Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!
This week, David Cronenberg directs a story about a cursed glove.
Episode 1.12 “Faith Healer”
(Dir by David Cronenberg, originally aired on February 8th, 1988)
After being absent for the last few episodes, Jack has returned to the antique shop and he’s back just in time to investigate a faith healer named Stewart Fishoff (Miguel Fernandes).
Fishoff started his career as a phony evangelist, one who was exposed by one of Jack’s friends, Jerry Scott (Robert A. Silverman). However, Fishoff is back and now, it appears that he truly does have the power to heal the sick. Jack can’t help but notice that Fishoff is now wearing a white glove, one that was purchased from the store. The glove can take away someone’s illness but then it then passes on that illness to the next person that it touches. With Micki busy researching the store’s history and Ryan suffering from a cold, Jack pays a visit to Jerry to plot how to get back the glove.
The problem is that Jerry wants the glove for himself and he’s willing to kill not only Fishoff but also Jack to get it.
Faith Healer was directed by David Cronenberg, one of the many prominent Canadian horror filmmakers who directed an episode or two of this show. Not surprisingly, the episode is full of visually striking images, from Fishoff’s church and the member of his cult to the scenes of suddenly sickened skin erupting and then rotting away. Indeed, if you watched this episode and somehow missed the directorial credit, you would still be able to guess that it came from the mind of David Cronenberg. It’s full of moody Cronenbergian images and themes, as the rational skepticism of Jerry goes to war with the faith of Fishoff’s cult and both turn out to be equally destructive. A good deal of this episode focused on showing how both Fishoff and Jerry were seduced by the cursed glove and its promise of power. If you’ve ever wondered why everyone on this show is so quick to use the antiques for evil, this episode seems to suggest that the antiques are a bit like a powerful drug. Once you give in to the temptation, the addiction quickly follows.
This episode was well-acted by both Cronenberg regular Robert A. Silverman and Chris Wiggins. Silverman turns Jerry into a compelling villain, one who falls victim to the same dark magic that he previously made a career out of debunking. This episode ends with Jack in a particularly dark place and Chris Wiggins does a great job of capturing Jack’s disillusionment. As Jack points out, all of his friends are either evil or dead or both! This episode explores the pain that comes from both owning the antiques and tracking them down.
Next week: Micki and Ryan travel in time to pursue a vampire!
70 new releases puts me a little behind my usual curve, but it’s still a respectable number, and maybe I made up for quantity in quality? I skimmed a hell of a lot of albums this year that I didn’t end up purchasing. These are my favorites of the ones I connected with enough to really sink my teeth into. Going to keep it a bit shorter this year than last, 25 albums that rose above “good” to something I distinctly enjoyed repeatedly from start to finish.
Slow plodding dungeon synthed black metal that forsakes aggression and taps the more enchanting elements of the genre. What you hear is what you get; I wouldn’t say it grew on me much with repetition, but it didn’t need to. While the artists aren’t stylistically all that similar, this album appealed to me in something of the same manner as later era Falkenbach.
Last year, Kostnatění released an 18 minute EP consisting of three black metal reinterpretations of Turkish folk music, and it stands as one of the most delightful things I’ve heard in ages. A year and a half after finding it, I still can’t stop turning to it the moment I tire of artists that require effort and want something that just fucking slays. Úpal does not quite achieve that height for lack of the underlying groove that makes me want to bang my head through my dashboard every time I counter commuter traffic with Oheň hoří tam, kde padl. But the melodies are still wacky as hell, and I challenge you to ride this one out without a “what the fuck are they doing” moment.
23. Moonlight Sorcery – Horned Lord of the Thorned Castle
Moonlight Sorcery entered the stage last year with some great EPs that promised the next big thing in melodic black metal. Horned Lord of the Thorned Castle delivered enough to make my chart. I still hear a project in its infancy, working out the kinks of how to weave rhythmic bombast and endless joyride guitar noodling into a consistent package, but this band excites me, both for promises of things to come and direct enjoyment of what they’re crafting along the way. The fun they had making it is tangible, and it fed my occasional craving for a highly melodic powderkeg well over the past few months.
Oh hey look it’s more death metal on my list. This is the first year I’ve eagerly clicked on everything I see with a slam tag. It was kind of uncharted territory when I fell in love with Epicardiectomy’s discography last year. This is not a remotely genre-informed pick, but it stood out from the crowd for me for the way the songs flowed–the way it hit hardest in all the right places and kept me constantly engaged wondering what ridiculous thing they’d do next.
I’ve become an avid consumer of I, Voidhanger Records releases, and while I didn’t get to catch them all, four wiggled their way into my top 25 and a number of others came close. Synth-heavy brooding black metal that appears to take a lot of cues from Blut Aus Nord and Akhlys but still manages to forge his own distinct sound, Hasard ships a relentlessly dark vibe. Choral Inane in particular does an awesome job of putting a proper piano to use in bm, something I’ve encountered astonishingly little of over the years. I sampled it for its uniqueness, but the quality is consistent throughout and I want to pick half the album as my sample track.
20. Esoctrilihum – Astraal Constellations of the Majickal Zodiac
atmospheric/experimental black metal Sample track: Saturnyôsmachia
This album is two hours and ten minutes long and doesn’t offer many breaks along the way. Last year’s Consecration of the Spiritüs Flesh put Esoctrilihum on my radar, though apparently he released two other albums between them? His most distinguishing feature might be a uniquely wacky vocal style that he almost never deviates from, but that’s possibly the only point of consistency between these two albums. Where Spiritüs Flesh was a brutal assault, this is a melody-minded star cruiser. It persistently goes hard, but I hardly notice. I’ve found it honestly really relaxing, especially to roll out late at night when I’m half awake and my body’s still getting chores done but my brain is shutting down. It’s become my short term default for the occasion. I never paid close attention to whatever narrative progression Asthâghul is attempting to ship here, and I never intend to. I’m sold on its echoed synth-heavy ambience.
I’m never quite sure what “EP” means in a modern sense. This one is 44 minutes long. Whatever. Ayloss never fails to release something I really enjoy every year, and while I observed a bit more talk around his new Auriferous Flame album Ardor for Black Mastery, 11 Days was the one for me. The album rotates back and forth between two black metal tracks and two ambient tracks, and it’s surprisingly hard to say which I like more. It’s certainly not as content heavy as a typical full length Spectral Lore release, but it’s fabulously vivid and convincing in its thematic portrayal of a migrant’s harrowing voyage across the Mediterranean.
By the way, Ayloss announced he’ll be releasing IV next year and dropped a sample track which I’m intentionally avoiding. It’s been a decade and a dozen or more releases since he added an album to his original number sequence series, and III might still stand as my favorite thing he’s made, so I’m pretty hyped to get something that can compete for my 2024 album of the year!
I’m easily turned off by old bands playing old styles, but Dying Fetus maintained my interest long after their style standardized. Their sense of rhythm gets to me every time. Everything is so precise, so keenly timed. They’re one of the ultimate stop thinking and just bang your head bands to me. Ideal pull into the office blasting at max volume and then give your fellow commuters in the parking lot a hearty “good morning!” jams.
I could see Seven Crowns and Seven Seals drawing comparisons to a lot of Century Media types on the surface for their big sounds and anthemic progressions, but the boldly brooding and blackened journey engages me more like Ruins of Beverast’s Thule Grimoires. I’m getting a similar satisfaction out of the mood it ships, and there’s a ton of creative song-writing waiting to be discovered. Every play through I gain something new, and I expect this will stick with me a while into the next year.
The pedants of Metal Archives denied this a metal label. Judge for yourself. Or don’t so I can win a round of Walrus with it some time next year. It’s backloaded for sure and the slow start hurts its placement a little, but Disturbing Advances is possibly my favorite tracks of the year and the album hits and rides peak chaos well before that. Toot toot.
I kept forgetting this existed for ranking purposes because my head was so locked into metal spheres and for all its growling and distortion and blast beats it never felt like a metal album at all to me. It’s unconditionally uplifting; dreamy; an electronic folk-laced post-rock fantasy that applies black metal techniques to ship its feel forcefully, not counterbalance it with a hint of darkness.
Bands have long tried to be more ridiculous than all bands before them, and every couple of years someone succeeds, but why is this so damn listenable? Like I’m not just laughing at it I’m authentically enjoying the aesthetic. That shouldn’t be possible with music that sounds like this.
I think this is the most well known album on my list? I’ve definitely seen a lot of mentions of it in non-metal circles. Good on them for hitting it off bigger than most. I enjoyed Planetary Clairvoyance in 2019 more than I remembered if play count is any indication, but this one is resonating with me on a higher level. It’s not just well written songs–there’s a fullness and balance to their sound on this album that I find instantly satisfying every time I put it on. Look I’m a black metal guy posting a year end chart that’s majority death metal. I don’t have a head for technical diddling, I just listen for vibes. I feel like death metal bands have traditionally leaned on the former and as more and more of them drill my aesthetic sensibilities with vastly more interesting compositions than standard bm fair, aaaaaa I don’t know what to say about it but 2023 has been one hell of a year for this subgenre.
Similar to Eminence in 2021, Alternance launches out the gate into an anthem compelling enough to be any other album’s grand finale. That’s a pretty strong selling point. The part of the album I am actually paying the most attention to also happens to be the brightest highlight. From there, my mind plays tricks on me, hungering for Faminesque medieval black and roll odysseys despite knowing that Passéisme have no breaks and will assault my ears with the same relentless energy from start to finish. Better to not think so hard. Alternance resides in a middle space, offering too many catch riffs to settle into background ambience and not much more if I give it my undivided attention. It’s been a great jam to kick off my work shift too, constantly pricking my brain while never becoming an outright distraction. I’m still waiting for that album of the year contender they’re just a little nuance away from composing, but in the meantime this certainly enhanced my 2023 experience more than most.
In addition to various albums under his main project Sadness and other pseudonyms, Damián Antón Ojeda rolled out 479 minutes and 56 seconds of new material this year under his black metal monicker Trhä. That is a little over seven and a half hours of music across 16 albums, EPs, and splits, and no, I did not listen to it all. But what I heard was even more impressive as his 2021 debuts. He doesn’t release music in a manner particularly compatible with year-end lists–it’s exceedingly difficult to wrap my head around any one album when I tend to go in for passive plays through large chunks of it all at once. But this release stood out to me among the pack instantly, and I don’t consider it a token inclusion. If I broke my rules and took his body of work collectively, he’d just walk away with #1. This dude’s single-handedly creating enough inspired music to fill an entire top 10 roster if emotionally driven black metal is your jam.
I’m not easily swooned by notes notes notes notes but holy cheese balls this band crams in so much relevant content. It’s a blisteringly paced death metal album that goes appreciably harder than most artists I hear croon this much, and the constantly shifting stage around the relentless lead guitar makes each song’s twenty seven and a half guitar solos feel like they are a force of progression, not just a climax. It’s a lot to digest, but I don’t think it really needs to be digested to be enjoyed.
Maybe I’m just inexperienced in bdm relative to other subgenres of metal, but I’ve not been oblivious to its existence all these yes and still have to say, really, what the fuck is this shit? I can’t stop listening to it, and that has definitely not applied for me to bands of this sort traditionally. This is aEsThEtIcAlLy PlEaSiNg MuSiC imo glgl
This is a death metal album and nothing changes that, but every time I put it on I’m left thinking like what if someone took the three most eclectic metal minutes of Maudlin of the Well and made an album out of it. The melodic progressions are wild, and it’s stripped down enough to catch the full brunt of them without drowning in intensity. Its ear accessibility makes it shine above the rest.
Tanner Anderson has very consistently released one album every four years, and if that means I have to wait until 2027 for his next offering, I’ll be pretty sad. He has an utterly original style, capturing something lush and beautiful and magical in nature that I can’t easily compare to other musicians. Perhaps Summoning, though they sound nothing alike and I don’t want to mislead anyone into thinking this is in the spectrum of Summoning’s vast legion of copycat artists (the existence of which I appreciate). It just forges a feeling of fantasy and nature so vivid that anything else pales in comparison. Majesties leans melodeath where Obsequiae shows black metal roots, but they’re so alike that I can’t imagine enjoying one without the other. There’s a satisfying freshness here that The Palms of Sorrowed Kings lacked for me relative to Suspended in the Brume of Eos and Aria of Vernal Tombs. If you enjoy Obsequiae or I don’t know, music that is good, do yourself a favor and check this out.
There are few bands I have enjoyed as consistently as Blut Aus Nord. There’ve been ups and downs, but over the course of fifteen years, they have persistently managed to keep my expectations high. I mean, it’s really kind of astonishing to me how many bands that I loved when I first discovered Blut Aus Nord are now releasing material I skim once or twice with a smile for the moments they gave me in years gone by and no real interest in what they’re doing right now. In a quantitative objective sense, how many bands have given me as much enjoyment over time as them, even if there’s never been that one unforgettable phase where they reigned above all else? The Disharmonium series they kicked off with last year’s Undreamable Abysses is some of the most infinitely replayable metal I’ve encountered. An endless miasma of grand disharmonic progressions that are never coherent enough to grow dull through familiarity, flowing like a nightmare and polished to perfection as always. I dare say Blut Aus Nord might be as excellent as they’ve ever been right now, despite thirty years of a steady release cadance to compete with.
Dang I feel guilty about blowing off And Again into the Light. Roads to the North was peak Panopticon for me, with Kentucky and Autumn Eternal bookending an epic three album run. Two out of three of them claimed my #1 slot in the years they came out. But The Scars of Man did very little for me, and in the subsequent three year gap I just kind of lost interest in what Austin was doing. I listened, but I didn’t give And Again into the Light much effort, and when it didn’t captivate me immediately I accepted that and moved on. Did I get it wrong and miss something grand? I don’t know, but The Rime of Memory was love at first listen. I feel like I’ve stepped a decade back in time and am discovering his brilliance for threading lush and emotionally dynamic songs into pummeling black metal soundwalls all over again.
Well, this is the 2023 release I listened to the most. It’s a technical and complex album, if you’re into that sort of thing, probably. I don’t know, because I’m not. I just care about how music makes me feel, and the advancing trend of atmospheric technical death metal makes me feel really damn good. The brood without the bore is a beautiful stimulant. On Deformity Adrift, Nightmarer push all the same aesthetic buttons that made me fall in love with Ulcerate and Ad Nauseam before them. I can put this on practically any time anywhere and feel like it’s enhancing my life experience.
Heh yeah there was inevitably going to be more than one Trhä album on this list. Is this the best one? Hell if I know. My head might have just been in the right place at the right time, but it’s the one that took me to the sweetest places. Hope it does the same for you.
Tags are what they are. Melodeath doesn’t quite capture just how much power metal energy is jammed into this package despite going hard at every turn. The intro track Reptilian Bloodsport vibes like where I envisioned GWAR heading if Smooth and Brockie hadn’t died. Saga of the Blade has me feeling like it’s 2000 and I’m discovering Children of Bodom for the first time. The melodies across this album hit instantly and never wear over time. Easy top tier pick as an album I’ll still be rolling out routinely well into the next year.
Another prolific creator of stuff, I beg at least some forgiveness for not realizing Adam Kalmbach was a metal artist sooner. I first ran into him in the context of dungeon synth. …Ok I guess failing to realize he was a metal artist is on me. Just as I was convincing myself that the cutting edge of experimentation had thoroughly drifted into the court of death metal, my ears stumbled upon this masterwork of dissonance and my brain melted into piles of euphoric stinking goop. Please enjoy this completely fucked experience.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on Tubi!
This week, T.S. goes up against his scariest opponent yet!
Episode 2.10 “Conspiracy”
(Dir by Robert Malenfant, originally aired on December 5th, 1988)
Two pre-teens, Paul (Michael Fantini) and Colby (Alan Fawcett), come across a million dollars hidden away in an apparently deserted warehouse. In slow motion, Paul throw the money into the air and declares that he and Colby are rich. Of course, Paul doesn’t stop to consider that the money is probably linked to something illegal and that it’s dangerous for him and his best friend to take it.
Soon, Paul and Colby are spending money all over the place. They buy new clothes. They buy new bicycles. Local store owner Bud (Charles Woods Gray) is concerned about the amount of money that Paul and Colby suddenly seem to have. He meets with his old friend, T.S. Turner, and asks Turner to talk to the boys.
Paul and Colby meet with Turner at Decker’s gym and Paul lies and says that the money came from his grandmother. He also says that he loaned Colby the money for Colby’s new bike. After the boys leave, Turner says that he knows that there is more to the story and that he’s going to investigate on his own. Turner invites Joe to investigate with him. It’s good to see that the show’s writers finally remembered that Turner and Amy basically adopted Joe at the start of the second season.
Turner is not the only one investigating. The counterfeiter who created the money wants to know who stole it. Birken (Martin Neufeld) may drive a car with a personalized license plate that reads “Rainbow” but he’s still a scary dude. He’s so dangerous that he doesn’t even wear a shirt half the time! No one is going to tell Birken what to do.
Eventually, Birken kidnaps Paul and ties him to a chair and threatens to suffocate him if he doesn’t help Birken get back his money. That leads to this rather disturbing sight:
The villains on T and T are usually fairly generic and forgettable but Birken is probably the scariest man in Canada. He’s certainly the first villain on this show to be just as intimidating at Mr. T. As soon as Birken shows up, the viewer has no doubt that he’s willing to kill anyone to get back his money. For once, the stakes on this show feels real.
Or, at least, they feel real until T.S. Turner shows up at Birken’s loft. (This is yet another episode where T.S. somehow manages to sneak into a building without being noticed.) When he confronts Birken, Birken attemps to show off his karate moves but T.S. takes him down with one punch.
It’s a bit of an anti-climatic ending, which is a shame because this was actually, by the standards of T and T, a pretty good episode. Birken was both memorable eccentric and genuinely menacing. Still, he was no match for T.S. Turner. No one stops Mr. T.
I think the Greater Western New York Film Critics Association is the only group announcing any year-end awards today and they should be the last of the precursor groups to do so before Awards Season starts up again on December 28th.
Here are the nominations. The winners will be announced on January 6th.
Best Picture
ALL OF US STRANGERS
ASTEROID CITY
BARBIE
THE HOLDOVERS
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON
MAY DECEMBER
OPPENHEIMER
PAST LIVES
POOR THINGS
SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE
Best Film in a Foreign Language
Justine Triet – ANATOMY OF A FALL
Hayao Miyazaki – HE BOY AND THE HERON
Takashi Yamazaki – GODZILLA MINUS ONE
Wim Wenders – PERFECT DAYS
Jonathan Glazer – THE ZONE OF INTEREST
Best Animated Film
Hayao Miyazaki – THE BOY AND THE HERON
Peter Sohn – ELEMENTAL
Nick Bruno & Troy Quane – NIMONA
Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers & Justin K. Thompson – SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE
Jeff Rowe & Kyler Spears – TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM
Best Documentary
Kaouther Ben Hania – FOUR DAUGHTERS
D. Smith – KOKOMO CITY
Frederick Wiseman – MENUS-PLAISIRS – LES TROISGROS
Davis Guggenheim – STILL: A MICHAEL J. FOX MOVIE
Sam Wrench – TAYLOR SWIFT: THE ERAS TOUR
Best Director
Greta Gerwig – BARBIE
Todd Haynes – MAY DECEMBER
Christopher Nolan – OPPENHEIMER
Martin Scorsese – KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON
Celine Song – PAST LIVES
Best Lead Actor
Bradley Cooper – MAESTRO
Paul Giamatti – THE HOLDOVERS
Cillian Murphy – OPPENHEIMER
Andrew Scott – ALL OF US STRANGERS
Jeffrey Wright – AMERICAN FICTION
Best Lead Actress
Lily Gladstone – KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON
Sandra Hüller – ANATOMY OF A FALL
Greta Lee – PAST LIVES
Natalie Portman – MAY DECEMBER
Emma Stone – POOR THINGS
Best Supporting Actor
Robert Downey Jr. – OPPENHEIMER
Ryan Gosling – BARBIE
Charles Melton – MAY DECEMBER
Mark Ruffalo – POOR THINGS
Dominic Sessa – THE HOLDOVERS
Best Supporting Actress
Emily Blunt – OPPENHEIMER
America Ferrera – BARBIE
Anne Hathaway – EILEEN
Rachel McAdams – ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET.
Da’Vine Joy Randolph – THE HOLDOVERS
Best Original Screenplay
Justine Triet and Arthur Harari – ANATOMY OF A FALL
Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach – BARBIE
David Hemingson – THE HOLDOVERS
Samy Burch (story by Samy Burch & Alex Mechanik) – MAY DECEMBER
Celine Song – PAST LIVES
Best Adapted Screenplay
Andrew Haigh – ALL OF US STRANGERS
Kelly Fremon Craig – ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET.
Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese – KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON
Christopher Nolan – OPPENHEIMER
Tony McNamara – POOR THINGS
Best Cinematography
Mátyás Erdély – THE IRON CLAW
Rodrigo Prieto – KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON
Matthew Libatique – MAESTRO
Hoyte Van Hoytema – OPPENHEIMER
Robbie Ryan – POOR THINGS
Best Editing
Nick Houy – BARBIE
Thelma Schoonmaker – KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON
Jennifer Lame – OPPENHEIMER
Keith Fraase – PAST LIVES
Yorgos Mavropsaridis – POOR THINGS
Best Score
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross – THE KILLER
Robbie Robertson – KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON
Ludwig Göransson – OPPENHEIMER
Jerskin Fendrix – POOR THINGS
Daniel Pemberton – SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE
Breakthrough Director
Daniel Goldhaber – HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE
Raven Jackson – ALL DIRT ROADS TASTE OF SALT
Cord Jefferson – AMERICAN FICTION
A.V. Rockwell – A THOUSAND AND ONE
Celine Song – PAST LIVES
Breakthrough Performance
Abby Ryder Fortson – ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET.
Charles Melton – MAY DECEMBER
Dominic Sessa – THE HOLDOVERS
Cailee Spaeny – PRISCILLA
Teo Yoo – PAST LIVES
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on Twitter and Mastodon. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, at 10 pm et, #FridayNightFlix has got one of my favorite Christmas movies, 1964’s Santa Claus Conquers The Martians!
If you want to join us this Friday, just hop onto twitter, start the movie at 10 pm et, and use the #FridayNightFlix hashtag! It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
Santa Claus Conquers The Martians is available on Prime, Tubi, YouTube, and a host of other streaming sites! See you there!
Blake Lewis totally should have won American Idol. (I voted for him and cried when he lost!) But at least he can still win our hearts with this interpretation of a classic Christmas carol!
Through the Shattered Lens 