[Heavy tympani thunders over slow, upright bass] Jeremy Johnson roves the desolate prairies of Omaha with his theatre company, FireBelly Rep. In his wake, he has left several publications including Katydids and Poems for Kids, his sci-fi novel, Vessels, and the published play, In the Jungle You Must Wait. As the uncompromising creative terrain continues to forge him into a vessel for the muses, Jeremy’s tireless scrawling persists to confound and delight.
No, this is not a review of a 90s R&B album! As a matter of fact this is a Cronenberg-ian body horror ride from the rough guts of Melbourne (Melbin), Australia on the tail end of their New Wave Punk scene. It’s directed by Philip Brophy, former drummer of performance punk band, ➡⬆➡ (Pronounced tsc-tsc-tsc … More A Pictorial Review of Body Melt (1993, Australia)
Virtues: Bloody Bloody Bible Camp fills every promise it makes in its premise and title. It’s a campy camp slasher with a biblical twist. There are quite a few top-notch kills, my favorite probably being this one: Take a drink for every dick joke and you’ll get to where you need to be to enjoy … More A Red-Letter Review of Vito Trabucco’s Bloody Bloody Bible Camp (2012)
“Look, a horse.” “No, that’s a unicorn.” “What’s the difference?” “Horn coming out of its head.” ~Actual dialog from CarousHell In Steve Rudzinski’s Murdercorn movie a carousel unicorn breaks free from its ride prison (due to a “blood-borne pathogen” (a plotline that was ditched pretty early on because second drafts are bullshit amIrigh?) and- more … More [Off-Putting Ride Metaphor] CarousHELL (2016)
In 1989 Canadian DIY Director, Barry J. Gillis, blessed the world with his demonic horror probably-not-comedy, Things. Wicked World is Gillis’ serial killer manifesto followup; Just as Canadian, just as confounding. What indeed is happening here? Well. As far as we can tell, there’s a serial killer (Gordon probably?). He looks and sounds like a … More Wicked World (1991)
Who likes… Ren n’ Stimpy style, grotesquely detailed… Closeups of EYES!??! Meeeee!!! Shiver is an ideal Jinju Ito starter kit, serving up a compilation of his vilest manga shorties reaching back from ‘87 to nowish. Sure, the concepts are just original enough and always- ALWAYS- high stakes, so they worm right into your nightmares, but … More Review of Junji Ito’s ‘Shiver’ (2017)
C.V. Hunt’s vanity shelf bows low in the middle. She cranks them out without abandon. Halloween Fiend is not her end-all be-all masterpiece, but it’s not a contender for the donation box either, if only for the creepy-ass monster. The actual Halloween Fiend is a playfully murderous monster demon that preys on the … More Preview of C.V. Hunt’s ‘Halloween Fiend’ (Out on February 16, 2019)
O’Brien takes all the good parts of a slow-burning 80s B Horror movie and conjures them into this highly satisfying little diddy. Death Dance can’t burn too slowly though, clocking in at just over 100 pages, but it gets done what it needs to. You can read this one folding clothes, listening to metal with … More Review of ‘Death Dance in the Woods’ by Jeff O’Brien (2018)
This book kicks a substantial amount of ass. It is funny, it is gory, it is intensely creepy, and hella inspiring. I should have figured out how to do umlauts before I started writing this, but anyway, We Sold Our Souls opens with the forming of the band Durt Wurk; a ragtag, bar-venue metal band … More Review of ‘We Sold Our Souls’ by Grady Hendrix (2018)
New Fears 2 (the blue one), edited by Mark Morris, is the book of spooky shorties following up its 2017 predecessor, New Fears (the red one), also Mark Morris. Like oh-so-many of these collections, I found it to be under-edited, but the gems are worth digging out. Know what’s even better? WHEN ANGEL MINERS … More Review of ‘New Fears Two’ (2018)
IT’S A METAPHOR. The title is a metaphor, which is unfortunate. Not to worry! There is a fair amount of strange sex and peripheral media coverage of some conjoined twins, but the title more points to how we often see ourselves in our rivals- in our opposites- in the things we often hate. Oh, sorry, … More Review of ‘The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins’ by Irvine Welsh (2014)
Spook du jour 