political – PopCult Reviews

Comic Book Review – American Cult

American Cult: A Graphic History of Religious Cults in America from the Colonial Era to Today (2021)
Edited by Robyn Chapman
Written and illustrated by Steve Teare, Emi Gennis, Ellen Lindner, Rose Colon Guerra, Janet Harvey, Jim Rugg, Andrew Greenstone, Lara Antal, Josh Kramer, Mike Dawson, Ryan Carey, Mike Freiheit, Lisa Rosalie Eisenberg, Ben Passmore, Jesse Lambert, Vreni Stollberger, J.T. Yost, Robyn Chapman, Robert Sergel, Lonnie Mahn, and Brian “Box” Brown

The United States has been a place where the religiously fanatical have flocked since its founding. Most people who studied what passes for U.S. history in schools will know about the Puritans and the Salem Witch Hunts. You’ve probably heard of Jonestown and The Heaven’s Gate cult. The Westboro Baptist Church made sure they became infamous to convince themselves they were “beloved” by their demonic image of god. American Cult touches on several of these well-known cults and still delivered surprises to me. It also presents several cults you may not have heard about, with some continuing to have a place in your life through the goods they manufacture to stay afloat. What can’t be argued is that the particular nature of America and Americans makes them susceptible to cults in a way few other societies ever have been.

Weekly Links – 14 March 2025

There’s continuous talk about “the United States sliding into fascism.” We are there. We’ve been there for a long time. Instead, you must realize you are becoming aware that America is a fascist construct to its roots. This has been made nakedly apparent with the rendition of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student who engaged in protest against the Palestinian genocide. If you think putting your head down and “getting through this” is an option, I hope you have the life you deserve.

Book Update – January/February 2025

The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Sixteen, edited by Ellen Datlow
Another year means another Ellen Datlow Best Horror of the Year. As with all of these, it’s a mixed bag. I loved some stories; others were fine, and even some I forgot as soon as I was done reading them. Here are the stories that were highlights for me.

The Importance of a Tidy Home by Christopher Golden

Set in the winter holiday season, this story follows two homeless men in Germany who encounter the Schnabelpercten. These diminutive creatives are said to go home to home during the Epiphany and inspect homes to ensure they are clean. In this story, if they are unhappy with the house’s tidiness, they murder the inhabitants inside. This is a genuinely creepy and very wintery tale.

Patron Pick – Soundtrack to a Coup D’état

This special reward is available to Patreon patrons who pledge at the $10 or $20 monthly levels. Each month, those patrons will pick a film for me to review. If they choose, they also get to include some of their thoughts about the movie. This Pick comes from Matt Harris.

Soundtrack to a Coup D’état (2024)
Written and directed by John Grimonprez

Being a media-obsessed person for my whole life, I have come to a new understanding since my university days about the United States and the way it uses media as a weapon. Depending on how far along your understanding of the mass media’s purpose and how power becomes gained & is wielded, you might not see the reality just beneath the surface. As Michael Parenti said in his book Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media, “Power is always more secure when cooptive, covert, and manipulative than when nakedly brutish. The support elicited through the control of minds is more durable than the support extracted at the point of a bayonet. The essentially undemocratic nature of the mainstream media, like the other business-dominated institutions of society, must be hidden behind a neutralistic, voluntaristic, pluralistic facade.”

PopCult Podcast – The Order/A Real Pain

A troubled FBI agent discovers a white supremacist conspiracy in rural Idaho. Two cousins embark on a tour in Poland to reconnect with their deceased grandmother.

31 Days of Character Creation #9 – Cabal

Cabal is a game where the character is the evil corporation you create. Employees are assets the company moves around to work towards its nefarious agenda. Essentially, if you want to play a mix of Succession with horror elements, you have found the game for you. Here’s how Cabal is described on its Kickstarter page:

Cabal is an RPG that works in reverse to the way tabletop RPGs usually function. Instead of each player creating their own character, you create a single character between you. This character is an organisation with its own secret plan and goals. It might be a conspiracy, a corporation, an activist group, an occult society of magicians or even a collection of hidden alien refugees. The size, influence, resources and pawns of the group depend entirely on what attributes the players choose between them for the organisation.

My Favorite Books Read in 2024

Good Night, Sleep Tight: Stories by Brian Evenson

I have never been disappointed by Brian Evenson, so I was delighted to see his short story collection coming out the exact same day as Laird Barron’s new book. These two books helped improve my October, and I needed it. This story collection was a slight shift from Evenson’s normal fare. I noticed a lot of variations on the same themes (mothers, robots, the end of humanity) and a shift to more science fiction stories than just horror.

TV Review – The Prisoner

The Prisoner (1967)
Written by George Markstein, David Tomblin, Vincent Tilsley, Anthony Skene, Patrick McGoohan, Terence Feely, Lewis Greifer, Gerald Kelsey, Roger Woddis, Michael Cramoy, Roger Parkes, Kenneth Griffith, and Ian L. Rakoff
Directed by Don Chaffey, Pat Jackson, Patrick McGoohan, Peter Graham Scott, and David Tomblin

As a citizen of the Western World (born in the States, residency in the Netherlands), I have been told from birth that I am free and those outside my sphere are not. For many years, I took this to be the truth. Why? The people who told me I was taught to see as correct in all things. These are the institutions responsible for my freedom, after all. But as I got older, the more I read & observed, it became clear that I wasn’t free. Well, I was free, in about the same way as a dog chained in a backyard is free. I can move up to a point, but then the chain chokes me and reminds me of the limits of this supposed “freedom.” I am as free as the establishment that controls my world allows me to be. I don’t think that can be defined as actual freedom.

Movie Review – The Battle of Algiers

The Battle of Algiers (1966)
Written by Franco Solinas and Gillo Pontecorvo
Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo

From 1954 to 1962, the French government was at war with the Algerian people. Algeria had been a French colony since 1830 when King Charles X decided to take the land. They blamed pirates on the Barbary Coast and their ransoming of French captives. In reality, French sentiments towards their increasingly authoritarian king led Charles and his advisors to dream up a foreign conquest to calm the people. In the first thirty years of French occupation, it is estimated that up to one million Algerians were killed, nearly a ⅓ of the entire population.

PopCult Podcast – The Apprentice/Last Summer

Well, that was a…week. One of our films purports to tell the story of a contemporary despot and the mid-century ghoul that helped to shape him. The second film is a French picture about a woman who takes a risk that could destroy her life.