Ponytail Picks #17 - Fear

Never fear! Our new edition of Ponytail Picks is here!

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WATCH

Some horror movie recommendations for you (adapted from my original movie reviews at Joel Watches Movies), but only if your head and heart can handle it—and I don’t mean that in a cheesy “if you dare…” way—our inner and outer worlds can be scary enough as it is, so I don’t blame anyone if they don’t wish to add more dread to their lives via the movies they watch. That said, these are all excellent films if you’re in the mood and have an episode of The Great Canadian Baking Show or something ready to go for afterwards:

The Shining (1980)

Wooden scenes of banal dialogue and trivialities start up an innocent plot that gets increasingly spotted with surrealist imagery both macabre and bizarre as more concrete cabin fever character tension slowly builds. The impending horror infuses the most vapid of scenes (riding a tricycle, throwing a ball, preparing dinner) with a thrilling uneasiness, amplified by the unnerving soundtrack. Take this masterful opening sequence:

Hereditary (2018)

A truly torturous twisting of unbearable family drama and bone-chilling horror. I don’t think I’ve ever been more on edge in the build-up or left more horrified afterwards than I was with its pivotal accident scene.

Eraserhead (1977)

A remarkable exercise in discomfort, not just in its ooze, nightmares, and depressing settings (is that a pile of dirt on his bedside table?), but in the way it unfLynchingly amplifies the awkward gaps (walks home, elevator doors, and conversations are all terribly slow) and back-breaking straws of life. Not to mention the horror of meeting your significant other’s family for the first time, amirite??

The Thing (1982)

Here’s the thing (sorry not sorry): this would’ve been a good movie even without those glorious and gutsy practical effects: the slow-burning plot of discovery and suspicion, the freezing Antarctic setting, the simmering tension and subtle chills of the ambiguous ending (“Why don’t we just wait here for a little while, see what happens?”). But then you add in a cavity with teeth (hah), a spider-head (“You gotta be fuckin’ kidding”), and an octopus dog, and The Thing goes from good to great.

The Fly (1986)

It’s gross, it’s gloomy, and unquestionably glorious in its gory sci-fi camp. Goldblum shines all the way through, from awkwardly charming and secretly hunkalicious-in-the-80s scientist to wild-eyed eccentric (“Drink deep, or taste not, the plasma spring!”), to morbidly witty Brundlefly (“The medicine cabinet is now the Brundle Museum of Natural History”), to tragic monster (“I’m an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it”).

-JB

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LISTEN

I really wanted to plug my brother’s new audiobook collection of uniquely unsettling short horror stories here, but I already wrote about him in a previous ‘Picks and I don’t want to seem toooo nepotistic, so I’ll content myself with a subtle link and throw some spooky songs your way instead:

“Here we are, in the land of boundless plains,” Graieg-Morrison says in his written introduction to the instrumental track. “What are we scared of?” We ponder this question as the song warbles into being. The discomfort is relentless as we confront the truth about ourselves (“We are the strangers. Too self-centred to share,” is what Graieg-Morrison suggests) before a brief respite—and then it hits home in full force.

Gotta include the famously skeleton-adorned Phoebe Bridgers here, of course. On her ode to the fearful holiday, softly plucked strings and sung notes on the verses jab you with real life big city terror (“I hate living by the hospital, the sirens go all night / I used to joke that if they woke you up, somebody better be dying,” Bridgers sings before the hammer clangs hard in the next verse: “They killed a fan down by the stadium / Was only visiting, they beat him to death”) while the chorus kisses your wounds in swells of imagination:

Baby, it's Halloween
We can be anything

Bit of a different musical vibe with this one—the key is major and the pace is jaunty and folksy—but it masks a desperate plea. The world is a scary place, be careful out there:

A figure waits in the shadows
Someone drowned in the lake

… Somewhere a plane went down
These things they never stop

… don’t go ‘round when the devil’s loose

Bondy breaks down in the final verse (“You can’t get your arms ‘round everybody / You cannot carry the doom”) and you feel his pain as the chord progression turns minor and the strings cry out in the penultimate bar.

Over a night-cruise groove, an uneasy organ, and keyboard licks straight out of a John Carpenter movie soundtrack, vocalist Tessa Murray attempts in various ways to conjure up her lover (“Wrote a little book where I put your name”; “Made a little call on the telephone”; “Took a little pill to see your face”) for a chilling getaway. And in this fucked up world, there are few things more thrilling or more terrifying than the thought of dropping everything and attempting escape:

We can leave now, just drive away
Only you and me, we could leave today
Let’s take a chance, like we used to
We can go back, find something new

I would also be remiss of course not to mention one of my favourite musical spooks, the smokey cynic and genre-spanning genius Tom Waits. He has too many devastatingly haunting songs to mention so if you’re in the mood, just give his extensive discography a look-see and keep an eye out for those classically creepy keywords like “blood,” “dead,” and “misery”.

-JB

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Craving even more spooky content? Here are two past ‘Picks of other things we’re afraid of:

READ

A Scary, Personal Note from Andrew (and Joel)

I lost my job this week (read the READ section of this past post for context). Jerry’s “Auto News” and “Electric Vehicles” verticals are dead.

“So it goes.” - Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five¹

It’s a frightening position to be in. I was always with Jerry on a freelance basis, so I didn’t expect a lot of job security there. I found other work along the way. But still: When your main source of income disappears, it’s scary. I’ll admit it.

But I’m choosing not to wallow in bad luck. Instead, I’m turning the situation into motivation to focus on what I really want to do—write for all of you through Ponytail Press. Necessity is the mother of invention, as the old adage goes.

So Ponytail Press is about to grow. Expect posts to increase to at least once a week rather than every other. Expect new post formats: longform essays and reviews; updates on world events that pique our interest and/or connect to the themes we’re exploring; creative works (short stories, poetry, etc.); etc. Expect the unexpected. We are showing up to see where the wind takes us—where the spirit leads, if you will.

One solid plan to look forward to: Monday Metamorphoses. Starting in the New Year, a passage from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (translated by Anthony S. Kline) will arrive in your inbox on the first day of every work week. We’ll let the old stories stew until the following Saturday morning, when you’ll get my (Andrew’s) thoughts and a discussion thread where I hope you’ll give your two cents. This idea was inspired by other Substack-based book clubs like Moby Dick Summer and Dracula Daily. I can only dream that it will go as well.

If you give Monday Metamorphoses or any other new section of Ponytail Press a try and discover that it’s not for you, you can always opt out on the “manage your subscription” page on Substack. We won’t judge you for doing so, we promise.

To make all this growth sustainable, Ponytail Press is now open to paid subscribers! For all you wonderful people already subscribing for free, fear not! Nothing will change for you. Our past and future Ponytail Picks will always be accessible, free of charge. In fact, for now, Ponytail Press will continue to be open for all. Exclusive content may arrive at another date, but at this point, our paid option is more of an invitation to support our work and encourage us to keep going. Because that’s exactly what we want to do—keep sharing our thoughts on the art & culture sprouting up around us, getting your take in the comments, and collecting new friends along the way.

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That’s all for this edition of Ponytail Picks. Next time, we’re taking a breather as we explore all things

slow.

1. If you’re here from the future and you still haven’t read the book, get on it already!