135. Bloodthirsty
I.
Apart from Tygo in the Flakka, Iâm watching very little horror this Halloween month. But I did play Silent Hill f. In this psychological horror game, you follow Shimizu Hinako, a schoolgirl who sees her small Japanese town suddenly overtaken by thick fog, nasty monsters and red flowers.
Itâs the first game in the Silent Hill series Iâve played. Itâs a beautiful, artistic game to look at, but story-wise, it naturally soon turns into a major drama. Hinako becomes increasingly entangled in the misery. She searches for her friends and struggles with domestic traumas. The line between reality and nightmare blurs further and further.
Silent Hill f has a tension that gets under your skin, thanks in part to the excellent music and audio. The game itself is straightforward (and a bit old-fashioned). Although the gameplay offers no surprises, as a player you gradually lose control over what happens to Hinako. You can hardly help but follow a mysterious figure with white hair and a fox mask. He seems to be the only one who cares about the girl.
In Japanese folklore, the white fox symbolises a creature that connects the human and divine worlds. The fox can offer protection against evil, but can also be cunning and deceive you. Three guesses as to which version of the fox youâre dealing with in Silent Hill f. It all goes completely wrong, mind you; this isnât for the faint-hearted.
- - -II.
Meanwhile, Iâm also continuing to create horror on paper. A week ago, I was in Amsterdam at the book launch of Bloeddorst 2. Itâs a collection of short horror stories, for which dozens of Dutch directors and comic book artists collaborated. Bloeddorst was conceived long ago by Menno Kooistra, but after the first volume, things went quiet for a long time. It was director Martin Koolhoven who said: âMenno, itâs been 18 years now. Isnât it about time for a second volume?â.
I sometimes struggle a bit with this sort of anthology, as a few pages are often too few to tell a good story. Bloeddorst 2 also contains a few stories that are difficult to follow, but on the whole I thoroughly enjoyed it. Itâs nice that the comics are often set in the Netherlands. For instance, thereâs a story about a Poldergeist living in a windmill and a story set in a restaurant on Amsterdamâs Zeedijk.
I also like the variety in drawing styles. All the stories are in black and white, and the artists occasionally dare to draw in a truly sinister and unflinching style. The fact that artists such as Fred de Heij, Steven Dhont, Stephan Louwes, Floor de Goede and Edwin Hagendoorn were brought on board for this project,
the latter, incidentally, wrote and illustrated one of my favourite stories in the book: Turbo Video 2000. Itâs about a man who records A Nightmare on Elm Street onto a video cassette containing a film of Huey, Dewey and Louie, his daughterâs favourite film. Things go wrong during the recording, causing the three nephews to merge with Freddy Krueger and step out of the TV. Thatâs when the slasher really begins!
PS.
I read this excellent story by The Oatmeal about art generated by an AI model. For the first time, it really hits home: the clichĂ© âmy 12-year-old son could do that tooâ actually applies to AI art. A must-read!
While Iâm on the subject of AI, I might as well mention Craig Mod. The blogger is travelling through Japan again and every day I read his enviable (email only) newsletters. On day six, he described a reflection on AI. âIncreasingly, I feel more and more âradicalisedâ â not necessarily against where things are heading â but by who is leading. For example, AI will probably do a lot of good for us in the future. But the launch of a tool like OpenAIâs Sora feels like a dark turning point in the not-so-good direction. The scale and abstraction of everything and everyone continues to push us down paths we didnât ask to be pushed down.â
Walking, offline walking, helps Mod reclaim some mental space and push back a little in the direction from which the dominant Big Tech originates. âAs scale and abstraction continue to scrub away the marks of humanity (and this applies to online communities just as much as war-torn ones), itâll be ever more critical to go for a mindless walk, to hold a physical book and give it your undivided attention for two hours.â
By the way, I wrote about Sora 2 in my blog on NU.nl. Ever since Iâve been working on that, my Instagram has been full of AI nonsense. Itâs mostly videos of Stephen Hawking taking on (and often losing to) BattleBots from his wheelchair.
An ode to comfort films by video essayist Thomas Flight.
- - -In December, Taschen is releasing a smaller version of its XXL book on Hokusai, featuring thirty-six of his views of Mount Fuji.
Hereâs a story by George van Hal that might give you a bit of a headache: is our entire universe inside a black hole?
This trailer for Die My Love looks promising, though this line from film critic David Ehrlichâs Letterboxd mini-review gives me a bit of a scare: âPerfect for anyone who thought Mother! was too restrainedâ. (I thought Mother! was rubbish.)
- - -Iâve given up hope that Tom Waits will ever perform in the Netherlands again. The fact that he even appears on screen singing at all is a rarity. Thatâs why we should count ourselves lucky that he performed Tom Traubertâs Blues for Italian TV earlier this year and that those clips are now on his YouTube channel.
- - -Third Man Records is releasing a graphic novel next month by Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. The album by the band The Flaming Lips has been turned into a comic by none other than frontman Wayne Coyne himself. He wrote the text and drew the illustrations. The book describes Yoshimiâs quest for love and her battle against the pink robots. Itâs bound to be a psychedelic trip in true underground style. Itâs a real whopper of a book: 420 pages. Itâll set you back a good $150, but you do get a scribble from Coyne.
Geese have made a video for Au Pays du Cocaine, which just happens to be one of my favourite tracks on the album. A great excuse to praise the band once again (still on repeat here).
- - -Youâve just read blog post â135, written during the week of 6 to 12 October 2025. Subscribe to my free newsletter and youâll receive it in your inbox every Sunday.