It’s no secret that I am a fan of G. A. Lungaro’s Isidora comic series (as my prior interviews with him on my website as well as on the H. P. Lovecast Podcast can attest). The series combines the neo-peplum genre with the Lovecraft Mythos with a badass female protagonist – so it checks off many of the boxes of media I am interested in.
Earlier this year Lungaro ran a Kickstarter campaign to fund production of issue two of Isidora and it was a great success. In October, backer rewards began to ship to pledgers and over the weekend I received my copy. What follows is a picture story of unboxing my pledge because it turned out to be some amazing stuff contained in the box. A confession: when I donate to a Kickstarter, I do not pay attention to the stretch goals as I like to be surprised with what I received. And I was certainly surprised with my loot!
To begin with, my backer award came in a handsome cardboard box, sporting some nice artwork (taken from the Jay Espin variant cover) that depictions a R’lyehthian-style city with a hint of Giger.
Upon opening the box I was greeted with a divider/cover with an envelope embedded in.
The envelope contains a thank you card, packaged and presented in the same fashion as the Kickstarter for issue one (see below).
Under the cover that contained the thank you note was three art prints. From left to right they are by:
Samantha Branch – This is a print of one of the variant covers of issue one and I love the antiquity elements to it.
George P. Gatsis – This is my favourite of the three. I love the colours used in this one and the depiction of Isidora. She looks both pinupy and badass.
Deti – This is the artwork used on the edition that combines issue 1 and 2. This one has a very alluring Isidora with overt Lovecraftian imagery.
Under the art print was some stickers and trading cards. Because I love to keep things in mint condition, I did not open the booster pack of cards. Those will forever remain a mystery.
The envelope contained a cute little charm.
The last item in the box was the comic! In this case, I went for the special edition that combines Isidora one and two into one collected edition with a metallic cover! The presentation on this edition is extravagant.
And in one picture, here is the contents of everything in the Isidora #2 box.
And here is everything from both Kickstarters together. What can I say, everything here is above and beyond and of high quality. As an extra bonus, everything fits perfectly into the Isidora #2 box!
Lungaro hope to get started on issue three very soon, so I am excited for that. If you are interested in Isidora, I suggest you follow Lungaro on his social medial channels to see what happens next with his projects.
New episode of the H. P. Lovecast Podcast is now online! In this episode Michele and I talk about “Every Hole in the Earth We Will Claim As Our Own” by Gemma Files and “Eye of the Beholder” by Nancy Kilpatrick both from the Dark Regions Press published, Lynne Jamneck edited anthology, Dreams from the Witch House: Female Voices of Lovecraftian Horror.
Thumbnail by Michele Brittany
This episode can be streamed from our Buzzsprout website or via your podcast app of preference.
McFarland Horror Book Sale
McFarland Publishing is doing a promotion during October for their horror books: if you use the code SPOOKY25 during check out, you’ll get a 25% discount.
There are three books I am involved with that are part of this promotion:
This is a great opportunity to pluck these books up!
Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference CFP
The CFP for the 2022 AnnRadCon is now LIVE! Open until the end of December, AnnRadCon 2022 will be hybrid, both online and in person. The CFP can be found at the AnnRadCon page at the StokerCon website. Please share far and wide!
Michele at HWA Halloween Haunts
Michele has an article up at the Horror Writer Association’s website for their Halloween Haunts series going through the month of October.
Thumbnail created by the HWA.
Michele’s article is a “how to” feature called “How To Make a Spooky Zig Zaggy Mini Halloween Journal.” There is a contest open as well: if you leave a comment (you don’t need to be an HWA member) you have a chance to win the journals Michele made.
General Neo-Peplum News
History of the World Part 2
Looks like a sequel to Mel Brooks’ History of the World: Part I is in the works! Per this article at Variety, it sounds like it will be a series on Hulu with Brooks writing and producing.
For those curious, Tatiana Prorokova writes extensively about History of the World: Part I in her essay “Laughing at the Body: The Imitation of Masculinity in Peplum Parody Films” that appears in The New Peplum.
Women in Classical Video Games Cover Reveal
Bloomsbury will be releasing a new book called Women in Classical Video Games edited by Jane Draycott and Kate Cook. Here is the cover reveal:
Salomé Footage Found
Per an article at Benzinga, 2 minutes of footage of the 1918 lost, porto-peplum film Salomé has been found.
The classic era of sword and sandal films is an unappreciated genre and nowhere is this more illustrated than its lack of representation in Criterion-esque physical releases.
Cover art of Fury of Achilles from Gold Ninja Video. Used with permission from Justin Decloux.
During the aughts and early 2010s, as the battle of between Blu-ray and HD DVD raged on, standard DVDs reigned king. It was a golden age of physical media as big studios, boutique publishers, and even low budget companies saturated the market with releases, re-releases, special editions, limited releases, and so on. This was also an era of when budget publishers, such as Mill Creek Entertainment and Brentwood Home Video, took a quantity over quality approach and flooded the market with megapack DVD boxset releases that contained a buffet of mostly public domain and low budget films. Though the overall quality was poor, American edits of sword and sandal films flourished on these releases.
Budget releases of pepla. Photo from my own collection.
Further into the 2010s, Blu-ray won the format battle, but over all lost the war to streaming services. Each year there are fewer and fewer physical film releases, though there is an uptick in boutique publishers such as Vinegar Syndrome, Severin Films, and others filling the niche market for consumers who still cherish physical releases, especially those with assorted bonus material, such as essays, deleted scenes, and commentaries.
Pepla, though considered cult cinema, has fallen through the Blu-ray cracks. Most peplum films that received the Blu-ray treatment have been American involved productions that already had high quality surviving prints that merit suchreleases. The vast majority of English-edited peplum exists as low quality, full screen, saturated colour versions that bypassed the Blu-ray format and went directly to YouTube.
Today, physical releases of old school pepla are drying up. Budget companies, such as Synergy Entertainment and Something Weird Video, that used to churn out these releases have halted the practice. Only a smattering of the more prestigious peplum are honoured with Blu-ray releases, and even those are mostly bare bones. For example, the recently released Twilight Time version of Messalina contains only a booklet. Nary a commentary track or video essay to be found (for my thoughts on Messalina, click here).
Twilight Time release of Messalina. Photo from my own private collection.
For such an important and influential genre, the lack of supplemental laden physical releases is a sad state of affairs.
Enter Justin Decloux’s Gold Ninja Video label, an independent boutique label that strives to give the Criterion treatment to forgotten, obscure, and public domain films. Per Decloux’s Indiegogo campaign:
My original intent was to release public domain films on Blu-ray, ones that are treated like crap and that you could easily find floating around in a hundred different places on the internet, with the respect they had never before received. I created lavish deluxe editions that featured commentaries, video essays, and bonus films that would provide context and a deeper appreciation of productions that most of the world had dismissed.
Justin Decloux
Gold Ninja Video has released special editions of films such as Joy N. Houck Jr.’s Creature from Black Lake (1976), Hwa I Hung’s Kung Fu Zombie (1981), and Antonio Margheriti’s And God Said to Cain (1970). Gold Ninja Video has released films encompassing a variety of niche subgenres: from spaghetti westerns to Brucesploitation films to kaiju films. While perhaps not as renown as other exploitation labels, such as the aforementioned Vinegar Syndrome and Severin Films, Decloux makes up with it with pure gusto:
I love those companies, as my sagging Blu-ray/DVD shelves indicate. Still, I can’t come close to competing with the resources they have at their disposal when it comes to finding elements and remastering films. So I try to make up for it with a sheer force of passion and the hope that a GNV disc will serve as a starting resource to explore different worlds of cinema.
Justin Decloux
Earlier in 2021 Gold Ninja Video took their first plunge into the peplum genre by releasing a supplemental-laden edition of Marino Girolami’s Fury of Achilles (1962). Contrasting against their current catalog, a mythological sword and sandal film may initially seem out of place for a Gold Ninja Video release. Decloux elaborates on the genesis of publishing Fury of Achilles:
The peplum has always been on my list for a release through Gold Ninja Video for two reasons:
1. They are almost all considered in the public domain. 2. There have been very few discs that have explored the genre in-depth.
Through GNV, I always loved to tackle genres that many people are familiar with but haven’t really sat down and considered. The opportunity to provide context to something like peplums was something that was always appealing to me, even if I was a little nervous because it wasn’t a subject I had off-the-cuff expertise about, beyond passing familiarity with films like Steve Reeve’s Hercules and Mario Bava’s Hercules in the Haunted World. The Fury of Achilles disc was probably one of the projects that took me the longest to put together because I wanted to make sure I had done enough research to talk confidently about the subject. It took me ages to pick Fury of Achilles, but I finally landed on the title because I liked the fantastic elements, its a mixture of personal and grand, and the gravelly face of Gordon Mitchell.
Justin Decloux
There’s been a few releases of Fury of Achilles prior, typically by low budget publishers such as Alpha Video, Synergy, and Inspired (whom released it as a double feature with Lion of Thebes [1964]).
Inspired’s release of Fury of Achilles. Photo from my own private collection.
While the print used in the Gold Ninja Video release of Fury of Achilles may be on par with these other editions, Decloux elevates his version with a variety of supplements:
Short introduction to the film
A black and white essay booklet spotlighting peplum directors
A commentary track with Decloux’s insights and observations
A 15 minute short feature that acts as a primer to the peplum genre
Another short feature that spotlights fantastique peplum
An extended battle sequence (see below)
And a version of Perseus Against the Monsters (1963) making this release a double feature
There’s certainly a variety of features on the Blu-ray disc. Decloux had a Herculean task ahead of him putting this edition together:
I didn’t realize until I started recording the commentary that the movie was two hours long! But I somehow got through it by breaking it down over a few days.
I tinkered with the main presentation more than I usually do. The audio had a noticeable hum to it, so I performed some noise reduction surgery, and I had to subtitle some footage that wasn’t in English.
I also noticed that one of the battle scenes had some extra violence in it not present in the primary transfer used on the disc. Unfortunately, the additional battle footage was only present in a much lesser quality copy, so I had to decide if I cut it into the main feature or not. After many sleepless nights, I decided to include it as an extra – because it felt like an entirely different version of the scene – instead of shots that were cut out.”
Justin Decloux
The disc begins with a short, introduction on why Decloux chose to release Fury of Achilles as he felt it was a good introduction to the genre. Decloux has an infectious enthusiasm that is present on all the supplements of the Blu-ray. This enthusiasm is much needed because, as stated above, there is not much love for the peplum genre, so it is a welcome sight to see excitement for sword and sandal fare. Decloux offers some insight at to why pepla isn’t as revered as other cult Euro genres:
I feel like it has a lot to do with peplums having an old-fashioned structure and execution, throwing back to a type of cinema that modern audiences only have a passing familiarity within their media diets. The Giallos and Spaghetti Westerns are twists on genres that have been burned into our cultural consciousness – the slasher and the classic American western. Those types of movies also offer direct thrills – violence and action – which resonate universally. Peplums are frankly tamer than most European exploitation cinema because of their model and the “Golden Period” of the genre was before Giallos and Spaghetti Westerns.
Justin Decloux
The most important special feature on the Blu-ray is Decloux’s “A Beginner’s Guide to Peplum: A Video Essay.” The feature is about fifteen minutes in length and begins with a brief overview of the genre. With over 300 titles in the sword and sandal canon, Decloux states that finding an entry point into the genre can be problematic. He proffers eight peplum titles and explains what makes each of them a stand out film:
Ulysses (1954)
Hercules (1958)
Hercules Conquers Atlantis (1961)
Duel of the Titans (1961)
Fury of Achilles (1962)
The Trojan Horse (1961)
Revenge of Spartacus (1964)
Giants of Rome (1964)
It must be underscored the importance of such a primer in order to regain interest and attract new fans to the genre. It is strongly recommended to watch the primer and listen to Decloux’s musings.
The next feature, “Weird Swords and Sandals: A Video Essay” has Decloux disclosing a few noteworthy peplum films that has weird or fantastique elements, such as giant monsters and magic. His list includes:
Hercules in the Haunted World (1961)
Maciste in Hell (1925)
Goliath and the Vampires (1961)
Goliath Against the Giants (1961)
Conqueror of Atlantis (1965)
The Triumph of Hercules (1964)
War of the Zombies (1964)
Hercules and the Black Pirates (1963)
The Terror of Rome Against the Son of Hercules (1964)
The essay inserted includes in the Blu-ray sleeve contains information on noteworthy peplum directors Gianfranco Parolini, Alberto De Martino, Mario Caiano, Michele Lupo, Giorgio Ferroni, and Vittorio Cottafavi, along with notes about the film transfer.
The last major supplement on the Fury of Achilles release is Decloux own commentary track. Decloux is up front in the various supplements that he is not an expert on the sword and sandal genre, but he doesn’t give himself enough credit as his commentary track is quite insightful. For example, early in the commentary he brings up the importance of non-Italian (mostly American) productions to the peplum canon. This is usually an overlooked facet of Italian genre filmmaking by other scholars or enthusiasts. During the prosperous years of the 1960s, Italy had a robust and prolific film industry, cranking out films from A-list directors such as Fellini, Antonioni, Visconti, and others. However, in order for Italy to financially support the risky ventures of its auteurs, it needed a foundational genre industry that churned out profitable pepla, spaghetti westerns, macaroni combat, gothic horror, gialli, Eurospy, and other genre fare. This genre industry was not restricted to national cinema as other countries (America, England, Spain, France, and so on) took advantage of the same studios, crew, and actors that made up these films. This is a key component to understanding the Italian filmmaking industry and Decloux is right in the ballpark talking about it.
Fury of Achilles is an ambitious release by a small label, but it certainly accomplishes what it sets out to do: give the film the respect it deserve via a plethora of supplemental material that underscores its importance. Since publishing Fury of Achilles, Decloux has been satisfied with how well the edition is faring:
I’ll be candid and say I’ve received very little feedback about the disc [..but..] it has surprisingly been one that has been a pretty big seller. I stock copies at a local store in Toronto called Bay Street Video, and it’s the one that regularly sells out the most.”
Justin Decloux
Photo of Justin Decloux provided by Decloux.
Fury of Achilles may currently be Gold Ninja Video’s sole peplum release, hopefully it is not the last. While Decloux has other immediate plans for his label, there is the open possibility for more sword and sandal action:
A few months ago, I did a crowdfunding campaign to scan some film prints that had come into my possession. Thanks to a surprisingly positive reaction, I received enough contributions to purchase a film scanner. So, Gold Ninja Video is moving into the world of new scans! The first release with a brand new scan will be a Taiwanese film called Thrilling Bloody Sword which is currently available for preorder at goldninjavideo.com. And if I stumble upon a 16MM or 35MM print of an intriguing peplum film that doesn’t exist in any decent home release, I can assure you I’ll jump on it!”
Justin Decloux
A sincere thank you to Justin Decloux for answering these interview questions. Please see the links below to find out more about Gold Ninja Video:
For the month of October, we’ve had to flipflop out flagship episode with our Fragments episode. In this month’s Fragments episode we discuss Robert Eggers’ folk horror film, The Witch (2015).
Thumbnail by Michele Brittany
This episode can be streamed at the HP Lovecast Podcast Buzzsprout website or via your Podcast application of preference.
Bram Stoker Campaigning
For the first time ever, I am going to throw my hat into the ring for the Bram Stoker Award process. I have an essay called “Cullzathro Fhtagn! Magnifying the Carnivalesque in Lovecraft Through the Comic Book Series Vinegar Teeth” that is eligible for the short non-fiction award. If you are a member of the Horror Writers Association that is recommending works and are curious about my essay, it can be read at Academia dot Edu.
AnnRadCon CFP
The CFP for the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference is now complete. It will be put online on Monday and I’ll be posting it at this website as well.
General Neo-Peplum News
Follow Me Down Table Top RPG
Drowning Moon Studios has started a Kickstarter campaign of their TTRPG called Follow Me Down.
The RPG is based on the myth of Orpheus & Eurydice and the Kickstarter page describes it as such:
Follow Me Down is a tabletop roleplaying game for two players [and is] divided into eight sections, called Books of the Dead, where the characters journey through different parts of the underworld in search of one another. It is designed to be GMless, with each player portraying two roles during the course of the game. In each Book, one player takes on the role of The Fates (in what would normally be considered the GM role) while the other player portrays a character based on the archetype of Orpheus or Eurydice. The two players trade off, alternating who is playing their character and who is playing The Fates, until they reach The Gauntlet of Hope and Regret to determine how their story ends. There is a final scene between Orpheus and Eurydice, called the Denouement, which reflects upon the journey the characters have taken, and their relationship to one another at the end of the game.
This past week we published not one, but two episodes of the H. P. Lovecast Podcast (due to timing: 4th Sunday and last day of the month).
Episode thumbnail by Michele Brittany
For the Fragments episode we took a look at the 1997 Guillermo del Toro’s film, Mimic. This episode can be heard on our Buzzsprout website or via your podcast application of preference.
Episode thumbnail by Michele Brittany
Next, our Transmissions episode also went up. This is our interview episode, and we talked to three folks, all three who are alumni of the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference:
Farah Rose Smith on their short story collections Of One Pure Will
Rahel Sixta Schmitz on their debut non-fiction book The Supernatural Media Virus
Kevin Wetmore on their newest book, Eaters of the Dead: Myths and Realities of Cannibal Monsters
This episode can also be streamed at our Buzzsprout website or via your podcast app of preference.
Exotica Moderne Cover Reveal
Issue 13 of Exotica Moderne will be released soon! House of Tabu has done a cover reveal:
This issue will contain my review of the book Cuban Cocktails. The pre-order page for this issue can be found at the House of Tabu website.
Of note, my article for issue 14 is in the can! It will be an interview with pinup model Miss Corsair Debonair. The interview is done and sent in, just waiting on photos to go with the article. That issue will be released in early 2022.
Issue 15 I hope to finally do my write up on Caltiki: The Immortal Monster.
Academic CV
Updated the About Me page to include a link to the newest version of my academic CV.
General Neo-Peplum News
Aegean RPG
Stoo Goff has a Kickstarter going for an interesting neo-peplum table top RPG called Aegean RPG.
The Kickstarter description is as follows:
Aegean is a tabletop role-playing game about a group of mythic heroes building a new, free city on the shores of the Aegean Sea. There are neighbouring cities to trade or war with, monsters to kill, gods to appease, deceptions, negotiations and bloody skirmishes.
The world of Aegean is an ancient Greece that never existed – a mix of mythology and classical history. The gods visit the earth and converse with mortals, granting gifts of magic and life to some and fear and terror to others. Fearsome monsters roam the lands and seas making every journey an adventure. Strange creatures, some mortal, others half-divine, can be found in the wilderness. These centaurs, nymphs and tritons teach, harass or ignore humans as their whim takes them.
The polis—the city and its surrounding lands—is your home and where your loyalties lie. Your polis is a recently founded colony on the coasts of the Aegean Sea. The leader is called an arkhon, a democratically elected ruler after the Athenian fashion, rather than the hereditary king that many cities still use. The polis sits in a precarious position, between many similar neighbouring states who may wish to trade, ally or make war.
Your character fits somewhere in this world, between the capricious force of the gods, the wilderness and the structure of the polis and its ambitions.
Gladiator 2 Being Written
An article at IndieWire says that Gladiator 2 is current being written and will be ready to hit production after Ridley Scott’s Napoleon movie is made.
Afterlives Podcast
Egyptologist Kara Cooney has started a new podcast in September called Afterlives.
It can be streamed on Spotify or your podcast application of preference. Newest episode talks about being an academia, so extremely helpful!
Recent Aquisitions
Figure I would jazz up my news my showcasing any new neo-peplum texts I pluck up. While at a Zia’s Records last week I happened upon two metal releases: Warkings’ Revolution and Ex Deo’s The Thirteen Years of Nero.
I’m enjoying both, especially the adventure metal sound of Warkings. That album is interesting in that in a true neo-peplum fashion, it’s blending genres/histories together: Vikings, Spartans, Templars, etc.
Sorry folks, it’s been a slow September. I assure you, things are happening and I am making progress on projects. I just completed my interview with Miss Corsair Debonair and sent that off to Exotica Moderne (to be published early 2022). Lots of podcast recording for future episodes. Also, trying to hunker in and work on my MAPCA conference paper on Acylum and Vikings. So of course, stay tuned, lots of stuff going on!
Voice of Olympus Podcast Appearance
Our episode on Mimic for HP Lovecast is going to be delayed by a day. However, this past Thursday Michele and I were on Voice of Olympus as Scholars from the Edge of Time to keep talking about sword and planet films. We discussed the 2021 John Carter film. The episode can be found at BlogTalkRadio.
General Neo-Peplum News
Masters of the Universe Board game
In sword and planet news, there looks to be a He-Man board game being Kickstarted. It’s called Masters of the Universe: The Board Game: Clash for Eternia.
I did a write up of Catherine McCarthy’s short story collection Mists and Megaliths. The review can be found here.
New Episode of HP Lovecast
First episode for September for HP Lovecast is up! In this episode we discuss the one-shot comic book Lady Lovecraft, written by Mike Shea and art by Don Wilkinson. Episode can be found on our Buzzsprout website or via your podcast app of preference.
Mists and Megaliths is Welsh dark fiction author Catherine McCarthy’s second short story collection after her 2019 collection, Door and Other Twisted Tales. Released in the Spring of 2021, Mists and Megaliths contains ten stories of McCarthy’s distinctive voice that draws from personal anecdotes and Welsh folklore. This is a unified, singular collection, with stories featuring coastal and maritime settings, with nods to mountains, mining, and rock formations, and a reoccurring theme of dealing with loss, be it personal or abstract. McCarthy eases readers into her stories by providing introductory commentaries along with definitions for Welsh vocabulary that appear in the text.
Many of the stories in Mists and Megaliths pair well with each other, with overlapping themes and settings. For example, “Cragen” and “The Ice House” are complimentary stories that deals with the abductions of ones daughter by malevolent forces. “Cragen” takes a patriarchal perspective that is sorrow in tone while “The Ice House” is from the matriarch perspective and has a vengeful element. Two different perspectives on similar subject matter, and both executed marvelously.
“Jagged Edges” and “Coblynau” are another set of stories that pair well thematically. Both are from the perspective of an old man, reliving or remembering signifiant moments of their past. Of the two “Coblynau” inches out as the superior story, and that is because of how multifaceted and finely crafted it is. “Coblynau” contextualizes itself within a historic event: the Aberfan avalanche disaster of 1966 where a landslide from a pile of mining remnants (a spoil) flooded the town, destroying a school, and killing many folks, mostly children. The story’s perspective is from a venerable former miner who is committed to a retirement home. “Coblynau” has shades of Joe R. Lansdale’s Bubba Ho-tep in that both stories are critiques on how society treats their elderly by not recognizing their voice and putting them in an institution to keep them out of sight. As in both stories, the main character knows bad things are going on (a mummy vs. another spoil that threatens the town) while the employees of the retirement home refuse to listen. Both stories also have a creature-feature aspect as well, Bubba Ho-tep with its mummy and “Coblynau” with its titular impish creatures that help out miners when left some food. “Coblynau” is the most ambitious and complex story of Mists and Megaliths.
“Retribution” is perhaps the most “Lovecraftian” story in the anthology. A tentacled monster is imprisoned under a church in a mining town that starts to become corrupt. The town’s church is overtaken by the mine’s operators, who rapidly grow prosperous and more malevolent, their power possibly linked to the shackled creature, who like the character in “Coblynau,” is kept out of sight. Cinematically, the story has folk-horror aspects as found in the Dan Stevens film Apostle which is also about a town with an entity lurking within.
“Lure” is the most experimental story in Mists and Megaliths in that it is told through the second-person perspective. As you, the reader, an intrepid fisher-person, read the story/fish in a lake, a horrible backstory unfolds as you, yes you, did something unspeakable to a younger lady. The story is interesting in that it is, theoretically, a gender neutral tale, so it breaks down expectations of what type of person commits (sexual-assault) crimes.
Mists and Megaliths is not all doom-n-gloom, however, with “Two’s Company, Three’s a Shroud” being a lighthouse of comedy in the darkness. An older husband finds himself dead after eating a cholesterol-laden breakfast and discovers that his afterlife is mainly confined to his coffin, atop another dead soul’s coffin. Embracing an indifferent, matter-of-factly, perspective to the afterlife as found in movies such as Beetlejuice and An American Werewolf in London, “Two’s Company..” brings on the chuckles as the story’s protagonist attempts to make friends with his ghostly neighbor, but his boisterous personality is at odds with his neighbor’s more refined demeanor. Of course, the story ends on a note that there are things much worse than death when you have to spend eternity with someone that drives you crazy. “Two’s Company..” gets special mention for also dropping cameo mentions of older darkwave and gothic music acts, such as Dead Can Dance and Cocteau Twins. A reminder that the cool kids who listened to cool kid music eventually get old.
Sporting a fun alliterative title and containing distinct, focused stories, Mists and Megaliths is an excellent representation of McCarthy’s style and author-auteur elements. For American readers, the Welsh voice present in the stories adds an aura to the stories, given them a charm not readily seen in stories written stateside. Fans of L. T. C. Rolt and Arthur Machen will definitely be intrigued by this collection.
Notes
Michele Brittany and I interviewed McCarthy on our HP Lovecast Podcast, specifically on episode 2 of our Transmissions show, which aired May 31, 2021. The episode can be streamed at the HP Lovecast Buzzsprout website or your podcast app of preference.
We concluded our King in Yellow month on the HP Lovecast Podcast. This past Tuesday our monthly transmissions episode went up which contained interviews with James Chambers, Carol Gyzander, and Meghan Arcuri about Under Twin Suns: Alternate Histories of the Yellow Sign. This episode can be streamed at our Buzzsprout website or via your podcast app of preference.
Candyman Essay
Taking advantage of the renewed interest on Candyman ’92 because of the new Candyman ’21, I’ve written an article about bands and music projects that sample the original Candyman. This was a fun article to do and it continues one of my interests to explore the world of sampling.
General Neo-Peplum News
Essay on Antiquity and Far-Right in French Heavy Metal
Fascist Receptions of Antiquity in Metal Music Presentation
Dr. Swist will also be giving a presentation called “Fascist Receptions of Antiquity in Metal Music” at Brandeis University on October 19, 5pm via Zoom.
In sword and planet news, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. is publishing a new Carson of Venus novel, Skies of Venus: A Novel of Actor.
The new novel is written by Neal Romanek with cover art by Richard Hescox. The book is available for pre-order at the ERB website and is expected to be released in the upcoming Winter.
On August 27th, Nia DaCosta’s sequel to the original 1992 Candyman, also titled Candyman, was released to commercial and critical fanfare. Opening with $22.4 million at the box office1, Candyman succeeded where many larger budgeted films could not during the COVID-19 Pandemic with its performance. Candyman also set a new milestone by becoming the first black female directed film to top the box office.2
As Candyman ‘21 continues be profitable at the box office, attention can be turned to the original Bernard Rode directed film. Fans of the original will perhaps want to revisit Candyman ‘92 or those only familiar with the new film may want to watch the original for the first time. For those lacking physical releases, Candyman ‘92 can be found on Peacock TV and other VOD services such as iTunes, Google Play, and RedBox.3
Hopefully with renewed interest, Candyman ‘92 will see a flux of such revisitation and even more positive reassessment. There’s a variety of ways to take in and appreciate the original film: essays, fan art, and even homage in other media. The original Candyman no doubt left its mark in cinema canon, but it also left an impression on other content creators (writers, directors, artists, etc.). One curious example of such inspiration is the world of sampling wherein a music group takes samples of dialogue (and other sounds and noises) from a source (such as a film, TV show, radio broadcast, video game, etc.) and incorporates them into their own compositions.
Candyman ‘92 has had the honour of being sampled numerous times by various underground musical acts that hail from a variety of genres: hiphop, death metal, industrial, and so on. These bands use Candyman samples in a variety of ways. Same incorporate Candyman’s (Tony Todd) opening narration of the film into the beginning of their songs, trying to replicate an ominous introduction to set a specific tone and mood. Some instances are used as outright homage in order to broadcast the music act’s appreciation to the film.
What follows is a list of music acts and their songs that sample dialogue from Candyman ‘92. In order to illustrate how each artist uses the sample, YouTube links are provided for each song along with (when available) a clip from the movie that contains the original dialogue. This way the song and the source text and be compared side by side.
Aborted
Belgian death metal act Aborted pulls double duty with the Clive Barker references in their song “Cenobites” which is the last track from their 2014 album The Necrotic Manifesto.
The title is, of course, a reference to the Cenobites that populate the Hellraiser films that are adaptations of Barker’s The Hellbound Heart. In addition to the Hellraiser connection, the song is also tethered to Barker’s Candyman via usage of sample dialogue. “Cenobites” begins immediately with a quote of Candyman saying “They will say that I have shed innocent blood. What’s blood for if not for shedding?”4
These lines are also the very first lines spoken in the film.5
By beginning “Cenobites” with this sample, Aborted accomplishes two things. First, it mimics the original film by settingthe tone that something unsettling is going to happen in the narrative . Second, it takes the acts described in the sample (shedding innocent blood) and relocates it from the Candyman character to the sadistic villain in the band’s official music video who kidnaps a young woman and proceeds to mutilate her.
Da Boy Tommy
Tommy Debie, better known as Da Boy Tommy, was a jumpstyle Belgian DJ who sadly passed away in 2013.
In 2000 he released a song called “Candyman” which appeared on its own CD-single as well as various compilation albums.6
The song begins with a sample of someone whispering “Candyman.” At the one minute mark of the song, a sample of Clara (Marianna Elliott) explaining who Candyman is to Billy (Ted Raimi) while repeating his name can be heard, interspersed with samples of Carol Anne Freeling (Heather O’Rourke) from Poltergeist saying “They’re here.” This combining of samples from two different sources and merging them together to create new textual play is a hallmark of the cut-up technique pioneered by William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin.
Darling Kandie
Darling Kandie is a side project of sorts of Groovie Man of My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, a foundational industrial-disco act that long ago established themselves as auteurs of incorporating samples from exploitation and pornographic films into their music.
“People Next Door” from Darling Kandie’s debut self titled album is a song that is made entirely of collaged samples (constructed in the same fashion as the aforementioned cut-up technique), including “We need a new unity” which is from George Lucas’ THX-1138 (the sample also makes an appearance in the Laibach song “Regime of Coincidence State of Gravity” from their seminal Kapital album) and “Open your mind to me” which is said by the stomach mutant Kuato in the 1990 film Total Recall.
At the 2:00 mark of the song a sample of Candyman saying “I came for you” can be heard.7
The line comes from the scene where Candyman confronts Helen (Virginia Madsen) in a parking garage and hypnotizes her.8
The line appears once, briefly, before being lost in the sea of other samples in the song.
Deutsch Nepal
Deutsch Nepal is a Swedish industrial project spearheaded by Peter Andersson.
Their eighth album, ¡Comprendido!… Time Stop! …And World Ending contains the track “Gouge Free Market” which has the dialogue “I am rumor. It is a blessed condition believe me, to be whispered about in street corners, to live in other people’s dreams, but not to have to be. Do you understand?” repeated multiple times.9
The lines are spoken by Candyman inside Helen’s mind.10
This is unique usage of the sample, as the song dislocates the dialogue from its slasher-horror roots and, if going by the name of the song’s title of “Gouge Free Market,” applies it to the horrors of capitalism. Much like Candyman, rampant commercialism and capitalism can be inferred as an unseen, yet omnipresent, boogeyman.
Freakin’ Inglish
Freakin’ Inglish was a short-lived UK hip hop group that had only one release, The Rhyme Wrecka E.P.
The cassette contains a song called “Victim” that opens with a sample of Candyman saying “Be my victim.”11
The sample is form the same scene Darling Kandie sampled (see above) and is used to compliment the rapped lyrics “Be my victim” and “Look out, I’m coming to get you.”
Internal Error
Gabber/hardcore techno act Internal Error, operating under the alias Nyeṫ, took their homage of the Candyman movie to the next level by composing a track called “Candy Man” that appeared on their EP Party Madness as well as the compilations TrAUMa 2 (Nightmare On AUM Street) and Napalm Rave.12
The song contains multiple samples of dialogue taken from the film, such as “If you look in the mirror, and say his name five times, he’ll appear behind you, breathing down your neck,” “Be my victim,” and “Where they proceeded to saw of his right hand with a rusty blade.” As with Da Boy Tommy, Internal Error looks to be using these samples to show adoration to the original film.
JNyce
Canadian hip hop artist J Nyce’s 2008 debut Vaults of Horror has a song called “Satanic Rites” that contains a Candyman sample.13
As with Aborted’s “Cenobites”, JNyce uses the “shed innocent blood” opening lines from Candyman as the opening to this song in order to establish a horror-film mood. The dialogue also gets dissociated from Candyman and instead applied to Satanism, which of course conjures up imagery of sacrifices.
Mortician
Deathgrind metal band Mortician wears their affection for the horror genre literally on their sleeves – album sleeves that is. Their last produced album, 2004’s Re-Animated Dead Flesh has a cover reminiscent of the Re-Animator film, and songs that reference numerous horror films, such as An American Werewolf in London, Silent Night, Deadly Night, and The Hills Have Eyes.
The final track on the album, “Be My Victim,” is, of course, an homage to Candyman.14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN4QXAw-B-4
The track begins with a sample of Candyman saying “They’ll say that I’ve shed innocent blood. What’s blood for, if not for shedding. With my hook for a hand, I’ll split you from your groin to your gullet.” which is, of course, the opening lines of the film, and seek to replicate that opening much the same way Aborted and JNyce did. The song ends with a sample of Helen calling out to Candyman who suddenly appears and kills her psychiarist. These samples, coupled with the song’s title “Be My Victim” can be taken as another horror homage to the cult classic film.
[:SITD:]
German-based industrial act [:SITD:] (which stands for Shadows in the Dark) has an EP titled Snuff that contains a track called “Mortal.”
The remix of “Mortal” by Solitary Experiments is unique in that it contains Candyman samples from the German dub of the film.15
The track opens with “Fürchtest du den Schmerz oder das, was danach kommt? Der Schmerz wird von erlesener Qualität sein. Was unseren Tod angeht, vor ihm brauchst du dich nicht zu fürchten.” which is a translation of Candyman saying “The pain, I can assure you, will be exquisite. As for our deaths, there is nothing to fear.”
Near the end of the song the sample continues with “Lass uns unserem Leben ein Ende setzen vor ihren Augen und ihnen damit etwas geben, was sie für alle Zeiten verfolgt. Werde unsterblich! Komm mit mir.” which is a continuation of the above with “We shall die together in front of their very eyes and give them something to be haunted by. Come with me and be immortal.”
The song ends with “Man wird sagen, ich habe unschuldiges Blut vergossen” which is an interpretation of “They will say that I have shed innocent blood.”
All of these instances of bands and music projects sampling Candyman ‘92 not only solidify the original film’s legacy, but illustrate innovative instances of artists performing textual play to create a new texts with new meanings, or even pastiches in a post-modern sense.
