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The Full Lid 25th October 2019

Happy Friday everyone!

I am returned from FantasyCon 2019, although as you'll see, that show has left marks. Nonetheless, it continues to recede into the distance. Thanks, linear time! You're the best! Fortunately!

Anyhoo, welcome aboard! I'm Alasdair Stuart, professionally enthusiastic pop culture analyst, podcaster2019 Best Fan Writer Hugo finalist2019 BFS award finalist and all around professional
thing liker and stuff enthusiast. Here's the plan; every Friday, around 5, you get all the details of the interesting, weird, fun, clever or often all of the above pieces of pop culture I've encountered in the week. If you like what you read,the archive and sign up link are here. Please share it but if you do please tell folks how to subscribe and where you got it. Also if you want to buy me a coffee, that would be amazing.


Contents time!
 

Contents

Snowpiercer: The Prequel
There Existed An Addiction To Blood
Harpoon
Horror Christmas: Black Christmas
So Where Can We Find You?
So How Was Work This Week?
Signal Boosting
Signing Off/Playing Out
Read More

Snowpiercer: The Prequel Part 1: Extinction

Okay, deep breath.

Snowpiercer is the upcoming TV adaptation of Le Transperceneige, a French graphic novel duology about a society on a train after the end of the world. It's also an adaptation (sequel? Reboot? Requel? Sequoot?) of the 2013 movie which is also based on the graphic novel. And yes that is Captain America. And yes the ending is really quite spectacularly nasty.

The show was initially written by Josh Friedman and directed by Scott Derrickson which is pretty much the dream team for a project like this. So, of course the studio decided on massive re-shoots. And changed network. And have now changed it back again. And have renewed the thing before season 1 airs. Which is a rockier road than pretty much any other taken to the screen recently but hey, Jennifer Connolly! Daveed Diggs! Let's DO THIS!

But before we do, let's go back to just before the end of the world with the first part of this origin story courtesy of Titan. With art by Jean-Marc Rochette and a script by Matz, Extinction does a surprisingly fast and at the same time well contextualized job, of showing us the end of the world and what happens after it. 

The original books were written by Jacques Lob and Matz does a great job matching his tone, if not quite the current era. There's a surprising amount of 'Take your top off, walk towards me, let us do...sexy things now'' style sudden sex and or seduction and or assassination here. Some of it works, and the character in question is fun, but this is a book that has done the research and confirmed breasts and swearing are both Big and Clever and has decided WE NEED TO KNOW THAT. MORE THAN ONCE. It's also worth noting there is a a single, vast credibility ask that the book trusts you to put together. If you do, it lands. If you don't? Derailment.
...
...
...
Anyhoo
If you do buy in, what you get here is a story which is queasy in the same way standing at the edge of a drop you know you can't fall over is. It's a roller coaster, a haunted house made of familiar news stories. One careening, if not towards an ending we're going to share, then certainly an ending that will get closer to us than we'd like. Matz lays out the agenda of two rival apocalyptic groups, one of which goes back centuries. He explores the ways those agenda interact and conflict and the sparks that fly when personal belief meets imminent reality. This is the way the world ends; frantic, confused, untidy. Human but never humane.

That's where the book is consistently at it's best, with Rochette's expansive and often stark palate proving deeply versatile. The slightly fevered interview you see above is a highlight. Another is Mr Zheng, the genius billionaire philanthropist (No power armour pictured) calmly explaining the train he's planning as humanity's last refuge. There's a careful banality to some scenes, making the vast horror of others hit all the harder. Not to mention the 'Look! BREASTS!' and needless lady murder present as all the more tiresome but apparently you can't have everything, even at the end of the world.

Despite those hiccups Extinction is a smart and surprising origin for this unusually cold, bleak tale. I can't tell you how well it connects to the TV show yet but the original graphic novels are already a different, and in some ways more interesting, journey, because of this. For that at the very least, it's worth the price of a ticket.

Snowpiercer: The Prequel: Extinction Part 1 is out now
As are the other Snowpiercer graphic novels
Snowpiercer (The movie) is available to buy or stream for very cheap right now
Snowpiercer: The TV Show will air in the second quarter of 2020.
 
With this and Tacoma, we seem to be in a golden age of 'So...what the Hell happened?!' games and I am very happy to see it.

Clipping-There Existed An Addiction To Blood

Clippng are one of the most interesting musical acts on the planet right now. Jonathan Snipes, William Hutson and Daveed Diggs don't so much embody modern hiphop as surround it. Diggs, best known of course as everybody's favorite fighting Frenchman, is the crispest MC on Earth, No syllable escapes his sight, no word or metaphor gets free from the specific gravity of his boundless, graceful flow. This is a man who dances with the words, building structures and meaning, narrative and plot out of them and demolishing it just as easily. Snipes and Hutson in the meantime, excel at building audio landscapes for Diggs to bound across and occasionally be pursued through.Vast walls of noise, found audio, field recordings, structural jokes and aural wit. It's all here and all at the control of these three flat out musical geniuses. And, in There Existed An Addiction to Blood, they've produced another genre adjacent work which is both completely in line with their previous work and sees them evolve once again.

'Haunting', 'Prophecy' and 'Posession' are bloody cross sections of horror, found audio that takes in a haunting, ambient field recordings and what may be the conclusion of the same story. There's no context here, just raw, present events mixed with gloriously OTT orchestration and it's simultaneously disturbing and playful, Vincent Price winking to camera. Jordan Peele eating ice cream in the garden where something terrible has just happened.

There are the collaborations, featuring some of the best new voices in the field. Ed Balloon is first on 'He Dead', a cut-to-the-gristle piece of profoundly sinister orchestration that turns Diggs' frantic invention into a sprint down streets not quite deserted enough. 'This ain't, knife to a gunfight, more twig to a tank' is just the first of the album's endless salvo of carefully designed, barbed lines all delivered with Ed's voice as the foundation and structure. 'La Mala Ordina, featuring The Rita, Elcamino and Benny the Butcher is a ponderous stride down the same streets Diggs' voice runs down in 'He Dead'. This is the other side of the street, talked about later on in the album, full of precision tooled brutality and sociopathy that flows effortlessly into 'Club Down' with Sarah Bernat. Bernat builds a canvas of screams against which towering structures of crime, noir, horror and desperation are hurled into life by Diggs' voice. It's relentless, endlessly spiraling in a way that almost triggers a panic reaction as Diggs drives us through the gangster myth and out the other side into the real time, alcohol and adrenaline soaked terrors of the night. 'It's the city and the city but you only see one'. But this is the one you can't unsee.

'Run for your Life' featuring La Chat is a stand out in an album of them because it embodies the careful, arch playfulness the group excel at. Diggs is pursued through the streets by their guest artist, the soundscapes rising and falling around him as he travels. La Chat's frequent gleeful 'you ain't scared is ya?!' is counterpointed by her own methodical delivery as the car just keeps coming and the chase fades into the night.

'All in Your Head' features Counterfeit Madison & Robyn Hood and is one of the most interesting tracks here. For almost the entire album, there are three forces struggling for control; the soundscapes, Diggs' words and the guests. That's the case as this track starts, Robyn's rapid fire delivery a perfect compliment to Diggs' own and just as redolent with explosive phrases ('YOU STILL OWE FOR THAT RIB!' especially. But as the track goes on and Sharon Udoh begins to sing, it's so powerful, so commanding that melody and structure, peace even are dragged out of the sonic landscape she's singing against. The video's below and do listen because it's amazing.

'Attunement' features Pedestrian Deposit and is the last collaboration on the album. It sees Diggs in deadpan mode, the atonal structures of the guests playing out against his circular explorations of restraint. choice, consent.
The 'solo' tracks begin with a voicemail style 'Intro' where Diggs cuts loose for the first time in the album. It's typically inventive, rambunctious stuff and leads directly into 'Nothing is Safe' and one of Clippng's numerous aces; their fondness for story. This is the exploration of safety in horror, of that moment where you're together with your friends and it looks like the danger has passed.
And it hasn't.
Playing out against a gloriously John Carpenter-esque backdrop, Diggs walks us through the last seconds of a group in extremis. It's harsh, tragic, unflinching and 'nothing is safe' could be the mission statement for the album.

'The Show' throws John Carpenter into a blender with '80s synthwave and follows Diggs down into the dissection of a human body. Equal parts Wayne Newton and Andreas Vesalius it's a meditation on the human condition as well as a gleeful, blood-soaked Willy Wonka monologue. Which brings us to 'Blood of the Fang'. This is where the titular quote, from classic vampire movie Ganja & Hess, surfaces and it's also where the soundscapes and Diggs are most in sync. Both cycle up and up into a high speed, wide armed celebration of either music, the vampiric lifestyle or both. The repeated refrain of 'Death ain't shit!' simultaneously an exultant cry of life and an acknowledgement of the inhuman.

'Story 7' dives headlong into the narrative element of their work. Diggs' voice stands up on the soundscape to create a tempo that flows with the story and ends in a place that, like so much of this album, is either hopeful, horrific or both.  Finally, 'Piano Burning' closes the album with exactly what it describes. No structure, no story but a clear thematic echo of burning the monster in its lair and the freedom that hopefully follows it.

There Existed an Addiction to Blood is lyrical, staccato, wickedly intelligent, often funny and sees Clippng continue to evolve what they do and how they do it. It and Splendor & Misery, their SF concept album of sorts are out now. Honestly? You should get both.
It's all this good. All of it.

Harpoon

Jonah (Munro Chambers) has no manner of luck or money. Richard (Christopher Gray) has money and rage in almost equal proportion. Sasha (Emily Tyra) is a nurse who is increasingly bemused why she's still bothering with the two best friends/sparring partners. Convinced, because it's a day with a Y at the end, that she's cheating on him with Jonah, Richard beats his best friend and only friend to a bloody pulp. To apologize, he takes them both out on the ocean. Because as we all know, confined spaces and physical danger are the perfect way to heal a damaged friendship...

Rob Grant knows how to have Bad Fun, and that's exactly what this is. From the moment Brent Gelman's super laconic narration kicks in to the final image, this is a movie that sees its characters clearly and makes sure you do the same. The last time I saw a closed environment character study this great it was Shallow Grave and Harpoon stands with the world's best movie about the world's worst flatshare as a classic example of the genre.

A massive part of that is Grant, whose script sparkles and uses silence, space and drama as syncopation. This is the sort of movie that has your wallet in its pocket before it even sits down and the way it slowly explains and unpacks what's going on is frequently jaw dropping. The reason for Richard's fits of rage, the exact nature of his toxic friendship with Jonah, the agendas all three have hidden inside seemingly innocuous phrases. The story assembles in front of you from parts in plain sight that you never see until they're ready. It's suspenseful, brutal, extremely funny and doesn't waste a minute of screen time. In other words, the movie has the confidence of it's narrator, not it's characters.
When Harpoon works, and it usually works brilliantly, it's a bloody-knuckled Thin Man, the dialogue firing backwards and forwards with the absurd pragmatism of humans who know each other too well doing violence to each other. There's a running gag about Richard being hit in the balls which is perfect. Sasha's knowledge of naval history (matched only by the narrator and Gelman is on splendid form there) marries with her profession to create a character who is no one's damsel. Finally Chambers' Jonah is a gooey, shambling, unkillable failure of a man who is as pitiable as he is contemptible. There are no heroes here but plenty of victims and Jonah is certainly one of these. The script cleverly uses that as a beginning rather than a destination though, and we find out everything about Jonah and why he's like this by the end of the movie. Likewise Gray's monstrous Richard, who's never less than contemptible but always never out of reach. He's the cool rich kid with one eye on his wallet and the other on the ground, no idea what he wants other than it NOT BEING THIS. It would have been so easy for him to be little more than a slice of privilege marinated beef, but Gray shows us the man under the damage, how much he's aware of that damage and how little he can do about it to round out this trio of unforgettable monsters.

They bounce off each other with exuberant brutality as we find out who has slept with who, who's a criminal, possibly a killer and just how many maritime superstitions they've run roughshod over (BASICALLY ALL). All of which builds to a third act which is a just beautifully stacked and choreographed stream of payoffs. It's so crisp, so well executed that you kind of want them to take a bow. They deserve it although bits might fall off if they did. This movie pulls no punches, wastes no time and leaves as it arrives, on the run and with a surprise.

Harpoon is brutal, ridiculous, tragic and way too much fun. It's available to buy and stream now via Apple TV and Amazon Prime.

Horror Christmas: Black Christmas

So here's why Black Christmas is on this list. It's regarded as the original slasher movie, has been remade twice (Second due this year) and it's got a deserved reputation as one of those crown jewels horror likes to hide away. There's a subtle hint of 'oh this is the Good Stuff' to the movie. A sense of it being a tiny bit dangerous. Something you have to earn. Which honestly is gatekeeper-y nonsense and the exact sort of thing that my 'Hey! Hey everyone! Come look at this thing! It's good!' ethos is designed to combat so of course it's on this list.

Set at Christmas, it follows the women of a sorority house including exchange student Jess (Olivia Hussey), permanently drunk house older sister Barb (Margot! Freaking! Kidder!), and their house mother Mrs MacHenry (Marian Waldman). One by one, the women begin to disappear and it soon becomes clear that as the festive season breaks across campus, they're in desperate trouble. A demented caller screams abuse at them, a parent arrives to pick up a daughter who may not be alive and Jess finds her relationship with highly strung musician Peter (Keir! Freaking! Dullea!) under strain as the bodies begin to stack up.

There were four surprises waiting for me in the movie's attic. The first is that ridiculous cast. Kidder is excellent as an amiably furious proto-Lois and gets most of the movie's best lines. She's also a memorable double act with Hussey's terrified, resolute Jess. Pinky and the Brain if the Brain was permanently on the sauce and Pinky had an aptitude for poker related violence. Well, more of an aptitude...

The second is just how modern the movie presents as.. The opening scenes, with the women gathered around the phone, spark and pop like any '00s rom-com or thriller and there's a real sense not just of energy but feminine energy to the whole thing. That's especially true of Mrs MacHenry, a character who embodies the transitional period the movie embraces. The world is changing, these young women are at the core of it and Mrs MacHenry is clinging, not tightly enough, for dear life. She's a safe figure, a grounding force and when she dies the movie tells you just how dark things are going to get. Plus all of this is the exact sort of material that you can sculpt into a mid #metoo horror movie, which is exactly the sort of thing the 2019 version seems to be.

 
Then there's the tension because this is TENSE in a way a lot of these movies often aren't. The opening has the camera roving around the sorority house making us into a voyuer before it makes us into,a killer, hands appearing and climbing the ivy into the upper echelons of the house. The person those hands belong to screams barely functional invective down the phone at the women, kills them with creative, patient precision and we're denied even a full look at his face. The house is sprawling, the bodies aren't even all discovered by the end of the movie and the sole survivor is left, alone, in a room in a house where all her friends have been brutally slain as the lights are turned off. Victim support wasn't a thing in the '70s, but tension certainly was and Black Christmas cringes under the weight of it. Including an actual on screen 'The calls! They're coming from inside the house!' Reader, I high fived myself.

And then there's the final scene, where the camera pulls out of the attic room and the killer escapes into the night. That's amazing now, so God only knows how it felt in 1974. There's no motive, no context, just measured, horrifying brutality. Closure is denied with a classic 'The end?' but no 'Or is it?'. There's no comforting sense of continuance of evil, no Freddy in the shape of a car taking revenge. No reassuring supernatural event. Just A broken, terrible human who murders people functionally at will running off to do it again. Happy Christmas.

Oh one final, perhaps reassuring note. John Saxon appears here and in last week's A Nightmare on Elm Street as a hard charging, practical cop facing down the case. I would absolutely one hundred percent watch that spin-off.

Black Christmas is tightly plotted, unflinchingly nasty and a cornerstone of modern horror. It and its first remake are available to buy and stream now. Black Christmas 2019 releases the end of this year.
 

Signal Boosting

Film Stories, edited by the mighty Simon Brew, is the hero the movie journalism industry both needs and deserves. Seriously, Brew has created something extraordinary here; a magazine that focuses on new voices and approaches all of film with the same wide armed enthusiastic and open minded welcome. It's an astonishing achievement, and one perfectly demonstrated by the sheer variety of work they cover:

The problem with the Terminator franchise
A cover story on Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje's extraordinary directorial debut
A deep dive podcast looking at the fascinating paths movies took to the screen
A junior companion magazine designed to nurture young voices in the field and give young film fans a cultural hub.

Simon has done this entirely off his own bat and it's incredibly close to breaking even. I love this kind of writing and I'd have loved to have seen this kind of support structure when I was coming up. Seeing it now, and being done so well, is as inspirational as it is welcome. If you can, please subscribe and help create the next generation of great film journalists.

 

And of course, here's my Ko-Fi.

Where You Can Find Marguerite This Week

At Breaking The Glass Slipper!

So How Was Work This Week?

Well.

Professionally? Horrifying. Fantasycon 2019 is in the books. A month ago Fantasycon 2019 basically didn't exist beyond a venue and Guests of Honor. The intervening time has been some of the most intense, least enjoyable con preparation I've ever done. And I worked World FantasyCon 2013, a show that culminated in one of the con committee yelling at a redcloak for taking a can of coke from our break room. The break room that had been locked all weekend.

The prep for Fantasycon 2019 was so intense it actually caused damage. Seriously, that show made us ILL. Actually, provably, they sent me to bed for one morning, ill. I had a cough that tore at my chest, a constant fever, low level snot machine. I found out later one of the other Cloaks was sufficiently worried, she'd asked Marguerite to take me to the doctor's if I got any worse. On top of all that was the constant pressure that is part of being a con volunteer, working 8am till 10pm minimum every single day, eating when you can, resting when you can, always being the face of a convention even when there's no bone structure beneath it. On top of all that? The constant knowledge that this show was under staffed, under prepared, under attended and under scrutiny. The reasons were numerous and may be discussed in detail over the next few months. My favorite though must surely be the UK based authors who felt the need to explain, at length, how Glasgow was just too far to go while we were both at WorldCon.

In Dublin.

There's a lot to unpack here about everything from why I do this work to how the show has to change and if there's any appetite, apparatus or even willingness for it to do so. I am, cards on the table, very angry about how a lot of things went last weekend and I'm still processing it. We'll see how things shake out.


The weird thing is, on a personal level? It was Amazing. I got to work with Charlotte Bond and Kit Power, two of the best writers in the field and in Kit's case the hands down best moderator in the country right now. Both are fiercely intelligent, endlessly funny and passionate about their work. Simply being in the same room as them is inspirational. 

Best of all, I finally got to meet Jim McLeod. The face, brain and beating heart of Ginger Nuts of Horror is UK genre fiction's other best kept secret and if there is justice in this world I will see that man recognized for his tireless work one of these days. The dude is an ENGINE of enthusiasm, eloquence and sheer love for his field.  From his formative terror of horror movie nuns to his boundless joy at getting to play in Rob Shearman's vast new project, Jim is an actual goddamn treasure. I salute you, sir. All of horror does. 

As if that wasn't enough, AK Faulkner, one of my oldest, dearest friends not only came but had an amazing show and we are officially Plotting Things which is always good news. Follow her and buy things here.

While I have severe doubts about the BFS and Fantasycon at times, I never have any doubts about the BFS Awards and this year even more so. Watching Breaking The Glass Slipper win, watching Ruth EJ Booth's fiercely brilliant Noise & Sparks get recognized. Getting to read Jen freaking Williams' acceptance speech for a prize I know she never expected to get? Amazing, all the way down. 

And that's how work was this week.

 

Signing Off/Playing Out

The weeeeek. It has been a weeeeeeeeeeeeek.

ANYWAY! We're alive! Great job getting here and enjoy the weekend. I am off to Birmingham to vist Destination Trek and be interviewed by Anson Mount and I'M FINE OKAY? I'M FINE. THIS ISN'T SO AWESOME I'M TERRIFIED I'LL SOMEHOW FUCK IT UP. THAT WOULD BE ABSURD.

And while this is being absurd why not check out the cornucopia of amazing free fiction offered by the Escape Artists Podcast Network? It's what I'd do.

Also check out the Team KennerStuart instagram. Waffles! Spider-Man! John Wick! Are all things on there right now!

I work without a safety net, or pay, here. I know times are tight but if you can afford it please consider dropping something in the tip jar. Thank you:)

Be kind to yourself, folks. Seriously. Drink more water. Get some more sleep. Prioritize yourself first. It will help, i promise.

Playing us out this week! Steve'n'Seagulls with their cover of Thunderstruck! I think the only song I've heard in more genres is Seven Nation Army and I used to have half a novella idea about that. Anyway, that's a whole other episode, while this?
is a Full Lid.
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Agathon Towers · Cheapside Road · Reading, Berkshire RG1 7AG · United Kingdom

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