Issue #297: Extreme Circumstances
As you all know, I rarely miss my late Monday publication deadline. It takes a pretty unusual circumstance for that to happen. Unfortunately, yesterday was one such occasion. I was extremely ill and eventually checked into the ER for about six hours. It felt like an eternity, but a six hour ER trip is pretty reasonable all things considered.
I’m doing better, but far from 100%. The diagnosis was “viral infection that needs to run its course,” nothing specific, so that’s where I’m at. Don’t drink the Koia cereal flavored protein shakes.
At the very least, my death is not imminent. But the newsletter is a little shorter this week. Hopefully it still satisfies.
31 Days of Horror: Part 3
Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman (2007)
I said I was recommending a lot of Koji Shiraishi movies, didn’t I? This is his most typical genre fare and it is so good. I reviewed it here. Shiraishi would revisit the legend of Kuchisake-onna, upon which Carved is based (and also its title in Japan), several times. But this is his most successful engagement with it.
Demon Seed (1977)
This is the movie on this whole list that I need to most watch again. It is a deeply messed up and thought provoking movie. It used to be on Criterion streaming but isn’t anymore. It is both a creature feature and AI cautionary tale in the most absurd key. There are shades of Rosemary’s Baby (1968) if Satan were a computer. Also a likely influence on Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982).
Burning (1981)
Burning is the paradigmatic slasher film. Sleep away camp, a traumatized killer. Some of the shots look like they’re from a French film. Which is funny, because Tony Maylam was English.
Clearcut (1991)
Clearcut’s status as a horror movie is, maybe, debatable. There’s not an abundance of supernatural material. Graham Greene is chilling as Arthur, giving one of the best performances of his career — or any career. I have written about it in the past as a psychodrama, exposing the horror of the subject’s psyche.
It’s also an avowed social commentary, along the lines of The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988). Ryszard Bugajski’s capacity to cut to the core of what’s at issue at the nexus of environmental justice and Native oppression is remarkable.
Loft (2005)
One of my favorite subgenres of horror film is that of the “suffering auteur.” Someone can’t figure out what to write or film or whatever, we’re talking classics like The Shining (1980) or relatively unknown films like Warning: Do Not Play (2019). Loft is one of the more conventional horror films by Pulse (2001) and Cure (1997) director Kiyoshi Kurosawa. The tension of Reiko’s haunting possibly being accounted for by artistic frustration is a repeated motif in horror for a reason. The slow burn early 2000s aesthetic is all here, too.
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)
This movie was a real surprise. I remember exactly where I was when I first saw it. It was around Christmas and my friend Spencer recommended it to me, so I watched it in my dad’s living room. It is another found footage film and another post-modern work, with a strong sense of self-awareness. Behind the Mask isn’t nearly as gruesome as Man Bites Dog (1992) or Henry (1986) or Angst (1986). It is far more silly, tongue-in-cheek, and dealing with media and reality TV culture in a way Man Bites Dog can only anticipate.
Deadware (2022)
My guess is that Deadware will be the worst reviewed movie I am recommending this Halloween season. The poor critical reception of this extremely obscure movie is misleading. The movie is fantastic and the gateway into the mind of a blossoming horror auteur: Isaac Rodriguez. All of Rodriguez’s films are the same sort of low budget found footage fare. He sometimes plays a little fast and loose with the diegetic rules of his found footage universe, as is the case in Last Radio Call (2022), perhaps his most ambitious film but also the most structurally conventional. In Unknown Visitor (2019), he stages the entirety of the action through a doorbell camera.
Deadware is what is sometimes called a “screen life” film, though I’m not a fan of the name. It follows Unfriended (2014) and Host (2020) taking place entirely through a computer monitor. The setup may be off-putting to some and admittedly the performances leave a little to be desired. But what Deadware offers is a deeply unsettling tale that calls back to the time when the internet was a mysterious and dangerous place. One full of supernatural potential. And Rodriguez is able to tap into that nostalgic feeling with tremendous potency.
What is obvious across the three Rodriguez films I’ve seen is that he is a master of this art form. He knows when the camera should linger and when it should pan. He knows what images should be repeated and how often. And he’s able to exert that level of mastery even in the constraints of the browser windows.
Weekly Reading List
Quick Hits from Shounen Jump
Back in July, I wrote about a few Shounen Jump series I was reading.
Unfortunately, if you were planning to ever go back to that list and pick up a few, half of them have been cancelled. While Gokurakugai is still hanging on with pretty infrequent new chapters and Martial Master Asumi seems to be sticking to its weekly schedule, Tenmaku Cinema and Do Retry have been axed. I guess there’s not much of a market for Hikaru no Go (1998) transformed to being about movies or a period piece boxing manga. I have picked up another new series, though, that I thought was worth mentioning.
Kagurabachi
Unlike the other series I highlighted, Kagurabachi is an immediate smash hit. Whether it can maintain its popularity remains to be seen, but this is a comic with “good bones.” Chihiro, the lead, looks cool and wields a katana. This is a manga about katana, also good. In fact, it is about magic katana, something that is not immediately obvious reading the first chapter. Kagurabachi appears to take place in contemporary Japan, but it quickly becomes clear that this is a fantastic world where people with magic power fight — but more often commit — crimes. Chihiro is set up to take down a criminal organization of sorcerers who have stolen his father’s magic swords. Like I said, very cool.
So far, the gags have been funny, the swordplay has been awesome, and the character design is memorable.
I have high hopes for the manga. It’s worth getting in on the ground floor.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/what-are-play-boosters — Magic: the Gathering is changing in a big way. Up until now, Magic has been sold in 15 card booster packs collated for a format of play — my format of choice — called draft. Though that wasn’t true at Magic’s launch, sets were designed for limited play (which draft is a subset of) since 1996’s Mirage expansion. But even going back to Alpha, one thing has always been true: you can buy a 15 card Magic booster.
As of next year, that stops being true. In 2020, Magic introduced the “set booster” — fewer cards and greater expected value per pack opening. Set boosters, however, didn’t work for limited play and they really didn’t work for draft. Because our society is full of sick gambling addicts, myself included, set boosters were far more popular than the alternative, the classic 15 card pack rebranded as a “draft booster” in 2020. This split inventory and different incentives to buy different kinds of packs caused major problems. In store drafts gave set boosters as prize packs, when limited only players really wanted more draft boosters so they could keep drafting. People who wanted to buy booster packs for someone as a gift didn’t know what packs to buy. And, worst of all, because of the lopsided sales figures, Magic’s official support of draft as a paper format was at risk.
Ultimately, their solution is a more expensive 14 card pack that can be drafted, has higher EV compared to draft boosters (so those sickos who just open pack after pack can have their fun), and eliminates challenges for game story inventory and casual shopper alike.
I’m not sure if this is a good change, but I do like drafting. So I guess I’m taking what I can get here if the real alternative is no more drafting. You can read more about the design philosophy behind this new pack, the “play booster,” at the link.
My friend Dan has a nice horror film focused Substack going. In the above edition, he recommends The Sentinel (1977), which I watched and also recommend. Jerry Orbach is in it — playing a photographer and not a cop — and his name comes up in the opening credits in the familiar Law & Order font. Read more of what Dan liked about it at Dream Lab Research.
Until next time.