I've not seen those last two, but as soon as I heard he was no longer continuing the original timeline, I was out.

Why?

I want to know what the world we were introduced to in Night of the Living Dead looks like 6 days down the line, 6 months down the line, 6 years down the line, etc. Romero deftly continues the evolution of that world in Dawn and Day, the former being, in my opinion, the best zombie film of all time, and the latter, despite some questionable acting and directing choices (Jamaican accent?), a great continuation of that evolution, for both the "monster" and the concept, but what's next? This is why I've always loved The Walking Dead comic series: the evolution of the world where this apocalypse has come to pass. Incidentally, I read once that Robert Kirkman's original title for The Walking Dead was Night of the Living Dead, or that the intention was to set it in Romero's universe (it's public domain).

31 Days of Horror:

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead
10/13) George A. Romero's Land of the Dead
10/14) The Apostle

And yes, at the time of writing this I've already watched today's movie, the just-dropped new film by Gareth Evans, Netflix's The Apostle. The articles I read about this describe it as somewhat Lovecraftian. Man, that is one over-used term these days! There is nothing Lovecraftian about this film. That said, I enjoyed The Apostle, however it has an odd pacing that feels a bit over-stuffed at times. My guess is this was originally supposed to be a series, then while filming the pilot someone decided to make it a film, and they shot enough to complete it. The film handles its multiple storylines well, however it just feels like the first season of a show streamlined into a 2 hour and 20-something minute movie. Not a bad thing, but makes for a little bit of cumbersome viewing. Cumbersome might be too harsh, so let's just say it doesn't flow the way a film like this seems it should.



Playlist from yesterday:

Joh Corigliano - Altered States OST
John Carpenter - Lost Themes II
Windhand - Eternal Return
Zeal & Ardor - Stranger Fruit
Tom Vek - Luck

Card of the day:

Confirmation of the dark side? Entering the night, exploring the darker aspects... of myself? Or something I'm writing? No real frame of reference for this one today.

2018: October 13th

The closing track from Windhand's Eternal Return, my current musical obsession.

Zeal and Ardor tonight at the Roxy! Can't wait. Normally I'd show up a bit later and hang at the bar, but K wants to get there early, grab a spot by the stage and hang there all night, so it'll be front-and-center for one of her favorite bands. We saw them last year at the High Hat and hot damn! what an awesome show. Not a huge fan of The Roxy, but I'm happy as hell to see them growing into bigger venues.

31 Days of Horror continued with George A. Romero's Day of the Dead, primarily because I ordered the bare bones, director's cut Blu Ray for Land of the Dead - a movie a saw opening night in '05 and did not like very much. In spite of this, I've decided it's time for reassessment, and my friend Anthony swears the Theatrical was unlikeable because of studio edits which the director's cut corrects. We shall see...

31 Days of Horror:

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space
10/12) George A. Romero's Day of the Dead

Playlist from 10/12:

The Final Cut - Consumed
In Solitude - Sister
Alice in Chains - Eponymous
Sisters of Mercy - Floodland
Steve Moore - The Mind's Eye OST
Windhand - Eternal Return
Zeal and Ardor - Devil is Fine

Card of the day:

Probably because the prospects of doing any real writing this weekend are slim. Boo social activity!

2018: October 12th

Here's a track off one of my seasonal go-to's this time of year, The Final Cut's 1992 Consumed, which also happens to be my pick for today's edition of The Joup Friday Album, which you can read over HERE on Joup.co.

Continued 31 Days of Horror last night with Killer Klowns form Outer Space. Man, John Vernon is the shit, isn't he?

31 Days of Horror:

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent
10/11) Killer Klowns from Outer Space

Tonight? I'm thinking either George A. Romero's Day of the Dead or Dario Argento's Phenomenon. But we'll see.

I didn't talk about NCBD yet this week, primarily because I've been too busy to stop in and pick up the one thing that came out on my pull. But oh what a 'one thing' it is:

This original Hardcover Graphic Novel from the creators of recent favorites of mine Fatale, The Fade Out, and Kill Or Be Killed, My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies ties into the Criminal Universe in a small way via that series' first arc, Coward. Interestingly enough, I just read Coward for the first time a few days ago. I couldn't have timed that better if I'd tried! Criminal is the only Brubaker/Phillips series I've yet to engage with, and this little serendipitous jaunt should catapult me further into it nicely. Thanks to my good friend Joe.Baxter for lending me his trades and getting me started!

Playlist from yesterday:

Monolord - Rust
The Black Queen - Infinite Games
In Solitude - Sister
Blut Aus Nord - Memorial Vetusta II - Dialogue with the Stars

No, that damn second part of the novel still isn't finished, but I did come up with the plot point I believe it has always been missing. The somewhat clunky elements that haunted a certain character's motivations have now been replaced with what I can joyously say is a new, elegant arc that puts everyone where I need them to be for the plot to resolve in part three. I spent a good deal of time yesterday re-writing chapters in part one in order to massage this element in and it sent me skyrocketing into the second half with renewed vigor. So here's to that!

Card of the day:

Mind distracted at times you say? Why yes! All that writing time yesterday was hard-earned in between being distracted by this and this and this.

Bastards!

2018: October 11th

Finally. Last night showed K Mike Mendez's The Convent for the first time. Probably about the twentieth viewing for me since I first discovered it circa 2001. Still in my top five favorite movies ever; every moment is joy to me. Especially Frijole and the Lords of Darkness. Brilliant, and easily the best horror-comedy ever. Coincidentally it's playing in theaters this evening as the second in a double feature with Sweet Sixteen as part of Bloody Disgusting's RetroNightmares. I'm not going, and I'm sad.

31 Days of Horror:

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost
10/10) The Convent

Playlist from yesterday:

Windhand - Eternal Return
Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog
Blut Aus Nord - Memorial Vetusta II - Dialogue With the Stars

No card today either.

2018: October 10th

Thought I'd start today off with another under-appreciated Type O track. I know, I know... wrong holiday. Still, it fits the season.

The first episode of The Horror Vision is now available on Apple Podcasts HERE. Also available on The Horror Vision website HERE. The audio is good but not great; tweaks coming for the next episode, which we recorded last night and will land next week. #2 is a discussion of our Halloween go-to watches, from the standards to the more individualized, left-of-center picks we watch every year.

31 Days of Horror continued yesterday. Since I was out doing the podcast last night, K and I opted to continue to push back Mike Mendez's The Convent back, and instead I treated myself to an afternoon viewing of Ti West's first feature film, The Roost. LOVE this one, and it'd been a while. Holds up and then some. K watched The Haunting of Molly Hartley, liked it but said it kinda resembled a Lifetime movie if they did horror.

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species
10/09) The Roost

Playlist from 10/09:

High On Fire - Electric Messiah
Nothing - Guilty Of Everything
The Skull - For Those Which Are Asleep
Type O Negative - October Rust
Type O Negative - Dead Again

No card today.

Pet Sematary Trailer!

Whoah. Thanks to my good friend Missi, I finally read Stephan King's Pet Sematary about five or six years ago. It immediately became my favorite non-Dark Tower King novel. It is chilling. End of story. And the scenes that brush up against the Wendigo - if that's what it is - SO spooky. So well done! The flick looks great - the directors previously did Starry Eyes, so that's a great sign in my book. Another upscale King Adaption on the heels of last year's IT. While I'll admit to a certain soft-spot for the original Pet Sematary, this looks to be a vast improvement.

2018: October 9th: New High on Fire

With all my elation at Windhand's Eternal Return dropping last Friday, I forgot High on Fire's new album Electric Messiah also hit the 'shelves.' After giving it a couple spins I dig it - Matt Pike and crew didn't reinvent their wheel here, but there's some digging around inside the confines of their patented sound that there's some growth here. As usual, it's pummeling and a bit exhaustive. Not a bad thing.

31 Days of Horror continued yesterday with another first timer for me (we opted to save The Convent for tonight):

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-animator
10/07) Night of the Demons
10/08) Species

Species is one of K's favorites. I'd never really had any interest in seeing it until I recently read that the monster was based on an H.R. Giger design - obvious, but I guess I just thought it was a case of Hollywood cribbing the design on the Alien monster. Either way, I enjoyed Species in spite of it being very 90s- everything from the camera work to the overwrought score reeked of X-Files influence. Forest Whittaker overdoes his role as this search-and-destroy team's empath, although I suspect that was the product of direction more than his personal choice. Also, the use of ground fog where there shouldn't be any is very much a trope of the 90s.

Playlist from 10/08:

The Jesus and Mary Chain - Automatic
Corniglia - Eponymous
High on Fire - Electric Messiah
High on Fire - Snakes of the Divine
God is LSD - Spirit of Suicide

I ended up baulking on finishing the second part of the novel last night due to sheer exhaustion. After work was reserved for a big ol' nap! Today's card for the day reflects my adjusted expectations:

Also, there's the balance of contrasts inherent in this card, which ties into the book's attempt to balance YA adventure-horror with a touch of a literary pedigree.

2018: October 8th

I am still very much in love with this Corniglia album. If you dig it too, here's the link to the band's bandcamp.

31 Days of Horror continued last night with the 80s classic Night of the Demons. I still dig this flick, however, Mike Mendez's The Convent is always going to be the better version of this. I know they're not exactly the same set-up wise, and I know NOTD came first and Mendez was influenced by it, but to me, The Convent is one of my favorite movies ever and is close enough that watching NOTD really just makes me want to watch it instead. That said, good viewing showing Demon to K for the first time, and tonight we'll be doing Convent.

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06) Re-Animator
10/07) Night of the Demons

Playlist from 10/07:

Stellar Corpses - Respect the Dead EP
Windhand - Eternal Return
The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir
Goblin - Dawn of the Dead OST

Card of the day:

Indeed. Second part of the book will be done today. Success!

2018: October 7th: Good Omens Trailer

Looks like they dropped the, "The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Anges Nutter, Witch" part of the title, but this looks awesome! I've been waiting for this one for what feels like forever. I remember back in the late 90s when, if I remember correctly, Mr. Brown and I were excited at the rumors of Depp and Robin Williams playing the angel and demon. We didn't get that, but this casting looks great. I mean, David Tennant is becoming one of my favorite actors of late. Actually makes me want to re-watch the Fright Night remake, just to see his character.

31 Days of Horror continued last night with Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator! It'd been years since I last saw this one, and in the interim my experience seeing the musical version - also directed by Stuart Gordon and starring Chris McKenna, who I knew previously from Gordon's King of the Ants - kinda overtook the film as the ultimate version of the story beyond the original source material by Lovecraft, which is very different. Apparently enough time had passed though, because I dug the flick a lot, and there's a ton of extras on the Arrow Blu Ray I recently picked up, so I'll have a good time going through those.

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly
10/06 Re-Animator

Playlist from yesterday:

Windhand - Eternal Return
Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me
The Final Cut - Consumed
Sisters of Mercy - Floodland
Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar

Card of the day:

The Airy aspect of Water - combining intellect and emotion in a functional way. This is exactly where I'm at writing, as I'm killing my darlings from a previous version of the novel and streamlining it into a much tighter version of the story. My goal is to have a literate, young adult novel that contains aspects of the adventure genre, as well as the horror and suburban fantasy genres (that second one there is, to my knowledge, a term I coined). And it's coming along nicely as I round the corner on wrapping the middle of three sections, I feel confident and strong on this one in a way I never did before.

2018: October 6th

Woke up with this one in my head this morning. As I've probably said a million times here, Life is Killing Me is my favorite Type O album, so I love every song. There are, however, certain foundation stones of the album for me - I Don't Wanna Be Me, How Could She?, Iydkmigthtky (Gimme That), and Anesthesia. The mortar in between those stones, so to speak, but all of them exceptional if commonly unsung.

31 Days of Horror continued last night with yet another Cronenberg film that I had, incredibly, not seen before. Loved it as an outré filmmakers working inside the studio formula and doing very much his own, unconventional thing with it.

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) The Fly

Playlist from Friday, October 5th:

Drab Majesty - Careless
Windhand - Eternal Return
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Rolling Blackout CF - Hope Downs
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Automatic

Card of the day:

Always good to see a Seven. While one step out from the harmony of the Six, I feel as though this is an exact analogy for where I am in the final pass at constructing my book. See those six perfectly matched and balanced Wands beneath the Seventh? I'm adding the final pieces gleaned from the breakthrough of many months away from it, respectful not to damage what's already there.

Teaser Trailer for Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's The Boys

Courtesy of NYCC. Props to my good friend Chris from DwC and the Thirsty Crows for tipping me to it's release. After watching all I can say is...

I'm in.

As a series, I really liked The Boys at the start, but felt it became a bit blah in the middle. Then, about a year before it's end, Butcher stabbed someone to death for killing something special to him and the book became a juggernaut of awesome until the end. Hoping the show might streamline and smooth over some of the complacent parts.

2018: October 5th - The New Windhand is Out and it's Awesome!

Two full listens this morning on headphones and I'm hooked.

31 Days of Horror continued last night, but I'll tell you right now my definitions of horror are probably the most lenient. I drove up to Santa Monica's Aero Theatre after work and caught one of the satellite Cronenberg double headers Beyondfest has been offering this year. Last night was Crash and Spyder, neither of which I had seen before. I only stayed for Crash, primarily because I'd been up since 4:00 AM and was due to wake up at the same time today, so sticking for Spider would have killed me. Secondly though, Crash had such an immense impact on me, I didn't want to dilute the experience with a second movie, even if it was by the same man.

Crash blew me away. I remember it opened back in 1996 around the same time David Lynch's Lost Highway did. At the time I was completely unfamiliar with Cronenberg though, so despite the premise peaking my curiosity, I passed on seeing it. As the years have gone by and I've begun getting into Cronenberg, this film is always one that eludes my attention.

No more.

Shooting straight up to almost tie with Videodrome as my favorite film by DC, Crash's falls firmly into the Body Horror genre in my book, despite there not being a lot of grotesque imagery. The horror here lies in the mutations of sexuality the characters undergo, their willingness to embrace the strange and outre, and the philosophical ramifications that lie buried so deep beneath the surface of the film that they really only tickle their way out. The film feels very much like a virus once its been ingested, and I'm on a kick to further explore its concepts with more viewings and a go-through with JG Ballard's 1973 novel of the same name. I also absolutely loved Howard Shore's score on this one, in particular this opening track:



And where the hell did Elias Koteas and Deborah Kara Unger go after this film? Talk about fantastic performances.

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House
10/04) Crash
10/05) ???

Playlist from Thursday, October 4th:

Miranda Sex Garden - Fairytales of Slavery
The Misfits - Earth A.D.
The Misfits - Static Age
Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me
Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years
Boy Harsher - Lesser Man EP
Boy Harsher - Country Girl EP
King Woman - Doubt EP
Jóhann Jóhannsson - Mandy OST

Card of the day:

Opposing elements can cause imbalance. Hmm...

Daredevil Season 3 Trailer

Gotta say, I generally don't give a toss about what Marvel does these days, big screen or little screen, but this... THIS gave me chills. Multiple times. And my money is on fake DD being Bullseye.

Also, what a class act, dropping the trailer so close to the release (October 19th) we hardly have any time to wait at all? Super cool Marvel.

2018: October 4th

K and I continued our 31 days of Horror last night. In spite of a late start, or rather because of it, we went with a shorter flick, specifically Stuart Gordon's entry into the Masters of Horror library. As an adaptation and modernization of H.P. Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witchhouse, Gordon's piece works pretty well. It's been a minute since I read the story - going to try and remedy that this weekend - but from what I remember of it Gordon does a good job. Brown Jenkins, in particular, is pretty creepy. And kudos for going all the way with the ending.



I've been in a Gordon mood lately. Chomping at the bit to re-watch Dagon, as it's my favorite by him and I haven't seen it since the big screen at the Warner Grand back at either 2011 or 2012's H.P. Lovecraft fest. Also, ordered Arrow Film's Re-animator, a film I've only seen once and a long time ago. Back also around 2011/2012 I saw Gordon's musical stage adaptation of Re-animator at the Steve Allen Theatre, and I loved it so much in that form I've been afraid the film just won't hold up since. Pretty sure that's unfounded, and Arrow's release is packed with extras, so I pulled the trigger on finally adding that to the collection.

Okay, so that puts our 31 Days of Horror list at:

10/01) Summer of 84
10/02) Rope
10/03) Dreams in the Witch House

Playlist from 10/03:

Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me
Miranda Sex Garden - Carnival of Souls
The Soft Moon - Eponymous
The Soft Moon - Criminal
White Lung - Sorry
Daughters - Satan in Wait (single)
The Ocean - Anthropocentric
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
Sisters of Mercy - First and Last and Always

Card of the day:

The Twos are the pure breakthrough of the Ace into the first stage of practice.