Halloween 31 Movies 31 Days challenge 2022

Reposted for posterity from the Your Take Is Excrement sub-Reddit

 

Doing this now for the third year in a row, should be wee buns since I'm currently "between employment" so have the free time to do this.  Thought it might be fun to post here about it and update the list through the month as I go. Anyone else feel free to join in.

No real rules, just 1 movie per day on average of Horror, Spooky or adjacent media.

1. The Transfiguration - Mubi. Like the film Martin but also a hood movie? Fine for what it is, not enough bite for my tastes tho.
2. Mad God - Shudder. A 90s alt-metal video, all bleakness and stop motion grim looking wet puppets, but feature length.
3. We're all Going The The World's Fair - Shudder. I hear our May is in this, will be looking out for you a chara (and not just so I can do a "Di Caprio Pointing at Screen in OUATIH"-meme face). - just watched it now and she was indeed, all to brief of a cameo but good to see. This was great, maybe not for everyone but I really liked it.
4. The Gate - Physical. 80s childrens horror. When I started watching it I thought I hadn't seen before but bits of it rang a bell with me. I think I must have saw it as an actual child myself. This was amazing. Good one to watch with children if you're babysitting over halloween or you want something to scare younger relatives with that's not too fucked up (or just watch The Fly, as one of my mates Grannies did with her when she was 8).
5. The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch - Shudder. Another children's horror film, but its Japanese so its pretty messed up anyway!
6. Hausu - BFI Player. Rewatch. Yeah if you know of this film its as bat-shit as you've heard. Had forgotten how much of a weird unspoken sexual undercurrent there was to everything. If you've never seen it, I would heartily reccomend, its just good.
7. Bug - Physical. William Friedkindoing a slow burn psychological horror about a very different type of possession. This kind of defies genre, if you liked Killer Joe this shares a lot of simmilarities.
8. Hellbenders - Shudder. Weird little indie horror made by a family who seem to do everything in house with just a couple of outside collaborators. It's good, I liked it a lot.
9. Vampire's Kiss - Prime. 80s Nicholas Cage MF'ers!
10. Uncle Sam - Shudder. Wow, the anti-militarism subtext in this isn't remotely subtle, and I love it!
11. Leprechaun - Prime. It has been brought to my attention that there are loads of these and most of them are available on streaming for free. Am I enough of a masochist to actually watch all of them? How bad do thse things get and how much will they grate on my sensibilities as a some time Irish folklorist? Will I need to get the 'Ra on somebody by the time I'm finished or wha? There's only one way to find out.
12. Leprechaun 2: LA Leprechaun - Prime. Excrement mostly. Some great moments though and it did make me laugh a bit more than the first one.
13. Leprechaun 3: Las Vegas Go Bragh! - Prime. The worst one yet. They change writer and director each time so far and the lore and rules of what a Leprachaun is / does varys and has to be restablished film to film. The last one they seem to have at least consulted a reference book as to what the original fairy lore was but that's all gone out the window. The tone is remarkably consistent though which I feel we can put down almost exclusively to Warwick Davis's performance. This one sucked because its attempts at humour fumble hard, there were a few clever and genuinely humourous touches in the last couple that made them at least entertaining are just gone. The potentially funny but where they rip off a scene from Faust (weird dark superhero thing from Yuzna, would love to see that get a big DCEU/MCU expensive CGI adaption) would have been better if they'd gone all in, they pussy out of other stuff but that's the most egregious. Most people stop at this point but I can see why, but the next one he's in space, then the next two are in "da Hood", and those are the one's I'm here for.
14. Leprechaun 4: In Space - Prime. Getting well into the "so bad they're good" region, this is as ridiculous as the title would suggest. Dodgy PS1-cut scene CGI, nonsensicle script, again changing the lore, but again held together barely by Warwick Davis haming the absolute balls out of it and the film leaning into its own silliness.
15. Taking a break from the Leprechaun franchise to watch the new Hellraiser - Hulu. I liked it. The first films were about ilicit sex, this was very much using the lore of the franchise to talk about addiction. I liked how the main baddie amongst the humans was a Jeffery Epstein character, like lets face it Epstein Island definitely had a room with a bunch of those puzzel boxes in it.
16. Leprechaun 5: In Da Hood - Prime. Jesus Ice, money's money but fucking hell like. He's about the only good thing in it and all his scenes really pop, the rest of it?  That finale? Like I'm no one to judge if its too daft to be actually transphobic or if its just really really transphobic but its definitely, something... I'm kind of sorry I started this now.
17. Malevolent - Netflix. I needed to give myself a break from Leprechaun, life's too short. This has been on my Netflix list for a while. I thought it was good, funny to see Imelda Staunton playing against Florence Pugh before she blew up. Nicely creepy where it needed to be. Solid.

           
At this point I watched Shock Treatment for the first time, the Rocky Horror Picture Show sequel. It was good, the girl from Phantom of The Paradise who plays Janet in it in particular. but it is not in any way Horror / Spooky so I'm not counting it.

18. The Sadness - Shudder. That one went hard.
19. Saloum - Shudder. Oh thanks be to god, glob and baby jesus, Leprechaun Back 2 Tha Hood is not on streaming and this can finally end now. When I do this I usually like to hit each continent at least once, Europe and Asia generally being very over represented. This is a recent one from Africa, its on Shudder and its good. Set up better than the pay off / horror stuff, though the monsters were good and the SFX used to put them together was unique. Could have been a bit scarier but it wasn't bad.
20. Livid - Physical. Creepy gothic fairytale horror, from the people that did À l'intérieur, though it isn'y nearly as gross or squicky as that one.
21. Slugs - Shudder. I am low level phobic of squiggly things, worms, slugs, snails, leeches etc, since childhood. A couple of halloweens ago I went on a quest to fins something that could still effect my jaded sensibilities, watched August Underground and a bunch of New French Extremity I hadn't seen before, watched some good and interesting stuff but aside from August Underground trilogy I didn't see much that really got to me. This film is squicking me out hard, this might be the grossest thing for my set of triggers I've seen since then. Well done.
22. The Similars - Physical. Latin America this time, a particularly Mexi take on a classic Twilight Zone episode. Leans right hard into its own sillyness. Good but more fun than disturbing.
23. Burnt Offerings - Prime. Interesting take on the old dark house yarn. My primary interest in this was that it starred Oliver Reed and had Bette Davis and Burgess Meredith in supporting roles. They were all pretty good in it, but the film itself was hokey and predictable.
24. Barbarian - Cinema. Have been told this is one of the best horror films of the year and by golly it did not dissapoint. Based social commentary, but a light touch with all that stuff. Good seat-of-your pants thrills too. 2022 has indeed been as good a year for horror as one could expect considering the state of the world. Just seen that the director was one of The Whitest Kids You Know, cool. Bit of a departure but it tracks. Fingers crossed for Sex Robot the movie.
25. Night Of The Demons - Shudder. Its like the platonic ideal of a halloween horror film. Very silly but quite a lot of fun. Great 80s Carpenter-but-EBM soundttrack.
26. Terrifier - physical. Shite. Good creepy clown and a very memorable kill before the half way point but that does not a good horror make. Feels quite mean-spirited and mysoginistic for a 2017 film.
27. Pearl - exclusive private showing. Amazing. Loved X, always liked Mia Goth but absolutely feeling the love now. One of the better things I've watched so far.
28. Wendell & Wild - Netflix. Absolute banger spoopy thing to watch with younger relatives or just in general because its awesome. Definitely in the same league as Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline. Good film, boss soundtrack as well.  Also, this is some of the most based stuff I've seen commited to film since the last Ken Loach. Zombie capitalsim, prison-industrial complex, corruption and collusion - there's a lot in there.
29. Suicide Club - Physical. One of the few formative J-Horrors millenium wave that I haven't actually seen. Probably fair enough that this isn't in the conversation as much as Ring, Pulse or The Grudge, oits not quite as ood as any of those, but it is interesting. It's the same type of horror, the horrors of new media, this time the source of the horror seems to be a meme, though at the time of production no one would have been using that word. Shame because that understanding might have brought focus to a film that's main flaw is losing focus in the third act. Worth a watch.
30. Braindead - physical. One of my favourite films ever, stone col classic, haven't seen it in ages. Holds up like it was cast from gold. The practical effects, especially the forced perspective shots with the Zombaby (getting practice in for Lord Of The Rings) are an absolute delight, as is the script and the visual gags with said baby and the greaser guy's innards which spontaneously achieve independent sentience. Would love Jackson to go back to his roots and do one more like this for the fans like me who've been with him since pre-hollywood, I doubt he will.
31. Well, last day last film, my Shudder sub is about to die so I probably should watch something off it before it goes. But, no... oh god, oh jesus Christ WTF is this blu-Ray that's just appeared in my living room next to the Playstation? Oh fuck me no....
31. Leprechaun, Back 2 Tha Hood - Physical. I don't want to but I am compelled. Its going in. It's playing. Oh Jesus, why are they retconning the Leprechaun's continuity. The fight with the preacher guy didn't happen in the last film? Why call it Back 2 Tha Hood if they aren't picking up from the end of the last one. This is horrible. The weed jokes are shit, like you'd really have to be very stoned to derive any enjoyment out of this. Warwick Davis looks so fucking tired I feel bad for him.
32. Leprechaun: Origins - fuck I dunno, it just started playing after the last one. No, Stahp.
33. Leprechaun Returns - .... Y U do dis....?
34. Leprechaun Vs Candyman... ... ...
35. Leprechaun - The Directors cut... Oh god. I can't stop it. The Leprechaun has taken over. This is my life now. Fucking Leprechaun movies on a loop. Forever and ever.......

Black Metal Veins

Lucifer Valentine, probably best known for *Slaughtered Vomit Dolls* made this documentary in the late 00s. It was supposed to be a chromicle of one of his fans lifestyle in the Virginia Black Metal scene but ended up being much more about him and his friends substance abuse. Personally I think the intention was to make a shocking gonzo exploitation / snuff film that used the realist elements to root the horror scenes and make them more impactful. It fails in those terms because the grisly stuff where (minor spoiler) some of the participants apparently die on camera are clearly faked, come off as a bit cheesey. What he does manage to do, somewhat paradoxically, is capture the reality and the despair of the front line of the class war in late capitalist America. These kids, this doomed generation are the product of the opiod crisis and this could well be watched along with a good documentary about the Sacklers and the opiod crisis in general. The fake OD looks like balls and is not scary but just hearing these people talk about their lives and seeing their mental and physical deterioration under the strain of the junky / crack head lifestyle is fucking terrifying. Worth a watch, probably more so than any of Valentines other stuff. Worth getting the DVD with the directors commentary and extras.

If they made The Crow today.....

 

What bands and artists would you think would be on the soundtrack? That OST for The Crow is still just a great alternative music compilation album, some big acts and some slightly more obscure ones but all good repping different parts of what the scene was back in the mid 90s.  But if they were doing one now, with the dearth if not the death of MTV and alt radio its hard to really say whats big or current in underground music, unless you're in a major urban centre with a healthy live scene (or like, usually when the apocalypse lurghy isn't haunting us around every corner). I myself have a few ideas of what I'd like to see which I will share but I'd like to hear from other people (assuming anyone actualy reads these things which doesn't appeear to be the case :)).

What artists do you think would be a good representation of where the scene is at right now, or what alt music have you heard recently that you think would match any of the emotional beats of the comic(s) if you're familliar with the source material (O'Barr himself said the music he was listening to which fed into the vibe of the comic book as he was creating it was Iggy Pop, and all your classic 1st wave goth and alt rock groups, Joy Division, Bauhaus, The Cure)?

The following is my personal recreation of what I personally think would / should be on there.

1. 3Teeth

                                   

Yeah? I mean in terms of bands that have come up in the last decade or so are really flying the flag for our thing and doing it well 3Teeth have been at the forefront of a revivial of the old WaxTraxx sound and returning a bit of cred to a scene mired down in cheese.

2. She Wants Revenge

                                

This track has been used on AHS and is I think a recognised classic and their stuff is mostly pretty good (decent live too). Seems like a no-brainer. Probably the closest non-legacy band to the sounds that inspired O'Barr, mostly for the fact that they're just straight up doing the goth post-punk formula really well.

3. Chelsea Wolfe

Just as the original had some slower more emotional moments and some transcendently pretty female vocal led tracks to bring the punch of those moments out, if we're looking at contemporary artists I think a bit of Chelsea would do rightly for capturing the more melancholy emotional beats of the story.

4. Ghostemane

I feel like this is an artist that should be on there as much because he represents something genuinely new thats happened to the scene and something very current because he's fucking sick and has a range of tracks already that could be inserted into that narrative.

5. Adam X

 

Hearing some genuinely good contemporary techno during the nightclub scenes in The Batman when I went to see it last weekend is one of the things that had me on the train of thought that led to this post, like if there was something simmilar happening in The Crow, what would be appropriate? I was thinking some german EBM-Techno like this or some Ancient Methods, Vatican Shadow, Regis or something like that, or maybe something a bit harder like:

6. Paula Temple

which bangs a bit more, is more discordant, abstract and aggy in general.

7. Bob Vylan

Coming back around to more guitar led music, RATM had a track, as did the Henry Rollins band so you'd want some sort of punk represented and Bob Vylans grime inflected-punk, usually with very angry political messaging would seem like a good succesor

8. Turnstile

These lads dropped one of the big scene albums of last year and they've done some really interesting electronic crossover stuff with Mall Grab so you could go that way instead?

9. Spirit Box

Feels like this group could be part of the conversation here as well, since they blew up pretty big very recently and represent a more contemporary sound in Metal that feels very now

10. IDLES

Harking back one again to contemporary takes on the sounds of Post-Punk that inspired the comic. IDLES is one of the groups out now taking on and pushing that sound. 

11. Rein

Now, getting abck to the more traditionally Gothic. There's been an explosion of bands that have given this old genre a shot in the arm, Linea Aspera, Boy Harsher, Azar Swan, Drab Majesty, Perturbator, Riki and so on, but this girl, who's concept album is very much a cyber-punk conceptually oddessy about life and coming back from death. Sounds like our girl if you ask me.

12. Petbrick

Something that wouldn't have been on the original because it wasn't a thing at that point but could be now, I feel, would be the metal-fusion stuff in the far left field of the electronic music scene. Projects like Drumcorps, DJ SkullVomit and Igorrr have been leading the way but of all that sound the best thing I've come across recently was Petbrick, a side project of the drummer from Sepultura Iggor Caldera and Wayne Adams who's been doing simmilar music for years. This is good aggy fight scene music, perfect for a stand off with a major villain.

 

13. Roly Porter (for the score)

 

The original fampusly also had an excellent score even aside from the OST by Graeme Revell of the legendary pioneering Industrial Noise music group SPK. Few there are who would be a worthy successor, though one could make a case for Merzbow or maybe Orphyx, personally I think Mr Porter here, formally of the dubstep bassweights Vex'd who I personally feel have been responsible for some of the absolute best and most industrial music of the last couple of decades and Roly's ambient works could do absolure wonders on the film score.

14. Ice Nine Kills

And finally, this has all been pretty speculative so far, these guys already have one in the bag waiting to go. BTW the video starts with a bit of a skit and the actual track is about halfway through the video if you're watching the link. I dunno how much I like this band in general, feels a bit gimmicky because thats exactly what it is, but it also is kind of good, so....? eh. People do seem to like them though.

If we're talking about bringing anyone back, of the artists that were on there originally The Cure and Nine In Nails (or Trent paired back up with Atticus Ross) would be great. Trent would indeed be worthy and experienced candidate for just score duties.

You know its going to happen one day, in fact the latest seems to be that its on its way out of development hell and looking like a real prospect for some time before the middle of the decade (not that we haven't heard that one before, but still). Lets hope at least one of the producers will get to read this (Lily, or Lana, girls, I know at least one of yous got a secret account here, c'mon lets make this happen!), or at least that as much care is taken with the OST and score and any other musical content with the new one as was with the original.

If anyone reading this has suggstions, feel free to comment!

Sadowicz and the culture war

 

Oh shit, the inevitable has happened and now Twitter knows who Jerry Sadowicz is. He's had his run at The Pleasance cut short after complaints over his content. J K Rowling and the Freeze Peach keyboard warriors have come out to bat for him.

I've seen Sadowicz's stand up since I was a kid and have seen him perform recently too. He's also a brilliant personal magician and card trickster, he wrote the text books that you by if you want to learn stage magic. The shows are as he puts it "card tricks with 'patter'", the "patter" in question being the rawest, purposefully offensive un-PC, bunch-of-old-guys-on-a-building-site-level craíc, directed at his audience, other stand ups, anything else going on in the world at the moment and especially himself.

I have seen him tell the most racist and sexist joke I have ever heard in my entire life, an impressive feat for a 2-line gag.

I've seen him go up to a person in the front row at his gig in a wheel-chair and say "for my next trick I'm going to make this cunt get up and walk!" to their obvious amusement and delight

Apparently what specifically got him into trouble this time is calling Rishi Sunak a "Paki" and gettting his dick out on stage. Both those things are pretty much par for the course for one of his shows, he didn't do anything out of the ordinary and it seems like the climate has just changed.

As far as the whole "ironic racism" discourse and how this relates to it goes; yeah I get how the apparent "ironic racism" of online internet culture and sites like 4chan was de-subverted and just led to the literal and unironic racism that heralded a resurgence of the far right across the world. I get that this is a problem and should probably inform how we look at "ironic racism" in a modern cultural context even when it is sincerely ironic.

That said, Sadowicz is not 4chan. He is very much a product of analogue tech and old media. If you are buying a ticket to a Jerry Sadowicz show (which is pretty much the only way you're going to experience his performances these days) you really ought to bloody well know what you're letting yourself in for. As he talks about himself, he's purposefully cultuvated an audience who are capable of recieving his material in the manner intended. His face should be your trigger warning.

Personally I can't see this going too badly for Sadowicz. It sounds like the Pleasance was bang in the wrong and have been making shit up about their reasons for cancelling the second night (this wasn't a full Edinburgh Fringe run this was 2 nights, one of which was cancelled). He'll be fine and the lost revenue will be covered by earnings generated by the subsequent publicity. I'm more concerned that dragging him into the culture wars at this stage of his career is going to make him into some icon of the alt-right, the shows aren't going to work or be as much fun at all if the actual shitlords, incels and Dankula stans start showing up at them and clearly being a bit too much into it. I think we'll just have to see how it goes.