For decades, John Carpenter's weird visions have terrorized the screens of millions. Unlike others, Carpenter never confined himself to cheap and easy thrills, but genuinely shocking displays of cinematic horror that also brought eerie ruminations after the monster faded from the screen. For weird horror fans, who can forget the combo of freakish transformations and the consequences of a malevolent cosmos wrought by Carpenter's extraterrestrial in The Thing? Or what about the Lovecraftian imagery and meta-fictional play that sardonically jeered audiences when In the Mouth of Madness premiered?
Next week, FEARnet is due to unleash a new interview with John Carpenter conducted by Mick Garris. They have kindly allowed this preview clip to be posted below. Carpenter discusses his film making icons and influences - the obscure and the celebrated - in a short, but illuminating talk. Like his influences from literature, it seems Carpenter isn't shy about plugging obscure mentors, such as Howard Hawks. His Lovecraftian influence has never been a secret, even at a time when H.P. Lovecraft's work was far less known than today.
The interview is a part of a series of talks by Garris with some of horror cinema's biggest names. Check out the full interview this February 28 on FEARnet's John Carpenter page.
-Grim Blogger
Preview: Mick Garris' Interview with John Carpenter
A recent article from The New Yorker, "Guillermo del Toro's Amazing Creatures," provides yet more respectable coverage for H.P. Lovecraft's horrific fruits. As you might guess from the title, a large section discusses filmmaker del Toro's ongoing efforts to bring "At the Mountains of Madness" to cinema. Of particular interest is his intent to depict Lovecraft's Elder Things, Shoggoths, and other extraterrestrials from the novella in a way that's both frightening and "fascinating."
Should this come to pass, it would support HPL's original intent to lend nobility, rather than utter horror, to certain creatures - especially the civilized Elder Things. As anyone knows who has seen del Toro's work in moves like Pan's Labyrinth, if there's anyone who can make Lovecraft equally disturbing and engrossing, it's him. Check out the The New Yorkerpiece in full here.
Vladimir Pajevic is an elusive artist living in Italy. He's little known in the United States, and probably less so among horror fans. But there's reason he should be. Pajevic's obsessively recurring landscapes, which often show lonely, vegetation stifled gateways, share an inexplicable spirit with the surreal and the strange. His scenes seem so thoroughly isolated and mysterious, in fact, that they provoke serious meditations and unlikely chills.
The real frightful power of Pajevic's art centers in its thick mystery. The artist lends us only scenes of gateways that could go anywhere. They look like the forgotten sentinels of some buried civilization, and what they house within their black tunnels and murky depths is anyone's guess. Unlike overt horror art, Pajevic's landscapes are filled with lush greenery and pleasant skies. His structures show none of the crumbling ramparts or twisted towers of Gothic castles.
Yet, anyone with an appreciation for darkness who stares into Pajevic's paintings (and I mean, really gazes into them) will see that something is just...off. Few pieces exhibited online show any life except for those damnable plants, growths which seem more like relentless, foreign invaders than signs of vibrant life. Moreover, several pictures show abandoned toys outside the gates to nowhere. The absence of their owners as well as the overwhelming presence of those vines and leaves conveys a severe melancholy atmosphere, obscured at first glance by the gentle scenery.
Like the best strange magicians in other mediums, Vladimir Pajevic bottles his sinister atmosphere in containers tilting toward the bright and mundane. Personally, I can't look at his paintings without feeling the subtle eeriness found in Robert Aickman's fiction, or in David Lynch's bewildering dread on film. In some ways, Pajevic's suggestive bleakness is stronger than, say, Aickman's The Wine Dark Sea, or Lynch's Inland Empire. That's because it's so still, so deceptive, and staring you point blank in the face. No one can know where those gateways lead, but it's difficult to imagine it's anywhere good. Worse, the gateways themselves are beginning to disappear in many paintings - as if whatever dwells in those hidden gardens behind the walls won't be content to stay there forever.
With visual hallucinations as quietly provocative and unsettling as these, expect Vladimir Pajevic to become a more familiar name one day. Regrettably, this may take some time, however, as the artist is nearly as shadowy and uncertain as his products. Italian and other European readers may have better fortune finding information about Mr. Pajevic, but those of us in the English speaking world can only wait, wonder, and quiver at the unsaid mysteries in these occult paintings.
There is something nightmarish in the past. Since its inception, weird fiction has harvested the ghosts of history for its own literary ends. Into this elegant tradition steps Daniel Mills, with a debut novel titled Revenants, published by the energetic Chomu Press. Mills' book is an appetizing buffet of earlier traditions in American literature, colonial history, and subtle supernatural elements. These diverse foundations of the novel are not flung together, but carefully streamlined to bolster Mills' deeper explorations of nature, unrelenting guilt, and unexpected ghosts.
Cold Marsh, where the story takes place, is an isolated New England village conceived as a seventeenth century Anytown. Unlike other nameless townships one imagines from early American history, Cold Marsh is home to an exceptionally tormented crew. Like a body run ragged by disease, the town and its denizens mechanically pass through their lives under a heavy atmosphere of Puritan paranoia and blackened memories. Mills is careful to strike an intricate balance, always shackling the little disasters of his characters to Cold Marsh's larger roving demons. Just when the secretive suffering of the half-dead village is known, it receives a new shock, when three young girls disappear in close succession, the last prompting the shuttered inhabitants to leave their dark nest and venture into the unknown wild.
Daniel Mills realizes that Revenants' success lays in ballooning it with rich prose that evokes a bygone age and the unexplored wilderness. Like Nathaniel Hawthorne, who he acknowledges his debt to, Mills' book comes across as a convincing account of life and attitudes in colonial America. The author seems to share a real passion for old New England, much like H.P. Lovecraft, as passages describing the fall harvest or the wolf haunted forests act as tributes, as well as vigorous backdrops. Similarly, old forces that seem difficult to imagine in a comfortable, modern context are given terrifying strength. God, the Devil, and Nature are equally ferocious, mysterious, and terrible powers in Mills' world. Cold Marsh's residents suffer beneath their combined weights, and the overwhelming hold each has in their twisted psyches.
Those inner worlds bewitched by the omnipotent are as key to the novel as its outer scenery built from a passionately resurrected history. Memories and spectral emotions escape his character's heads, invading one's own skull. Mills introduces us to James and Constance, an unhappy couple strung together by a single "sin" and imprisoned by the social norms of the era. William, meanwhile, broods from beginning to end about his own warrior past, gradually revealing what really happened during Cold Marsh's role in King Philip's War, when a neighboring American Indian tribe was exterminated. Edwin, his son, lives impressed by youthful inexperience and visions of a vengeful God. The trials experienced in Revenants are possibly most damaging to this young man. In the background there's Isaiah, an elderly Minister who conceals his bitter past and manipulation of the town folk in religious fervor - particularly with warnings about witchcraft and deviltry. This is a village drowning in its collective guilt, and by the end, even the untouched are corrupted.
Although Cold Marsh's dreams and perceptions are more responsible for weaving a strange atmosphere than anything else, Mills adds a subtle supernatural element that's enough to make Revenants weird as well as historical fiction. The mysterious disappearances and certain grotesque encounters in the wilderness make it apparent that more than mere paranoia and guilt is responsible for Cold Marsh's horrors. Mills never fully reveals or explains the town's dark curse, wisely leaving it up to the imagination. This choice echoes the best mysterious weird horror, and also the puzzling strangeness emerging from psychic fear and outside malevolence experienced in venues like Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone.
Revenants does not merely operate on the frightfully wondrous as a work of horror, though. Daniel Mills casts some particularly visceral scenes. A mutilated Indian and a blood drenched crime scene late in the novel are just a few instances where Mills chooses to aim his punches at the face rather than inside the mind. Regrettably, these tense scenes are responsible for moving the narrative forward, while the weird and mysterious element is more atmospheric than influential to plot. It seems Mills has not yet discovered ways in which the truly curious and chilling can leave impressions as powerful as violent horror can. However, he is a newer writer, and such talents may come with time.
Revenants is an excellent debut by an author who has obviously learned well from masters in the weird and beyond. The book is sure to appeal to nostalgic zealots who adore vanished times and places. Yet, it should also enrich so many others. Mills' horrors, blatant and quiet, are unsettling, as are his repressed and sometimes unhinged characters. The gray mood dominating Cold Marsh is not easily forgotten after reading, nor is the name Daniel Mills.
H.P. Lovecraft perpetuated a monumental hoax when he first conceived the Necronomicon, and later published a fictional history of the unspeakable book. So great was his farce, in fact, that even today people are still wondering if a real copy is out there. This is about as likely as Great Cthulhu rising from the Pacific, but occult practitioners and savvy writers out for a profit have succeeded in giving a kind of reality to Lovecraft's most ominous tome. Here are three Necronomicons worth knowing.
The Simon Necronomicon
As controversial as it is widespread, the Simon Necronomicon appeared in 1977, and has become the best known. It's named after the pen name of its anonymous author, known only as Simon. This shadowy scholar allegedly uncovered the text, and in his introduction attempts to link Lovecraft, Aleister Crowley, and ancient Middle Eastern religious lore in an unlikely narrative that would be record breaking for its strangeness, if any of it had actually happened. The occult parts of the book inscribed by Abdul Alhazred ("the Mad Arab") describe a couple rituals for harnessing the powers of the many deities enumerated. All are slight alterations of historic entities from Babylonia, Sumeria, Akkadia, and Assyria, with little that's explicitly Lovecraftian about them.
Simon's Necronomicon has engendered several sequels or knock offs (depending on one's perception): A Necronomicon Spellbook as well as Dead Names: The Dark History of the Necronomicon, the most recent one to appear in 2006. For a secretive whistle blower of the world's most nefarious text, Simon sure writes a lot of books. Due to its prominence and established history, the Simon version has come under more scrutiny than other Necronomicons. Daniel Harms and John Wisdom Gonce offer targeted and insightful commentary taking this book to task in their excellent scholarly exploration, The Necronomicon Files: The Truth Behind the Legend.
Necronomicon by Joshua Free
Joshua Free's Necronomicon, which surfaced in 2009, actually uses the Simon edition as a springboard for its own existence. Free, as an occult researcher responsible for piecing together the text, claims to have one upped Simon by producing an authentic grimoire drawn from the same ancient Middle Eastern as well as Egyptian sources. More than a mere spellbook, this Necronomicon's purpose goes further, as outlined in its description:
This edition of the Necronomicon is the single most ancient and pure unaltered lore concerning the hottest topics of our time and all times, including divinity, creation, human origins, aliens, religion, pantheistic magickal traditions, alternate dimensions, portals and the afterlife. In this new millennium of uncertainties, it is most likely that the uncovering of the past will reveal our future
So, rather than being a rote presentation of Alhazred's dark book, Free offers up a new Mythos and answers to the most important questions. The truly Lovecraftian is bypassed in favor of philosophies, legends, and practices that drawn more on the name than on the blasphemous volume's spirit. Consider Free's version a template for many lesser known Necronomicons that continue to appear every year or two from micro-presses and self-publishing venues.
The Atlantean Necronomicon
Warlock Asylum's The Atlantean Necronomicon: Veils of Negative Existence is a Necronomicon that finally adapts Lovecraftian themes and horrors for integrity. The text offers an original amalgamation of an imagined Atlantean mysticism, Lovecraft, and the familiar ancient mythologies that Simon first tied to any Necronomicon. Unlike others, the book also includes essays on using its contents along with the Simon edition, and it underwent some oversight by serious researchers like Daniel Harms. Despite being a self-published effort, Warlock Asylum's Necronomicon is more authentic than many, and will hopefully spark more originality in future efforts to make Lovecraft's grimoire real. Human skin, however, may not be so easy to come by.
The sour economy's effects on municipal treasuries is beginning to take its toll on weird horror's rare shrines. The Poe house in Baltimore is due to have its public funding cut in 2012. It will be left in the hands of a consultant, as a sink-or-swim approach gives it one last chance to become self-sustaining (details from this Associated Press article).
The troubles in Baltimore highlight the dangers of taking city funding for granted. It's also a sad indication that even weird fiction's most popular writer faces historical degradation as local governments go bankrupt. There has to be a better way. Unlike other authors and artists, Poe is renowned across the literary spectrum for his influence. Or so it seems.
Surely, with all the successful writers, film makers, musicians, and others who give a nod to Edgar Allan Poe, there should be a few willing to throw a percentage of their profits to historical preservation. And what about publishers? There are multiple firms that continue to publish large editions of his work, such as the book, Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales and Poems with Selected Essays. The books may not be flying off the shelves, but there's got to be some profit taking going on. It's time for real patrons of the arts to step up. Otherwise, a conclusion can only be reached that's nearly as unpleasant as seeing places like the Poe house shut down. That is, Poe appreciation is not as popular or as serious as it seems, and must only be a hollow shadow of itself.
-Grim Blogger
Poe House in Baltimore Threatened by Budget Crisis
Last week, weird horror writer-turned-editor Joseph S. Pulver made a tantalizing announcement. He's begun work piecing together two new tribute anthologies due to be published by Miskatonic River Press in 2012. The Grimscribe's Puppets will feature a selection of stories that are a homage to Thomas Ligotti. It will be the first book by multiple authors dedicated to the Ligottian aesthetic, and will join only a handful of others that pay respect to a living writer of weird fiction.
A Season in Carcosa will collect new tales inspired by Robert W. Chambers' The King in Yellow. Tributes to Carcosa's mad sovereign have been done before, but only on an extremely limited basis (see Rehearsals for Oblivion by Elder Signs Press for a recent example). There's more than enough untapped horror to help build up a Yellow universe - possibly even an incipient Mythos based around the blasphemous play.
Since its earnest resurrection over a year ago, Miskatonic River Press has rolled out several new works. Their new Lovecraftian anthology, Dead But Dreaming II, can be expected later this year as well. The book is a follow up to the hyper-rare and well received Dead But Dreaming, which I previously reviewed here.
-Grim Blogger
Miskatonic River Press to Release Ligotti, King in Yellow Anthologies in 2012
You can thank artist Ben Tripp for this unsettlingly realistic piece. "Braised Cthulhu" uses a unique method to achieve its grim effects: macabre artwork is placed over a real photo of a colorful plate. The result is a dish best served in Innsmouth's finest establishment. While the true horror will always be confined to anthologies like Shadows Over Innsmouth, Tripp's contribution to Lovecraftian art exudes its reality blurring magic, making one think twice about what might have dwelt in the depths with their next seafood dish.
Landscapes, dreamscapes, love, and unwieldy desire. Such are a few of the obsessions coursing through Livia Llewellyn's fiction. As a newer writer to the supernatural genres, her name may escape many. This is likely an unfortunate, but temporary flaw, as Llewellyn's sophisticated style and control over diverse genres means she will soon gain a foothold in one of her niches, if not all of them.
Her first short story collection due in March, 2011, is Engines of Desire: Tales of Love and Other Horrors, from Lethe Press. This book is Llewellyn's literary debut, in places as varied as weird horror, dark fantasy, science fiction, and romance. The collection contains all these elements, which at times result in brilliantly imagined hybrids with chilling power, but also unbalanced stories that make for odd neighbors. In the coming years, readers and critics might look back at Engines of Desire as a Llewellyn sampler, but one with just enough gray delicacies to appeal to horror fans.
Dark science fiction comprises about half the collection. The opening tale, "Horses," might be considered one of these as well. Llewellyn chronicles the last few years experienced by a self-loathing missile base attendant, after apocalyptic conditions have sealed her in a tomb like bunker with several other nobodies and her unwanted child. This story introduces Llewellyn's captivating style, sexually charged imagery, and an unrelenting bleakness in her tormented characters' past, present, and future. Her occasional drives into unconventional narrative techniques, which are sometimes shocking and always engaging, are also glimpsed in this story.
"Her Deepness" and "The Four Hundred Thousand" continue the dark sci-fi setting in ways that are superior to "Horses." The novella length "Her Deepness" takes us to an ambiguous places called Obsidia, which may be a name for a nation far in the future, or another plant. Whatever the case, Llewellyn's story takes its cue from the memories, fantasies, and nightmares of a young girl forced to partake in her society's neo-industrial labors. Of course, more lurks beneath the surface, when a cult shows up hoping to use the girl's unique stone working talents to resurrect their malevolent god. This story, despite its fantastic cover, is horror through and through. Hints of Llewellyn's influence by H.P. Lovecraft show up here too, as they do elsewhere in the collection. "Her Deepness" is a vibrant blend of personal tragedies, alienation, and Obsidia's exotic underworld, each rendered in a way as memorable as having a hefty anthracite stone chained to one's ankle.
"The Four Hundred Thousand" is closer to being pure dark sci-fi than any other story. Here, a young girl living in a dystopian city on another world has her eggs sold by her parents to the military, who use harvested ova to spawn vast armies of super-human creatures. Llewellyn constructs a melancholy atmosphere with high tension as the procedure approaches, and a strange authoritarianism that seemingly towers over everything: family, society, and self. As in other stories, she brings forth seriously unsettling and original descriptions of nighted voids, from space and within the psyche. This effectively generates a claustrophobic air that only lifts with the surprise conclusion, where a rare glint of hope is offered, however bizarre, rather than the psychological or physiological doomed faced by most Llewellyn characters.
Other stories in Engines of Desire are more down to earth in their setting and horror elements - which are at times visceral thanks to added realism. In "The Engine of Desire," a housewife is unable to relinquish memories of a strange girl from her past, and a force beyond the five senses that tugs at the psyche and the libido. The story's gradual unfolding over many decades and its reserved treatment of the actual "engine of desire" leave a mysterious impression. By incorporating lesbianism into the frightful energy at work in this piece, Llewellyn activates an original theme not seen in most serious horror. "Jetsam" is another story that evokes the author's sense of the numinous. Memory loss is toyed with, and imagery that recalls the towering wrecks of 9/11 and broken ships runs lethally wild, as "Jay" struggles for cohesive identity.
Like "The Engine of Desire," unconventional and far more menacing sexuality is used in "Omphalos," where an incestuous family's plans to escape into a wretched paradise are challenged by the daughter's ghostly map. From title to text, this tale suggests knowledgeable roots to Livia Llewellyn's career, and skillfully balances intrusions by an uncertain supernatural element with real world horrors like rape and abduction. The ravenous void seen in other stories fills the prose here as well, with potent effect.
Regrettably, Llewellyn's collection contains one weak link: a story entitled "At the Edge of Ellensburg." A college student becomes obsessed with a drug dealer, and becomes little more than a puppet to her own desires for liaisons with this man. This piece may work as erotica, but it feels completely out of place in a book of strange horror and dark fantasy tales. Any supernatural element is fleeting and tenuous at best, and there's nothing weird or horrifying about hooking up with a narcotics trafficking oaf. It also has the most sexually explicit scenes of any story by several orders of magnitude. While there's nothing wrong with this per se, horror works far better when the erotic is explored with some depth of meaning, as in this collection's other tales, or when curled into a narrative with strangeness and subtlety - a technique mastered by writers like Stefan Grabinski and Robert Aickman.
"At the Edge of Ellensburg" may be jarring, but it does not break the collection. Tales like "Take Your Daughters to Work," a Lovecraftian piece set in Y'ha-Nthlei, realm of the Deep Ones, more than make up for it. This story merges weird fiction, humor, and Llewellyn's coming-of-age explorations in a thought provoking way. Two vignettes are included to round out the book: "Teslated Salihan Evergreen" and "Brimstone Orange." Both continue Llewellyn's inquiries into reaching maturity in harrowing and curious ways, involving strange trees with abilities that seem equally complimentary and threatening to womankind.
All in all, Livia Llewellyn's ability to write coherently and creatively across genres is something to be praised, not condemned. Unlike other writers, she has multiple avenues open to securing a literary identity, which should start to take shape in future books. Engines of Desire: Tales of Love and Other Horrors includes an introduction by Laird Barron, and is available for pre-order from Amazon. While strict purists may pass, readers of weird fiction and other speculative literature should pick up this collection for an original voice that records the unusual and painful without second guessing.
Ever wanted to be a card carrying member of a Lovecraftian sect? Well, here's your chance. The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society has re-opened membership after abandoning official membership offers in the 1990s. The fine folks who brought us The Call of Cthulhu on film, and soon hope to follow that up with a cinematic adaptation of Lovecraft's "The Whisperer in Darkness," have made quite a few nice trinkets available with the membership. It's fairly cheap - $20 per year, and $10 afterward for renewals.
This renewed membership drive undoubtedly has something to do with raising capital to finish The Whisperer in Darkness. This is an arguably more ambitious film than The Call of Cthulhu, if only because it will contain full sound and video, unlike its silent predecessor. Membership with the HPLHS is an excellent way to support a Lovecraft tributary organization that's actually getting serious work done. Read about the full details on their membership page.
-Grim Blogger
H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society Re-Opens Membership After a Decade
Ambrose Bierce's often sardonic and melancholy strange fiction has inspired artwork that's nearly as disturbing as the texts it sprang from. Bierce's horrors are frequently manifestations of a tormented psyche - imagined or real - and hold no punches in their effect on his hapless characters. It is a feverish and almost unclassifiable brand of exotic cruelty among his ghosts, wartime victims, and other entities that makes his work truly scary. The same must be said for Biercian artwork.
The cover image on Ghost and Horror Stories of Ambrose Bierce clearly expresses an uncertain nightmare. The twisted, almost dream distorted face leering at the reader also brings to mind M.R. James' infamous ghosts formed from clothing and sheets.
"The Damned Thing" by IrishWastrel (Deviantart.com)
"One Summer Night" by Grelin Machin
The visual frights engendered by Bierce's fiction capture every story at some level, but, of course, there are particulars. "The Damned Thing," arguably his most renowned weird horror tale, has challenged many artists to depict the invisible creature responsible for this story's eerie troubles. Showing an invisible demon isn't an easy task by any means, and following Bierce's description with full faith almost leaves too much to the imagination. So, we get images like the one above, where the accursed monster is shown as a menacing blur, which heightens the strangeness, in some respects. Stories contain "One Summer Night" more tangible demons, but are no less horrific in their dark satire, expressed through themes about burial "alive" and grave robbery. The largest (and best) collection of artistic attempts to put Bierce's words to pictures is in Graphic Classics: Ambrose Bierce.
Finally, Ambrose Bierce himself has generated many unusual portraits as a shadowy, borderline malevolent figure in his own right. Beneath the obscuring mustache and the furrowed brow, his constant state of reflection on the unpleasant side of this world is clear. If there's one conclusion one reaches from reading many Bierce tales, it's that the author was incapable of ignoring his dark obsessions. Whatever their origin, they used his eyes, his mind, to ogle the world and translate its odd tragedies in a way as bleakly surreal as the smeared face on Ghost and Horror Stories of Ambrose Bierce. Luckily, this isn't lost on artists, who have re-imagined his brooding nature in ways as diverse as they are authentic.
As the winter season is still upon us, there's no time like the present to take in expressions of wintry terror. Patrick Boivon's short film, White, contains no overtly supernatural element. However, its endless wintry visuals, macabre and desperate measures for survival, and overall bleak atmosphere perfectly capture the season's frightful heart.
Although R'lyeh gets most of the attention given to sunken city's in H.P. Lovecraft's universe, Y'ha-nthlei has also inspired modest fascination in art, film, and post-Lovecraft fiction. It was first described in "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," and hinted at in associated stories - a majestic hub for the Deep Ones, not far from tainted Innsmouth. As repugnant as Lovecraft makes his underwater denizens, he doesn't hesitate to give Y'ha-nthlei a brilliantly divided aura of frightful awe, drawn from his own rich appreciation for vanished civilizations in antiquity. "Many-columned" Y'ha-nthlei is said to have "...a phosphorescent palace of many terraces, with gardens of strange leprous corals and grotesque brachiate efflorescences."
"Devil Reef" by Alan M. Clark
In many ways, Y'ha-nthlei's position as an alien and degenerate Atlantis makes up for the truly weird charm it lacks, which Lovecraft applies to other places, such as R'lyeh and its irrational geometry. Discussing Y'ha-nthlei can only begin with a look at its gateway (or, at least, its chief outpost and point for human contact), the Devil Reef. This monstrous trading post, where Captain Marsh first made deals with the Deep Ones in the 19th century, should be considered an outgrowth of Y'ha-nthlei, whether it's truly connected by geography or not. Artists like Alan M. Clark have seized on Devil Reef's importance to the whole Deep One Mythos, re-created haunting scenes from Lovecraftian history on canvass.
"Y'ha-nthlei" by ZS3 (Deviantart)
Getting down to the undersea metropolis, one realizes that artists have unchained their imaginations and techniques, letting them loose in pursuit of a sincere Lovecraftian aesthetic. The intentional ambiguity regarding the city means some will see only ruins, while others imagine magnificent temples under the waves. The imposing palaces mentioned by Lovecraft are rendered in full color, or with haunting realism thanks to artful modifications to real cathedrals.
"The Deep Ones" by Chiselgrind (Deviantart)
Still art isn't the only medium to provide immortality to Y'ha-nthlei. Stuart Gordon's film, Dagon, which is a modernized re-telling of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" set in Spain, shows us a dark stand in for Y'ha-nthlei as the movie's narrator, like Lovecraft's, gives himself over to the madness of his non-human heritage. The city, and others like it spread across the globe, have been unveiled in fiction as well. Stephen Jones' Shadows Over Innsmouth anthology collects the most sophisticated expansions to the Deep Ones and their civilization, written by talents like Ramsey Campbell, D.F. Lewis, Neil Gaiman, and many more. Not surprisingly, the Deep Ones and their underwater base have fortified their place in Lovecraftian humor as well. No where can this be seen better than in Kenneth Hite's children's book, Where the Deep Ones Are.
Despite a cult following in art and fiction, Y'ha-nthlei, barring some new treatment that goes viral among fans, will likely remain in the shadows for the near future. This, however, won't last. It's only a matter of time before many others realize the fantastic potential of further illuminating the Deep Ones' civilization, including the urban seat of their batrachian reach in the Americas.
Even as a new batch of Lovecraftian films are gradually dragging their cinematic horrors into our theaters and DVD players this year, it's important not to forget aging classics. Especially when there's a screening of The Call of Cthulhu in Lovecraft's home town. Rochambeau Library is scheduled to host a free showing in Providence this spring, complete with pizza. See the flyer above for details.
H.P. Lovecraft Movie Night sounds like a fine way to connect with local Lovecraftians, or introduce newcomers to the master's works. That is, assuming you're wise enough to pick the good representatives on film like the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society's The Call of Cthulhu, or perhaps their forthcoming adaptation of The Whisperer in Darkness. Why not consider starting a Lovecraftian/weird movie night in your region?
-Grim Blogger
Call of Cthulhu Screening in Providence Set for March
Artist and graphic designer Craig Simmons shared this sensational take on the prehistory of the Cthulhu Mythos on Reddit earlier this week. Cthulhusaurus Rex is the product of a fertile imagination, and perhaps inconceivable genetic experiments by the Great Old Ones.
When you really think about it, exploring Cthulhu and the dinosaurs has rarely been touched. Yet, H.P. Lovecraft leaves little doubt about Cthulhu's influence in ancient history. The same can be said for other space faring races, such as the Great Race of Yith. "The Shadow Out of Time"(so recently put to excellent radio drama by Dark Adventure Radio) makes it clear that malevolent cosmic forces were on earth before the dinosaurs spawned their own prime terrors such as the T-Rex. In recent times, only Neil Gaiman's story, "I, Cthulhu," gives a nod to Cthulhu in the age of reptiles. Lovecraft's principle monstrosity humorously speaks about his life, including his responsibility for destroying the dinosaurs.
If this Cthulhusaurus is any indication, it seems not all the dinosaurs were consumed in a ravenous tirade.
Film maker Russ Bellew has established a couple social networking sites aimed at launching a film adaptation of Thomas Ligotti's "Purity." Despite some uncertainty about the project expressed last week on Thomas Ligotti Online, it appears there's a chance the venture will move forward. Bellew hopes to raise a few hundred dollars, giving the project a meager operating fund. This will be a completely independent movie. Here's a synopsis for the unfamiliar:
Living in a dark and dangerous neighborhood, Daniel is a strange young man, living on the fringes of society with his very off beat family. One night Dad has an unexpected visitor and Daniel decides to go to his friend Candy's house and show her the fruits of his Dad's experiment, a squat jar containing a green jelly-like substance. Intertwined with a child killer, drug dealers, and murder, Daniel has to step carefully through this surreal landscape in order to survive.
If successful, getting "Purity" on screen will mark the second time a Ligotti work has been filmed. 2008 saw the first, The Frolic, a short film which made do with similarly limited resources. Luckily, a large number of Ligotti's stories open themselves to film without requiring a large set of digital wizardry. Tales like "The Frolic" and "Purity" are deeply psychological. This means a director needs to round up skilled actors and erect a suitably eerie atmosphere - no small order, but doable without the thousands of dollars required for nightmarish creatures or special effects. For "Purity," at least, the real estate meltdown has greatly increased the number of viable sets.
"Purity" is an exceptionally bleak horror story that has begged to get on film. Its reverence for dereliction and creepy philosophical conjectures would, if done right, help establish a promising history for Ligottian cinema. This is all the more important when considering previous filmable pieces that never quite made it to the production stage: Crampton, "In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land," and Michigan Basement (an unpublished screen play co-written by Thomas Ligotti and Brandon Trenz), among others. Hopefully, Purity will join The Frolic on DVD in the next couple years.
