Blood Capsule #124

DESPERATE LIVING (1977)

I'm on something of a John Waters kick.  Heh, I feel like I've just admitted to struggling with drug addiction.  Most of his movies have subverted my DVD player, but strangely enough, Desperate Living has escaped my meddling eyes.  I came across a review that described this scrappy, prototypical piece of cinematic sludge as transitional.  That's about right.  Living sits in between Waters' early works of experimental "art trash" and his (slightly) more conventional fare.  It's also missing a key component that would come to exemplify a John Waters joint - Divine!  So how did I rate the film?  Was I able to cozy up to scenes of incommodious sex, do-it-yourself abortion, rape, and more rape?

The dialogue is customarily hysterical ("I'd like to stick my whole head in your mouth and let you suck out my eyeballs!"), and thankfully, it tends to make up for Living's grim tone.  But that's the thing; the atmosphere is almost too oppressive for a Waters joyride.  I didn't have fun with it.  Pink Flamingoes is just as warped and intractable, but all of its filth is accented with an off-center smile.  Don't get me wrong (or right, God forbid); I don't despise Desperate Living.  I just don't see many replays in the foreseeable future.  Oopsy-daisy...I forgot the synopsis.  That was intentional.  C'mon, make my life a little easier and consult any other review for a plot summary.  I'm a busy man, clearly.

  

Dead Review Collection #16 - VIOLENCE!

Well, that took long enough.  When you last visited your intrepid hero (that's me, asshole), he...er, I had just polished off Red Before Black.  It was a record that left me ambivalent.  While it proved that George and the gang still had combustible substances left in the tank, the actual songs showed a frustrating lack of forward momentum.  I didn't sense any real progression.  Was it possible that Cannibal Corpse had finally run out of impulses for new ideas?  Nope!  Okay, I suppose it was possible that they had exhausted their supply of meaty, distasteful riffs, but if Violence Unimagined proves anything, it's that Cannibal Corpse are neither cannibals nor corpses.

Story goes, longtime multi-tasker Erik Rutan joined CC's ranks on guitar in place of Pat O'Brien.  I'm not going to dredge up the palaver on Pat's personal life, but it was clear that he wouldn't be able to fulfill his duties, at least as it relates to the studio.  Rutan answered the distress signal (I imagine that it's similar to the bat-signal) and leapt into action.  I admit, I wasn't expecting him to be such a natural fit.  He did more than fit; he injected calcium into the hoary bones of an inveterate beast.  Granted, that's a terrible metaphor, but it holds water.  CC sounds younger on Violence.  A Benjamin Button joke wouldn't be out of place.  Should I?  Nah, I still have my dignity.

This necrotic flamethrower kicks into gear with "Murderous Rampage."  Normally, it's a harbinger of doom when the first cut is my favorite, but that's not an issue here.  Fuck, these riffs impale the listener.  Paul's work on the toms are key, as are the rhythm shifts that add intermittent bouts of density.  "Inhumane Harvest" was released as a single, and when it breached my ear canal, a couple of things happened.  A) I shit myself, on account of the weighty breakdown.  B) And I was assured that these gentlemen meant business.  "Condemnation Contagion" extends the hitting steak.  It was penned by Erik the Blood Red, and you can tell.  His leads force melody into the proceedings in a non-invasive manner.  That note applies to every tune, by the way.

"Follow the Blood" is a lurching Spinosaurus that picks apart its prey with crossbow claws.  Crossbow claws?  Folks, I'm low on metaphors.  There are only so many words that describe the brutality on display.  And I haven't mentioned "Slowly Sawn" yet.  It's fucking heavy, man.  Understand?  The production is tight across all numbers.  Alex Webster's bottom end is never sacrificed for the sake of simple loudness.  Honestly, I can't point to many missteps.  I mean, I could argue that Violence Unimagined is frontloaded, but that's such a minor gaffe, it's hardly worth typing.

I leave you with a facile, unaffected plea: LISTEN TO CANNIBAL CORPSE.  Please?

    

Album Cover of the Whatever

Still in "soft reboot" mode.  I'm just posting whatever whenever.  Then again, that has always been my approach.  I must recuse myself, as I haven't actually listened to this particular album.  The band is Esogenesi; the (sub)genre is doom.  Chances are, I would dig it, but there are three zillion records I want to hear, and that's an underestimation.  All I know is that the cover art is phenomenal.

You can download MUSIC?

I feel old.  Every day, I feel older.  As I understand it, I'm actually aging as time progresses?  I don't buy it, but at the very least, I feel ancient.  My heart will always live in 1995.  For example, I just purchased an album on Bandcamp, bypassing the tangible.  It's an honest-to-Satan download!  Er, some of you may have beaten me to the punch by 20 years or more.  I don't know if I'm proud or not.

Look, I'll always prefer having the album in front of me, but due to a myriad of unforeseen circumcisio...stances, circumstances, it simply makes more sense to absorb my jams through digital osmosis.  So what was my inaugural acquisition?  Inexorum's Equinox Vigil, a serious contender for Album of the Year.

I've been on a rabid, spirited black metal kick as of late.  Specifically, melodic black metal.  Vigil is supreme meloblack.  It's also supremely polished, but the songwriting is there.  It's autumnal to the core, whereas 2020's Moonlit Navigation (my pick for 2020's top record) spoke to a more frigid climate.  It's rad.  The layered guitar harmonies are fucking medicinal in their ability to restore the soul to its default setting, that being one of calm and stillness.  Or something to that effect.

I'm a gentleman, so I'll LINK you directly to the source.

IL

In baseball, it used to be called a "disabled list."  To fend off woke millennials, it was renamed the "injured list."  By the way, coming from an actual disabled person, the addendum...eh, it wasn't necessary.  You can call it the "fucked list" for all I care.  I mention it because I'M INJURED!  To make a very long story mercifully short, I aspirated pneumonia in late April.  Almost died.  I was hospitalized for roughly seven weeks.  I wasn't discharged until this past Monday.

If I sound awfully pragmatic about it, it's only because I'm fuckin' over it.  I just want time to speed up, to put one foot in front of the other.  I will say (for the sake of human interest) that in the process of determining a diagnosis, I ended up with two brain operations, a tracheostomy, a random fractured leg (unrelated), and other cartoonish misadventures.

I was planning on shooting boring YouTube videos that would plot out the whole debacle and explain everything in excruciating detail, but again, I'm wanting to move on.  I don't need to relive something I describe as a "debacle."  Ideally, I'd pick up where I left off and post a movie review tomorrow.  That's not realistic, though.  I'm still finding a groove.  My life feels new and foreign right now.  I feel...weird?

There was a period of two days (roundabout estimation) where I was unconscious.  It's a void.  A gulf.  Anything I did, say, one year ago?  Feels like ten years ago.  The entire hospital stay is blurry, even the parts I vividly remember.  Told ya I feel weird.

So when will RR Inc. return to its normal programming?  I have no idea.  Maybe a week.  Maybe never.  I can tell you that I no longer feel like an authority on horror films.  Was I ever?  That's not the point.  My perception is skewed.  I am WAY out of the loop, at least as it relates to modern horror.  Meaning, if or when the site returns unadulterated, it will be weirder and more random than ever before.

PS-The most likely scenario is a "soft reboot."  I'll probably post easy, small things here and there.  And I'm done typing.