Let's Talk About Horror Fiction and Film

[Goliath]

Horns by Joe Hill. Not really a straight "horror" novel, but one of the best novels in the genre that I've read recently.

The concept is a bit like Stephen King meets Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis. A young man wakes up, after blacking out during a night of drunken grieving over his murdered girlfriend, to discover that he has grown a pair of horns from his forehead.

Then things begin to get really weird, as people begin to confess their ugliest, most shameful thoughts to him, and he discovers that he has the power to make people act on these dark desires.

Highly recommended.

Lucifer's Lottery by Edward Lee is good too, and may be of interest to Lovecraft fans. It's part of Lee's "City Infernal" series. A seminarian is informed that he has won an infernal lottery: if he gives his soul to the Devil, he will receive not only whatever he wants on earth, but a privileged place in the hierachy of Hell after death. The damned soul who is assigned to guide him on his tour of Edward Lee's version of Hell is none other than H. P. Lovecraft.

[RJDiogenes]

^^ Both of those sound like good ideas, especially the first one. But I'm curious as to how Lovecraft ended up damned.

Spaceman Spiff wrote:

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I kind of figured it'd be good. I've never regretted a purchase from the HPLHS. Even the fonts are cool.

Yeah, they're really great. I wish I could afford more of their stuff. But I've gotten both of their movies and all of their radio shows and none have been less than excellent. I've also given a a couple of their radio shows as gifts. I wish they would do more.

[Goliath]

RJDiogenes wrote:

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^^ Both of those sound like good ideas, especially the first one. But I'm curious as to how Lovecraft ended up damned.

You mean, aside from being a strong and antireligious atheist?

[RJDiogenes]

Oh, right. That.

[Agenda]

Some classic Cthulhu fiction

[RJDiogenes]

That looks great.

Has anybody seen this one?

[Chemahkuu]

[Goliath]

How the mighty have fallen!

[Chemahkuu]

The series I read features an enemy of no name which resembles a massive black serpent miles long, seems a little Lovecraftian now I think about it.

[RJDiogenes]

Love Cthulhu menacing the little Lego people.

Here he is again.

[Gov Kodos]

Hello Cthulhu is amusing. http://www.hello-cthulhu.com/?date=2003-12-01

On another Cthulhu topic, has anyone picked up the Barnes and Noble hardcover complete collection of HP Lovecraft? They have it here in Seoul at a local bookstore. They tend to plastic wrap things that customers may over handle to keep up the resale so I couldn't peek inside to see for myself.

[RJDiogenes]

I haven't seen it. I have a complete Lovecraft collection that I bought in the early 80s, but it's not all in one volume.

[Gov Kodos]

RJDiogenes wrote:

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I haven't seen it. I have a complete Lovecraft collection that I bought in the early 80s, but it's not all in one volume.

Looking at Amazon, it's supposed to be fairly complete. It doesn't have works he co-wrote with others according to one of the reviews, but has all his own written works. I may pick it up today. I've wanted a good complete collection of his stuff for some time.

[RJDiogenes]

It's good to have a complete collection of Lovecraft, just don't read it straight through.

[Spaceman Spiff]

A local channel has become a Me-TV affiliate, which means I now get Svengoolie on Saturday nights. I've watched three so far and really enjoyed them. I don't know how he gets the money to play the films he does, but it's great seeing genuine classics with a horror host, instead of the same public domain movies over and over.

House of Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, and Duck Soup. Yeah, the latter two aren't horror, but it's great seeing them, anyway. (Better than another showing of The Killer Shrews!) For Duck Soup, he changed his black make-up to look like Groucho.

Tomorrow night is Son of Frankenstein. I've never been so looking forward to a broadcast of a movie I own on DVD.