Previously-
This gradually trickled in from bits and pieces in my research, and enough little pieces finally tumbled together for a post...
Robert Bloch, who wrote the novel of "Psycho", started out as an H.P. Lovecraft apprentice.
He did a Cthulhu-verse story "The Shambler from the Stars" that had Lovecraft as a character who gets munched by the monster.
Lovecraft loved it, and responded with "The Haunter of the Dark" where he kills Bloch back.
"Haunter" is in that Cthulhu-verse collection I got and reviewed as part 1 of this whole Weird fiction marathon thing.
Bloch evolved away from Cthulhu-verse stuff, but he still sprinkled Easter eggs around.
His story "The Skull of the Marquis de Sade" got made into the 1965 movie "The Skull" with Peter Cushing.
The film has a guy selling Cushing a book bound in skin, and containing the biography of Marquis de Sade. The skin binding in "The Skull" just looks like white leather. Which, properly treated, it probably would.
First, if I had money to burn, and such a thing existed, I would buy the shit out of a Marquis de Sade skin-book. Second, it's obvious this is where Sam Raimi got the idea for his take on the Necronomicon being a skin-book. Even though his looks all fried-chicken-y for the grossout factor.
So, yeah, the idea didn't come out of thin air; Robert Bloch was the middle-step between Lovecraft and Raimi there.
And when you really think about it, the cops in "Psycho" attribute Norman's condition to mental illness, but if you suppose that he's literally supernaturally possessed by his mother, it becomes a sorta-sequel/sorta-remake of "The Thing On The Doorstep".
And, finally, he did the Star Trek episodes "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" "Wolf in the Fold" and "Catspaw".
All three have spooky elements, and "Little Girls" and "Catspaw" both mention "The Old Ones".
So!! Robert Bloch was a busy little beaver!
He was the Stephen King and/or Ramsey Campbell of his day as far as spreading the Lovecraft legacy around.
And now you can Kevin Bacon Alfred Hitchcock and Star Trek into the whole thing. 😉
2 comments:
Scott Adams and Erich Von Daniken in the same week. This is a dark day for fools
I went to look up to see what happened to Adams, like how he died as such, and started to feel bad for all the pain the guy went through and wanted to sort of maybe take back what I just said, then I read this:
"Shortly before his death in January 2026, Adams announced that he intended to convert to Christianity, explaining that he viewed the decision in pragmatic, cost-to-benefit terms, with the potential benefit of eternal salvation outweighing any downside if the belief proved to be false."
....pbblththt.
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