Books
Black Friday Chopping List: Other Goodies
Black Friday is more than just the day after Thanksgiving or an unofficial holiday begging for its own 80s style slasher. No, Black Friday is a huge boon for retailers. In fact, the day got its name (supposedly) for being when stores would go from profits “in the red” to “in the black”. Over the years, it’s also become a massive cluster-fuck of rabid shoppers and disgruntled teenage employees who’d rather be somewhere downing eggnog. More than a few drops of blood seem to get shed annually as well. See? SLASHER – MOVIE. Sometimes, there are amazing deals to be found on the day, but it’s hard to know where to look. Not every store releases their ad paper in advance. For Black Friday 2018, I’m going to try and ease some that stress for you, fiends. I’ve scoured the internet to try and find the best deals, specials, and must have gifts for any horror obsessive this Pagan holiday season (Google it).
Mondo
Mondo has been churning out collectible goodies for years now. Based out of Austin, the company whose origins began as a t-shirt shop tucked away in the unused ticket booth of the Alamo Drafthouse, quickly found their true calling with the creation of gig-style posters to help promote various screenings of classic flicks. Now a new Mondo poster is met with great fanfare and fervent purchasing from their fans. Of course, the brand has extended beyond shirts and posters to include enamel pins, vinyl soundtracks, and even a brand spankingly new and awesome looking board game.
The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31
If you missed out on the Mondo Exclusive Edition of this board game, fear not, a standard edition is already available through retailers (though the website lists the purchase as a “pre-order” currently). The gameplay sounds like a more horror leaning version of the classic Clue. Based on John Carpenter’s The Thing, players must navigate the alien-infested confines of Outpost 31 while attempting to decipher who among them has been taken over by the shapeshifting monstrosity. Retails for $60
The Art of Mondo
Mondo posters can be pricey, especially if you attempt to purchase from a third party seller after a specific print has sold out. That said, a majority of their pieces are works of art in every aspect of the word and deserve to be treated as such. If you happen to be missing a piece from your collection that’s long out of print, The Art of Mondo is your best bet. I was lucky enough to receive a copy, and I’ve got to say it’s genuinely a beauty to behold. Over 300 pages of large, glossy poster art collected chronologically is a delight to flip through. Follow along as the art of Mondo evolves from the simple designs to help promote a film and music festival to licensed and fully realized works that celebrate your favorite cinema classics. The book is currently on sale at Amazon for only $50.72, though a special Deluxe Edition will be released on Black Friday!
Last but not least, in conjunction with Death Waltz Records you can nab Box of Souls – A Nightmare on Elm Street 8XLP Box Set. The set contains the original soundtracks from each of the 8 films from the series. The packaging makes this a piece well worth display in your collection, resembling Freddy’s bare chest with the faces of fallen souls by the hand of the nightmare demon screaming to break free.
While Mondo typically holds a sale on archived prints for Black Friday, this year their aim instead will be releasing new items. Of note for BD readers will be a Paranorman enamel pin.
Apparel
Cavity Colors
All “Cyber Hell” will break loose this Thursday at 5 PM EST! That’s because the appropriately christened company Cavity Colors will be launching their massive annual event, Cyber Hell. Everything storewide will be on sale between 35% – 75% off. The sale will continue through to Monday at 11:59 PM, though, patrons can save a little by shopping during the first 24 hours. Shipping in the US will be free for the first day.
There will be a number of enamel pin restocks including several from the Evil Dead collection as well as leftover stock from certain limited releases, including our very own Bloody Disgusting tee…which I don’t even have one yet! To grab these you will likely need to act fast as stock and size options are low.
Fright Rags
Right now on the Fright Rags homepage, a banner at the top reveals a countdown with the the line “Our biggest sale of the year is coming!” From Creepshow, Trick ‘r Treat, and even Goosebumps, Fright Rags has something special for every horror fanatic on you Holiday shopping list. I’ve been informed that all socks, pins, and box sets will be sold 50% off come Black Friday. While it doesn’t seem like all the shirts sitewide will carry the steep discount, I was promised that a “ton” of them will be half off. You’ll even be able to nab a “Tee of Mystery” for only nine buckaroos.
Personally, my eyes are locked in on the “Vintage Halloween Collection” which features Samhain boogeymen heavy-hitters Sam and Michael in retro styled tees. There’s also the Monstervision shirts, because who wouldn’t want Joe Bob Briggs’s mug plastered across your chest?
Hopefully, I’ve given you a few good gift ideas, whether those special ones in your life are art lovers or simply never leave the house in anything other than jeans and a t-shirt. Still, if you’re left with a few more names on your list – maybe this group will point you in the right direction.
Horror Candles
Every year around this time I get into a craftsy, Martha Stewarty mood. It begins simple enough with cooking around Halloween as I tear through as many pumpkin recipes as I possibly can. By the time Christmas has come and gone my kitchen looks like a Hobby Lobby has imploded in on itself. I make candles for gifts. Mostly they’re for those I appreciate but don’t feel like spending any real money on. That’s not to take away from the gift itself as candles are a good deal of work and the process of crafting them can be somewhat therapeutic. I even concoct the aromas and names based off a number of horror films. “Norma” smells like fresh baked cookies, “Swamp Thing” like moss and patchouli, and “Pumkinhead” smells like the rotten sweetness of pumpkin pie with hints of dirt. All this to say, I have no Etsy shop…yet. But, I truly believe candles can make a perfect gift for a horror fan. Who doesn’t like their shit to smell nice? Even better if you can tie them into the receivers own interests. Below are a couple I was able to track down online.
Cavity Candles
Again, our friends at Cavity Colors come through! Their candles are all hand-poured, 100% soy wax (which means they won’t emit carbon soot like regular paraffin candles). Bonus, each jar candle comes with a colorful decorative label that perfectly matches with the Cavity Color brand. Catch them in “Mystery Scent”, “Re-agent” and more! Hopefully, these won’t be left out of the sale this year.
Horror Decor
The site, Horror Decor, offers a wide array of oddball homegoods for lovers of the macabre. You can easily marry your obsessions with design and decay by clicking through their offerings. On the flickering flame front, they have “An Offering to Krampus” scented candle and wax melt that promises a ” blend of mistletoe, frankincense, myrrh, and a subtle hint of pine.” The idea of a pleasant fragrance with the added benefit of warding off Christmas’s most evil demonic force is super, but even cooler are these VHS wax melts complete with “Be Kind, Rewind” smiley faces! The cassettes smell like soda while the smileys contain the buttery aroma of popcorn. Pop these in your wax warmer and throw in a Vinegar Syndrome blu and prepare to get whisked away to your childhood evenings spent at the video store.
At the end of the day, horror is big business and retailers have finally started to take notice. Even Wal-Mart carries a seasonal t-shirt with Freddy and Jason chilling by the Christmas Tree! So, no matter how you plan to spend your Black Friday, rest easy knowing your loved ones have plenty of options when it comes to scrambling to find a gift just right for you. And as our very own frequent commenter Creepshow has pointed out, if you don’t like it – there’s always those trusty gift receipts.
I am a sucker for tales of small communities beset by shadowy occult influence, particularly those that blend real esotericism with fictional worlds and people. There’s a trick to it, though, and it’s not just about the atmospheric power of the occult imagery and lore. The community, the people on whom the darkness is preying, has to feel lived-in, real, strange, and singular even before the magic and the terror set in.
Shannon Morgan‘s latest novel, A Penance for Crows, gets that right from the opening pages. Set on a secluded Irish island and told from the perspective of an outsider who’s learned to coexist with a theocratic community, it’s immediately immersive, which helps make it one of those books fans of folk and occult horror absolutely shouldn’t miss.
Grizela is a painter, living in relative seclusion in a cottage on the island of Beanna Dubh. She moved here from Scotland long ago, sells her paintings under pseudonyms, and in general kind of likes that the rest of the islanders see her as an oddball at best and a bad influence at worst. She spends her days painting, reading, and mentoring local girls Nessa, Una, Enya, and Maeve, hoping that they’ll one day find freedom beyond the island.
Beanna Dubh, you see, is tightly controlled by the Catholic Church, particularly the aging Father Murphy, who runs the local parish and keeps a tight grip on the reins of the community.
So when one of Father Murphy’s underlings turns up dead on Beanna Dubh’s shores, it sends ripples of terror through the community. Grizela, as the person who finds the body, is the subject of particular suspicion, and the local superstitions about the flocks of crows who live on the island and supposedly warn of impending doom flare up all over again. A mystery is afoot, one marked by ancient sigils and strange happenings, and if Grizela doesn’t solve it, it just might consume her.
What jumped out at me first about this book is how good Morgan is at balancing initial jolts of exposition with atmospheric worldbuilding and, of course, sound character work. Grizela is inherently fascinating, an outsider who nevertheless has spent enough time on the island to know it in and out. She’s up on all the gossip, knows where the chief tension lies, and sees paths to deeper connections through fellow misfits and expats. Or at least…she thinks she does.
Morgan does not waste a moment in diving straight into the plot, knocking Grizela back on her heels and leaving her scrambling for answers as the town moves closer and closer to something like a full-blown Satanic panic. This leaves her looking for footholds, whether they lay in the past or the present, and sets up very clear avenues of antagonism for characters like Father Murphy. It’s all beautifully arranged, and the ways of the island people – from their own peculiar way of greeting each other to the significance of local landmarks – stand out with a vividness that recalls folk horror classics like The Wicker Man.
This careful arrangement of story elements emerges so Morgan can spend the back half of the book not just upsetting the balance of life on Beanna Dubh, but blurring it, giving it depth and shade like a painter might blend colors. Grizela’s present starts to echo her past, sending her into corners of her mind she’d rather not go.
The line between what seems like accidental deaths and superstitions of diabolical influence practically disappears, as it no longer seems to matter whether the Devil is afoot or it just feels like he is. The church, the town’s protective and guiding influence, takes on more shades of malevolence, and even though they feel predictable, they fit right in to the larger tapestry.
The result is a book that delivers folk horror in the classic sense, calling to mind the novels of Dennis Wheatley and Thomas Tryon as well as films like Blood on Satan’s Claw and Witchfinder General, with an added sense of timelessness that really sings. If I have any major complaint, it’s that the pieces of evidence building to a solution start to get a little too convenient at times, losing some of the book’s well-earned ambiguity on its course toward explaining everything that’s happened.
That’s more personal preference than a question of good craft, however. If you love folk horror, occult horror, or just atmospheric, Gothic chills mixed with old, dark magic, you will love A Penance for Crows.
A Penance for Crows is out now wherever books are sold.
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