MUSICAL MONDAY: Mausoleum (Manic Street Preachers)

MUSICAL MONDAY: Samurai Mambo (LADYBABY)

Candyman (1992)

Mature student Helen Lyle (Michael Madsen's sister Virginia doing a good Gillian Anderson impression) is investigating urban legends for a research paper and is drawn to a local murder in a Chicago ghetto that locals blame on the mythical bogeyman known as The Candyman.

Like Bloody Mary, the myth goes that if you say his name in front of a mirror multiple times he will appear and gut you!

With Tony Todd as the menacing presence of the Candyman having comparatively little screen time and the fact that no-one who sees him - except Helen - actually survives, this movie works whether you accept the monster as real or just a creation of Helen's mind to mask a psychosis of her own.

Based on a Clive Barker short story - but relocated to Chicago's rundown, gang-ridden, Cabrini-Green housing projects - this is a powerful horror movie that balances bloodshed with suspense and psychological terror.

The minimalist score by Philip Glass (and the use of aerial shots early on) helps give the film an ominous feel reminiscent of genuinely creepy films like The Exorcist and The Omen, and while it doesn't live up to those ambitions it's still a refreshingly well-paced change to the stream of modern horror that relies purely on shock and gore.

The idea of a creature that needs rumour and myth to power its existence touches on similar turf to the more famous A Nightmare on Elm Street, but here the Candyman isn't so much looking for multiple victims as a way of getting people to believe in him again after Helen starts explaining that he's not real and only a legend born of hearsay.

Watched today, while superficially Candyman still appears contemporary (despite an abundance of large, floppy hair styles), there are many aspects of it that you realise if updated would alter the story dramatically, such as Helen's reliance on film in her camera, the lack of mobile phones, even the fact that everyone smokes!

Well, This Seems To Have EVERYTHING!

Stranded after a concert scam, an all-girl heavy metal band and their vampire manager, stumble into a town ruled by a warlock and crawling with cannibals, vampires, sirens, and a monstrous werewolf.

When they encounter a pregnant woman in danger, a search for help turns into a night of supernatural chaos, ranging from Minotaur-run betting rings to brutal creature confrontations.

The band must unleash hidden powers to stay alive, blending heavy metal, dark humour, and creatures into a blood-soaked, chaotic survival ride.

Devour will be available, on demand, from October 13.

MUSICAL MONDAY: Sweet Memories (Atarashii Gakko! featuring アイナ・ジ・エンド)

MUSICAL MONDAY: Faster (Manic Street Preachers)

My favourite Manics song from my favourite Manics album, The Holy Bible.

An official live-recording of this seminal album, along with a Blu-Ray of the concert performance, is being released in late October.

In 2014, to mark 20-years since the release of their landmark album The Holy Bible, Manic Street Preachers embarked on a sold-out tour playing the record in full. 

More than a decade later, The Holy Bible Live captures an unforgettable show at London’s Roundhouse, documenting a band revisiting a defining chapter of their history... this format includes the incredible full live show on CD, a Director's Cut of Kieran Evans' acclaimed live film Be Pure – Be Vigilant – Behave on Blu-Ray.

MUSICAL MONDAY: TTTTOKYO (Atarashii Gakko!)

MUSICAL MONDAY: Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na) (My Chemical Romance)

MUSICAL MONDAY: DESTROYA (My Chemical Romance)

MUSICAL MONDAY: The Kids from Yesterday (My Chemical Romance)

MUSICAL MONDAY: S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W (My Chemical Romance)

MUSICAL MONDAY: Welcome To The Black Parade (My Chemical Romance)

MUSICAL MONDAY: Oi AG! (Atarashii Gakko!)

Oi AG!, the latest release from the peerless Atarashii Gakko! It's also the opening track on the band's new album, From Tokyo With Love.

MUSICAL MONDAY: Drank Too Much (Flo & Joan)

Rachel's favourite Flo & Joan tune.

Vikings Versus The Undead In New Film Novelisation

"Smartly scripted and dripping with local folklore, Draug dishes up some unexpected moments of deliberate laugh-out-loud humour in early scenes that soon give way to screaming, insanity and dying as the adventuring party plunges deeper in to the legendary forest of Ödmården."

- my review of Draug

The unnerving, low-budget, Swedish swords-and-sorcery/horror film Draug has transformed into a novel, Draugr: A Viking Folk-Horror Saga, by the film's writer/director Klas Persson.

Published last week, the 351-page paperback (which is also available in hardback or as an e-book) is available from Amazon.

Set around a millennia ago, this is Klas Persson's debut novel, telling the story of a group of warriors searching the wilderness for a lost missionary, but instead discover they are being hunted by a supernatural terror.

There was a time when the pagan gods clashed against the new religion of Christ.

There was a time when the seid crones performed heathen sorcery inside their dusty hovels.

There was a time when the dark beings of ancient horrors still stalked the night.

In Viking age Sweden, a missionary bishop goes missing somewhere deep inside Eyeskogamörk, a vast forest that made a natural border between the South and the still pagan North.

To find him, or his murderers, they send Hakon Grettirson—famed warrior and lord of Sigtuna.

With him, he brings his troubled foster daughter, Nanna. Born in the dark North and plagued with visions and dreams of her pagan past.

This is the first time any of them will have entered these dark parts since the harsh Christinization attempts made years earlier during the reign of Anund Jakob the Coalburner.

Inside the darkness of Eyskógamörk they will both encounter the demons of their past. But also an ancient evil, lurking in the shadows.

The aptrganga

The walking dead

The DRAUGR

Meanwhile, the film's soundtrack is available to stream on a variety of sources, to give you the right atmospheric reading backdrop.

MUSICAL MONDAY: Storm (OTYKEN)

The music video was filmed in Siberia, Krasnoyarsk Territory, on the Chulym River. 30 km from the village of Pasechnoye (the capital of the Chulyms). This is the birthplace of the members of the OTYKEN group.

Chulyms are the smallest indigenous people of Siberia. According to one version, the Chulyms are the ancestors of the Japanese Ainu and the indigenous peoples of North America. According to another version, the Chulyms are an ancient Turkic tribe.

The song OTYKEN - STORM talks about the difficulties that people face when traveling to the East.

The music of the OTYKEN group is dedicated to giving kindness and warm light to all people on earth! The magical power of our music will heal your soul and your body as well, and it can even send you into a trance.

Another retro slice of bombastic music, from way back in 2022 (remember those halcyon times?)

MUSICAL MONDAY: Veteran of the Psychic Wars (Blue Öyster Cult)

Massive hat tip to Dungeons & Possums, who posted this the other month and wrote:

"This is the live performance of Veteran of the Psychic Wars by Blue Öyster Cult, from the Extraterrestrial Live! tour ca 1981, recorded in Pembroke Pines, FL and released on the 1982 live album of the same name.

"It contains one of the all-time coolest extended instrumentals in rock and roll, a guitar solo journey with spot-on accompaniment that rises and rises and rises in intensity until it feels like a laser beam, a cathartic blast to break the weight of a heavy song that would have surely melted a few faces in that lucky audience."

MUSICAL MONDAY: Sky Kite Valley (Original Music from Obojima: Tales from the Tall Grass)

Sky Kite Valley from Obojima, a new single by 1985 Games for the hit campaign setting Obojima: Tales From The Tall Grass.

Recorded and composed by Steve Gernes.

MUSICAL MONDAY: International Rescue (Fuzzbox)

Another part of my youth scraped up from the depths of my addled memory by a random sighting on YouTube!

I was a massive We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It aka Fuzzbox fan back in the day and pretty sure I owned both of their studio albums.

International Rescue - their Thunderbirds parody track - came from 1989's Big Bang.

MUSICAL MONDAY: Tada Utsukushii Noroi (Nakamura Hak)