Month: August 2026

Recently read: Invaginies by Joe Koch

Posted on By caracabe

Invaginies, Joe Koch, CLASH Books, 2024

The author’s bio says “Joe Koch (he/they) writes literary horror and surrealist trash,” and that seems accurate. (Keeping in mind that “trash” isn’t always pejorative.) The stories in Invaginies remind me sometimes of Lautréamont, sometimes of Kenneth Patchen*, sometimes of nobody else. I’ve read some of them before, in anthologies such as Antifa Splatterpunk, Your Body Is Not Your Body and The Book of Queer Saints. The first story, “Bride of the White Rat,” is relatively straightforward in its twisted way. The last, “The Wing of Circumcision Hands,” defies linear understanding. Koch uses body horror and sometimes irrational but always vivid imagery to maximum effect, and his prose is fantastic in both senses of the word. Just about every page has phrases that will drive you mad if you linger on them too long. My favorite horror read of the year so far.

* Kenneth Patchen of the novel Sleepers Awake. Patchen’s The Journal of Albion Moonlight is more well-known, but in my opinion inferior.

Reading

Podcast episode 2-5 transferred

Posted on By caracabe

Another few podcast episodes have been copied to the website, for your listening or downloading convenience. I have no plans to remove episodes from RedCircle, Bandcamp, etc., but streaming platforms come and go and sometimes change their terms of service.

The episodes now newly available directly from this website:

  • Episode 2: “Ryan” by Eve Ott
  • Episode 3: “My Dog’s Murder Weapon” by Jim Calvert
  • Episode 4: “August 2021” by Celeste Oster
  • Episode 5: “Sky Aflame – Escape” by Ida Fogle

Podcast

Recently watched: The Odyssey

Posted on By caracabe

Watched The Odyssey, and I can see why a classics scholar might not care for it: it’s not so much a cinematic interpretation of as a horror movie based on. But it is an excellent horror movie. There were several moments when, despite knowing what was going to happen, I felt genuine suspense. Some of the monsters, especially the Cyclops and Scylla, are Lovecraftian terrors. The (spoiler) slaughter of the suitors is some satisfying carnage.

I do have notes:

  • Some scenes go on too long.
  • The sound doesn’t need to be so relentlessly thundery.
  • The whole “Zeus’s Law” thing seems more plot device than an organic part of the story’s world.
  • The casting is mostly spot on, but I’m not sure Matt Damon is the best choice for this Odysseus. Damon’s deliberative acting style works wonderfully in The Talented Mr. Ripley—another trickster figure—but it feels a little off here. Too opaque, maybe, for a character we’re supposed to empathize with.

Overall, would recommend to horror fans, but don’t expect a faithful adaptation of classic literature.

(NOTE: I haven’t read Emily Wilson’s review of the movie. If I repeat or dispute any point she made, that’s coincidental.)

Watching