When Jughead's beloved pet Hot Dog is killed in a hit and run, Jughead turns to the only person he knows who can help bring back his canine companion — Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Using dark, forbidden magic, Sabrina is successful and Hot Dog returns to the land of the living. But he's not the same... and soon, the darkness he brings back with him from beyond the grave begins to spread, forcing Archie and the gang to try to escape Riverdale!
There are some who say the zombie has had its day as a horror antagonist and should be left to rot.
Thankfully Disney doesn't listen to such naysayers andhas greenlit a live-action adaptation of one of the finest, modern zombie stories in decades: Afterlife With Archie.
It is scheduled to debut on Disney Plus in Autumn 2027, which seems like the right time of year.
The show is based on the comic book series from 2013 by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Francesco Francavilla, with Aguirre-Sacasa acting as showrunner.
Not only was it an incredible horror comic, but Afterlife With Archie was also one of the strongest character-led comics of recent years.
Unfortunately, as well as generating great critical acclaim, fan adulation, and a reputation for the sheer brilliance of the story and its visuals, the comic is also remembered for never actually reaching a conclusion.
Of course, the tale had to have a Lovecraftian twist in it!
Much like Doctor Who, it was never officially cancelled, it's just been on an extended hiatus... resting (in peace).
Only the first 10 issues of Afterlife With Archie were published and while subsequent ones were solicitated they never actually appeared.
Ironically, this was largely because Aguirre-Sacasa's career in television took off, with Riverdale and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
Let's hope that several episodes into the new streaming show, Aguirre-Sacasa doesn't get distracted by another 'better offer'.
Rumour has that more issues of the comic are also now "on the way", but no dates have been announced, and we'll believe that when we see it.
Of course, if the show 'overtakes' the story being told in the comics, we do run the risk of another Game of Thrones crash-and-burn. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Roger Corman, King of the Bs, reminisces about his start in movie making. In this original archival piece from Ballyhoo Motion Pictures, Corman takes the audience through his humble beginnings (he studied engineering!), and how he broke into the 'movie making' business. This featurette originally came out on the Blu-Ray release of Monster from the Ocean Floor.
Ahead of my birthday in 2013 Paul got tickets for the two of us to attend a talk at the British Film Institute: Roger Corman In Conversation.
The legendary B-movie director/producer was interviewed by renowned film critic Kim Newman in front of a packed audience of fans - and Paul had snagged us tickets just three rows back from the stage.
For an 87-year-old Corman was spritely and full of anecdotes, well-spoken and erudite, interesting and engaging - with nary a bad word to say about anybody.
It was an hour-and-three-quarter presentation, broken up with a few of trailers and clips from Corman's early movies, rounded off with the last quarter of an hour (or so) being open to questions from the floor.
As it was a flagship event in the BFI's Gothic season, the conversation between Newman and Corman concentrated largely on his Poe films (Lovecraft even got a mention, but Corman was adamant that he was a Poe fan ahead of HPL), but touched on his later works, his involvement with the American counter-culture movement and the output of some of his more famous protégés (such as Jack Nicholson and James Cameron).
As often happens after listening to such a fascinating character, I came away with a mental check list of Corman pictures I needed to add to my "viewing wish list" while ones that were already of the list got a bump up now I knew some of the behind-the-scenes stories about their making.
Massive thanks to the crew at Film Masters for making the interview featurette available for all.
This compilation was released as part of the promotion for Evil Dead Burn, thus the segment from the current movie gets the most screen time.
I like the fact that not all of the spells read out are the same, suggesting multiple ways of raising the deadites, which really intrigues the gamer in me, always seeing the potential for bringing the Necronomicon into my own roleplaying games... no matter what the genre or setting.
And I can't help wondering what old HP Lovecraft would make of this cinematic use of the legendary, fictional tome from his tales of cosmic horror?
Do not dread the darkness. Embrace it. Robert Eggers' Werwulf is only in theaters this Christmas.
Witness Robert Eggers’ most visceral and haunting experience yet. Focus Features presents Werfulf, a harrowing tale of devotion, damnation and the devil within.
From vampires (with Nosferatu) to werewolves, Robert Eggers, who was also responsible for the Lovecraftian madness of The Lighthouse, the disturbing VVitch, and the sword-and-sorcery Viking epic, The Northman - continues to make movies that are right in my wheelhouse.
In medieval Britain, a mysterious creature stalks the foggy countryside, transforming local folklore into terrifying reality as villagers face an ancient supernatural threat.
As a notoriously slow reader these days, I have been inspired by Booktube (particularly Michael K Vaughan's channel) to really try and pull my finger out this year.
Last week, I actually finished two books: Philip Reeve's latest thrilling World of Mortal Engines offering, Bridge of Storms, and then a short history of the fascinating Mansa Musa, the 14th Century emperor of Mali.
Although I had a vague knowledge of this celebrated - and incredibly wealthy - ruler, it wasn't until he popped up as a character in Apple TV's criminally underappreciated Time Bandits series that my interest was truly piqued.
Nevertheless, I still have a "to be read" collection of four books by the side of the bed that I am determined to get as soon as possible.
This is, of course, on top of any new comics that arrive and my concerted effort to read the core rulebook of the Dragonbane roleplaying game, which has really taken my fancy of late.
A mix of novels and short story collections, the books on my reading list (as pictured above) are:
Cruise of Shadows, a collection of early-to-mid 20th Century weird fiction by Jean Ray, a Belgium author I hadn't heard of until a few weeks ago when the Strange Studies of Strange Stories podcast did a breakdown of his short story, The Mainz Psalter, which is included in this collection. It was such a mind-blowing, Lovecraftian tale that I knew immediately I had to read the full thing and some more of Ray's work. I have to thank Rachel for getting this for me as a present, which arrived this morning and immediately jumped to the top of my TBR list.
The End of Everything, by M. John Harrison. A post-apocalyptic take set on Britain's South Coast. Like the subsequent books on the list, I know nothing really about this story except that its marketing on the Blackwells book store site made it seem really interesting And this special edition - signed by the author - includes a bonus short story.
Corpse Priest by Carson Winter. I think this one might have been mentioned on Michael K Vaughan's booktube channel, but the fact that it's described on the back cover as a mix of "sword and sorcery and cosmic horror" makes it sound like just the sort of thing I'd like.
Warriors of The Boundless by Mike Chinn. This was a Christmas present, although I can't for the life of me remember where I first heard of it. It sounds like something Michael Moorcock would have written in the '70s or '80s. The back cover blurb talks of infinite worlds, bizarre lifeforms, and "now something is wrong, something is not where it should be and needs to be returned by any means necessary". The book contains six interconnected stories of epic fantasy.
As they are, the shelves are a pretty decent encapsulation of the inside of my brain, focussing on my favourite authors and favourite themes.
From Westeros to the World of Mortal Engines, via the Hyborian Age and Mega-City One, right through to the Planet of The Apes and the Wild West, this is a guided tour of my psyche and my primary, literary gaming inspirations.
Of course, these are not my only book shelves in the house, but are my most recently built and filled.
Pretty sure, now, there's no more room for any more shelves... although there's always room for more books.
Philip Reeve
Conan The Barbarian
Robert E Howard
HP Lovecraft and The Cthulhu Mythos
Westerns - there are more Western paperbacks in another cupboard
Judge Dredd & 2000AD (plus a sneaky little RPG that has yet to find a home)
In preparation for the release of its Classic Era of Elric roleplaying game (compatible with Dungeon Crawl Classics and Dungeons & Dragons 5e), Goodman Games has published a nice overview of Michael Moorcock's importance in the world of sword and sorcery fiction, as well as his influence on the fantasy roleplaying game oeuvre.
Goodman Games' The Classic Era of Elric roleplaying game (yeah, I can't get my head round that name yet. I'm wondering if it's just a placeholder) will be the subject of a crowdfunding campaign on BackerKit next year and you can sign up to be alerted when that launches here.
Moorcock is the youngest and only living author mentioned in Gary Gygax's famous Appendix N list of inspirational authors for Dungeons & Dragons players and gamesmasters, from the 1979 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide.
Below you will find a 2019 interview with Michael Moorcock from the Appendix N Book Club podcast, in which the forthright author shares his views on gaming companies using his creations, racism in the works of Lovecraft and Agatha Christie, why he prefers the adventures of Conan to Lord Of The Rings, the birth and evolution of Elric (not an elf!), the benefits of comic book adaptations, writing Hawkmoon books in three days, The Multiverse and destroying universes, Dan Dare's optimistic future, activism, feminism, Brexit... and a plug for his most recent music album!
Matthew Rhys stars as Mayor Tom Loftis in Apple's Widow's Bay
Widow’s Bay is a quaint island town 40 miles off the coast of New England. But something lurks beneath the surface. Mayor Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys) is desperate to revive his struggling community. There’s no Wi-Fi, spotty cellular reception and he must contend with superstitious locals who believe their island is cursed.
He wants these people to respect him. They don’t. They think he is soft and cowardly. And he is. But Loftis is determined to build a better future for his teenage son and turn the island into a tourist destination.
Miraculously, he succeeds: tourists are finally coming. Unfortunately, the locals were right. After decades of calm, the old stories that seemed too ludicrous to be true, start happening again. Widow’s Bay blends genuine horror with character-driven comedy.
From these teases, it would appear that Widow's Bay is a delicious blend of dark humour, Stephen King, HP Lovecraft, and Twin Peaks. Possibly. Or it could be something completely different... but I look forward to finding out.
Hailing from Apple Studios, Widow’s Bay is created, showrun, executive produced and written by Katie Dippold.
Director Hiro Murai executive produces alongside Carver Karaszewski, Claudia Shin and Rhys. Murai directs five episodes this season, in addition to directors Ti West, Sam Donovan and Andrew DeYoung.
Apparently the story of Widow's Bay began as a spec script Dippold wrote for - of all things - that greatest of sitcoms Parks and Recreation. Which makes me want to watch this even more!!!
The first two episodes of the show drop in three weeks, on April 29, then the remaining eight episodes of the series will appear on subsequent Wednesdays through to June 17 (with a second double-dip on May 27).
Beautifully packaged parcel from Peahen In The Tree
When I started putting my thoughts together about returning to the world of blogging a year or so ago, I never imagined I'd be writing so much about my book collection.
But then I discovered Booktube, and my perspective shifted somewhat.
The other day, a random eBay advert hit my eyeballs for different edition of a key book from my formative years as a young gamer: Wereblood (or, in this iteration, Were Blood) by Erik Iverson (aka alt-history maven Harry Turtledove).
My 'new' copy of Wereblood
But what made this printing of particular interest to me was the painted Boris Vallejo cover (see above), which bore no relevance to the Gerin The Fox story told in Wereblood whatsoever.
In fact I knew it from a 1985 roleplaying supplement from Mayfair Games' Role Aids line that I was mildly obsessed with as a youth. Ice Elves did exactly what it said on the tin (and in Vallejo's 1978 painting).
It was an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons adventure and rules supplement that explored the idea of a race of elves living in the frozen North, getting around on ultracool "ice riggers".
The reason I was rather hooked on this supplement is because of the similarities, especially in the whole "ships that glide over ice" aspect, to the first Michael Moorcook book I ever read: The Ice Schooner.
However, the more I thought about this - especially when my parcel from online book trader Peahen In The Treearrived - the more surprised I was by the fact that Vallejo's art didn't decorate the covers of the either of the two editions I have of The Ice Schooner.
My two copies of The Ice Schooner
But a wee bit of Googling quickly revealed it had, of course, been used as a cover illustration for a 1978 Dell Publishing edition of The Ice Schooner:
Was this painting originally commissioned for this book?
A key aspect of the book that introduced me to the wonderful writing of Michael Moorcock is that it was another purchase from P&P Book Exchange in Goods Station Road, Tunbridge Wells.
This is the same - sadly, long-gone - second hand book store where, four decades ago, I discovered the cosmic horror of HP Lovecraft for the first time and was transformed from a "dabbler" in comics to full-on collector when I purchased piles of Wolfman/Perez New Teen Titans and John Byrne Fantastic Four comics.
It's no understatement to say that one store played a major role in shaping my lifelong geeky interests.
The world needs more browsable, brick-and-mortar, second hand book shops.
Several scientists around the world, including Britain's Professor Geoffrey Munro (Warren Mitchell), have died of mysterious, explosive, brain haemorrhages - just as they were about to make major breakthroughs.
All were working on trying to crack the scientific formula that would allow individuals to "project themselves through thought" to alien worlds... what we might call today "astral projection".
Following Munro's sudden demise, newly-married theoretical physicist, Dr Mark Davidson (John Neville, probably best known for his portrayal of Hieronymus Karl Frederick, Baron von Munchausen in Terry Gilliam's 1988 The Adventures of Baron Munchausen) is promoted to take his place in the project.
However, state security - in the form of the secret service's wonderfully mannered Major Clarke (Patrick Newell, who would go on to play 'Mother' in The Avengers, from 1965 to 1969) - is suspicious of Davidson's whirlwind holiday romance and his new Swiss bride, Julie (Gabriella Licudi), about whom no records can be found.
There's also the fact that Julie sleeps with her eyes open, never blinks, has no pulse, cries acidic tears, is immune to extremes of heat, and scares children.
The clues are there that there's "something" about Julie, but love-struck Mark refuses to accept it, despite proclamations from both Major Clarke and Mark's colleague, Prof. John Lancaster (Philip Stone).
Nevertheless, regardless of his blind spot in regards to his new bride, Mark does reach the conclusion that if scientists on Earth are trying to reach other planets psychically, perhaps alien races have already come to Earth using the same method.
And perhaps they want to stop Earthlings gaining this ability to travel the cosmos.
But it's not Julie, right?
A tight, low-budget, black-and-white sci-fi thriller, 1963's Unearthly Stranger shares themes and ideas with both Invasion of The Body Snatchers and HP Lovecraft's story The Shadow Out Of Time.
Events kick off in media res, as a sweaty Mark races back to his office to document all he has learned via a reel-to-reel recorder.
This then allows the film to flashback to the main story - which, itself, contains a secondary flashback to Mark's first encounter with Julie (which bears many of the hallmarks of a classic UFO encounter).
The whole shindig is so compact that it feels like a 76-minute Twilight Zone episode rather than a movie, unburdened by spurious sub-plots and the need to slowly establish character and motivation.
This brevity is something often lacking in modern filmmaking.
I have three movies I call my "comfort films" that I will try and watch whenever I see them listed on the TV schedules or can turn to (via blu-rays, dvd, or streaming) whenever I'm feeling a bit down and need an escape hatch.
These are Raiders of The Lost Ark, George Pal's The Time Machine, and Quatermass and The Pit.
To me, these are perfect, review-proof works of genius that I can never tire of watching, all with deeper meanings and impacts on my life than what is shown on screen.
Today, we're thinking about the "adventures" of Professor Bernard Quatermass.
My first exposure to the world of Quatermass was the apocalyptic 1979 sci-fi thriller series known simply as Quatermass.
This bleak, four-part miniseries had a major impact on its 13-year-old viewer when first screened; implanting in me a fascination not just for adventure stories set amongst urban decay but the heroic futility of standing up to alien creatures of unimaginable power and destructive capabilities.
I am sure there is some synchronicity between my first viewing of this televisual tale and my discovery - not long afterwards - and immediate love for, the works of HP Lovecraft.
From Cthulhu to Galactus, all these cosmic entities can trace their influence on me back to watching Quatermass on ITV in the late 70s.
So inspired by this series was I that I also clearly remember creating (but never playing) a Quatermass role-playing game system and, once we started playing the comic book RPG Villains & Vigilantes, I named an alien race after the "enemy" in Quatermass - The Harvesters... although they were nowhere near as powerful as that entity!
Set at the end of the 20th Century (the future when this was made),Quatermass sees the return to London of Bernard Quatermass (Sir John Mills), founder of the British Rocket Group which pioneered space travel in the UK (see The Quatermass Experimentof 1953 and its cinematic remake).
He's been living in seclusion in Scotland and is unaware of the anarchy spreading through England, with gangs roaming the streets, power cuts and the general collapse of society. He is looking for his runaway granddaughter and instead meets up with a fellow scientist (Simon MacCorkindale).
Also roaming the land are a group known as The Planet People - hippies who gather at stone circles, prophesying a mass transmigration of those who "believe" to a Utopian alien planet.
Then the beams of light start coming from the sky, hitting the places where people have gathered and seemingly disintegrating them; although the Planet People believe they have been "taken to The Planet".
Seen now Quatermass can seem slightly melodramatic in places, but it can still deliver an incredible impact with its portrayal of a very British Apocalypse, complete with polite graffiti, a plate of sandwiches and a thermos of tea.
It faces themes of science versus belief, youthful enthusiasm versus the experience of age and the human spirit's unwavering strength in the face of overwhelming odds.
If HP Lovecraft were alive in the 1970s, this is exactly what he would have been writing - man as an insignificant speck in the Universe, caught up in events way beyond his understanding and ability to comprehend.
Don't expect answers, explanations or convenient happy endings - there is no Deus Ex Machina in the world of Bernard Quatermass... it is that God In The Machine that is "harvesting" the human race!
Originally created by writer Nigel Kneale (who also penned The Stone Tape) in the paranoia-fuelled 1950s, Quatermass - an intellectual professor defending the Earth from extraterrestrial threats through the use of brains rather than brawn - is an obvious precursor of The Doctor (who shares many of the same traits and convictions, despite being an alien himself).
Kneale wrote three original Quatermass serials for television: The Quatermass Experiment (an astronaut returning to Earth unknowingly carrying an alien creature which is continually mutating); Quartermass II (aliens take over a research plant on the South Coast); and Quatermass And The Pit (workmen in London unearth an old, crashed spaceship and release 'psychic ghosts').
I discovered all three of these stories through Arrow's script books, published in the late '70s, almost certainly released to cash in on Quatermass.
Later would come the radio series The Quatermass Memoirs, first broadcast as part of a season about 'The Fifties' on Radio 3 in 1996, and while some of the old news clips are a bit scratchy, the whole drama-documentary is an informative, inspirational and terrifying reflection of a time when the world was gripped by fear of nuclear holocaust.
It is a five-part documentary about the origins of the character, intercut with genuine 1950s news broadcasts, exerpts from the original serials, recollections and anecdotes from Nigel Kneale and an original mini-play by Kneale, set in the 1970s, wherein Bernard Quatermass, having retired to the wilds of Scotland (as mentioned at the start of Quatermass), discusses his life with a young journalist.
Long before Space:1999, UFO, Thunderbirds and even Doctor Who, there was ... Quatermass.
Throughout most of the 1950s, Quatermass was a British science fiction institution which appeared both on TV and in the cinema. Yet perhaps more importantly, it was the first adult based, dramatic science fiction television show in the world.
Now, over 70 years later, Quatermass not only lives on through its devoted fan base, but is a name which continues to resonate with science fiction fans both young and old.
In this special retrospective study, we look back upon the history of this highly celebrated franchise, whilst not only addressing the positive aspects the series brought to the science fiction genre but also the many challenges it faced in doing so.
Great memories - that is "magic moments" in roleplaying games - often come from the unplanned and unexpected, but that's not to say some gentle nudging and downright scheming from the Gamesmaster is inappropriate.
Browsing the deep back catalogue of Craig Oxbrow's excellent inspirational resource The Watch House (if you're into sci-fi and/or Doctor Who gaming then you need to read his Door In Time blog as well) I came across an article he'd written on Six Staples Of SF/F Series, by way of Den Of Geek.
These standards are:
The Bodyswap
The Time Loop
Ascension To A Higher Plane Of Existence
Alternate Dimensions
The Doppelganger/Double/Duplicate
The Dream Episode
And all are immediately applicable to the anime-inspired fantasy campaign I'm kicking around at the moment while the Tuesday Knights get all pulpy in Pete's new Outgunned Adventures game (season two of his epic weird science campaign).
Tie these "standards" into my own "wish list" of cool moments and there's plenty of meat for potentially memorable adventures, if I'm GM enough to script plots that can do these tropes justice.
I guess, in part, all this comes from my passion for visual media (films, TV, and comics in particular) and thus my desire to emulate moments I see in these at our table.
The main bullet points from my "wish list" were:
Have the players running the defence of a "hopeless situation", ridiculously outnumbered by an implacable foe, as seen at Rorke's Drift in Zulu, Dros Delnoch in David Gemmel's Legend, and Helm's Deep in The Lord of The Rings. To name but three.
A "Horatio Holds The Bridge" moment - I'd just discovered D&D when this poem was read to us at school and the two just clicked.
An interesting time travel story (cf. Doctor Who et al)
The party encounters cosmic entities that threaten the world and only the heroes can stop them - every Marvel/DC comic book that features this sort of stuff inspires me to greater madness, combined with a lifelong love of the works of HP Lovecraft.
Having the players caught up in a war between angels and demons.
Originally my list was drawn up for a legacy D&D campaign, but the ideas are so broad, universal, and potentially over-the-top that they work just as well for anime fantasy game in the same vein as Delicious in Dungeon, Frieren, and Record of Lodoss War.
In pre-Second World War Poland, a young man, Józef (Jan Nowicki), travels to a run-down sanatorium in the country to visit his dying father, Jakub (Tadeusz Kondrat), only to be told that his father is dead.
However, the strange properties of sanatorium mean that, like Schrödinger's cat, he is also still alive. From there Józef sets off on a surreal journey into his memories, where the Jewish community he grew up in becomes interwoven with the rooms - and residents - of the sanatorium as he tries to come to terms with his guilt over leaving his father in such a place and the events that led to his father's incarceration in the first place.
The Hourglass Sanatorium (aka Sanatorium Pod Klepsydra) opens on a strange train where all the passengers, bar Józef, appear to be corpses and this unnerving Lovecraftian Hammer Horror feeling continues up until the scenes where Józef meets his father.
At first it appears as though our perfectly-normal protagonist is simply taking his increasingly peculiar surroundings in his stride, but quite suddenly we realise that Józef is as out-of-sorts with normality as everything else that is unfolding before our eyes.
Apparently based on a series of short stories by Polish-Jewish writer Bruno Schulz, the film quickly dispenses with such mainstream concepts as a narrative plot and instead swims dream-like through a cycle of reality-blurring vignettes that whisk Józef from swamplands overrun by soldiers to lost loves of his youth.
The dialogue and scene structure has a strong William Burroughs 'cut-up' vibe going on and much is reminiscent of Naked Lunch (the book more so than the film, but without the sexual obsessions) mixed in with Jacob's Ladder, Ambrose Bierce's An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and, if I really reach, Rob Zombie's House Of 1,000 Corpses and Grant Morrison's The Invisibles.
However, this isn't a horror film so much as magical realism; an exercise in trying to capture on film a concept that this is ultimately indescribable, the experience of visiting a place where time works in ways alien to our normal perception.
Visually hypnotic and lyrically directed by Wojciech Has, The Hourglass Sanitorium is the strangest film I've seen in a long while, but it flows so beautifully and provocatively that you're soon convinced it's either incredibly meaningful or else the cast and crew were simply making it up as they went along.
It's the dreaded Black Friday at We Love Toys and the work force are not looking forward to the hordes of shoppers about to pour in, seeking those "once in a lifetime" bargains.
However, what makes matters worse this year is a meteor shower bringing an alien virus that turns the infected into hideous, angry, monsters seeking to both 'spread the love' and construct a 'nest' for each of the initial meteors to achieve their "final form".
Black Friday! is a fun blend of rage zombie horror, Lovecraftian alien invasion, kaiju action, The Blob, Clerks, and old Quatermass movies.
Leaning into its weird fiction inspirations not everything mentioned in the story is explained, adding to the occasionally unnerving strangeness of what the extra-terrestrial entities are up to and what their ultimate objective may be.
There's plenty of body horror in Black Friday!, with the practical make-up effects on the transformed infected being particularly striking as they evolve into piranha-toothed ghouls, oddly reminiscent of the beast in The Unnameable duology
Written by Andy Greskoviak and directed by Casey Tebo, the 84-minute flick is a runaway train that doesn't hang around, getting to the meat of its set-up almost immediately and not wasting any time establishing deep backstories for the central characters (these are filled in during the unfolding chaos).
While the film is a satire of corporate America, it is primarily an apocalyptic splatterfest romp that doesn't take itself at all seriously.
If you're looking for a "people trapped in a store during the end of the world" film, but aren't in the mood for the heart-breaking buzzkill of The Mist, then you could do worse than check out the more light-hearted Black Friday!
Bruce Campbell is in there as the store manager, playing a bigger role than I expected but still a supporting character, while the leads are Final Destination/Chucky's Devon Sawa, Super 8's Ryan Lee, and Pan's Labyrinth's Ivana Baquero, as three undervalued workers in the soulless toy store.
Other familiar faces that pop up include Michael Jai White, while Seth Green provides the voice of a malfunctioning animatronic bear (who might just be a parody of Ted).
John Carpenter's cosmic horror magnum opus In The Mouth of Madness came out in 1995 and almost immediately devotees were calling it the greatest Lovecraftian movie that's not based on an HP Lovecraft story.
I don't know when I first saw it, but it was almost certainly the Lovecraft vibe that drew me to it and I was immediately smitten.
In The Mouth of Madness is quite possibly my all-time favourite horror movie.
At its heart, the story concerns a hunt by insurance investigator John Trent (Sam Neill) for a missing best-selling horror author, Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow), and his much sought-after final manuscript, In The Mouth of Madness.
Fans have long demanded a novelisation of the movie - which in a turn of mindbending metafiction is the novel that forms the heart of the film - and finally this year it came to pass.
Published by Echo On Publications, the novel of In The Mouth of Madness fully embraces its cinematic provenance, being authored by the fictional Sutter Cane (actually Christian Francis) and "published" by Arcane (the publisher of Sutter Cane's work in the film). It even uses the front cover artwork shown on the book when it's onscreen.
But, sadly, there my fanboyish excitement ends.
For the most part this is a very pedestrian adaptation, only really grabbing the reader in the final act when it seeks to expand the world we know from the film.
Sutter Kane is a contemporary reimagining of HP Lovecraft - in a world where his Great Old Ones were actually real - with a heavy dose of Stephen King mixed in for good measure, so I had high expectations for this book (fuelled by the several decades' wait for it to be announced).
Yet, given that - in-universe - this is supposedly a book written by an author who outsells Stephen King tenfold, it instead reads in large part like fan-fiction.
Was this actually a hurriedly released unedited first (or early) draft?
That might explain the most frustrating thing about the novel, which can't entirely be blamed on the author (unless this was self-published and he was expected to edit it himself).
The text is riddled with typos and missing words, which isn't a dealbreaker but is immensely frustrating for a professionally published book.
The name of Cane's publisher, Jackson Harglow (played by Charlton Heston the film) changes spelling several times within a few pages, for instance, and there are even TWO inexcusable typos in the blurb on the back cover of the dust jacket.
Did nobody proof this?
On the other hand, there are some delightful additions to the story - such as interjections in the text, often directed at the reader, from Cane himself.
Another interesting inclusion was the discussion between Trent and Cane's editor Linda Styles over Cane’s approach to writing.
For the most part the book sticks to the film script, but there are some minor tweaks to the narrative, alternative takes as it were, and one major element slipped in that, as far as I was aware from multiple viewings of the film, adds a whole new level of existential horror to the story.
Sutter Cane's In The Mouth of Madness is at its best when it captures the cosmic horror of the movie, but ultimately serves primarily as a novelty artefact to sit on your shelf and spark conversation with those 'in the know'.
It certainly isn't the Lovecraftian/Stephen King assault on sanity that we'd all been waiting for.
On and off, the Tuesday Knights (my gaming group) has been playing Pete's period pulp action campaign for 32 sessions over three years. He likes to keep things fresh by switching the rules system for every story arc.
We started in the 1950's, fighting zombies and giant monsters - even travelling to an alien world at one point - using GURPS Atomic Horror, then we slipped through a portal to the 1930's for an extended Hollow Earth Expedition-fuelled hike from New York to Antarctica, punching villains in the face along the way, and finally being drawn into some Lovecraftian cosmic horror shenanigans that were a delicious blend of John Carpenter's The Thing and old HPL's At The Mountains of Madness.
That adventure culminated with my character Buck Hansen, a world-weary big game hunter and explorer, managing to blow up - rather impressively - a newly-risen ancient god.
The other members of the team are Kevin as former G-man Dick Tate, Mark as daredevil aviatrix Onyx Jones (he took over Erica's character when she left the group), and Clare as photojournalist Freya Larson.
For the next stage of the campaign - which is scheduled to begin in December (all being well) - Pete is turning to Outgunned Adventures, a standalone spin-off of the popular Outgunned system from Two Little Mice.
I think we're staying in the 1930's for the moment, but hopefully there will be an in-game explanation for the subtle changes in our characters (and the new rules mechanics).
The other night Pete came round to talk through the new game with me and seek my assistance in roughing out conversions of the characters from HEX to Outgunned.
I was extremely flattered by this, especially given that my recent attempts to get a campaign going (a Shadowdark game that lasted one session and a Villains & Vigilantes one that lasted three sessions) both fizzled out in most depressing manners.
The Outgunned Adventures rules book is gorgeous, both in its layout and art, and full of homages to the Indiana Jones movies (particularly Raiders of The Lost Ark).
The game's core system seems elegantly straight-forward (but then again so did HEX - in theory - which turned into a confusing mess in play).
Tests in Outgunned are made with small dice pools of two to nine six-sided dice and you are looking to match numbers to score successes (e.g. roll 5d6 and threes come up on four of the dice, then that's four successes).
Although I'm still not a massive fan of dice pool mechanics, as I grow older and more befuddled I've come to really appreciate simplicity at the heart of my games (which was one of ways I went wrong with Villains & Vigilantes game).
Outgunned's dice pool mechanics are rather different than the HEX approach to generating successes, but hopefully the Tuesday Knights will latch on quickly.
Pete and I were able to find pre-generated templates that matched the characters in our little group, and then went through the personalisation process of picking out various traits and abilities that matched those that our characters had used in the earlier adventures.
Flicking through the book, I couldn't help but keep catching myself thinking "this looks really nice, perhaps I could use Outgunned to run something in a different setting".
Well, in the cold light of day, I don't know about that, but - while I'm taking a break from sitting behind the GM's screen - it's certainly got me thinking more positively about running a game again... at some point in the future.
It should come as no surprise to anyone watching Full Moon's Doctor Mordrid to learn that it was originally developed as Dr Strange project, but when the rights were lost for the Marvel Comics character it was reworked as its own entity.
Lovecraftian legend and regular Star Trek guest star Jeffrey Combs stars as the titular Doctor Anton Mordrid, an ageless entity living among mortals in human form, protecting us from demonic entities, such as Kabal (regular villain Brian Thompson), an evil sorcerer he imprisoned 150 years ago.
Guided by a mystical entity he refers to as Monitor, Mordrid is alerted to Kabal's escape from a fifth-dimensional prison and he sets out to prevent 'The Death's Head' from using alchemical skills to take control of The Philosopher's Stone... and then the world.
Mordrid's life, however, becomes a bit more complicated when he attracts the attention of his new neighbour, large-haired police consultant Samantha Hunt (Yvette Nipar), who then seeks his assistance on a 'Satanic' murder case she's working on.
This, naturally, leads to all sorts of trouble when her colleague, no-nonsense cop Tony Gaudio (Jay Acovone) collars Mordrid for the murder.
Coming in at 74-minutes, Doctor Mordrid feels like a TV movie or a pilot for a great '90s cop show (there's some strong language and a scene of random female nudity, but all involve supporting characters that could easily be trimmed for a more family-friendly edit) rather than a blockbuster movie.
Sadly, while it has its moments, there's nothing actually in the film to rival the multi-dimensional, cosmic psychedelia suggested by the DVD's cover.
I have to be honest and admit I was hoping for a bit more "duelling wizards" material, the mid-section of the film instead feels as though it gets rather bogged down in police procedural.
Mordrid's Castle
The final showdown between Mordrid and Kabal - although boasting some decent Harryhausen-esque stop-motion animation - is surprisingly brief, especially when compared to effects heavy final acts in similar films today.
Amidst the flashy sorcerous combat, we get a teasing glimpse of the demonic forces that Kabal is releasing, then wallop, Mordrid slams the door in their stop-motion faces (which is a bit of s shame as they looked quite cool).
As is often the way with these low-budget outings, there are some great ideas at work here with the potential to spark some fantastic, tangential creativity and there's definitely an unavoidable feeling that Full Moon Features were hoping to milk this franchise for at least another film, maybe more.
Mordrid's extra-dimensional castle - where Kabal is imprisoned - is too good a visual alone not to want to revisit the world of Doctor Mordrid.
"... some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."
- HP Lovecraft
Filmed as an authentic, 1920's black and white, silent movie, The Call of Cthulhu is an amazing 47-minute piece of work, perfectly encapsulating the psychological horror of H.P. Lovecraft's iconic story.
Styling it as a movie that Lovecraft himself might have seen in the 1920s is a stroke of genius by the filmmakers of the HP Lovecraft Historical Society, as it allows for considerable leeway when it comes to the necessary effects required to bring the Great Cthulhu - and his island home of R'lyeh - to life.
The story itself is a puzzle box, an onion of layers upon layers, beginning with a man (Matt Foyer) in an asylum recounting to his doctor (John Bolen), how he was charged with sorting out the affairs of his great-uncle, Professor Angell (Ralph Lucas), upon the old man's death.
Going through the professor's papers, the man comes across a particular box of papers and files, and as he reads these we are taken back to a series of seemingly disconnected events, from the lucid dreams of artist Henry Wilcox (Chad Fifer), via a raid by New Orleans police on a savage swamp cult, and the discovery of a drifting ship with only a single survivor onboard.
We learn about the cult's worship of alien beings, Elder Gods, who are sleeping under the sea, waiting for the "stars to align", so they can awaken again, but little else to tie things together.
Later the man - having put his concerns about his uncle's affairs to one side - stumbles across further details of the mysterious ship, which sends him on a global hunt for the elusive final pieces of the puzzle.
Eventually, he arrives in Oslo and is handed the personal account of the ship's lone survivor.
This details the discovery of a strange island, where the crew disturb the resting place of the monstrous alien god Cthulhu.
Structured as stories-within-stories-within-stories, as characters recount events in which further characters recount other events, helps accentuate the disorientating, dream-like nature of the whole affair.
Which may well just be the ramblings of a mad man.
However, clues are slowly pieced together from different events to formulate a possibly complete picture of what links all these disparate tales... and what it means for the future of humanity.
I've been reading Lovecraft since I was about 12, so am probably biased, but I love this film and treasure my old DVD of it, for all its authentic, creaky, mannered staging.
By sticking close to the original text, the combination of Sean Branney's script and Andrew Leman's direction, within the self-imposed constraints of vintage filmmaking, make Call of Cthulhu one of the best, pure, Lovecraftian adaptations.
It isn't about gore and jump scares, the horror comes from the larger scale suggestion of what the narrative implies.
My pop culture Odyssey: a slice of super-powered geek life with heavy emphasis on pulp adventure, superheroes, comic books, westerns, horror, sci-fi, giant monsters, zombies etc
.jpg)
_-_The_Defence_of_Rorke's_Drift_-_RCIN_405897_-_Royal_Collection.jpg)
