I SAW COMPANION

Companion, co-produced by Zach (Barbarian) Cregger and written/directed by Drew (My Dead Ex) Hancock, is a robot movie, or make that an android one, which centers on current, A.I. views.

Though there are other movies of its kind, Companion isn't quite Ex Machina, The Stepford Wives, Blade Runner, Westworld, M3GAN or Cherry 2000 (and it's far from those related, cyborg staples, Terminator, RoboCop and Deadly Friend, though it does offer some recognizable nods). Even so, it still sticks to the general sub-genre and holds a confined feel to its philosophical premise, which reflects another android favorite, Rod Serling's Twilight Zone, "The Lateness of the Hour," with the latter occurring in a sole setting, and Companion transpiring within and around a getaway mansion.  

The vacationers include Jack (The Boys/Scream V) Quaid's laid-back Josh; Harvey (What We Do in the Shadows) Guillien's jovial Eli; Lukas (Euphoria/Smile 2) Gage's accommodating Patrick; Megan (It Lives Inside) Suri's highbrow Kat; Rupert (Canary Black/The Libertine) Friend's "soiled" entrepreneur and gathering's host, Sergey; and Sophie (Heretic) Thatcher's Iris, aka the Companion. Each of Iris' supporting players holds a secret, a plan, which Iris only comes to unravel when she's manipulated. From there, she learns that lying and selfishness are all part of the human condition. 

As the trailers have conveyed, Josh and Iris are presented as the headlining couple who introduce us to the others, and it should be noted that Josh's compatriots do, indeed, know that Iris is a tag-along, pleasure model. When one of them forces her into a sexual situation, it's then that things turn murderous.  

In the bloodshed's aftermath, Companion engages gallows humor, though it's frugal and subdued with its weird hijinks. It's a situation where, upon reflection, one will recall certain harrowing scenes as funny (consider An American Werewolf in London, Motel Hell and The Substance). Credit for the dry humor goes to Hancock, but it's underscored by the performers' pragmatic exchanges, which become more enlivened when circumstances enter that inevitable point of no return.   

As a further asset, Companion's climax is more bitter than sweet in its encircling vengeance. That's good. Why expect (or desire) a tidy, Disney, fairy-tale conclusion to it, even with Valentine's Day around the bend? Also, regardless of its science-fiction framework, Companion is quirky, unadulterated horror, and because of such, a higher-tier success. 

FAREWELL, HORST JANSON

You left a mighty mark through Hammer's once misunderstood but later celebrated swashbuckler, Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter. 

Though it should have spawned a slew of sequels, Kronos proved important enough to seal your fate as a crossover icon in both horror and fanciful adventure. 

Of course, Kronos wasn't your only claim to fame. There's The Captain; Long Live Your Death; Life is Tough, eh Providence?; Murphy's War; Battle of the Godfathers; The Twins of Immenhof; No Gold for a Dead Diver (Deadly Jaws); The Buddenbrooks; A Glass of Water; If You Play with Crazy Birds; No Time to Die; Escape from East Berlin; The Broken Crown; A Woman Needs Loving; The Cry of the Wild Geese; The Best of Enemies; Taxi 4012; Vukover: The Way Home; Crazy - Completely Mad; Veterinarian Christine; Shout at the Devil; The Last Days of Patton; Salto Mortale (the trapeze series, where you were regular, Sascha Doria); and so many more, most of which were made on your native, German soil. 

You stood out for having the virile goods to make each of your performances memorable. In this respect, Mr. Janson, you were the last of (alas) what might be a vanishing breed, but because of your cinematic contributions, your path will always flaunt your manly creed. 

THE NEUROMANCERS: STORIES INSPIRED BY WILLIAM GIBSON'S UNIVERSE

 

Raffaele Pezzella's Eighth Tower Publications' latest (279-page) Dark Fiction anthology, The Neuromancers: Stories Inspired by William Gibson's universe, is now available for purchase.

The curation features content composed by Chris McAuley, J. Edwin Buja, Glynn Owen Barrass, Michael F. Housel, Andrew Coulthard, Scott J. Courturier, Russel Smeaton and Paola L. Bandera, who've tapped into Gibson's alternate-reality views and schemes, where the human condition merges with, and often combats, an all-consuming technology.

Fans of the Gibson's literary works, as well as those who appreciate such cinematic knockoffs as The Matrix and Johnny Mnemonic, will find this volume a must-have for their cyberpunk libraries. 

Order The Neuromancers anthology in either the hardback or paperback at  

https://unexplainedsoundsgroup.bandcamp.com/album/the-neuromancers-music-inspired-by-william-gibsons-universe?fbclid=IwY2xjawIF_GJleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHVHog1NQ9YG4DzK3k-fkpVUAQ10nhRfuhmPsZrghK77_AtsICAhqfxECjA_aem_WA39CmC5jO7LjsFoHeXm_w

(PS: An audio curation, The Neuromancers: Music Inspired by William Gibson's universe, is also available from Eighth Tower; why not obtain both for a twofold, cyberpunk experience?)  

THE NEUROMANCERS: MUSIC INSPIRED BY WILLIAM GIBSON'S UNIVERSE

The Neuromancers: Music Inspired by William Gibson's universe is now available for purchase through Raffaele Pezzella's Eighth Tower Records. 

The selections pop with electronic cognition and cyberpunk elation, summoning visions real and artificial (and a few that fall somewhere between the extremes), influenced by Gibson's imaginative and intricate mythology. 

The impressive queue flows as follows (with artist listed first and then composition title):

1) Adi Newton - Intercepted Quantum Entanglement Transmission

2)    NYORAI     -     Hein

3)    Mario Lino Stancati    -    Jack into Cyberspace

4)    Joel Gilardini        -     Diffidence Engine

5)    Tescon Pol        -     Glycerabellum

6)    phoanogramma     -    capsule hotel

7)    Dead Voice on Air    -    Gullfire Over Lenigrad

8)    Wahn    -    Lost Factory

9)    SIGILLUM S    -    Kuromauidoru Shuhen

10)  Richard Begin    -    The Architects of Freeside

11)  NYORAI    -    Asamoya

12)  Andrei Uhl    -   Megabath

The Neuromancers album is one to absorb and revisit time again. (It also acts as a brilliant companion to Eighth Tower Publication's The Neuromancers: Stories Inspired by William Gibson's universe; why not purchase both for the ultimate, cyberpunk-inspired experience?) 

Enter Eighth Tower's Gibson-circuited corridors at 

https://unexplainedsoundsgroup.bandcamp.com/album/the-neuromancers-music-inspired-by-william-gibsons-universe?fbclid=IwY2xjawIF_GJleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHVHog1NQ9YG4DzK3k-fkpVUAQ10nhRfuhmPsZrghK77_AtsICAhqfxECjA_aem_WA39CmC5jO7LjsFoHeXm_w

HAPPY NATIONAL GORILLA SUIT DAY 2025 (1/31)

FORTIER & DEGAINE'S HAMLET'S END: VENGEANCE LAUNCHES

 

Writer Ron Fortier and artist Zane DeGaine are stirring a rousing, five-chapter, western saga in Pulp Fission Publishing's Hamlet's End, which just commenced its Kickstarter campaign. 

The saga occurs in 1870 Arkansas and features a determined lass named Dallas Maddox, who seeks revenge after her family is murdered. In essence, Maddox is a clever overlap of True Grit's Mattie Ross and Marshal Rooster Cogburn. Through Dallas' arduous journey, she ultimately becomes an unrivaled, bounty hunter. 

Westerns are on the indubitable upswing, and Hamlet's End is set to take the genre's comeback to new, rip-snorting heights, ensured by Fortier's seasoned storytelling and DeGaine's elaborate illustrations. (Acclaimed artist and Fortier confidant, Rob Davis, is even rendering an alternate cover for one of the packaged deals.)

To support the first chapter in this ambitious event, "Vengeance Rides on the Horizon," visit

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pulpfission/hamlets-end-1-vengeance-rides-on-the-horizon?ref=ksr_email_mktg_auto_user_watched_project_launched

One can also gain further insight on the project at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLGhgr7bEOg

There's no question that Hamlet's End holds the fiery ingredients to be a sure-fire smash. Please pledge to this worth-while pursuit to ensure it rolls into reality. 

PINUP TIME: JERI RYAN IS SEVEN OF NINE (MODIFIED)

LOVE IN REVERSE'S KEEP UPRIGHT: FULL ALBUM REVIEW

Love in Reverse, the acclaimed ensemble of Michael Ferentino, Andres Karu and Dave Halpern, rolls a new epic onto the playing field: Keep Upright. It's been in development for a spell, with the ardent tease of a couple, catchy singles last year, but now it stands in whole, and whoa!, does it ever strike a comforting, consummate chord. 

The title track (situated as the album's third) is, in fact, the key to understanding the concept's behavioral fabric, encouraging one to stand up and endure, in light of any and all ongoing trouble. It's a self-help kind of anthem, evading that devilish voice that promotes misery and woe, a path devoid of pretense or demands, tapping a contemplative courage that runs thick and fast through Keep Upright's related veins. 

For example, "This Heavy Feeling" (the first in the ten-track queue) captures the confines of fatalism in a manner that only Love in Reverse could render. It speaks of overcoming anxiety, explaining how nothing makes much sense when one faces trepidation, when one's soul feels enflamed, when one's brain proves a terrible trickster. 

"Summer of Horror" is next up, its title invoking a campground slaughter, but it's much more than that. Through Ferentino's pensive lyrics, a love is crashed and burned, or perhaps it's one that's never been born. The resulting pain, in all its glaring glory, presses through: identifiable to all who've yearned for a significant other, only to be ignored. 

"Too Much Thinking" follows the title track, reflecting daily concerns, when one worries about this and that, blowing that oh-so-important chance to keep some order. Ferentino's vocals drive this home with compassion and rage, with a heart-in-the-right-place empathy and I daresay, an ample layer of encroaching dread, which paints a vibrant denouncement of the no-way-out, rat race.  

"Care" commences the album's thematic flipside: a rejection of emotional baggage. To my ears, the track is a sweeping, relationship song, acknowledging the horrid flaws of one's  constitution that a loved one may rub in one's face, and therefore pushes the need for one to sever the necessary ties and escape. 

"Gently Screaming" pays homage to George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," but with a quickening cry that squeezes a listen-up plea, even when acknowledging that the game is fixed. It calls out zombies (in The Hooters tradition), instructing the populace to take note and avoid the bad that one unwittingly seeks.

The latter's message is re-imagined in "Lost Weekend," a title that brings to mind Ray Milland and an empty bottle, but it's really an antidote for fighting decades of doldrums. "Lost Weekend'"s chanted beat, its encircling, euphoric bounce, is sweet and contagious, which makes the act of gaining salvation, of falling in love, credible and as such, acceptable.  

"Lobotomy Song" swings the euphoria even higher, stretching a winding pass, with an on-the-road, 1970s feel. It celebrates shutting off one's brain, taking a vacation from the state of the nation and existing behind a satisfied, smile-less smile. 

Its sequel, "Let Her Run," creates another path to freedom, with an unshackled exaltation that's modern and spacey, with the fortitude to diminish a virulent lass and in so doing, leaving one all the better for it.

"Little Bird" ends the album's journey on soft, soaring wings. Its theme presses the need to please only oneself and not give a damn what the haters say. In this regard, it rejects those who reject, for the views of others mean nothing if they keep one glum. In this severance, this pervading punctuation, comes transcendental peace: indeed, the best means of all to keep upright. 

Keep Upright offers much to consume and appreciate. Attend the musical lecture at  

https://open.spotify.com/album/2xIYpETnNUa7I2IQ8kwkWj?si=1&nd=1&dlsi=7bf5f9a71bae48e9