Countdown to Cthulhu: Who is going to believe a talking head?
So far this morning, I've caught up on e-mail, sent a DMCA takedown notice to an e-book pirate, had breakfast and espresso, and mopped half my kitchen, all to the tune of Wolves in the Throne Room's Two Hunters. Why, I'm feeling positively re-animated.
Which leads me to H. P. Lovecraft's splatterpunk serial, "Herbert West--Reainmator." Originally appearing in amateur publication Home Brew between October 1921 and June 1922, "Herbert West--Reanimator" was first reprinted in Weird Tales in 1942.
I believe that comedy and horror are close cousins. The difference between slapstick and a boot to the face--or worse--is really just a matter of timing. And despite S. T. Joshi's appraisal of "Herbert West--Reanimator" as "Lovecraft's poorest work", I'd say that nowhere in the Lovecraft's oeuvre is the wire dividing the horrible from the hilarious at its gauntest.
"It is uncommon to fire all six shots of a revolver with great suddenness when one would be sufficient, but many things in the life of Herbert West were uncommon."
The 1985 Stuart Gordon film adaptation, Re-Animator, walks that wire like an acrobat, wildly careening between earnest terror and gut-splitting grotesquery. Even if it did severely typecast Jeffrey Combs' future acting career.
(Can't see the video? Here's a link.)
They just don't make flicks like that anymore.
And since Re-Animator was R-rated, and there may be kiddies present, here's an alternate take on "Herbert West--Reainmator." Pika!
"My Grass type vs. your Colour-Out-Of-Space type" from Let's Be Friends Again! by Curt Franklin & Chris Haley. Shamelessly hotlinked.
Which leads me to H. P. Lovecraft's splatterpunk serial, "Herbert West--Reainmator." Originally appearing in amateur publication Home Brew between October 1921 and June 1922, "Herbert West--Reanimator" was first reprinted in Weird Tales in 1942.
I believe that comedy and horror are close cousins. The difference between slapstick and a boot to the face--or worse--is really just a matter of timing. And despite S. T. Joshi's appraisal of "Herbert West--Reanimator" as "Lovecraft's poorest work", I'd say that nowhere in the Lovecraft's oeuvre is the wire dividing the horrible from the hilarious at its gauntest.
"It is uncommon to fire all six shots of a revolver with great suddenness when one would be sufficient, but many things in the life of Herbert West were uncommon."
The 1985 Stuart Gordon film adaptation, Re-Animator, walks that wire like an acrobat, wildly careening between earnest terror and gut-splitting grotesquery. Even if it did severely typecast Jeffrey Combs' future acting career.
(Can't see the video? Here's a link.)
They just don't make flicks like that anymore.
And since Re-Animator was R-rated, and there may be kiddies present, here's an alternate take on "Herbert West--Reainmator." Pika!
"My Grass type vs. your Colour-Out-Of-Space type" from Let's Be Friends Again! by Curt Franklin & Chris Haley. Shamelessly hotlinked.
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