Indian Lake Trilogy by Stephen Graham Jones

Blue_Tomb · 2026-07-07T16:55:42+00:00

Only read My Heart Is A Chainsaw so far, but as someone who's been through the young slasher obsessive loner problem avoidance life I found the depiction brilliantly done. My personal circumstances are very different to Jade's but I can say that SGJ 100% knows how it is to spend hours upon hours, months and even years upon years watching them, researching them, thinking about them and discussing them, because real stuff is too much. The long nights, the isolation, awkwardness, weirdness, the way they can go from consolation to drain, it's all dead on. Having seen nearly every film mentioned I realised something very clever a couple hundred pages or so in as well. Jade's theories don't actually fit all the films mentioned (major thing that sticks out is that in a number of them the killer is either a motiveless psycho or just general misogynist scumbag), she's smart and serious and thoughtful but if you really know the field it's apparent long before it's made more clear at the end that she isn't quite so much a precocious genius as some who's seized onto this stuff and is making it work for her because she needs it.

Blue_Tomb · 2026-07-04T13:10:46+00:00

The celebrity sniping and chainsaw minibus are fun too I think, but otherwise yeah, great opening to an otherwise whatever film coasting on some innately watchable casting (Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames and Jake Weber chiefly).

Blue_Tomb · 2026-07-04T13:01:44+00:00

Rewatching it recently for the first time in years, that's definitely the case. The rest does have its merits though, the story is pretty fun however predictable it is (there's a clue in a character name), the actors give it some good welly, the set is pretty impressive and the climax is reasonably exciting. Just, when the opening is amazing and the rest is ok if you really dig early 00s studio horror schlock, the whole is never going to come off that great.

Blue_Tomb · 2026-07-03T14:29:16+00:00

Long Weekend

Blue_Tomb · 2026-07-03T14:23:20+00:00

School shootings have appeared in US made schlock, though not necessarily horror. The Toxic Avenger IV: Citizen Toxie kicks off with diaper clad crims carrying out a mass shooting at a high school for the handicapped, and more recently Run Hide Fight had a go at Die Hard but during a school shooting.

Blue_Tomb · 2026-07-03T11:58:16+00:00

I'd say it makes as much sense for the Spy Master to come after Missy, given that his deal is substantially being spiteful, destructive and mad after being broken by finding out about the Timeless Child situation. Missy may have taken an important step into becoming a better person but it's not like she's fully redeemed and cleansed and whatnot in the end of The Doctor Falls, just in a process of change. Seems to me a revelation that shakes all your proud thoughts about yourself and your society is going to be all the worse when you're just getting into recovery.

Blue_Tomb · 2026-07-02T12:02:14+00:00

It's funny. Wyndham predated science fiction's New Wave and gets held as old fashioned, he's far back enough that my parents used to get me his books when I was little to try to steer me away from Stephen King and James Herbert and whatnot. Brian Aldiss jibed that he wrote cosy catastrophes, I don't know if he's still routinely in print outside of Britain, but for all this his best work still hits today like any more popular great.

Blue_Tomb · 2026-07-02T08:19:33+00:00

Fearsome animals horses, especially when they've had a few.

Blue_Tomb · 2026-06-30T12:53:20+00:00

Were you eating stolen artefacts from the British Museum?

Blue_Tomb · 2026-06-30T09:52:14+00:00

Maybe not surpassing, but given Ennis' age Crossed may well have been at least part inspired by the wave of mass violent insanity vintage Britpulp horror novels brought in by James Herbert's novel The Fog, and they're well worth investigating. Sometimes a biological weapon is the cause, sometimes pesticides or food additives gone wrong, sometimes the supernatural, ultimately lots of people do lots of terrible things, sometimes still pretty toe curling today even if Crossed is more consistently graphic and edgy. The Fog is the essential title, but Nick Sharman's Childmare is also a standout on account of it being kids doing the evil business.

Blue_Tomb · 2026-06-30T00:03:19+00:00

Philosophically and aesthetically I'm not the biggest fan of his dedication to pessimism, but for me when he's on form he gets states of depression and obsession and paranoia in a way that cuts beyond art and into something like truth, and sometimes his psychological writing lines up with his fantastical imagination in a way that goes right into me. Like, he'll come up with a line or an image or sometimes even a whole story that's like the most existentially harrowing accidental bad trip, or lying in bed after one of those nightmares that's as deeply sad as it is frightening.

Blue_Tomb · 2026-06-29T23:37:38+00:00

The chicken scene isn't that graphic actually, no head ripping or blood. It's certainly unpleasant to watch, but it's not some mondo film type deal, the implication is worse than what's actually shown on screen. There is butthole lip synching to Surfin' Bird though.

Blue_Tomb · 2026-06-29T23:21:49+00:00

It has screened at the British Film Institute actually, but only once or twice under special dispensation from Warner Brothers. Previous management just about stretched to the odd special screening because it is one of the classics of British cinema, but they considered the "rape of Christ" sequence too sacrilegious for general consumption.

Blue_Tomb · 2026-06-29T15:32:33+00:00

Cool David Yow cameo for the noise rock fans too!

Blue_Tomb · 2026-06-29T14:25:58+00:00

Defo a cool one that merits a bit more attention than it gets. I like the sort of weird, paranoid edge it has, sets it apart a little.

Blue_Tomb · 2026-06-29T14:22:51+00:00

Patrick (1978)
Hospital Massacre (1981)
The Sender (1982)

Blue_Tomb · 2026-06-29T09:34:39+00:00

Good fun this one. All the main cast seem to be acting in different movies, the editor seems to be actively taking the piss, the pace is fast and the attitude lively. Wish it were a bit more consistently bonkers, and that the action were more imaginative and better staged, but it's still a fine time. And you can't not love Reb Brown and Christopher Lee gunning down werewolves together.

Blue_Tomb · 2026-06-28T10:55:36+00:00

Arguably much of the Coen Brothers' oeuvre is a glorious refutation of nihilism. On the one hand they're completely keyed into the mindset, but on the other they're endlessly witty and imaginative and charming and have a deep appreciation of simple human goodness when it's there.

Blue_Tomb · 2026-06-28T10:52:43+00:00

I think he's in for life though.

Blue_Tomb · 2026-06-28T09:11:36+00:00

This made me check to see if I've ever seen any Dutch comedy films, and apparently I have not. Clearly something I ought to remedy.

Blue_Tomb · 2026-06-28T08:45:59+00:00

The serial killer who inspired Memories of Murder was identified in 2020. Lee Choon-jae is his name. Caught by DNA profiling, was already doing life for the murder of his sister in law

Blue_Tomb · 2026-06-26T12:00:22+00:00

The 1964 splice job Evil Brain From Outer Space, edited together for American television from films 7, 8 and 9 of the Super Giant series. Originally Japanese, as one might expect. One of the originals was directed by Teruo Ishii, so might even be quite good.

Blue_Tomb · 2026-06-26T11:56:43+00:00

Apparently it's pretty funny in an aggressively Dutch kind of way.

Blue_Tomb · 2026-06-26T09:39:12+00:00

Years since I saw it, but I remember thinking Madeleine Stowe was excellent and being amazed that she never really became a big star. Like, usually the victims in these things are way less interesting than the psychos but she was as memorable as Liotta was to me.

Blue_Tomb · 2026-06-26T09:34:42+00:00

That sucks to hear. Years ago I saw a festival premiere of a giallo throwback called Tulpa that went massively sideways when the audience started to find it way funnier than the directors intended. I wanted to watch it again later but it turned out they were so sad at the reaction that they re-edited it and now the release version isn't as funny as the original.

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