Friday Links: Th3 Night Jad3 Dani3ls Cam3 Hom3 3Dition
“If you stand there and watch the evil, keep it in check, like, then it can’t come across.” - Stephen Graham Jones, 'The Angel of Indian Lake'
Horror is not—or should not be—about hating women. It’s undeniable, though, that there’s a tremendous amount of violence towards women in horror. Not to mention the slut-shaming. Having sex before marriage gets you marked for death? Is that Wes Craven or the P.M.R.C.? For my Gen Z readers, the P.M.R.C. was led by Tipper Gore and the subject of a NOFX album that had Tammy Faye pegging Jim Bakker on the cover. Just like two consenting adults pegging is not a sin, horror is not conservative. Slashers, I’d argue, are about finding strength you never knew you had in you. Just, instead of a swelling montage where you run on the beach with your friend, you’re covered head-to-toe in blood and your wedding dress is ripped from all the tourniquets you’ve had to make.
The villains in horror, though? To borrow from Stieg Larsson, there are plenty of Men Who Hate Women in horror. Michael Myers, all the dudes in the Scream movies, even Dracula’s all Victorian. Something Jade Daniels learns in these books? Life isn’t a slasher, even if people are dying around you. So with the knowledge that there are men who hate women and all the attendant CWs, let’s get into it.
What I’ve Been Reading This Week:
Come on, you know what time it is. We’re wrapping up a trilogy this week! Idk if my heart is a chainsaw yet—my heart has Gil-Man webbing and werewolf teeth—but reading these books has inspired me to watch the first three Nightmare On Elm Street movies, first two Halloween movies, the third Friday The 13th, and I think a second viewing of Happy Death Day is due. Oh! And I watched Haunt Season, a totally kickass new movie starring my dear friend and Best Co-Dad, Adam Hinkle. More on that in a minute. We now, of course, must talk about The Angel Of Indian Lake by Stephen Graham Jones.
Jade takes the first-person mic for the vast majority of the finale, as she should. She’s also talking to people in her head, and an increasingly unreliable narrator—though more trustworthy than anyone else in Idaho, I’d argue. Is Jade the Angel of Indian Lake, vandalizing the attempts at a Death-Star-in-Jedi version of Terra Nova? Jade’s not responsible for those fires, is she? There are a lot of questions, and the answers do come. Not that I doubted Jade.
The body count rises. You got to. We also get our first invocation of Cabin In The Woods. If you, like Brendan and me, have always wanted to see what happens when ALL THE MONSTERS from that little file cabinet gets released? This book is close. SGJ also does the fun Stephen King/GRR Martin thing of of throwing so much blood and so much going on that when they inevitably make an HBO series of these books (and make SGJ the millionaire he deserves to be), there’s no way the adaptation will have the budget or the stomach for all the kills. Be on the lookout for a Cracked article in 2040 about “5 More Movie Deaths (That Were Way Crazier In Books)” to feature these novels.
There’s so much here, thematically, though, that just can’t fit in this column space. Terra Nova as colonial allegory. Indian Burial Ground Trope vs. Have You Ever Thought About What Christian Graveyards Are For Native People? Are these books even slashers or is the narrative trick of Jade telling us how things would play out if this was a slasher tricking us, the reader, into making patterns out of coincidental actions. What responsibility do the living have to make sure the dead stay asleep? Most importantly and implicit in all horror, how do you carry on once what’s happened has happened? This trilogy features killers, the dead rising, blood splatter, and haunted cabins, but—the most horrifying things are what normal people do to other people, right? I’m more worried about the Tab Daniels and Rexalls in my community than the Dark Mill Souths, more worried about the Kimmy Daniels and Lana Singletons than the Ghosts of Staceyes Graveses. Stay safe out there, and don’t let the evil in—supernatural or otherwise.
LINKS!
Something to listen to while you browse? It’s October, here’s a video of The Devil’s Bastard Brendan Johnson for the b & the nothingness song “The Devil’s Bastard.”
Wanna read about reforestation in Rio? I do. It might be heavily funded by Open Society Foundations, but idk, editorially independent journalism about climate change that meets the Guardian’s standards seems like a good thing to fund. ANYWAY. Constance Malleret has the story, and it’s a good one. You know I love cities that incorporate nature, cities that understand they belong to the world, are not apart from it. Urbs in horto, my city says. Let’s reforest more cities (and all of the suburbs).
WNBA Finals are happening! The midwestern in me feels like I should cheer for the Lynx, the Chicago in me can’t admit to cheering for a New York team but loves Courtney Vandersloot, so—hey, go Dodgers and Guardians. Plus, Sabrina Ionescu is JUST SO COOL
If you even sorta follow sports, you know this season was a contentious one in the WNBA. This is because misogynists are still mad women are on their TV, and racists have glommed onto Caitlin Clark as some sort of Great White Hope/Dainty Princess To Be Protected At All Costs. Sports fandom seems to have gotten more tolerant of these assholes recently, such that it’s changed my fandom a little bit. I have a son to raise and horror novels to write, I’m not trying to hear it. So I was unaware of how awful Christine Brennan at USA Today had been until reading this post about how the WNBAPA recommended Brennan’s credentials be revoked. Good on the WNBAPA. As always, dickless Jake Tapper is worth your contempt and scorn.
Who loves learning about a new literary journal? Doesn’t even have to be new, just new to me, which beestung is. beestung is “is a quarterly online micro-magazine for non-binary, genderqueer, and two-spirit writers and readers, with an emphasis on intracommunity sensibilities,” which absolutely feels like something I want to read and help exist—beestung is also fundraising for their new issue. So this and the next three links are poems I loved from their new issue! Here’s “Group Hug” by Egbiameje Omole.
“introduction to t.r. san’s self &/or body &/or craft &/or hypocrisy” by t.r. san absolutely rips.
How about a small one to end? It’s a dagger tho. Here’s “the (dead)name speaks” by February Spikener.
What’re you still doing here? Need a trailer for Haunt Season? I’m telling you, see this movie!
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. Hey, Haunt Season really felt like when I worked at the boat company. Really captured the camaraderie that comes from having to deal with the same shitty customers for the same idiot reasons and then partying together after work to forget it all. Not to mention the Guys Who Are Really Invested In The Company. And the Guys Who Think They’re The Ones Here For Pure Reasons. It’s good for us peons to have some representation on film. Hey, Jade Daniels was a high school janitor and her mom worked at the Dollar Store. Speaking of Jade—
Now I can say definitively—with due respect to Laurie Strode and Sydney Prescott and the Carpenter Sisters—Jade Daniels is my Final Girl.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris