BLACK SUMMER Commands Respect For The Z Word

  Netflix's excellent Black Summer is a Zombie show but, hey, hold on, keep reading: Zombie media has been everywhere all the time for the past 15 years, I know, I've been there with you; the movies, TV shows, video games, memes, apps, decor, etc. The worst offender being The Walking Dead which feels is neverending with its perpetual season renewals and spinoffs (just last week an anthology spin-off was announced). But what Mindhunter and True Detective did for crime shows amidst NCIS's, Criminal Mindses, et. all bland procedurals, Black Summer does for the zombie show: it set a gold standard. I promise it's not good for a zombie show, it's just good-ass TV, period. But since over-saturation is a curiosity killer, it's hard to recommend it in this climate. So my pitch is: What it does is it strings up The Walking Dead, skins away the romanticism and speechifying, boils away the excess profundity rot and flashbacks; what's left is a startling, skeletal thriller. It's an impressive feat of minimalist storytelling, relying on subtlety rather than, again, big speeches about the morality of survival or...whatever Rick Grimes prattled on about. The Walking Dead has been around for 10 years and it's never achieved what this show has done in two seasons: scare the Hell out of me.

  I don't know why but for the past few years I've gravitated more toward thrillers and, like Green Room and Uncut Gems, Black Summer quenches my thirst for nerve-frying intensity. Most episodes hit the ground running and they bloody their feet pounding the pavement, leaving little breath to say much of anything. While it's not entirely wordless, some episodes have a paragraph's worth of dialog (if that). For example, Season 1's fourth episode is a 39-minute chase scene where, maybe, ten words are said by the end. Even when it does idle along to give us characterization--which is, wisely, done through action...or specific inaction--there's either something looming in the background or the non-linear storytelling has established there's doom just minutes away - it's relentlessly dark but never feels like misery porn thanks to its endearing leads. Episode 6 (again, in season 1) is Black's spin on a heist but there's been absolutely no exposition divulged to us--we don't know their plan nor do we need to, we just watch it fail because of course it does--making this a refreshingly trusting show. The first season is hampered, a little, by a distracting blue post-production filter and some sag in its midsection (episode 5) but Season 2 is some of the best TV I've ever seen.

  The blue filter is sensibly blue-penciled and the script has more thematic muscle but where it really shines is the ambitious Direction which is, pretty often, staggering. The blocking and choreography rivals Children Of Men's finale, not just in terms of long takes but because this season is fucking war; standoffs, shootouts, stake-outs, betrayals, tension. If you're not trapped in a pressure cooker waiting for the lid to blow off, you're in a frantic cross-cutting of chase scenes. We watch relationships turn sour with no cure for the infection; they fester and fester and fester.

  Then in episode 5, White Horse,  we get the best hour of the series so far. This is a wonderfully unpredictable, funny, creepy, and revelatory bottle episode - Ts are crossed and I's are dotted for a certain central character. But what makes it special beyond all that is that it's the kind of episode that sorta 'breaks' the show. Like ronny/lily did for Barry, Horse burns every notion you think you have for Black Summer and that continues in Episode 7, The Lodge. I always love these episodes where a show evolves and transforms itself into something formally unpredictable. It gives itself permission to do whatever it wants from here on out and rids us of our pretenses.

  It does that to characters, too. There's no hierarchy here, no one comes equipped with a John Wayne shield, as George Romero once said. A main cast member might bite it very early on or late into the penultimate episode while a brand new character perseveres for Season 3. The writing is deceptive and sharply perceptive because it plays on our allegiances, too. You never know who to trust, even if they're--seemingly--the main character of this ever-growing and rotting ensemble. The finale is a glorious clusterfuck where everything comes to a head and, in typical Black Summer fashion, descends into mayhem. The very end, however, is a much-needed sigh of relief that I didn't have to beg for; I trust it, for now, but there's a nagging doubt in the back of my mind; it's so blissful and cathartic and poignant that it feels like it's rigged with a killswitch.

  I don't know when Season 3 will happen--or if it even will happen considering the Two-Season Cancellation Club--but I'm down for whatever this show decides to do next. It's my favorite thing I've seen [so far] this year. A+

Nightmare Library

Riffing off of the feature on horror books in Fangoria, it is my hope that at least one of these catches the eye. There's a mixture of classic and more recent stuff. Most of the stuff I've found scary in the past 5 years or so have been from books. Here's a handful of them. 

Twenty Days of Turin by Giorgio de Maria 

Our guide through this book of strange events in the city of Turin both past and present is an unnamed narrator who has decided to write a book on The Twenty Days of Turin. The people of the city that the narrator interviews describe these giant cloaked entities picking up people by their ankles and smashing them against the ground. 

The book can be interpreted as an allegory of the fear and upheaval in Italy known as the "Years of Lead". It also manages to predict the rise of social media. 

Things We Lost In the Fire by Mariana Enriquez

Where would be the one country I'd want to visit? Argentina. Borges, Ocampo, Casares, Cortazar and Aira all hail from that haven of literary genius. Here's the latest one. Enriquez paints her morbid stories with a generous sense of place. Stories shift from the psychological to the Lovecraftian. And if you know me, cosmic horror mixed with Latin American fiction is a gift from the horror gods. 

Songs For the Unraveling of the World by Brian Evenson

If you're looking for something more on the unsettling side of things, Evenson is the author for you. Stories transmitted from earth's evil twin. Where you won't look at the world quite the same way again. 

Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones

One of Jone's inspirations for this book was Near Dark. Traveling nomads that go from town to town. Mongrels deals with three generations of family. The protagonist is born into a family of werewolves and is approaching the age of puberty. The age where you start to "wolf out". Each chapter feels like a vignette. A short story that could stand on its own. There is so much imaginative werewolf lore here. 

Off Season by Jack Ketchum

So ya love the gory stuff, huh? Ketchum's book is feral, visceral and left a scar on my horror filled heart that still has me thinking about. A group of people are held up in a cabin by cannibals. The mastery of craft and the ability to built tension for 130 pages of a 270 page book before anything brutal happens is impressive. 

The Fisherman by John Langan

Cosmic horror has a head on car collission with grief, loss and family. The blinder you go in, the better. The best horror is always about something. At it's core, The Fisherman is about the lengths we would go to see a loved one again. If you liked Pet Semetary, check this one out. 

Teattro Grotesco by Thomas Ligotti

Do puppets scare you? How about clowns? Existential horror is the song that hums out of this particular music box. Ligotti funnels his dark, cyncial worldview through these stories. For reference, Nic Pizzollatto took influence from Ligotti for the True Detective character of Rust Cohle. 

The Elementals by Michael McDowell

The author has written the screenplays for Beetlejuice and Nightmare Before Christmas. If that isn't enough to sell you there here's the story: On a split of land cut off by the Gulf, three Victorian houses standing against the encroaching stand. Two of the houses are being used while the third one is empty. Except for the vicious horror shaping nightmares from nothingness. It's a Southern Gothic dealing with two sets of families who have been coming to these two Victorian houses for years. It's a slow burn that pays off. 

Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor

Witches. Occult. Folklore. Crime Thriller. This book was made for me. It remains my favorite piece of fiction in any medium released in 2020. While it has more in common with something like Bolano's 2666 than Shirley Jackson or Stephen King, make no mistake. The dread this book induces will make your skin crawl. 

Slashers Don't Get Much Better Than FEAR STREET

  The Fear Street Trilogy feels like a series of horror movies I was scared to watch as a kid but did anyway and ended up peeing the bed because I was too afraid to go out to the bathroom. It feels like a trilogy I would revisit as a teen and appreciate more but definitely be less afraid of. It feels like a trilogy I revisited as an adult and, holy shit, it actually holds up; it wasn't made for me but it didn't need to be. Its core demographic is clearly Young Adults but its YA sensibilities are almost delusive: the violence is surprisingly harsh and sometimes downright tragic (there's a death in one of these that genuinely had my mouth hung open). This is Stranger Things with guts.

  Considering how splintered the Big 4 Slasher Franchises' sequels are (Halloween, Nightmare On Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday The 13th), Fear Street is the most successful Slasher franchise of all time and the most ambitious outside of Child's Play (which didn't find its footing until 2017). FS has a plan and, most importantly, follow-through. The way it takes its time setting up its mythology, history, and rules is something most franchises fumble to do (because no one knows what to do with them). Like, Halloween tried the 'Thorn Curse' thing and the nonsensical shit they introduced in Jason Goes To Hell and Freddy's Dead was foolish and desperate. FS's story spans 300 years and ends in a completely satisfying way. Hell, they set up 4 of their monsters over the course of the trilogy and then manage to have a fun Freddy Vs. Jason-type showdown with them - I fucking cheered. We're in a Slasher Renaissance and this is, so far, the crown jewel. A-

An Honest Halloween '78 Review

  I first saw Halloween when I was 9 (fittingly, per a babysitter) and from then on it was a traditional watch every October. I'd ritualistically put it off until the 31st, making it the crescendo of Horror Month. I've regarded it as an infallible Classic for, shit, 20 years.

  Rewatching it now...I haven't fully outgrown it but I've finally come around to realizing how far it is from greatness.

  For everything I still love about it--Carpenter's direction, Donald Pleasance and Jamie Lee Curtis' performances, the inescapable atmosphere from Dean Cundey's photography and Carpenter's score, and the absolutely perfect ending--there's the stuff I absolutely hate now: Linda and Annie (and Bob), Nancy Loomis' performance, and the tedious third act. Obstinate fans defend Annie and Linda's one-note characterizations with some archetypal bullshit, their logic being that since they kicked off the Horny Teens trope in slasher movies then it's forgivable. "It was the first to do it horribly so it's not horrible. Right?" No, they're underwritten and vapid. If you say this movie is an A+ you're gonna have to be handing out that esteem to a fuckton more movies.

  The very sparse criticism that actually exists for this movie docks points for giving Loomis "nothing to do" but I like how he's a doomsayer on a stakeout. Plus, everything he says is actually creepy and Donald Pleasance brings so much to the role, too (especially his chemistry with Charles Cyphers). He's not just there to say MICHAEL IS EVIL even though that is how he is in the sequels. The "Get your ass away from there" moment where he scares Lonnie and his buds (only to be spooked, himself, by "One-Good-Scare" Sheriff  [Scare-iff?] Brackett) is a wonderful switch-up. He's proud of and amused with himself and I love it. There's a warm man underneath the paranoid, reckless Looney Loomis.
 

  Back on the Debra Hill shit: PJ Soles is somehow good with what little she's given (especially in the TV Cut where she gets to bring more playfulness), but Nancy Loomis is downright awful as Annie. Every one of her line deliveries is exactly that: reading lines. Insult to injury is Debra Hill's dialog is so one-note and stale. We spend an unforgivable amount of time with Annie so she really brings it down. Her riddance is not only great for my propensity for bad acting but The Shape carrying her body, juxtaposed with the rumbling audio from Forbidden Planet playing on Tommy's TV, is the creepiest and most inspired scene in the movie. It reminds me of the spooky scifi theremin music Romero used in Night Of The Living Dead.

  And this shot of Tommy watching Michael, instead of the other way around, is a great inverse of The Shape's stalking. I like how he's frozen in fear until Lindsey bumps into him and then I LOVE his believable terror when he's shouting about how "the Boogeyman is outside!" All of this is employed to great effect because Carpenter does a fantastic job laying out the geography of this street.

  Now, Laurie Strode is a great character played with warm humanity by Jamie Lee Curtis; her genuine care for Tommy is something I came to appreciate more this time around. That said, the repetitive climax is a bummer. He chase her, she stab him, he fall down, she wander off, he get up, she run, he chase, she stab him, he fall down, she wander off. The infamous closet scene is still great but it's sandwiched in between that other shit so it loses its flavor a bit. When I was a kid I thought this was Suspenseful but now it's kind of irritating.

  Robert McKee says to "always kill 'em in the end" and Carpenter certainly caps it all off with an effectively chilly, spooky closer. BUT: this was about honesty and since everything before it is so lacking I can't say that, overall, Halloween kills. B+

"Storm Drain" Is The Best Part Of V/H/S/94

  
  Not since the first Creepshow have any Horror Anthologies had a winning streak*, especially the V/H/S movies (V/H/S: Viral has a complete losing streak so at least one of them is consistent). The latest, V/H/S/94, is just like those others: a jumbled gatherum of quality spikes and dips. Its first tape, Storm Drain, is an unpredictable mystery that unfolds into a slimy, inspired nightmare and then, right at the end, veers seamlessly into a dark comedy. I've watched it six times now and it never fails to give me a variety of chills; it's creepy as Hell but it's also just so fucking cool.

  I won't say why though because spoilers will absolutely ruin the experience. Anna Hopkins carries the entire thing with a performance that will, sadly, go unnoticed. Her range is subtle and she nails every single beat to make Holly Marciano a fully realized character in her 10 minutes of screentime. I could talk about the other tapes--specifically the second one which is, incidentally, my second favorite--but they aren't as weird or wild or downright creepy as this new classic. A

*still haven't seen Tales From The Hood which Luke says is a consistent Anthology...

Beware the autumn people

 "...that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain..."

Ray Bradbury, The October Country

If there's an author who manages to harness the mood of the season, it's Ray Bradbury. Specifically his three books: The Halloween Tree, The October Country and Something Wicked This Way Comes. I was never a fan of his sci-fi stuff. Having only read excerpts of it from comics like Weird Science. I haven't read Fahrenheit 451 either. Horror on the authort hand is my jam. Bradbury creates a nostalgia filled world with streets pockmarked with fallen leaves. Something Wicked specifically deals with facing mortality and our own personal fears. My first exposure to the Norman Rockwell-esque Green Town was as a kid watching the Jack Clayton directed film. 

The 80s were a glorious time for kids horror movies. Or more specifically, horror movies centered around kids. The Monster Squad, Beetlejuice, Little Monsters and The Gate featured genuine peril. Fantasy worlds that opened up underneath the bed, in the backyard, in the new house you moved into, or in the town you're living in. You weren't safe anywhere. Not really. Before any of those movies came out however, Disney decided to go dark. Walt Disney had died in 1966 and his son-in-law, Ron Miller became President of Disney Productions and was keen to shake things up. In the age of Jaws and Star Wars, Disney had found itself boxed in. A period of creativity from the late 70s to the mid 80s gave us The Black Hole, The Watcher In the Woods, Return to Oz and Something Wicked This Way Comes. The director of Something Wicked, Jack Clayton, has dabbled in horror before with The Innocents. A bone chilling adaptation of Henry James' Turn of the Screw. 

There are a number of creepy scenes here that struck me as a kid watching this. The spiders in Jim Nightshade's room for one. The funeralesque march led by Mr. Dark. Watching it as an adult, the scene that stands head and shoulders above the rest takes place in a library between Jonathan Pryce's Mr. Dark and Jason Robards' Charles Holloway. Mr. Dark is in the midst of a hunt for the young protagonists Jim Nightshade and Will Holloway. Will's father faces him down. "You are the autumn people. Where do you come from? The dust. Where do you go to? The grave" Mr. Dark describes himself and his carnival as The Hungry Ones. "Your torments call us like dogs in the night." It is when Mr. Dark takes the book out of Charles' hands and tells the old man he can make him young again. To turn the years back to 30. 

There's an inevitability to the cycle of the seasons. Autumn gives way to winter. Grayness. Death. When I think of winter I think of Bergman. Fall is that creeping in of that feeling as we get closer and closer. It's a time to be nostalgic. There's a scene in Mad Men of Don Draper selling a photo slideshow. "Nostalgia, it's delicate but potent." He's goes on to say, that in Greek, nostalgia means "the pain from an old wound." We all have regrets that mark our past. Events that we wish we can do all over again but differently this time. For the residents of Green Town, it's the chance to run and throw a football on the field. To look young and beautiful. To be loved by beautiful women. To be wealthy. 

"It's a time machine." Don Draper continues "Goes backwards, forwards. Takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It's not called the wheel. It's called the carousel." At Mr. Dark's carnival, you can ride the ominous carousel. You'll go back. You'll go forward. Until you go quite mad.  Year by year passes us by like pages being torn out of a book, falling to the ground. It is up to us to drive out the dark nights of the soul. 

We're in October country now. If you happen to put you ear to the ground and hear a faint whistle of a train, watch out. It just might be Dark and Kruger's Pandemonium Carnival coming to pay your town a visit.