Notes in the Margins of Nightmares

Wouldn't it be cool to have something to look forward to in the mail every month?

I thought so, too.

We're living in a world that is increasingly trying to replace human labor, human art, even human thought. And as everything around us becomes more and more inundated with AI slop and algorithmically generated bullshit and sanitized corporatized messaging, I've found myself increasingly interested in creating something real.

So, to that end, I am now offering zines as a Patreon reward.

All zines are written, designed, printed, folded, stuffed into envelopes, and mailed by me.

Contents may include:

Original short fiction

Nonfiction/essays/deep dives

Writing advice and instruction

Interactive elements like journaling prompts

Art, collage, photography, and so forth

Bonus notes, stickers, errata, and other lil bits and bobs I find

Anticipate that they'll be horror-flavored.

I'm still new to zine-making, and I'm looking forward to experimenting with different formats and techniques. I'm looking forward to practicing art and collage and multimedia. I can't guarantee glossy perfection with every issue, but I will always deliver something unique that you won't find in any of my online materials.

Subscribe for $5 on my Patreon. I'll also sell the files so you can print them at home if you'd rather buy them as one-offs.

Here's a double feature from the same director, a fact I didn't realize until after we'd started watching.

Onibaba (1964) written and directed by Kaneto Shindo, is a Japanese historical thriller with a hint of the supernatural. It's about a civil war in medieval Japan, where two women live in the middle of nowhere and kill soldiers to steal their armor and weapons for money. They are linked by one dead soldier -- they are respectively the guy's widow and his mother -- and they don't like each other much. A neighbor, Hachi, hooks up with the daughter-in-law, which pisses off the mom because she blames him for her son's death, so she decides to retaliate by, uh, pretending to be a ghost-demon to frighten her away. Except maybe she actually is a little bit possessed by the mask she's wearing, which she pilfered off a corpse.

The film ends rather abruptly and ambiguously, and I get the sense that I would have gotten more out of it if I knew more Japanese history and from this time period, and more about Buddhism generally. It is beautifully shot, though, even if most of the visuals are just "tall grass being atmospherically creepy". But I quite liked the pitch-black humor of it.

Shindo's second film of the night is Kuroneko (1968), also set during a civil war in feudal Japan (the same one?) but this time it's about vengeful spirits (onryo) of women who were raped and murdered by a band of samurai. They're now possessed by a cat, I guess? and run a magical-illusionary brothel where they lure unsuspecting samurai and kill and eat them.

It's a pretty sweet gig, until we get to the part where a samurai returns home to his wife and mother (are we sensing a theme here) only to find them having come down with a bad case of the "we're cat ghosts now." That poses something of a conflict of interests because he's been instructed to kill whoever is responsible for killing everybody, and they have a pact with the underworld to kill samurai, soooo....

This was a really weird grab-bag of a double feature but in a weird way it totally works.

Othello (1995), directed by Oliver Parker, is a pretty straightforward adaptation of Shakespeare's famous tragedy. It kind of plods along, but it has spectacular performances from Kenneth Branagh (as a fourth-wall-breaking Iago) and Lawrence Fishburne (who was an agonizingly beautiful man in his youth), and Othello is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays so I'm always down for a rewatch.

Basic pitch: A jealous ensign manipulates his dear friend and military superior into believing his wife is having an affair, with ruinous consequences for everyone.

The simplicity of Shakespeare's premise invites layer upon layer of interpretation, particularly across race and class lines.

I've always read homoerotic tension into Iago's jealousy -- to me it's always seemed like Iago's issue was that he was in love with Othello and if he couldn't have him then no one could -- and this film certainly gives you plenty of material to work with on that one.

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) is directed by Nathan Hertz and written by Mark Hanna. I'd never seen this one before and always assumed from the title and poster that it would be a much cheesier film than it actually is. In reality, it's really a pretty nuanced domestic thriller.

The basic plot is that a wealthy heiress with a drinking problem and a shitty, philandering husband ends up running into an alien who infects her with radiation that makes her grow to enormous size. The husband is all-too-eager to get her institutionalized (so he can steal her money) and doctors don't want to listen to her, and the alien may-or-may-not have sexually assaulted her...there's a lot.

I am so far behind on posting reviews. But okay. Let's go back in time in my memory, and also in history, for one of the more unhinged double features we've had lately...

The Toxic Avenger (1984), directed by Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman, is the first of a film franchise and arguably the movie that really put Troma Entertainment on the map. Troma, briefly, is an indie production company founded by Herz and Kaufman, known for producing low-budget horror comedies with over-the-top farce, gore, sex, and splatter.

All of which The Toxic Avenger certainly delivers.

The film is about a nerdy janitor named Melvin who works at a health club frequented by douchey yuppies, including a crew of bullies whose side hobbies include running kids over with cars. One day the bullies decide to trick Melvin with some good ol' fashioned 1980s sexual harassment, which leads to him, uh, falling into a drum of toxic waste and turning into a deformed superhero mutant.

....Yeah. Okay. You weren't expecting this movie to make sense, were you? You fool.

Anyway, Melvin spends the rest of the movie running around doing vigilante stuff like killing gangsters and drug dealers and, of course, his bullies. He rescues a blind woman who falls in love with him (because she doesn't know he's a hideous mutant, right) and exposes a corrupt mayor and kills a bunch of people in colorful and creative ways.

Prior to this, Herz and Kaufman were mostly making ribald sex comedies, and you can kind of tell while watching this. You get the distinct sense that everyone involved in the production recently wandered on set from a nearby porn production.

This movie is gross and mean and entertaining primarily in its "wtf" factor. It's fun to watch ironically but is, to my tastes, a little too mean-spirited to really enjoy in that mode. Good on those Troma boys for finding a formula that worked for them, though.

Basket Case (1982) was written and directed by Frank Henenlotter, his feature debut. It's about a man who was separated against his will from his deformed conjoined twin, and is seeking revenge for the act. While everyone thought his brother died, he has in fact survived and lives in a wicker basket his brother carries around everywhere. At night, Belial the deformed twin sneaks out and commits murders, as you do.

I've written before about a very specific film that guys can't stop making -- the story of a sensitive, misunderstood guy with a terrible murderous secret who is torn between walking the straight-and-narrow to protect his lady friend and succumbing to his dark urges. It's the formula of Willard, Benny Loves You, Roman, Wilfred, Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog, and others.

It is also, of course, the plot of Basket Case.

I can't blame this movie for feeling derivative -- everything that follows it probably is ripping it off -- but it definitely felt like I've seen everything it has to offer before. It also feels very silly watching this movie after Malignant, which has basically the same premise.

Basket Case takes itself more seriously than The Toxic Avenger, perhaps even TOO seriously at times, but I found very little in it to really be memorable.