Books I read in May 2024

Total: 9 books

— The Inhuman Condition by Clive Barker;
— Santasploitation: A Christmas Horror Story by Judith Sonnet;
— Playground by Aron Beauregard;
— Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler;
— A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara;
— Little Deaths by Ellen Datlow (editor);
— Claude Cahun by Francois Leperlier;
— Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield;
— My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness by Kabi Nagata.

Still Reading:

— You Glow in the Dark by Liliana Colanzi;
— Splatterpunk by Paul M. Sammon;
— Queer Little Nightmares by David Ly;
— Headcheese by Jess Hagemann;
— The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol J. Adams.

Of these, I greatly disliked "A Little Life" and "Headcheese"! The others were all great, some overall, and some just within the confines of their genre, like "Playground" -- I don't expect much from a splatterpunk book tbh, and Playground was laced with typos, clumsy writing, sexism, etc. But it was entertaining. I rated "A Little Life" much harsher because it's advertised as a literary work, so I had to rank it against other literary works, and it really came up lacking.

I was very pleasantly surprised by "Little Deaths," and was shocked to see myself as the outlier on Goodreads. Most other readers gave it only 3 stars, but I thought every single short story was a banger, with juicy theme and layered subtext. "Queer Little Nightmares" has also been a very pleasant surprise, with only one exception so far in the stories.

"My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness" was not as good as I expected either. I think you can tell that the author's depression struck her about halfway through working on the manga; the heft and drive of Act 1 peters out and leaves the story drifting. But yeah, the art is excellent, and it's still a 4-star book imo.

Film Diary May 2024

Total films:

May 02: Late Night With the Devil (2023)
May 05: The Frighteners (1996)
May 07: Lord of Illusions (1997)
May 11: Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
May 11: Cronos (1992)
May 15: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)
May 20: Mysterious Skin (2004)
May 22: Kidnapped for Christ (2014)
May 31: Terrifier (2016)

I had mixed feelings on "Late Night With the Devil". Overall I just felt it wasn't a successful film; the gimmick really drew me in, and there was enough substance to make me consider buying the Blu-Ray, but ultimately... I do think the use of AI soured me a little, but my opinion is mostly unaffected. Even if it didn't use AI, I would still consider it ... kind of an overbudgeted mess. Like, they put so much work into the sets and costuming that I feel bad rating it low, but outside of the gimmick, the story itself just doesn't hold up.

"The Frighteners", god, I gave this one like... 2 stars out of 5. It was not enjoyable to me, I found it very bloated and boring. The elements I DID like were Jeffrey Combs as Milton Dammers and the ending sequence with flashbacks to the Natural Born Killers in their hospital massacre. But it's worth noting that I watched the director's edition, and the theatrical release might be free of the "boring and bloated" problem.

I don't have much to say about Lord of Illusions by Clive Barker or Cronos by Guillermo del Toro; imo both were excellent films but just didn't resonate with me personally; Cronos was the better of the two. Conquest of the Planet of the Apes was delicious fun, I've been a lifelong fan of the OG Planet of the Apes movies but I never got around to Conquest as a kid! Is it a GOOD movie? No. Must a movie be good for me to love it? Also no. This movie slaps.

Mysterious Skin is truly excellent. I do have one gripe with it which is hard to verbalize. There's a teenage girl in the film, our main character's best friend. I can't tell if she's just a bad actress, or if the dialogue written for her rubs me the wrong way for another reason... She's too wise and too flowery, and she's the only character that doesn't feel like a real person to me. She's more like the magical, motherly girl-friend who innately knows all of life's answers. But despite that, this is an amazing film and it made me cry hard at the end.

Kidnapped for Christ is a documentary about the troubled teen industry, made by a filmmaker who initially went to the camps as a believer, and then slowly turned on the camp's staff when she witnessed the abuses there. It's not as in-depth or damning as the book I read on the same topic last June, but it's worth a watch for sure.

And then Terrifier -- low-budget but with a very likable killer. I loved Art the Clown! I watched this movie twice in a row, once on May 30 (not paying full attention) and once on May 31 (glued to the TV). It has major flaws, but again, must a movie be GOOD? XD