Editor’s Pick: July Favorites
What we’ve been reading, watching, etc.
Amelia’s current reads are nostalgic and, if you know the art editor, right on brand:
Jughead: The Hunger, written by Frank Tieri, art by Michael Walsh
As a kid, Archie comics were some of my first comfort reads. The problems plaguing the Riverdale teens were ones of excess: too many girlfriends, too many boyfriends, too many hamburgers, too many parties. For a kid whose problems stemmed from lack and scarcity, Archie’s world was ideal escapism. So this summer when I was looking for a fun comic to get into, I went back to the Archie-verse and found the darker side of Riverdale.
In Jughead: The Hunger, everyone’s favorite second fiddle is plagued by an inherited lycanthropic curse.
Afterlife with Archie, written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, art by Francesco Francavilla
This one imagines what would happen to the teens of Riverdale in a zombie apocalypse.
Vampironica, written by Greg and Meg Smallwood (with art by the former)
And Vampironica is exactly what it sounds like: a fun, sexy, immortal romp with the spoiled brat you love to hate (hate to love?).
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, art by Robert Hack
My favorite installment in the Archie horror-verse, though, is Aguirre-Sacasa’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. These comics delve into the history of witchcraft and persecution, weaving lore into the world of Greendale and bleeding (literally) into the neighboring town of Riverdale.
Full of gore, brutality, and teenage angst (sigh), these comics bring beautifully rough edges to the simple, clean-cut characters we wish we didn’t love so much.
For Bianca, nostalgia is having its moment, too:
Ghost Adventures, created and written by Zak Bagans
Still from Ghost Adventures, Season 6 (2011)
I adore watching paranormal reality series like this one—especially this one!—because they’re cheesy, campy ghost investigations, yes, but there are also some surprisingly intriguing EVPs.
Evil Dead Rise, written and directed by Lee Cronin
Evil Dead Rise, too, has been on repeat. Summer goal: become desensitized to creepy, dead smiles.
Alien, written by Dan O’Bannon, directed by Ridley Scott
I’ve been rewatching the 1979 film mainly because of Sigourney Weaver as Ripley. She is the thirst trap of the last three decades.
And I’ve been doing a bit of digging into cultural anthropology after watching a documentary [Unknown Cave of Bones, it’s on Netflix!] about burial practices in cave systems in South Africa because why not?
Also. An aside: I have a Virgen de Guadalupe and some wilting stems by my bedside. We shall see what hauntings they bring.
What’s been haunting Riah this July is less thirst trap, more break-a-leg:
Grey House, written by Levi Holloway, directed by Joe Mantello
Reviews for the play have been mixed (gotta love subjective experience, amirite?), but this review for Variety captures Grey House’s ~essence~ accurately enough:
Closer to eerily meditative film noir than a Jason Blum fear-fest, “Grey House” — which first opened at Chicago’s A Red Orchid Theatre in 2019 — recalls John Huston’s 1948 movie “Key Largo” in its mix of unwanted visitors and scheming home inhabitants. It also nods to Eugène Ionesco with fate and grief as psychic signposts, and similarly evokes Sam Shepherd’s misery-soaked “Curse of the Starving Class” with haunted, teenaged girls on its frontlines.
But are they actually teenage girls? Deaf, tinkering Bernie, precocious Marlow, fleet-of-foot Squirrel and the kindly, inquisitive and surprisingly named A1656 are the daughters of mama Raleigh (Laurie Metcalf), all living together in a house in the woods. One snow-bound night, cross-country travelers Max (Tatiana Maslany) and Henry (Paul Sparks), waylaid by an accident (or fate?), come to call.
And if Court had it their way, birthday months would be reserved for reading fucked-up fiction, trespassing post witching hour, and trekking up to a murder site:
Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird, by Agustina Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses
Bazterrica’s Tender is the Flesh solidified my vegetarian-ism (?) when I first read Sarah Moses’ translation of the novel (originally published in Spanish in 2017), and it’s one of those books that stays with you—even when you’d rather not think about cannibalism and the terror that is the meat industry. Because that novel quickly became a favorite of mine, I knew I had to get my hands on the author’s recently published short story collection.
Up until yesterday, the book had been sitting, unopened, on my desk. Unopened because I knew that once I started devouring these twenty stories, I wasn’t going to be able to stop. (Yes, consumption of book/flesh pun fully intended. Yes, I’m disappointed in me, too.) I’m halfway through Bazterrica’s collection now, and the writing is just as good. Dare I say better?
Disturbing. Horrible in nothing but the best ways. A definite recommend.
Gitchie Girl: The Survivor's Inside Story of the Mass Murders that Shocked the Heartland, by Phil Hamman and Sandy Hamman
Okay, so I haven’t read this one yet, but it’s at the top of my TBR. At first, the title made me think it was written by Sandra Cheskey, the sole survivor of the 1973 Gitchie Manitou murders—and I got super excited to read—but it’s not. Apparently, though, the authors did speak with Sandra while writing the book, so fingers crossed for this one.
