Monthly Round Up: August 2016

Time for another monthly round-up! Here at Satanic Pandemonium, I've been continuing my British horror series and I just launched into films made in the '60s not under the particular umbrella of Hammer, Amicus, or Tigon, loosely organized by theme: for example, I'm just wrapping up a look at films made about psycho killers. 

Over at Diabolique, we've continued our American Gothic-themed summer season, which is winding down now. For it, I concluded The Mausoleum of All Hope and Desire: Southern Gothic Cinema, Part 3.
I also wrote about: Japan Cuts 2016: Burst City, Artist of Fasting, and The Sion Sono
Vinegar Syndrome's new Blu-ray release of Petey Wheatstraw: The Devil's Son-in-LawArrow's new Female Prisoner Scorpion: The Complete Collection box set

Kino's new Blu-ray of Fritz Lang's Destiny

Provocative Pessimism: Krzysztof Kieslowski's Dekalog

I'm also doing an in-depth series on the complete filmography of British director Ken Russell, which is continued on with The Debussy Film.

For the podcast I co-host, Daughters of Darkness, we explored mad science in American cinema (and beyond) with a double feature, Transplant Terror: From Mad Love to Mansion of the Doomed, and in in-depth look at Hungarian director Miklós Jancsó with the episode Private Vices, Public Virtues: Orgies and Excess in Miklós Jancsó and Beyond, which covers everything from the erotic films of Tinto Brass to Pasolini, Fellini, Hungarian politics, and more.

Monthly Round Up: July 2016

Time for another monthly round-up! Over at Satanic Pandemonium I've been continuing my British horror series and I just wrapped up an in-depth look at the genre films of the studio Tigon British Film Productions. This month I'm going to move on to British horror films made in the '60s not under the particular umbrella of Hammer, Amicus, or Tigon. 

Over at Diabolique, we've continued our American Gothic-themed summer season. My essays for it have included:
Moral Degenerates: Rediscovering Leslie Stevens' Private Property (1960)
Gothic Madmen: John Brahm's Forgotten Horror Trilogy
The Mausoleum of All Hope and Desire: Southern Gothic Cinema, Part Two
Much of Madness, More of Sin: Edgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat" on Screen
Gothic Film in the '40s: Doomed Romance and Murderous Melodrama
Gothic Film in the '40s: Domestic Terror and Supernatural Drama
I also reviewed Mondo Macabro's special edition Symptoms (1974) Blu-ray release, even though I wrote the liner essay. I couldn't help myself. 

I spent the last few months doing an in-depth series on the complete filmography of Polish director Andrzej Żuławski. With lots of emotion -- and wishing I could continue it forever -- I finished up the series with an essay on La fidélité (2000), his penultimate film. And even though I was supposed to take a few months off, I immediately began a new series on the completely filmography of British director Ken Russell with a look at some of his early Monitor episodes for the BBC, Elgar (1962) and Béla Bartók (1964). 

For the podcast I co-host, Daughters of Darkness, we finished up our two-part look at independent American horror films inspired by Stephen Thrower's Nightmare USA. We did two American Gothic-themed double features: one on Roger Corman's The Raven & Masque of the Red Death, and another, All of the Them Witches: Superstition, Eyes of Fire, and the Calvinist Gothic. 

I also made a guest appearance over at Werewolf Ambulance, a horror-comedy podcast, where the hosts Alan and Katie were kind enough to endure me talking about my extreme love for Amityville II: The Possession for almost an hour. Incest, possession, a shit room, etc.

Monthly Round Up: June 2016

You may have noticed that in the last few months, I haven't been posting on Satanic Pandemonium quite as much as in years past. While I've always been busy -- I am, after all a workaholic -- the last six months in particular have pulled me in a number of directions. Previously, I posted on here anywhere from four to six times per week; now I'm down to generally two. Part of this is due to Diabolique Magazine; I had been a contributor there off and on for the last few years, but in February I became the site's Assistant Web Editor and was recently offered the position of Associate Editor.

Satanic Pandemonium is still my baby and, in a lot of ways, I think I view it as a sort of ongoing portfolio of my writing. And I'm still keeping on with this British horror series that will likely go on through 2016 and possibly into 2017. But since I'm now doing arguably more writing for other publications than I am here, I've decided to do a round up at the end of each month to share what I've been getting up to elsewhere.

Over at Diabolique, I've spent the last few months working my way through an extensive series of essays on the complete filmography of Polish director Andrzej Żuławski. Recently, I've written about his opera adaptation Boris Godounov (1989), his Chopin biography La note bleue (1991), and his return to violence and hysteria, Szamanka (1996).

We've also begun an American Gothic-themed summer season at Diabolique, where I've contributed the following essays:
Dementia: The Grimy Intersection of Film Noir and Low Budget Horror
Medieval Hysteria, Supernatural Evil, and The Witch: An Interview with Director Robert Eggers
Robert Altman’s Gothic Trilogy: Re-imagining the Woman’s Film
“So Be It” — An Interview with Neil Edwards on Sympathy for the Devil: The True Story of the Process Church of the Final Judgement
The Mausoleum of All Hope and Desire: Southern Gothic Cinema, Part One

I also reviewed Arrow's fantastic Italian horror set, Killer Dames: Two Gothic Chillers by Emilio Miraglia, definitely a contender for release of the year.

For the podcast I co-host, Daughters of Darkness, we finished up our four-part exploration of Żuławski's films and released the first of two episodes inspired by Stephen Thrower's Nightmare USA, where we discuss low budget American horror like Let's Scare Jessica to Death, Messiah of Evil, and Grave of the Vampire.

And finally, FAB Press is reprinting and will soon ship out Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia of the 1980s, a Spectacular Optical book released last year, to which I contributed a chapter.