I recall hearing whispers about Chapelwaite over the past few months, but I’m a little bit embarrassed to admit I ignored all of them because for some reason I thought it was a series that had to do with Jack the Ripper. I am supremely uninterested in Jack the Ripper and if I never heard him referred to again, that would be just fine with me.
That is not what Chapelwaite is. Le whoopsie. Apparently, it’s based on “Jersusalem’s Lot“, a short story in Stephen King’s Night Shift collection. I feel like I should have known that; I did read Night Shift, but it was a thousand years ago and I do not remember this particular story at all.
So I am giving it a try. I’m about two episodes in, and if I am being honest, I am finding it very uncomfortable viewing. Firstly, Adrian Brody looks seems constipated in every scene. Ooof. And so, there’s this family. Adrian Brody is Charles Boone, a ship’s captain, and he’s got his three kids with him. Their mother died at sea, and they’re new in town, come to claim a house that Adrian Brody inherited from his family. The town’s people have a problem with them because apparently, this Boone family is bad news for whatever reason, and also they’re racist as hell and are giving these multiracial children a hard time. I realize without some sort of conflict a story can’t get interesting or progress, but I have such difficulty with watching people behave shitty toward children. Ugh.
The good thing about this show? Stevie Budd from Schitt’s Creek is in it! She plays Rebecca Morgan, a college graduate and aspiring writer in this small town. With a deadline looming she presents herself to the Boones as a potential governess… for a family that could be cursed, in a mansion that could be haunted, because – as she puts it to her mother – “there’s only one good story in town.” The other good thing about this show is that Stevie/Rebecca wears some truly spectacular ruffled/floral night robes/dressings gowns. I’m not exactly sure what you call this particular garment from this specific era? But they are gorgeous!
Thanks, Ted, for your out-of-the-blue, but thoroughly appreciated email urging me to watch this show! I don’t know if I like it just yet, but I am intrigued enough to keep watching for the time being. Especially if there are more lantern-lit ruffles.
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Sometimes the universe works in funny ways and it will happen that I read/read or read/watch two things that I did not choose with the forethought that they might be similar, and yet there will be some surprising parallels or synchronicities. That always feels a bit magical when that happens and I am always receptive to it and thrilled at the experience.
This… is not one of those times. I chose these two books, The Final Girl Support Group and Survivors’ Club, because they did on the surface sound rather alike, and I thought it might be interesting to read them in tandem.
But you know…while they were both imaginative takes on the idea of “survivors that weird and scary shit happened to and now it’s happening again,” they’re very different stories, taking that core concept to very different places.
The Final Girl Support Group is handled in a decidedly slashery vein, supported by Grady Hendrix’s distinctive humor and his sometimes unexpected emotional insights. I don’t know why I phrase it that way, it’s not like you can’t be both funny and have an aptitude for writerly emotional nuance. I’m sorry to sell you short, Grady Hendrix, you pen some extremely enjoyable and satisfying reads! I tend to think of Hendrix as that really funny guy in class that I always had a crush on but I also suspected that if you scratch the surface of the jokes, there’s not much underneath. That’s not true with this author, and I need to stop thinking that way. In brief, Lynette and a handful of survivors of various massacres and murderous crimes have been meeting for therapy for over a decade–until one of the women misses a meeting and Lynnette’s worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to pick them off one by one.
Survivors’ Club is…not that at all. This graphic novel comic series follows another handful of survivors, but these individuals are victims of supernatural/paranormal horrors from the 1980s–killer dolls, haunted houses, and possessions, etc. They meet via the internet and try to figure out what connects them, and why these things occurred, and what is it exactly that’s beginning to happen again? It’s wildly creepy and bizarre and gruesome and I’ll admit, I first grabbed it because I saw that Lauren Beuekes was one of the writers involved with it. I don’t really love how it wrapped up, and overall it felt a little messy…but if I understand correctly, it got canceled, and perhaps they had to rush the ending.
These two stories ended up being quite different! I guess that’s what happens when you think you know better than the universe. I’ll leave it up to fate next time.
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If there is one tradition I have over the years of participating in 31 Days of Horror, it’s that Dragula usually always gets a mention. Most recently, I included it in last year’s Week 4 roundup, over at Haute Macabre. This is actually the first year I have been trying to keep up my 31 Days challenge on a daily basis as opposed to a weekly gathering, and I think I like it better this way, it’s somehow less stressful!
I’m always a little surprised that I even watch this drag competition show. Of course I’m here for the horror and glamour aspects of the spectacle, but these competitions always make me so anxious, partially because I just want everyone to win and I hate seeing people eliminated, but even more problematic for me is the cringe-factor involved. On one hand, I do love me some juicy drama, and the cattiness of the contestants never fails to generate that for me, but at the same time, I guess I hate to see it unfolding in front of me. I’d rather hear about in secondhand, in the form of salacious gossip! Oh well. I continue to watch anyway because I love to see them dreaming up their amazing floorshow creations!
I have only just seen one episode of Season 4, but so far my favorite is Hosu Terra Toma, a gore-geous beauty who I believe is the show’s first South Korean contestant. Exciting! What’s funny about this look (which I grabbed off of their Instagram because I didn’t want to include something from the show and spoil it for someone who hasn’t yet seen it) is that it is SO reminiscent of the KISS makeup that scared me so badly as a little girl. Isn’t it funny how our fears can sometimes lead to our fascinations?
Have you started Season 4 yet? I don’t want to get into it too much here because I don’t want to spoil anything for you, but I will say that I have some thoughts on the first floorshow, there is someone I really, really dislike, and there is another someone whose presence on this show makes no sense to me at all. Also, Tananarive Due, whom I just wrote about last week and whom I admire tremendously, was a judge for this episode!
Any thoughts? Let us gawp and gossip in the comments!
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If you have not already seen The Medium, the first thing I want to urge you to do is PLEASE GO WATCH IT NOW! And then mosey on back here and let’s talk about it!
(But I am honor-bound to tell you that you need to check doesthedogdie.com before you watch it–and yes, it does– because I would never knowingly inflict that sort of viewing experience on my sweet, sensitive friends.)
In The Medium, a documentary team follows a pragmatic shaman named Nim in a remote village in Northern Thailand and who is now probably one of my favorite movie characters of all time. Nim works as a bridge of communication between the townspeople and their goddess, Ba Yan, and she is also on call to cure their spiritual ailments. Sicknesses from the “unseen,” as she stresses to the film crew when they ask her if she can heal all illnesses, and then deadpans, “If you come to me for cancer, you’re probably going to die,” I love her!
Being possessed by the goddess is an inherited gig, and it was not actually meant to be Nim’s calling, as we find out. Nim’s elder sister, Noi was next in line for the role but declined. We learn as the movie progresses that she did more than this in order for the goddess to pass her over in favor of her sister, some sort of supernatural “take her instead!” business. It worked, and perhaps for the best, as Nim actually grew to enjoy her job as spiritual advisor and conduit.
Mink, Nim’s niece (Noi’s daughter) begins showing signs that she will inherit the role as the area’s next shaman. Over time, however, Mink’s bizarre behavior becomes more erratic–extremely frightening in fact– and hints that within Mink is not the benign goddess that they worship, but something else entirely.
This is a film that takes some time to ramp up, so be patient and settle in, because when it gets going, it’s a wild ride. The first act is an engaging family tale, the second is more or less glimpses at the progression of classic possession, and the third…well, it’s fucking bananas. If you enjoyed films such as 2016’s The Wailing, you’ll probably find yourself compelled to watch this one, and that would make sense because I believe there is a similar director/producer involved.
Even if you’re not a fan of possession/exorcism films or zombie gorefests (which is not exactly what this film is? but it’s also not…not this film?) you might be interested in its themes of faith and belief, karma, and curses; you might be drawn in by the family drama and richly realized characters; or you may be intrigued by the remote, rural, and eerie but utterly breathtaking locations. The Medium has a lot to recommend itself, and no wonder it currently stands as the 6th highest-grossing Korean film of 2021.
The screen stills I grabbed from the film and used for this post are not exactly representative of the entire film, so don’t get the idea that it’s all as peaceful and idyllic as these images suggest. I just didn’t want to give too much away! Plus they were pretty.
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Devilish chanteuse crooning her dark, unsettling secrets into your trusting ears and twisting your tender heart, dark pop artist La Femme Pendu conjures her second full-length album, VAMPYR, forth from the midnight portals today.
Don your dark glasses and a single earring: VAMPYR is a 1980’s darkwave party and a celebration of shadows and lustful excess, produced by Grammy nominee Dave Darling and featuring guest appearances by Billy Morrisson, Jake Hays, Damien Done, and the magnificent punk legend Cherie Currie of the Runaways.
About this fête fantôme of an album and its moody revelries, the artist shares that after having been quarantined for more than a year, pale and thirsty for human connection, she felt “like Dracula emerging from putrid soil after his journey on the Demeter.”
As such, she continues, this record was an aspirational one, drawing inspiration from favorites across film and music: bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen, Depeche Mode. Films like The Hunger, Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Let the Right One In, and Only Lovers Left Alive.
The lyrical protagonists from her first full-length album, Absolute Horror were fallible and mortal. In VAMPYR, our narrators are empowered mistresses of the night. And after these many months (years now!) spent in the melancholic limbo and navel-gazing of our self-isolation, a wicked bit of carousing with La Femme Pendu’s vampiric bacchants is profoundly appreciated, even by this wallflower.
“It’s my dream soundtrack to a Halloween rager at a goth club, and these days a gathering like that seems just as dangerous as the bloody rave that opens Blade (1998). It’s no accident I made a record about a contagious undead condition after our collective endurance of this lethal virus.”
Songs that have got me fanged me up, pricked my imagination, and infected me thus far: the dreamy beat of “la somnambule” and the jaunty dread of “la nuit a un prix”.
Find La Femme Pendu: website // bandcamp // instagram
Images: Jackson Davis.
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“That sure was a weird movie,” I’ve found myself muttering ever since watching Messiah of Evil a few nights ago. Yvan later remarked, “well, when YOU keep referring to something as weird, that’s how I know it’s REALLY weird.”
A film I’ve been hearing about in passing for a while now, Messiah of Evil was specifically recommended to me last October, and a year later when I saw MondoHeather mention it on twitter just the other day, I knew it was a sign to finally sit down and watch it.
A surreal and unsettling coastal-set tale (my favorite kind!) and an exercise in moody horror, the film follows a very concerned Arletty, who is in search of her missing artist father. She heads to the small, strange beach town of Point Dune where she finds his abandoned beach house. and a diary full of his frightened ravings. Vampiric/cannibalistic madness ensues.
My first thought about Messiah of Evil was “…huh…this isn’t what I thought this was going to be about?” But I also had no idea what it was about, so how could I have had any expectations? My second thought was along the lines of how I would like Lana del Rey to play every character in this movie, or at least write a song and make a music video inspired by it. My third thought was how I wanted to knit a cute version of Arletty’s pumpkin-hued short-sleeved sweater because of course I was going to think that.
Also! Check out this bed! A platform swinging from the ceiling with room not only for one sleeping body, but possibly another, along with the bed linens, pillows, a whole mess of books, three potted plants, and a stuffed armadillo!
Lana look-alikes and oddball aesthetics aside, I actually really loved this strange, striking, and uniquely …weird little film.
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Is anyone else watching the recent version of I Know What You Did Last Summer? It’s trashy as hell and it’s making me feel old as dirt (if I hear that one kid call someone “sus” one more time, I am gonna lose my shit) but you know what? It’s a lot of fun.
I don’t recall the original series of movies very well, but the source material, Lois Duncan’s 1973 book I Know What You Did Last Summer, wasn’t my favorite among her titles, so I’m not too precious about it.
A loose adaptation though the premise remains the same: a group of teenagers/young adults (I can’t tell? Everyone between 15 and 30 looks the same age to me now?) are involved in a hit and run and a year later, they begin receiving threatening messages from someone who doesn’t want to forget and who knows “what they did last summer.” And of course begins stalking them and picking them off one by one. It feels a bit Pretty Little Liars to me, but with more drugs and sluttery. So if that’s your thing, you may enjoy this! It’s definitely my thing. All the delicious drugs and promiscuity, please!
…but this version is set in Hawaii, which feels weird and off. Or rather, that it’s a show steeped in Hawaiian culture, but it’s still centered around a white family--that’s the part that doesn’t feel right at all. I think they are going for something very Twin Peaksian, but it doesn’t work. Still, it’s more gruesome than I expected, it’s genuinely funny in moments, and if I’m being honest, I just like to see “young people horror” …although I don’t know how reflective this is of young people culture? These characters are like 18 going on 40. But what do I know? I feel very out of touch sometimes.
Are you guys watching this? I’d love to know your thoughts!
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I have been meaning to read Tananarive Due’s The Good House from the moment that I closed the last page of Ghost Summer, which I thoroughly, delightedly enjoyed. My review for Ghost Summer wasn’t super in-depth or intensive, but about the book, I wrote the following:
These engaging short stories by Tananarive Due tick every box for what I want in a summer read. (I think I read this in September, so that still counts, as far as I am concerned!) A vast spectrum of supernatural business, characters that I care about, masterful writing that is emotive and nuanced but not super dense or difficult or inaccessible. It’s got everything!
Ghost Summer was previously my only experience with Tananarive Due’s writing, and though I believe that it was published more than a decade after The Good House, which I just read, it had all of the hallmarks that I’ve now come to expect from her work. I feel like it’s almost trite to say that a story or a book has “a lot of heart”…I mean, I say that a lot, but what does that mean, anyway? It’s the first thing that comes to mind when I think of this author’s writing, I am tempted to say “horror with a lot of heart.” I suppose what I’m trying to get across is that her stories seem to be written through an empathetic, compassionate lens. That her characters are fully fleshed out, down to their annoyances and imperfections, and their stories are treated in such a way that they’re wholly, profoundly human, and we really grow to care about them.
Also, Tananarive Due writes in such a way that you don’t feel punished for having read and connected with the work. I sometimes feel like a certain subset of writers must really hate us, the reader. That’s probably not true, but it’s easy to feel that way when you see your favorite, beloved characters brutally dismembered on the page before you. I just…never get a sense of that with Due’s writing. Of course, in her books, there’s horror and heartlessness and heart-stopping moments…but there’s also hope. I love that she gives us that, too. I guess that’s what I mean when I say a story “has heart;” that no matter what else transpires, no matter how big and expansive the horror and heartbreak is, she leaves the door open for goodness and hope, as well. I come away feeling good about what I read.
The Good House (unlike the House movie that I wrote about yesterday) is actually a pretty scary story in concept, and I did find myself a little freaked out while reading it. The home that belonged to Angela Toussaint’s late grandmother is so cherished and revered that the local townspeople refer to it lovingly as the Good House. All of this changes one summer when a terrible tragedy takes place during a Fourth of July celebration at the house, and both the Toussaint’s family history and its future is irrevocably altered. Two years after, following her son’s suicide in the house, Angela returns and finally starts to unravel what happened and put things right.
Masterful storytelling combining multiple perspectives across different timelines, witchcraft and family curses, the burdens of inherited guilt, trauma, rich history, and mythology, and an overwhelming, palpable sense of stomach-curdling dread present from almost the very first page made this a vividly enthralling read and an intense page-turner, and I’m going to make it my mission in life to read everything author has every written.
Speaking of houses and homes–what’s more homey than a cozy bowl of porridge? Or steel-cut oats, to be more specific!
Here’s a little oatmeal bar I set up yesterday, with all the fixings: dates, pumpkin seeds and almonds, apricots, cream, and sugar. It was perfect for our 70-degree morning…which, if you live in Florida, you know that’s practically freezing, and about as close to autumn as we are likely to get! The little Halloween ramekins were a lovely surprise from Yvan, who picked them up for me from Le Creuset! I can’t seem to find them on the Le Creuset site (though he assures me there were quite a few in stock at the actual store and they weren’t exactly flying off the shelves) but if you are looking for them, it’s this set.
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House is another one of those horror movies that had intriguingly gruesome cover art that greatly appealed to my 13-year-old brain. Of course, I never got the opportunity to watch it, so 30 some odd years later I was very excited to sit down and take it in this past weekend.
To put it kindly, I was …not…impressed. “This is what everyone is reminiscing so fondly about?” I thought. “But it’s so stupid!”
I was, however, greatly impressed by the bizarre artwork that adorned the fantastically wallpapered walls of the titular house. They looked like marvelously weird Gertrude Abercrombie/Frida Kahlo/Salvador Dali hybrids creations, and I could have watched a whole movie about them alone!
I stopped watching the film about halfway through. I’ve only got so much time allotted to me on this earth, and slogging through this silly film was not how I wanted to spend it. But in zipping through it afterward to grab some stills of these nutty paintings for a blog post, I wondered if maybe…the art wasn’t somehow important to the plot? I mean, if I was going to the trouble of sharing the art, shouldn’t I at least finish the film to get an understanding of how it played into the story? So the next day I revisited the film. And I finished it. For art!
Ok, so maybe it wasn’t THAT bad. I think I just wasn’t in the mood for it, in that initial viewing. If you’ve not seen it, it’s more or less just a haunted house story with some comedy, ridiculous but fun creature effects, and I guess you could say it’s got a lot of heart. The short version of the story is that Roger Cobb is a best-selling author; he and his wife are divorced and they have lost a son, and he’s moved back into his late aunt Elizabeth’s house to focus on writing his war memoirs. Turns out the house is balls-out bonkers haunted. In an interview, the director as described this as “a tongue-in-cheek, Mad magazine-style, effects-heavy hootenanny with goofy neighbors and comical monsters.” Sure, I guess that sums it up
I do have a lot of questions because so much of this is baffling. Why did his elderly aunt kill herself at the beginning of the film? And from the flashbacks, it looks like Roger and his wife and child were living in his aunt’s home at one point? While she was still living there? I mean, he was a famous writer and she was a famous actress, so why didn’t they have their own place? And getting back to the aunt–what was the deal with the paintings? Over the course of the film, you can see how she, as an artist, was no doubt influenced and inspired by the haunted goings-on in the house, and so I think there should have been at least a tiny bit of focus and backstory about her art and practice. And it turns out the paintings were *sort of* important, at least one of them was–but I’ll not give that away, in case you, like me, were one of the handful of people who have not yet seen House.
I was able to find the actual artist behind aunt Elizabeth’s strange canvases, though unfortunately, I can’t find any larger images. Richard Hescox has created a considerable amount of horror and monster movie poster art and seems to be fairly prolific, although his official portfolio seems to mostly showcase his fantasy-inspired works.
Now this all has got me thinking that I need to see House II on the off chance that there’s more of Hescox’s paintings and maybe old aunt Elizabeth gets a bit of story? Hm! Should I continue?
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I am up to Halloween: H20 in my Halloween marathoning and oooof. I just did not recall how bad, I mean really REALLY bad, 4, 5, and 6 are. That business with the cult (and the cloning? Is that right?) was really, really dumb. Halloween H20 wasn’t great, but at least we get Jamie Lee Curtis, and maybe it was a little scary? That could be just me though, rewatching it alone in the house, at 1am in the morning.
Anyway, I have no further thoughts on any of these films, however, a particular scene in Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers, did inspire the following poem…
Reflections after a death scene in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers
Sometimes I remind myself that
in a basement sequence
during Halloween 6,
Michael Myers demonstrates
that apparently he knows something
about how to operate a washing machine.
It’s not like those bloody linens sloshing
around during the rinse cycle
were placed there by
the dead woman, lying still,
glasses cracked and broken,
chest split by the blade of an axe.
And sure, the load was
massively unbalanced.
And Michael probably didn’t
use any pre-soak or stain remover.
It’s funny, you know, he drives?
Where did he learn that?
What else is this murderous tulpa man-child
doing when we’re not looking?
Contributing to his Roth IRA,
and hot yoga, and meditation,
and 12-step skincare?
Is Michael Myers a more capable
and competent adult
than I am?
I mean, if even the bogeyman
can get his shit together
and start a load of wash,
then what’s my problem?
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