Leftover Lovecraft! And other goodies!
The Horror at Red hook (1927)
Pickman's Model (1927)
The Whisperer in Darkness (1931)
The Dreams in the Witch House (1933)
The Thing on the Doorstep (1937)
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1943)
It's weird, I read all this other stuff to antidote Lovecraft, now I find I missed the old buzzard.
Kinda wish there was a "_____ and other stories" to be the sequel to "The Call of Cthulhu: And Other Stories" to fill these in; but, whatever.
I'll just jury-rig volume 2 myself.
Covered "The Horror at Red Hook" and "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" already in part 5. See there for a refresher.
This is the rest of my collection of public domain PDFs.
Pickman's Model
Quickie summary: A painter, Pickman, paints eerily realistic tableaus of ghouls munching corpse-meat.
Nameless narrator discovers his source of inspiration.
Hi-jinks ensue!!
"Pickman" is a prequel to "Kadath" and thus "Vellit-Boe".
Which is mostly why I felt the need to throw it on the list.
"Pickman" is also totally the inspiration for the monster from "The Crate".
And! It was a "Night Gallery" episode!
Google image "Pickman's Model" and artists have made the described paintings, and they are fucking chilling.
Nameless narrator continuously mocks wussies who can't handle the paintings, and it's clearly Lovecraft razzing puritan censors of his day.
I read Fangoria as a kid, and there were articles after articles of shaking a fist at the MPAA.
Interesting to see horror guys have always had to contend with prudes.
The Whisperer in Darkness
"Whisperer" is a prequel to "Mountains of Madness".
Wilmarth gets a direct shout-out in ATMOM, and he works at Miskatonic University.
Quickie summary: Wilmarth and his buddy Akeley exchange increasingly paranoid letters about Akeley being besieged by ancient alien monsters and their human agents, and they both worry how far out the periphery of the conspiracy goes.
Arthur Machen gets a shout out; which is appropriate, because "Whisperer" draws clear inspiration from "Novel of the Black Seal" in "Three Imposters".
You could even see "Whisperer" as a sorta-sequel to "Black Seal".
Lovecraft doesn't make it explicit, but you could hook the Legos together without any disruption.
Glad I read Machen.
The more homework you do, the more you get out of Lovecraft's Easter eggs.
Lovecraft played "six degrees..." long before the Kevin Bacon guys invented their little game.
This totally influenced "Evil Dead".
A recording of ancient chants is diabolically important in both.
It also reminded me of "Strange Invaders".
Right down to the brain theft!
"Whisperers" is better. "Invaders" is shlocky.
Oh! The Yuggoth/Mi-Go are evolved from fungus, and Lovecraft had a phobia about the mushrooms in the salad bar at his grocery store.
Speaking of Lovecraft at the grocery store, check out this little clip.
Lovecraft supposedly had a high voice, and a Rhode Island accent, so this voice actor does a good approximation of what I imagined. This guy is my new head-voice for HPL now. 😏
The Dreams in the Witch House
Quickie summary: A proto-Ghostbuster, Walter Gilman, sleeps in an old old haunted house, and has freaky dreams that intrude into reality. A witch, a rat-man, and Nyarlathotep are his boogeymen.
Hi-jinks ensue!!
Miskatonic and Arkham are involved, because of course.
If there's a nerd protagonist in Arkham, they're invariably acquainted with Miskatonic.
Necronomicon gets a mention, as well as some other Lovecraft-verse books made up by HPL's buddies.
Shades of both "Carnacki", and "House on the Borderland".
If not a sequel to "Borderland", adjacent to it.
Lovecraft gets to incorporate Einstein-ian theory into his version.
Stephen King was inspired to do the tilting chalk-paint room scenes of "Doctor Sleep" by this.
I'm also sure RGB's "The Hole in the Wall Gang" drew inspiration.
Physical effects, and even material objects pass through the dreams, like "Nightmare On Elm Street".
This is the grandpappy of "Nightmare".
Another piece of horror history; we get the first pre-Alien chest-burst!
This is not HPL's best work, and contemporary critics and even HPL's own buddies were down on it.
I liked it okay.
Despite the bland tone, it was good and creepy. Especially the end.
And as pointed out, its place in horror history is fascinating.
"House on the Borderland" is better than this. See more on that further down.
But this is definitely intended as a tribute.
I'm glad I checked it out.
The Thing on the Doorstep
"Doorstep" is a sequel to "Innsmouth" and sorta-prequel to "Gramma" and sorta-inspiration for "Psycho".
Quickie summary; body-swap shenagins abound!
Is Asenath Waite herself, or someone else, or several someones else?
An unfortunate cringe quote to chew on...
"Her crowning rage, however, was that she was not a man; since she believed a male brain had certain unique and far-reaching cosmic powers. Given a man's brain, she declared, she could not only equal but surpass her father in mastery of unknown forces".
Okay, all doubt is removed; this is Lovecraft being a sexist pig, so I have him on record now.
Goth lady Lovecraft fans have tried to reclaim Asenath (like Helen Vaughan and Lizzie Borden) in cosplay, fanart, and fanfic, and there was an "official" Asenath prequel in the "Cthulhu's Daughters" anthology that I tried and failed to get for Christmas.
Laudable goal on the part of the feminists, but...I think it's better for progressive authors to add new empowered female protagonists to the mythos.
I mean, I get it, Asenath is historical Lovecraft canon, but Lovecraft just plain dropped the ball, and it's such a hard messy fix, starting fresh is just the better way to go.
IMHO.
But, that Asenath anthology story could prove me wrong and shut my mouth.
If only I could get ahold of the damned thing. Sigh.
Anyway!! Once again we get Arkham, Miskatonic river, and Miskatonic university.
Blatant reference to "Innsmouth".
Both the location, and the events of the story.
Apparently, it's right next door to Arkham, like Haven and Derry.
They take a trip through Maine!
Chesuncook, Augusta, Portland, Biddeford, and Saco are mentioned.
Portsmouth and Newburyport on the way through New Hampshire, and back to Mass.
So!! For me, that enhances the connection to "Gramma"!
Asenath hooks up with her cult in Maine, and she had hold of a copy of the Necronomicon.
Gramma studied unnamed books, and was a body-swapper.
Gramma either was part of Asenath's cult, or was Asenath.
It was a fun little story. Usual Lovecraft issues aside, of course.
Fun-scary like "Creepshow".
Swiss Army Knife of mythos continuity porn.
"Mountains" is still the scariest.
Okay, I was done...but some stories still scratched at the back of my mind to be read.
Herbert West: Reanimator (1922)
Cool Air (1928)
The Statement of Randolph Carter (1920)
Yeah, I was supposed to be done after "Whisperer" which was the last one of that batch I read.
But...then I wanted these next three to round things out and make it feel complete.
Herbert West: Reanimator
I re-read this cuz I read it 15 years ago when I was literally starting my horror journey on the blog; so I figured I needed this one to bring it all full circle.
Quickie summary: Guy invents an injectable cure for death.
Hi-jinks ensue!!
Narrator and Herbert West went to Miskatonic University Medical School in Arkham.
So, it's part of the larger mythos, even though the alien-Gods or the Necronomicon don't factor in.
The chapter titled "six shots by moonlight" is the most racist thing Lovecraft ever put to paper.
So gross, I won't quote it. You can look it up if you want.
Let's just say it's just as well he didn't include Dirk from Pym-verse in "At The Mountains of Madness". We know what he would have done to him. Wowsers.
I really wanted to go back in time, and force him to listen to the audiobook of "Ring Shout" 😏
Anyhoo!
Soon as I finished the story, I re-watched the movie for comparison.
The filmmakers juggled the pieces around, but it's all there.
Even a couple bits from the second movie.
Except the romantic subplot. And nudity.
Although!! Jeffrey Combs reacts to that the way Lovecraft would.
He's totally playing him like Lovecraft; even his speech patterns.
Well, text speech from his self-insert characters.
We don't have the dude on tape. Far as I know.
Still! I recognized Lovecraft in his performance.
Which tells me I've read enough Lovecraft now.
Miskatonic university and Arkham are right in there.
You could theoretically connect this movie to the "IT" movie.
Although...I don't think Miskatonic gets an onscreen mention in "IT".
I'm rambling now. Time to jump to the next one...
Cool Air
A guy needs a refrigerated room to survive.
Hi-jinks ensue!
Refrigerators were new at the time.
Like computers were when King wrote "Word Processor of the Gods".
Another one with racism.
Poe did horrible black-cents; here Lovecraft does horrible Span-glish.
Why do racists always break out the cringe impressions? 🙄
This is the origin of pastiche-Mister-Freeze in "The Doom That Came To Gotham".
Plus, this was a "Night Gallery" episode.
So, I had to read this one to scratch my itch about those.
Complete the puzzle, as it were.
This also reminded me of "They're Creeping Up On You" from "Creepshow".
Muñoz in his fridge-room is like Pratt in his germ-proof room.
Fun to know I'm on the same homework trail as Stephen King. 🤨🔍
The Statement of Randolph Carter
Another prequel to "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath".
This time, Randolph instead of the Ghouls.
I wanted to be thorough, but not totally completist.
Randolph and his buddy Warren find a tunnel under a grave in a graveyard.
Warren goes in while Randolph waits on the other end of a phone Warren takes down.
Hi-jinks ensue!
The lyrics tell the whole story, and even the title is a spoiler.
Proceed at your own risk.
Okay, let's rank these babies....
-The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
-Herbert West: Reanimator
-The Whisperer in Darkness
-The Dreams in the Witch House
-The Thing on the Doorstep
-Cool Air
-Pickman's Model
-The Statement of Randolph Carter
-The Horror at Red hook
There!
Done with Lovecraft!
...I think. I've been sure before.
Now, for bonus goodies related to Lovecraft!
The House on the Borderland (1908)
Lovecraft mentions this in "Supernatural Horror In Literature" and I don't know why I kept taking the next step down the Hodgson rabbit hole, and the next, but I'm really glad I did.
I dunno why W.H.H. isn't as known as H.G. Wells, because this is really fucking good, and way ahead of its time.
Like, it feels like sci-fi of the 70's-80's, but it's written in the 1900's.
Quickie synopsis: guy's house is a time machine with outer-space astral projection mode, and it has no obvious controls, or instruction manual. Shit just happens. Crazy shit.
The main narrator is exactly my age!
That was fun. Usually your hero protagonists are 20-35.
Part of it feels very much like "Evil Dead" with aliens instead of Deadites.
Other bits felt like "House".
Especially where Roger (protagonist of "House") is rappelling down into watery caves in dimension doors in the house.
A character gets a rapidly spreading green slimy decay plague.
It's Jordy Verrill disease!
Add "Creepshow" to the inspiration list with "Evil Dead" and "House".
It definitely inspired HPL's "The Shadow Over Time" and "Dreams In The Witch House".
Conflicted feelings: IMHO, William Hope Hodgson curb stomps H.P. Lovecraft; but, Lovecraft dug Hodgson's work out of the dustbin so he wasn't lost down the memory hole.
Hate having to owe him that directly. Ah, whatever.
I'm gonna take a pass on the graphic novel adaptation.
The writer takes huge liberties I take exception to; that's all I'll say.
1. HOTB IMO influenced "Evil Dead" "House" "Creepshow" and "Heavy Metal" and it's better than all of them by sheer virtue of that each one is a teensy piece of "Borderland".
2. I need to get more William Hope Hodgson.
I've already bookmarked "Boats of the Glen Carrig" "The Night Land" and "Carnacki The Ghost Finder".
"Glen Carrig" has tentacle monsters before ATMOM, and while it has no direct links to Pym, it has that feel, and clearly inspired ATMOM, so it's an indirect part of the lineage.
"Night Land" is even more spacey than "Borderland" and "Carnacki" is very much an inspiration for both Ghostbusters and possibly Doctor Strange.
3. Carnacki has Lovecraft-crossover fan sequels. It's connected!
In The Mouth Of Madness (1995)
Quickie plot description; the author Sutter Kane disappears, and Sam Neill has to go on a quest to find him.
The whole thing is really a meta-tribute to H.P. Lovecraft.
This came out one year after "Wes Craven's New Nightmare" and it does meta WAY better.
Even though it's not a straight adaptation of a particular story, this is flat out the best Lovecraft movie, with "Re-Animator" a very close second.
It's not a Lovecraft rebuttal-quel.
It's a blowjob-quel.
But the best one ever.
Sutter Kane is Lovecraft and King mashed together, but he looks like Cronenberg, and his world is totally Lovecraft.
King gets name dropped (Sutter sells more in this universe), but not Lovecraft.
The book titles are blatant Lovecraft rips though.
I've joked in my head that there needs to be a New Hampshire author to fill in the gap between Arkham and Castle Rock.
It's this!! The town is Hobb's End!! Sutter Kane isn't real, but John Carpenter is.
Carpenter filled it in for us.
All the monsters are there (in an all too brief scene)! Cthulhu! Yog Whately!! An Innsbruck fish-man!! All of 'em!
Matt Ruff (Lovecraft Country) totally stole Easter eggs from this like a motherfucker.
The town that has the covered bridge into Hobb's End is Montrose!
Fucking Montrose! Like Atticus's dad!
The guy who screams in front of the church with the shotgun is the dude who played Vigo in "Ghostbusters II".
The paperboy who rolls up after the "parade of monsters" scene is young Hayden Christenson!
So, yeah, lot going on with this movie. Check it out. And watch it a minimum of twice.
There's enough Easter eggs to choke a horse, and I only scratched the surface.
And, that's all those!!
Next: I want to get more William Hope Hodgson, but I dunno when I can get ahold of it, so the placeholder for that link will be here.
But! Up very next: More Stephen King!
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