One of the earliest films I remember seeing was the 2-part mini-series of Stephen King’s IT. IT scared the undying crap out of me when I was about 6 or 7.
Now, many years later, I have decided to actually read the novel before part 2 of the new 2-part films is out.
HERE GOES…
…TIME TO FLOAT…
Edit: After reading 50 pages, although enjoying it, I have decided to concentrate on The Dark Tower series for a while.
Some thoughts of mine after finishing the first book of Stephen King’s epic series ‘The Dark Tower’.
It took me to my second attempt to actually read this book to completion. And although it started off as a bit of a chore, by about a third in I found myself drawn in to the Gunslinger and his pursue of the Man in Black.
I found the story to be a slow burn — an ongoing pursuit interspersed with necessary backstory of the titular character. And I mean that in a good way. I have the feeling that this is going to be a build up over a long time — especially knowing that how many books there are now in this series.
I found it really intriguing how the Gunslinger and the boy he finds, Jake, interact. Their relationship seemed to be building into an interesting one and really hope that it can somehow be explored further. Somehow.
And Jake’s history too. His origin that spoke of New York in some other world, or that’s what I presumed. Yet the world in which we follow the Gunslinger seems to be in some post-war-ravaged, desolate future of the very same Earth.
Whatever ends up happening, and however this crossing at the nexus of realities is explored, I’m looking forward to the ride it brings.
I’ve been a fan of American Horror Story for a few years now – since Hotel first aired. So you’d think I’d have been all over Scream Queens too, given it was also created in part by both Brad Falchuk and Ryan Murphy.
But for some strange reason, known only to me I guess, I have only just decided to sit down and watch it.
And it is freakin’ incredible!
The comic timing and sense of humour is on point in the pilot episode. So often it seemed I found myself being played like a fiddle at the whims of the creators. I found myself laughing out loud and then becoming appalled at myself for what I was laughing at.
All of the actors and actresses involved were fun to watch, but I have to give a special shout-out to original scream queen herself, Jamie Lee Curtis. I’m so happy she is in this show and can’t wait to see what part she ultimately plays. And of course, one of my favourite American Horror Story alumni, Emma Roberts as the super-fucking-bitch Chanel.
Emma Roberts is so bloody disgusting in this show and yet I can’t help but love her character. She is so much fun to watch just being an incredibly evil person to those around her. And something tells me that she won’t get her just desserts any time soon.
I feel as though Scream Queens fell under the radar a bit, especially when compared to it’s mature older cousin American Horror Story. But just from this opening pilot alone I have found it just as entertaining, if not even more so.
There were some great musical moments too – something I’ve just come to expect from these guys. And some awesome song choices too — especially the opening song by Bat For Lashes — ‘What’s A Girl To Do?’.
If I hadn’t have had to get up early the next morning I’d probably have watched the next two or three episodes back to back. I guess I will have to wait.
Scream Queens is going to make a great show to keep my juices flowing ready for American Horror Story: 1984 in September.
I can’t believe I’ve waited this long to actually get started on it.
In a public match, achieve a merciless victory with The Ghost Face using only his 3 unique perks.
I’m working double shifts at my freelance gardening job – I’m raking it in.
I started reading The Gunslinger about a year ago but only got about half way through.
After someone at work mentioned The Dark Tower series today, I was inspired to pick it back up and try again.
Here goes…
Maybe it’s not a siren at all… maybe it’s the cry of a demon.
The voices begin to scare the crew — Demon’s Voice
Somewhere out in the middle of the ocean, a group of fishermen are scouting the open seas for a decent catch. It’s been a while since they have had a really good catch, but they continue on nonetheless — determined.
One night, whilst sailing across the deadly waves, a shrill cry is heard by the crew – what sounds like the voice; the voice of a demon. Luckily for one crew member, Koji, he happens to be inside the cabin with sea sickness when the voices begin.
The very next day, seemingly out of nowhere, the crew obtain the catch of their lives. In the nets they see masses of tuna; the biggest catch they could have ever imagined. Koji, however, sees what is really in those nets: a huge pile of rotting corpses pulled up out of the sea bed.
The crew, it seems, have started hallucinating – all except for Koji. The obvious cause seems to be the strange sounds from the night before. With Koji being ill in bed, he had failed to hear them. But what will happen once he hears them too? Once all of the crew are affected by those wailing sounds, what else will they end up dredging up from the ocean’s bed?
A real mystery this one – a warning to sailors.
This seems to be inspired by the legends of the Sirens of the rocks – at least to me. The beautiful women who would lure sailors to their doom by sitting naked and playing sweet music. But in true Junji Ito style, we switch the sweet music for piercing night howls and naked ladies for rotting, horrifying corpses.
I always find the stories that are set in a single location interesting. It’s good to see how a writer crafts an engaging tale when working within a self-imposed limit like that. And Ito is as equipped as any of the best in doing so. The claustrophobia of the boat can be felt throughout, as can the imposing nature of the sea around them.
The idea of a small group of people being out on the open seas together is already a thought that could bring fears of isolation and the worry of having nowhere to turn for privacy. But when you throw in the idea of pulling up a load of old decaying corpses from the ocean floor, suddenly the great big ocean doesn’t feel so big any more.
Demon’s Voice is another short one shot story from Ito. The story is pretty straight forward and succinct. And like a lot of his shorter tales, packs a lot into its few pages.
He creates a world that could easily be further explored: What happens to this, and presumably other, crews? Where is this voice coming from? Why is there a malevolent force at work that is preying on innocent sailors.
I was reminded of another manga i’d read recently called “Mountain of Gods Precipice of the Unknown”. That too deals with an unknown force that is targeting a specific group of people. And for reasons unknown.
All in all, Demon’s Voice is a nice little story about the sirens in the ocean. Sail on.
The Neon Demon is one of my favourite films of recent years. I wrote up my thoughts on it a while back. Here are some of my favourite posters that I’ve found, created by other fans of the film.
In The Bully we follow Kuriko and the boys around her who end up suffering in one way or another. From the manga’s opening pages we are led to believe that she is a sweet woman who only wants to be honest with her husband-to-be.
We join Kuriko and her soon-to-be-Husband Yutaro at a local park, where they once played as children. She tells him how she wishes to confess details to him of her “dark past”, as she puts it. Kuriko tells him, and us through a flashback, of how she was once entrusted to look after a young boy, called Nao, when she was just a young girl herself.
But the trust put in her for that little boy’s welfare was misplaced, it seems. Kuriko goes on to reveal how, when Nao would start becoming too clingy with her, she would start bullying him. She started lightly with just screaming in his ear, but the story soon escalates her abuse into some pretty harsh scenes.
As the story of The Bully moves into it’s second half, it shows us how those earlier events have affected those people in the present day. We learn where those people are now in life and ultimately how Kuriko’s volatile nature affects each and every one of them.
When we talk about horror with regards to Junji Ito, we often talk about the body horror aspects more often than not. We discuss slug-people, Spirals, and a certain girl who can not die. But in The Bully, Ito has crafted what I believe to be one of his most successfully-unnerving horror stories to date.
Although Kuriko is the main character here, I couldn’t help but empathise with Nao in those flashbacks. Where he was made to drink dirty water; where he was made to confront the scary dog “Devil”; and where he is beaten with a stick.
How Ito manages to bring to the page the horrors of being bullied is impressive. The innocent character of Nao was a perfect vessel in which we can put all of our hope and caring natures in to. Kuriko, on the other hand, was the perfect vessel for evil.
Although…
The fact that our introduction to Kuriko is at a point in life where she seems settled, and is opening up about her past, gave me a positive feeling about her. And just as negative first impressions can colour our image of people, I think positive ones can too.
Because of this, I found myself never really hating her, save for the dog scene and the beating. I found myself not liking her actions, but thinking about how we aren’t the same people as we were when we were younger. This doesn’t excuse those actions, but she is confessing through an apparent weight of guilt.
Of course in the story’s closing panels we do get to see her character transform into what she was perhaps destined to be. That closing panel of The Bully is one of the most frightening I have come across. Ito has always had a good eye for a great closing image that can haunt you, but this takes the prize.
When stories take on the heavy subject of abuse, there are often times when the one who was abused later becomes the abuser to another. The cycle of violence. But something that I found very intriguing in The Bully, was that Junji Ito seemed to turn those ideas on their heads.
Kuriko seemed to have a nice family upbringing from what I could see in the flashbacks and yet something in her snapped at a young age. Then after being bullied relentlessly by her, Nao seemed to actually grow up to become a well-adjusted adult. He had a solid job and actually reminisced about his younger days with a kind of fondness. Love is blind, it seems.
But the story’s big reveal doesn’t show this violent nature being passed on to her child, but instead — and ultimately more terrifying — it shows Kuriko relapsing and unleashing a scarier version of her buried self.
Not only do we know what she was capable of as a child, but we know she is now a fully grown woman with the added strength that brings. And we know she is mentally unstable — mistaking her young son for the once-young Nao. But what we don’t know, is what ends up happened to her new victim. With it ending with a walk to the park, perhaps the real horror will live on in our minds trying to imagine what will happen next.
The Bully has been getting recommended to me for a while now, and I never got round to reading it until recently. Now I see what all the fuss is about. This story is one of Junji Ito’s crowning achievements in my opinion. The way that he has developed each of the characters and gone against what you would perhaps have guessed would happen with them, is a stroke of genius.
Ito never takes the easy way out; he always pushes up to the boundaries and often past them. Despite him being one of the most accessible horror manga artists of our time, he remains one of the most terrifying and creative too.
If you want to jump into the deep end of horror manga but without all of the blood and guts, then Junji Ito’s The Bully is literally the perfect example of a story to read. It is also a self-contained one shot, standing at just 30 pages. So you could read this in one short go.
Archie during my dog-sitting week.
Woof woof! Woof!
Archie, circa 2019
You recovered sensitive information from a highly defended federal building.
The Junji Ito Manga Site is my dedication to the works of acclaimed Horror Manga artist and writer, Junji Ito.
Ever since I read my first manga, The Enigma of Amigara Fault, I was hooked on Junji Ito’s work. I couldn’t quite describe the feelings that his work gave me.
I was unsettled;
I was excited;
and I loved it.
After writing about his, and other artists’, works on my other website, the Horror Manga Site, I have decided to focus in on just Ito’s work for now. Hence this new website.
It is still early days and so the website itself still needs some work. However, it is working fine and all of my posts can now be read.
There are just some style tweaks I’d like to make.
I will be looking to add reviews for all of Ito’s manga stories over the coming months, as well as the Anime and Films that have been based on his work.
I’d also like to share cool cosplays and fan art that I come across too, with full credit given to the creators of course.
I’m very excited about what the next year and beyond could bring with this site and would love for you all to join me on this journey.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of the people who have supported me throughout my writing on the Horror Manga Site. I appreciate each and every one of you and am looking forward to bringing you even more from here going forwards.
All the best to all of you,
Dave.
Loving the recent formats of the TV series Archer. Finally got back into watching it – Dreamland was great and just about to start Danger Island.
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