Do you like scary movies?
Book recommendations, my Willy Wonka impression, and more!
Welcome to my life, post-Alamo. It’s been a few days since I stepped down from my position at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, a company I’ve worked at for over thirteen years. I’ll be able to share more of what I’m currently up to soon, but - in the meantime - I have a few book recommendations to kick this newsletter off.
Up first is Stephen King’s YOU LIKE IT DARKER. This new short story collection sees the modern master of horror still working at peak performance. Elder gods! Ghost babies! Alligators! It's a great assembly of King-sized jams, including a story that made me cry and a story that made me afraid to read the newspaper in public. This King fella sure knows scary. I went through a period during high school when I tried to read all of Stephen King’s novels in chronological order. I didn’t make it past the ‘80s, but that just means I still have a ton of new-to-me Stephen King books to last me through the rest of my life. I wish I were as prolific a writer as Stephen King, but - as the Master writes in his first story, “Two Talented Bastids,” sometimes you’re born with the talent, and sometimes you ain’t. I’m thrilled to live a life well below the talent level of Stephen King, if only because I know I’m in fine company. Most of the world rests in King’s shadow, and there’s nothing like reading a good book under the shade. It's a good thing I’ve got thousands and thousands more pages of King’s writing to discover in the decades ahead.
Next up: Paul Tremblay’s HORROR MOVIE. I, of course, dug this hugely inventive meta-novel. Part SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE, part ADAPTATION, part liminal horror sleep paralysis demon sitting on your chest and whispering sweet nothings into your ear, the book is a beautiful explosion of creeping dread. A man whose only acting gig was in an independent horror film made in the early ‘90s finds himself reliving damned memories when the legend of the doomed film production begins to spread online. Like any good scary movie, the real horror of the book comes with the dissection. What’s real? What’s imagined? Does it even matter? Tremblay’s book mixes media to tell the story of a cursed film and the people still trapped in that movie’s dark shadow. Good stuff made better when the post-reading nightmares hit.
Speaking of horror movies…
Like Willy Wonka before me, I'm looking for somebody to take over my candy factory. Thirteen years ago, I created Graveyard Shift, a weekly horror series in Houston, Texas, but now I need somebody to take it over. If you have what it takes, email me!
Some basic details:
* We're looking for two hosts who can split the weekly hosting duties. This means you'll be responsible for hosting at least twice a month.
* You will be paid a small stipend.
* You must have prior public speaking experience and extensive curiosity about the horror genre. Knowledge can be learned, but this role requires somebody who loves horror movies of all types and is constantly looking for new and underseen films to share with an audience.
* Most importantly, preference will be given to folks who have been at least semi-regularly attending Graveyard Shift over the last few years.
Hosting horror movies is cool and all, but you know what’s cooler? Working in film exhibition professionally. Do you want to have my old job? Apply to be a film buyer at the Alamo Drafthouse. It really was a fantastic gig!
KINDS OF KINDNESS is now playing in theaters nationwide. Apologies to the haters, but I adored this movie. Yorgos Lanthimos is in full-tilt weirdo misanthrope mode again, and KINDS OF KINDNESS is precisely the kind of three-hour tryptic you could hope for from the director of DOGTOOTH.
What's the movie about? Who can say - but for the price of a single ticket, you get three hour-ish long mini-movies that are funny as hell, weird, silly, a little scary, and - most importantly - feature Jesse Plemons absolutely killing it. There's a single shot in this movie that had me howling in the theater like Max Cady in CAPE FEAR - just the mostly senselessly mean-spirited sight gag of the year, pointless in its cruelty but oh so cussin' funny.
Anyway, if you liked THE LOBSTER or THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER, see KINDS OF KINDNESS. It's just a neat movie.
I also enjoyed INSIDE OUT 2 (a lovely movie whose message I appreciated: dying your hair with Kool-Aid is the surefire way to make friends and impress people) and A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE (a swell movie that made me rethink my policy of putting bells on cats).
I found a couple of copies of WHERE WOLF in the wild last week. I think somebody’s trying to send me a message, though. Should I be worried?
I signed them anyway…
Remember, you can request a copy of WHERE WOLF from your local library or buy a personal copy directly from the publisher, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Brazos Bookstore in Houston, Ghoulish Books in San Antonio, or Whose Books in Dallas. If you've read WHERE WOLF, please consider leaving a rating or review on Amazon, Goodreads, The StoryGraph, or wherever you discover new books.
Even though I’m no longer a full-time employee of the Alamo Drafthouse, I’m hosting a few more events through the end of August.
Join me tomorrow night at Film Club for a screening of BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY at Film Club. Oliver Stone's anti-war epic stars Tom Cruise and helped launch the Hollywood hunk into the more "serious" spectrum of his acting career. Hey, it was either this or THE PATRIOT, and Mel Gibson ruined any chance of me being able to program THE PATRIOT nowadays. The show starts at 7:30 PM, and you can buy tickets here.
On Friday night, I’m screening one of my all-time favorite werewolf joints, THE COMPANY OF WOLVES, at Graveyard Shift. This Neil Jordan-directed banger adapts select stories from Angela Carter’s essential collection, THE BLOODY CHAMBER, casting a feminist gaze on fairy tales and lycanthropy. As Angela Lansbury teaches her granddaughter in the film, some wolves are hairy on the inside. THE COMPANY OF WOLVES has lush set design, spooky werewolf stories, and some of the best transformation scenes ever put down before a camera. The show starts at 10 PM, and you can buy tickets here.