It’s still so amazing to me just how many horror blogs there are out there, considering how few of them even a dedicated genre fan like myself has actually heard of. For example, how the hell did I never come across Zombie A-Go-Go before? This almost comically comprehensive blog covers all things zombie, from the latest big-budget outings to obscure indie films to books, actors, directors, the works. Essential reading if you’re, well, like me.
Speaking of zombies, I haven’t read anything Stephen King’s written more recently than the expanded edition of The Stand (1990!)–not for any particular reason, mind you, other than casual disinterest, I suppose?–but that seems likely to change now that I’ve finally gotten wind of what his new book, Cell, is about: Zombies! Technically, of course, they’re not zombies; they’re of the non-dead 28 Days Later/The Crazies variety. But I’m not one of those people who thinks that’s a distinction with a difference, let alone a difference that makes the latter self-evidently inferior to the former. And despite the goofball sci-fi premise–cellphones make you EVIL!–it sounds like lurid good fun. King’s quite good at survival horror–“The Mist,” “Trucks,” The Stand–so “King does zombies” is right down my alley. If anyone out there has read the book and has any thoughts, my email link’s to the left…
Getting away from zombies for a moment (everyone’s goal, when you think about it), Ian Brill emailed this link to some unreleased demos by the greatest hip-hop act of all time, the Wu Tang Clan, as well as its offshoot Gravediggaz. There’s simply never been as fascinating an act of world-building in popular music as the mythos of Five Percent Nation teachings, Eastern philosophy, Marvel Comics references, Scarface-style self-mythologizing, chop-socky movie quotes, eerie jazz and soul samples, fascinating street-life vignettes, and dizzyingly funny wordplay created by Wu mastermind the RZA and his nine or so compatriots. Fans of horror in music are well advised to check out the supremely atmospheric efforts of the group and its some of its members’ early solo projects, in particular the Clan’s Enter the Wu Tang (36 Chambers), Genius/GZA’s Liquid Swords, the Method Man’s Tical (recorded before Meth’s goofball side took over), and the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s shockingly coherent and edgy Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version . Wu spinoff Gravediggaz in particular is of interest to genre fans: Part of a shortlived but exciting and hilarious hip-hop sub-sub-genre called horrorcore, the group’s first album 6 Feet Deep–produced mostly by De La Soul collaborator Prince Paul, it was originally called Nigga Mortis, which gives you some indication of the gallows humor it traded in–added a slasher/Hammer/Troma spin to surprisingly funky and buoyant songs of drug abuse, suicide, and murder. Highly, highly recommended.
Finally, Slate’s Bryan Curtis runs down the horrors of the art-house movie theatre, which I thought was interesting for several reasons:
1) Curtis has been reluctantly hounded into art-houses because he finds multiplexes even more unbearable. Am I the only person who loves them? The plush seats, the stadium seating, the cup holders, the enormous screens–I remember when all movie theatres were crappy holes in the wall, and it’s not something I want to go back to. Yes, you have to put up with teenagers and cell phones and blah blah blah–isn’t it worth it?*
2) I am probably the kind of obnoxious, conspicuous eater that Curtis is railing against. Last time I went to see an art-house movie in a non-multiplex–A History of Violence at the Village East–I brought and ate a tuna fish sandwich.
3) In passing, he raises an issue that has been at the forefront of my horror-watching mind in the wake of movies like Hostel, Wolf Creek, Chaos, the Saw pictures and the more extreme exponents of the Asian-horror wave:
Extreme violence…will be applauded as an artful commentary on contemporary society. “I remember watching Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance,” says [New York film programmer Grady] Hendrix, “which is one of the most uncomfortable and unpleasant movies to sit through. And people were laughing! A woman is being electrocuted to death and urinating on herself while she dies, and they’re tittering like it’s an Oscar Wilde play!”
At what point does violence for violence’s sake cease to be a form of spectacle that reveals occulted meaning and become a sort of pornographic brutalization of the audience? Just a thought.
* I don’t mind art-house movie theatres either, now that I think about it. Still, read the piece, you’ll laugh.