The Cavern of Death is an anonymously written Gothic novel from the height of the Gothic's popularity in the 1790s. Its tale involves a knight who returns to the Black Forest region and discovers that both a man he once called friend and his friend's father have basely set their desires on the Lady Constance--the knight's one true love! Things spiral out of control in this love
Human :||: Nature
Never ones to shy away from either bombast or aspiration, Nightwish return with a new album that frantically gestures toward the big questions--particularly humanity's connection (or disconnection) to the natural world. Although not every song on the album is a success, for example, "Harvest" is not a track I want to hear every day, you've got to give them credit for striving to say something ambitious; few bands could even attempt an orchestral second disc without the powerful vocals of their main draw, and fewer still could make that (mostly) work.
Forever Will Be Gone
I have room in my heart to love even the Gothic metal bands that didn't really claw their way into ubiquity. Mortal Love really should have made a bigger impact; unlike many bands working in the "beautiful woman with a beautiful voice plus crunchy guitars" genre, their is quite a bit of variety to their sound on Forever Will Be Gone. The album also has some surprisingly heavy moments, particularly when compared against bands whose sonic assault mellowed over time. I suspect they were victims of a turn against the "beauty and the beast style" to some extend, but that's an aesthetic that never grows old for me.
Dark Shadows: The Salem Branch
I'm not sure how or when this came into my life or even who gave it to me, but it was suddenly time to give this a read. It turns out that vampire nonsense is my comfort food; should have known. It also turns out that The Salem Branch is a worthy extension of Dark Shadows, although it does contain some ideas that never would have made it onto the small screen. Barnabas, now cured of his vampirism, unwittingly eats a pot brownie; David goes skinny dipping with a hippie chick; there is a very accurate depiction of the Salem Witch Museum.
Darling very much feels like a low budget just-out-of-film-school project, and while I have no idea if that's accurate, it does feel like a very successful example of that genre. The story is fairly simple on the surface: a young woman is hired to act as the caretaker of an old house in the city, and the influence of the house either drives her insane or exacerbates previous trauma to drive her insane. Though it's true there isn't a ton happening on screen and what we get is mostly stylistic touches, there are enough interesting "gaps" to let the viewer conjecture about the story behind the story, which I generally appreciate.
And Hell Will Follow Me and Lay My Soul to Waste
A Pale Horse Named Death are often positioned as the continuation of Type O Negative, but that doesn't quite do anyone justice. For one, on And Hell Will Follow Me, APHND is essentially a two-man band; only one of the members was in Type O and then only for the early albums as a drummer. For another, while APHND is Gothic and doomy in a similar way to Type O--tongue-in-cheek while also delving into real-life depressive topics such as drug abuse and misanthropy--the humor doesn't really encapsulate that "Brooklyn goombas" vibe. Also, I think the comparison sells things short; APHND has a grunge-influence, think Alice in Chains or the heavier Stone Temple Pilots tracks, that gives the project its own identity. That identity does slip away at points, particularly on the absolute Type O worship that is "Die Alone." Lay My Soul to Waste has more of its own distinct sonic aesthetic; the whole album feels more cohesive overall, which gives me higher hopes for their third album. Although, oddly, a Marilyn Manson vibe creeps into the second offering.
Hagazussa is an exquisitely shot Gothic folk horror film about a young woman living near the Alps in the fifteenth century. Like her mother, she is a pariah. Abused, befriended, then abused even more. This is a quiet film, until it isn't, that ruminates on abjection and the kinds of revenge we take on others when taught that we do not belong and the kind of revenge we take on ourselves when we grow to see ourselves as hated and unclean. This film reminded me of Julia Gfrorer's comic Laid Waste; consider pairing them for your feels bad double feature.
Sword of Destiny
The stories collected in Sword of Destiny cover a wide range of fantasy storytelling. We've got madcap fantasy adventure! And a story that centers on the fluctuating price of trade goods! And one about relationship problems! And one story about life and loss that, I kid you not, actually made me a bit emotional. A witcher story made me emotional! Can you even imagine? You can listen to me regale my cohost with a recap of "Bounds of Reason" here on Bad Books for Bad People; keep your ears peeled for another recap from Sword of Destiny as well.
Dark Waters is like a three-way collision between Matthew Lewis's The Monk, H. P. Lovecraft's "The Shadow over Innsmouth," and Alice in Wonderland. When a young heiress travels to a convent on a remote island to reconnect with her mysterious family legacy--and to decide whether she will continue to use the family fortune to fund the nunnery--she learns more about her past than she bargained for. Also, I wonder if the scene with all the dead fish on the beach was an inspiration for the fishing hamlet in Bloodborne.
Clinic for Dolls
As with Mortal Love above, my reappraisal of UnSun is part of a foray into the bands on the periphery. UnSun tend toward the poppy, while still maintaining a pleasantly hardened edge. However, what really sets UnSun apart is just how punchy their songs on Clinic for Dolls are; they're short, sharp, and incisive. No fat, no allowance to wallow to make grandiose gestures. (Although the keyboard textures do skew generic.) And this will sound crazy, but: I detect a slight Bjork influence at work here.
Basically anything with Edwige Fenech in it is worth watching, but this psychosexual Gothic giallo is probably one of her best. Fenech plays a woman plagued by memories of her mother's murders who fears that the killer is after her. A black mass promises the end of her fear--or is it the culmination of her terrors made manifest? All the Colors of the Dark also exposes the age-old battle between psychiatrists and Satanists. I would caution the potential viewer that All the Colors of the Dark doesn't exactly deliver a brainfuck "kaleidoscope of psychedelic horror," but you definitely shouldn't hold that against it.
Vampire Hunter D: The Rose Princess
This is a very strange volume in the Vampire Hunter D series--and that's saying something. In The Rose Princess, D is described as being as gorgeous and mysterious as ever, but he's also positioned to be more the villain of the piece than the hero. This volume is all about the tragedy and romance of chivalric tales, but D is the character who ends all such pretenses with a swipe of his blade. (When it doesn't break; it does so frequently throughout this volume.) (Also, the Black Knight in this has got to be patterned after Monty Python's Holy Grail. Kikuchi doesn't mention it in his afterword, but come on, that guy loses both arms and still stands around talking for a while.)
I liked The Awakening the first time I watched it back in 2016, but I think a second viewing actually improves the experience. It's a pity that few viewers have likely given this one multiple viewings; knowing how the trick is done helps in this instance. The Awakening is about a woman who busts fraudulent spiritualists in post-WWI Britain. She's hired by a school that is supposedly haunted...but her connection to the place goes deeper than she suspects. The Awakening is very much a Gothic thriller; the ending is a bit convoluted and the pieces that fall into place are very convenient, but that's part and parcel of the genre. The atmosphere alone is worth excuses those "faults."
Dead Again
After getting turned on to A Pale Horse Named Death, I decided it was time to revisit Type O Negative, which I plan on doing in reverse order starting with their last album, Dead Again. Dead Again feels like a complete synthesis of Type O's sometimes ill-fitting musical preoccupations; you can point to specific moments and rightly proclaim "there are the doomy Sabbath bits," or "there are the galloping punk fits," and "there are the emulation of Beatles' hits."
I watched all three movies in Lucio Fulci's Gates of Hell trilogy--which also includes City of the Dead and The House by the Cemetery--but this is the one I'd recommend. The Beyond centers on a young woman who inherits a hotel in Louisiana, which she intends on re-opening. What she doesn't know is that the hotel was once the home of an artist whose murder opened a gate to hell--and the house still serves as the focal point that connects our world with the netherworld. (I say "our world" in a loose sense here; many things do not operate in Fulci's world as they do in ours!) Unlike the other films in the trilogy, The Beyond manages some decent atmosphere, and it concludes with a surreal downbeat ending that pleased me.
Voice from the Stone came up as a recommendation after I re-watched The Awakening. I can see why--they both deal in Gothic senses of dread rather than jump scares or gore--but they really couldn't be more different as films. Voice from the Stone is a direct route; whereas The Awakening concerns itself with plot, Voice from the Stone is almost entirely about setting and character: a young therapist travels to Italy to help find a "cure" for a boy who has been rendered mute by the death of his beloved mother. If anything, I think this film would have benefited from a longer runtime as in the end the story does feel quite linear.