Things that brought me delight in March, 2026:
Rob Zombie's solo albums are, for the most part, pretty reliable; the only really question they pose is "What elements of the familiar formula will be pushed to the forefront on this outing?" On The Great Satan, it's the heaviness that comes to fore. All the spookshow influences are present and accounted for, but The Great Satan just plain hits harder than the average Rob Zombie record. Perhaps that comes at the expense of the catchy earworms of The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy, but it's nice to get an aggressive slab this late in the game. The big unexpected move here is the closing track, "Grave Discontent," which sounds exactly like a dope-ass giallo title theme.
Nowhere Burning has a great set up: it's a bit like "Children of the Corn," with a group of semi-feral kids living in the ruins of a mountain compound once owned by a famous actor who was up to some pretty bad stuff; the kids are nearly legendary in their own right because they are suspected of kidnapping people to steal their blood. (The weirdest bit: while kidnapped, they feed their captives baby formula.) If you've read any of Catriona Ward's other books, you know that she loves a twisty plot; the way she lays all the pieces out in front of you and then makes something surprising out of them is truly extraordinary. I won't say more--you need to experience how the strange kids, the film makers trying to make a documentary about them, and the actor and his lover all fit into the picture for yourself.
I don't know about your friend group, but mine was chomping at the bit for the next Earth Tongue record and Dungeon Vision definitely does not disappoint. Earth Tongue deals in heavy psychedelic rock, but don't let the calming color tones on the cover lull you into a false sense of security; the music on Dungeon Vision is positively subterranean--this is a bad acid trip while playing D&D with freaks in the steam tunnels beneath a second-rate college in the 70s.
Mayfair Witches would be a guilty pleasure watch if I was capable of feeling guilt over pleasure. Sure, maybe I wouldn't have enjoyed it so much if I felt more beholden to the purity of vision in the novels, which I read decades ago, but as a bit of sit-down turn-off-your-brain Gothic soap opera I had a great time with this. Rowan Mayfair, unlikely neurosurgeon, discovers that she's a witch and the heir to a supernatural legacy that takes the form of a slimily grinning spirit named Lasher. Look, this is really just a show about pretty women doing witchy stuff in New Orleans--that's a formula that works. In addition, I have to say that Mayfair Witches' horniness is often more compelling that the rancid dead bedroom energy leaching off the scenes with Louis and Armand in the comparable (and a little overhyped) Interview with the Vampire show.
Every time a new band arrives on the scene and is heralded as the one who will "save rock," it turns out they only have one song--a song that they play ten to twelves times over the course of an album we're destined to forget. This is not the case with Die Spitz, whose debut album Something to Consume shows a wide, varied sonic palette. Witness that thrashy riff and skull-squeezing gruff vocals of "Throw Yourself to the Sword," get lost in the depressive, dreamlike, nearly shoegaze-y tones of "Punk Pop Anthem," and the snide, grinding punkiness of "Down On It." Amazing first record--where do they do from here?
It sometimes feels like the mid-budget thriller is a "lost genre"; the 80s and 90s were filthy with classic examples of films that mixed plot-twisting drama, murder, and often a hefty dose of eroticism. The Housemaid shows that there's still some gas left in the tank and perhaps hints that the genre is due for a big comeback.
The initial plot is simple: a down-and-out ex-con in need of a job gets the gig of a lifetime as the housemaid for a wealthy family, but of course the household harbors a horrible, dangerous secret and all is not what it seems. I enjoyed The Housemaid way more than I would have guessed; the twist is fun and the movie has some pretty gruesome violence that goes far beyond a lot of what you might in mainstream horror. Apparently, a sequel has already been greenlit? If so, I'll be there.
Ponte del Diavolo's previous release, Fire Blades from the Tomb, was my favorite record of the year it was released, so I awaited the new De Venom Natura with sky-high expectations--and I was not let down. The band's thrilling combination of black metal, doom, and gothic rock remains in place, but they still have the power to surprise; who saw that horns on "Spirit, Blood, Poison, Ferment" coming? All that and a Bauhaus cover to round things out on the back end.
I read Joe Abercrombie The First Law trilogy last year and found that it definitely earned its reputation as a certifiable grimdark classic, so it was an exciting prospect to delve into that world again with the stand-alone novel Best Served Cold. Best Served Cold is the tale of Monza Murcatto, a mercenary captain out for revenge against the people who wronged her. Along the way, she enlists the services of a Northern barbarian, two poisoners, an ex-con, and a torturer. This novel is fantastic; its mix of grappling with the nature of vengeance, comedic elements, and stone-cold violence is a real treat. I think I might have liked Best Served Cold even better than the prior trilogy.
I got another does of thriller action, albeit in anime form, in March with Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue. In Perfect Blue, a singing idol attempts to make the transition to serious actress, seemingly triggering an obsessive fan to begin stalking her in deadly earnest. Coupled with the fact that her newfound role is systemically exploitative, her mind begins to crack under the strain. When a body count starts racking up with the people in her orbit--well, has our idol got blood on her hands or is something more sinister at play? Possessing an almost giallo-level of intensity at times, Perfect Blue deserves to be in the canon of great thrillers.
I read, and quite enjoyed, Mark Lawrence's The Broken Empire trilogy last year, so this year I tackled his Book of the Ancestor trilogy. This series features some great worldbuilding: the planet only has a narrow band of habitable land at the equator; the ice's progress is only kept in check by the focused light of a "moon" (really a mirror in space) as the planet's sun dies. The plot is a long-running set of intrigues as power and control shifts and things grow dire at the end of the world. Thrown into the mix is a young nun trained in combat, the use of poison, and "magic"; imagine if Harry Potter was a sci fi/fantasy series about battle nuns and was actually interesting--that will put you on the right track.
It's kind of wild that in March there were two movies with the premise "estranged sisters team up to fight back against the rich Satanists trying to kill them" playing in theaters at the same time, but life is strange like that. Ready or Not 2: Here I Come and They Will Kill You really are quite similar, though I think they each excel in specific areas. Ready or Not 2 did a better job of giving the villains distinct identities; it was also, on balance, the funnier movie. They Will Kill You, on the other hand, had such fantastic set piece brawls and interesting cinematography that I'll be thinking about how it was composed for a long time to come. If you only have room in your life for one of these, I say go with They Will Kill You.
I'm not really sure that the "Folk Horror" designation on the cover is an accurate description of this novella, but admittedly The Cellar Below the Cellar is a tough book to shelve. It's certainly "folksy," in line with Ivy Grimes's usual style, but "horror" feels like a stretch, and anyway how do you really encompass the novella being a light apocalyptic fantasy that reworks Slavic folklore in a way that I genuinely think no one else could have? I guess we leave it like this: The Cellar Below the Cellar is idiosyncratically great.
