Tag: hplhs

In the mail: @HPLHS’s “The Horror at Red Hook.”

Listening to it right now, in fact.  This is much more than a word-for-word retelling of HP Lovecraft’s original “The Horror at Red Hook:” which makes sense, really. The original is a short story, after all: and they did a full hour version. You have to flesh stuff out.

It’s an interesting story to adapt for today, because this is one of Lovecraft’s more difficult stories for our modern age. It has a genuine power to it that we find rather objectionable – thus making is simultaneously attractive and repellent. It’s interesting to see HPLHS try to play this as straight as they possibly could.

The “Dreams in the Witch House.” Lovecraftian rock opera. [Content warning]

The folks over at the HPL Historical Society (need to think about getting a lifetime membership: $75 is a lot of discretionary income, though) helped put together a rock opera based on one of Lovecraft’s short stories (‘The Dreams in the Witch House,’ obviously).  I just picked up the album (Dreams in the Witch House: A Lovecraftian Rock Opera), largely on the strength of this (DO NOT CLICK THAT LINK YET!) music video – but please note that I am putting a content warning on said video, which I do not often do.  This is a rock opera based on a horror story, and the video features images of a disturbing and alarming nature that are all the more so because they are not done in a cartoonish fashion.  Do not watch this at work.  You have been warned.

I get the impression that the HPLHS might be expanding this, later on (they’ve already done the radio dramatization of the story).

So, I watched The Whisperer in Darkness last night.

Short version: I liked it, and it provided more scary moments than the HPLHS’s previous movie The Call of Cthulhu.  This is not the fault of the CoC movie itself, or the producers: I simply have a harder time getting into a mood where I find silent movies scary.  The production values were pretty tight – possibly the special effects were a little too good in a couple of places; it’s supposed to be a Thirties movie – and the acting was generally good, solid work.  I think that the directors were tweaking the audience a little by having one of the actors take the role of “more well known actor with a cameo in this movie,” but I’m not sure.  Overall, a nice horror flick that visibly misses the old black and white melodramas of the Thirties.  Check it out.

And thanks to everybody who hit the tip jar recently, thus allowing me to buy it.

HPLHS’ “The Whisperer in Darkness” is in the can.

As of March 1st; they just need to find a distributor and get it up on the screen – and, more to the point, into a format where I might acquire a copy in exchange for money.

(pause)

You know, I should contact these people and find out if they’re going to be sending out review copies.  I mean, I’m mostly known for political blogging, but what the heck, right?  It’s not like I haven’t been an enthusiastic supporter of their work in public, and everything…

Moe Lane

PS: Trailer:

The Whisperer in Darkness movie taunts me.

They are ever so slooooooooooooowly getting it finished: the blog claims that the production wrap-up date was last week, but I have my doubts. I have a vague hope of a DVD before summer, but I probably will have to wait until winter…  although if it’s being shown in theaters locally – not likely – I’ll probably go and see it on the big screen.

I’m hoping for The Shadow Over Innsmouth next.

Moe Lane

PS: Here’s the second trailer again.