It’s sincerely embarrassing to admit that I haven’t published this newsletter in 3+ years because I let a few personal relationships become dormant. I didn’t want to show up in their inbox someday and receive a surprise text message or email when I’d rather stay estranged. The length of my attention span is practically negative, so I never thought to check if I could remove subscribers without letting them know. You absolutely can, of course. I did, and here we are. What a beautiful 21st-century problem to be hesitant to revive your Substack. I guess being a bitch isn’t exclusive to the times we’re in, but in the interest of self-preservation, I’ll probably keep doing it.
Anyway.
Demon Daddies (the podcast) still primarily exists as an item on a perpetual to-do list of things I’ll get to eventually, but likely not this week or next. While I do leave our apartment more often than I used to, I still prefer to be inside it. A few recommendations from the last few months:
Oddity
I missed this in theaters because as with most smaller horror releases, I could only find 10:30pm screenings during its two-week local run. Say what you will about VOD, but it’s great to have as an option when you have a day job and can’t stay awake past 11pm. Sure, I could have tried harder, but did I want a single film to undo all the hard work I’ve put into my sleep hygiene recently? The answer is no unless you want to perfect the temperature of my bedroom or send me a free bottle of magnesium glycinate every month, because it really feels like I’m paying too much to get a horse pill lodged in my throat twice a day.
As I was outlining ideas for the return of this newsletter, I realized I didn’t want to write summaries of any sort. Truthfully, I’m just going to ramble.
In Oddity, there’s a life-sized wooden man, and it is a visual that is now permanently branded into my mind. I get that it’s serving as a golem, I do. It doesn’t seem like it should be as terrifying as it is, but truly, what the fuck. What the fuck. I nearly hit the ceiling every time it appeared, and surprised myself by yelling ‘You stupid bitch!’ at the screen when a character touched the inside of his open mouth.
I firmly believe this movie has everything: folklore, mystery, incredible atmosphere, haunted items, an occasional jump scare that doesn’t feel totally cheap, a vengeful relative, et cetera, et cetera. What makes Oddity special is that you don’t even see the most terrifying parts of what’s happening, but you can absolutely imagine how bad it would be if you did.
The Substance
Duh. Definitely not for the squeamish, and I’ll admit that I watched the worst (best) parts through my fingers. I fully wept during one of the most brutal scenes. And I didn’t cry because I was scared or shocked. I cried because as our elders have taught us… it really do be like that sometimes.
Any of Ania Ahlborn’s books
Use these for when you want to read something a tiny bit spooky but also only want to expend the amount of mental energy it takes to watch primetime TV. It does the same thing for your brain as watching a Blumhouse movie. You can read one in an hour. If these books were Lutheran desserts, they’d be 7-layer bars. They have a lot going on, but after a couple you start thinking about how bad they must be for you in the long run. And I do love them. When I don’t have one on hand, I wish that I did. Even though they make me a little sick.
From
Just kidding! This show jumped the shark harder than I could have ever dreamed. The first season is fine, but wow. I would bet there are crashed planes that made less of a nosedive than this show. It also has that awful trait that always comes with poor writing, so I also really didn’t care about anything that happened on it because there isn’t a single sympathetic character in the entire thing. Apparently, it got a third season, because I’m steadily being bombarded by advertisements begging me to choke down another slice of this shit cake. If you like stuff that sucks, From is available on MGM+ but I would wait until it’s done airing so you can just do a trial, because also the streaming service itself has literally nothing to offer.
Speaking of having nothing to offer, that certainly couldn’t be me. I’m really turning this ship around now, and I have plenty on the way. A free subscription will get you occasional recommendations (like these), and a paid ($5) subscription will receive recommendations, full reviews, essays, and ranked lists on whatever topic I feel like writing about.
And yes, all this “CONTENT” will remain horror-centric. If you don’t enjoy horror or don’t understand how people can, please reserve this discourse for other people like yourself, as I’ve already heard about this for the full duration of my adult life.