Autumn Lives Here
Vol. 99: I've got food horror, the true story of Arsenic and Old Lace, and all The Walking Dead spin-offs. Yes, and you get a cocktail.
It’s The Walking Dead. And The Walking Dead. And more of The Walking Dead!
I’ve kept quiet about all The Walking Dead spin-offs that have appeared over the past year. I like to chew on things like this for a while, like a walker digging into a fat thigh and wondering if it needs more salt. So let’s discuss these offerings.
The Walking Dead: Dead City- This was the first spin-off, airing over the Summer of 2023. Maggie and Negan were trying to find Maggie’s kidnapped son Herschel in a decimated and crumbling NYC. I watched the first two or three episodes and lost interest. No, that’s a lie. I lost interest during the very first episode but forced myself to keep watching in the hopes it would hook me. I liked Maggie in TWD, and Negan was compelling when he was a sociopath, but he’s been declawed now and Maggie doesn’t hold my interest minus the other TWD characters being around. But they’re getting a second season.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon- Something no TWD fan ever expected to see is Georgia dirtbag Daryl navigating rural France. It’s a weird concept. Daryl is no longer a badass biker, instead, he’s moping around a French convent and dressed like a 19th Century farmer. His goal here is to protect a boy and a pretty blonde nun from a manipulative getter and a homicidal gang. It was interesting, mostly. This was originally going to be a Daryl and Carol show, which would have been great, but Melissa McBride couldn’t film overseas. Looks like she’s popping up in the future, though. Expect season two in July.
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live- The most recent spin-off in TWD world. Michonne has been searching for Rick for five years or more. She finds that he’s been a captive of a highly organized military group for all these years. He’s tried everything he can think of to escape, even cutting off his hand in a nod to the graphic novels.
This is what became of the two Rick Grimes movies promised to fans when Andrew Lincoln left TWD in 2018. It’s a six episode limited series that seems, for now at least, to be the end of Rick and Michonne’s story. While it didn’t grab me from the beginning in the way TWD did, and that’s always going to be a complaint from TWD fans, it quickly grew on me. And other characters from TWD show up along the way, such as Jadis, Gabriel, Judith and clips of Carl. Of the three spin-offs, I liked this series best, though the product placement is ridiculously blatant, whether it’s lingering on the logo of the car Rick and Michonne are driving or Rick pushing a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label up to the camera so you can see the official whiskey of the Apocalypse.
Also, does each episode have to be movie length? I have things to do.
DRINKIEPOO!
The Floating Brain- from Recipes from the World of H.P. Lovecraft
2 measures peach schnapps
2 dashes Baileys Irish Cream
6 drops of grenadine
Pour the schnapps into two chilled shot glasses. Using the back of a bar spoon, slowly float the Baileys onto the schnapps. Gently drop the grenadine on top of the Baileys and watch it fall to the bottom, creating the illusion of brain matter. Mmmm...
SPOOKY BOOKY
The Devil’s Rooming House by M. William Phelps
Lyons Press, 2011
This is the true story of the Archer Home in Windsor, Connecticut in the early 1900s. Owned by Amy Archer and billed as a home for the elderly and invalid, Amy charged $1000 for room, board and total care for the rest of a person's life. This plan worked for Archer only if she kept bodies walking in with money and going out in a coffin at a sharpish pace. The death rate in the Archer Home was sometimes four times the average of similar homes, though she does deserve credit for creating the industry of nursing homes.
Amy Archer, looking like Howdy Doody with a bible, curated a saintly persona in the small town, and because some of her houseguests were either too afraid to complain or just couldn’t find anyone to believe them due to their age, she was able to hold off a real inspection of what was happening in her house for several years.
This story was the basis for the comedy play Arsenic and Old Lace, but the true story includes a cagey psycho, dead husbands, and too many elderly people who couldn’t defend themselves. Scare Scale: 2
Just a Little Weirdness…
I’m going to mention something I’ve noticed a lot of lately; people on tv talking about some horrible personal events, such as a missing child or the death of a loved one, with a smile on their face. Sometimes, a really big smile.
I don’t know if I’ve suddenly become attuned to this or if we have a lot of people who don’t know what their faces are doing. The Giant says it must be some reaction to a camera being pointed at them, that some people will automatically smile, or maybe they smile out of nervousness. Maybe. But I recently saw a young man discussing his beloved father’s drawn out battle with cancer, and he couldn’t keep the smile off his face. Now that’s what creeps me out.
What’s Eating You?: Food Horror
There’s a reason Oliver Twist took the chance of asking for more food; hunger is one of those driving forces that we can’t get away from. You might survive climbing a snow-covered Mount Everest or jumping out of an airplane (let me know if you don’t), but you will not survive if you try to give up eating.
Most people really enjoy their food. Personally, I know of just two humans who didn’t care for eating: supermodel Kate Moss once said, “Eating is boring.” And Lucille Ball famously told an interviewer, “I don’t care about food. I only eat what I need.” It seems a little cheeky that several of Ball’s favorites (made by her personal chef) ended up in The Dead Celebrity Cookbook, where we can see that when Ball did eat, she preferred really bland dishes.
Now let’s take a big leap from thinking of food in terms of cookbooks to wincing at the sub-genre of “food horror”, where a character may feel the need to eat and eat and eat. Or to eat that which most of us would not. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about.
These books and films feature something strange going on at mealtimes.
Soylent Green: In 1973, Charlton Heston was one of the biggest movie stars alive. Really, he was considered a hottie and I imagine people wanted to see him naked. Anyway, he starred in this dystopian horror about a society where resources are so scarce that women are called “furniture”, as in, if a man was rich enough he had a furnished home. And real food too. But the majority of people are surviving on the little slabs called “soylent green”, which the government produces. You’ll never look at nori the same way again.
The Specialty of the House: This short story by Stanley Ellin was first published in 1948 and has been reprinted and filmed extensively ever since. It’s likely one of the very first examples of food horror, a macabre little story of a man who is brought to an old world restaurant by his friend to experience the dish known as “lamb Amirstan”.
The Santa Clarita Diet: This three season horror-comedy remains one of the best shows Netflix has ever produced. The husband and wife realtor team of Sheila and Joel are navigating their way through Sheila’s inexplicable death and reemergence as a flesh-craving zombie, and it is a dee-light, as are the appearances of Nathan Fillion, Andy Richter and Linda Lavin.
Eat the Rich: If you’re familiar with this 1987 horror-comedy, you’re either British or a rather intense Anglophile. Starring Rik Mayall, Jennifer Saunders, Ronald Allen, Robbie Coltrane, Lemmy...heck, even Paul McCartney did a cameo. It’s the story of a band of outlaws and misfits who open a posh London restaurant serving up dishes that used to have stock portfolios.
A Certain Hunger: This 2020 novel by Chelsea G. Summers is the story of food critic/prisoner who lives for new flavors, anonymous sex and murder. The writing is superb, presenting heartless Dorothy like a baroque libertine.
iZombie: This CW series earns its place in food horror, but not just for the ‘chomping through rare meat’ scenes. In that sense, every zombie movie is food horror. It’s because iZombie started doing quick little montages around the second season, with lead zombie Liv creating a satisfying lunch for herself using the freshest brains possible. She’s a county Medical Examiner. Whether stir-fry or tacos, it all made her smile after the first bite.
Sweeney Todd: How is it possible that this tale, first told in The String of Pearls in 1846, has become such a phenomenon? It’s the story of a homicidal barber and his baker accomplice grinding victims into pies and selling them to the public. It’s both a stage production and a hit movie. It’s a musical that features cannibalism!
The Menu: This 2022 film is an instant classic in horror, and specifically in food horror. A group of elites are invited to dine in a famously exclusive island restaurant that is reached only by ferry. The chef has a reputation for demanding perfection, and this need, along with serving his exquisite food to people who can’t appreciate it, has finally driven him over the edge.
Nightbitch: By Rachel Yoder, this 2021 read is a brutal look at a woman who believes that motherhood is causing her to lose herself to the point that she’s becoming less human, more of a feral canine. Small animals do not fare well.
Next week: It’s ALH’s 100th volume! Oh, the excitement!
If I say “cocktails and a 200 year old preserved corpse” will you be there? Become a Gloriest Goriest member! Take advantage of me! I mean, take advantage of my rock bottom prices. Gooble gobble, one of us, one of us!
In the meantime, let me leave you with this commercial for a Mattel doll. File it under “Oh, shit, did somebody really make this?” Yes they did, and the little girl still insists from her prison cell that she only committed those atrocities because her doll whispered “Do it.”
Interesting newsletter, glad I caught it! Learned a bunch. I enjoyed The Menu and some of the others you mentioned. For some reason Bone Tomahawk came screaming back to me. Cool additional reads for my TBR pile. Looking forward to the next one!
Glad you came by, and that I could point you towards some creepy authors!
I post every Tuesday, with every other post being free. Hope to see you round here again.