Friday Links: Matthew Mungle, The Violet Crow, and Amorphous Horrors

As you slouch toward the weekend, rough beast that you are, take a look at what's happened in the strange and horrific this past week:

• At Jim Mcleod's Ginger Nuts of Horror, Ishbelle Bee talked about her newly-published novel The Singular and Extraordinary Tale of Mirror & Goliath: "The plot, in a nutshell: a little girl is locked inside a grandfather clock. She is rescued by a policeman who becomes her supernatural guardian. The Lord of the Underworld orders his assassin son, Mr Loveheart, to hunt her down because he wants to eat her and absorb her powers. The book is played out in Victorian England, Egypt and the Underworld and reveals a variety of unusual and colourful characters, including fraudulent psychics, mesmerists, Jack the Ripper and bewildered Scotland Yard detectives."
  
• The Lovecraft eZine brought us exciting news about Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu: "In 1975 Chaosium started out as a quirky boutique game company. We were all about creativity, artistry and craftsmanship. With every game we provided you with new realms of imagination and entertainment. Over the last few years we forgot that, and lost our way."
• Michael Sheldon's novel The Violet Crow was published through Amazon.
• Sean Eaton took on the amorphous in his disturbingly delightful R'lyeh Tribune: "Amoebic monsters are not always indiscriminate and insatiable predators, though.  In some horror fiction, they act in the service of an oppressed or beleaguered child.  Perhaps they are a manifestation of repressed rage and hurt, and transform these energies into a shifting, shadowy form that acts much as the microorganism does."
• Cool Ass Cinema interviewed special effects makeup artist Matthew Mungle: "Joe Blasco was my greatest influence when I started attending his school in 1978 but before I met him it was Dick Smith and John Chambers for their amazing body of work and dedication to the craft."
• Nev Murray reviewed Keith Deininger's Within at Confessions of a Reviewer!!: "I have only ever read Ghosts of Eden by Keith Deininger before. Although I enjoyed it, I struggled with it a bit. Felt like I had been on a weird “trip” when I had read it. Due to this experience I went at Within a little bit on the cautious side. I knew I liked his writing. I was just a bit freaked out with the previous one. I needn’t have worried."
• A noted Jamaican pastor warned of the perils of Charlie Charlie: "Errol Rattray told OBSERVER ONLINE Friday that the game should be taken very seriously, as it may release demonic elements causing the individuals who play the game to become possessed."
• John Kenneth Muir deconstructed the 2008 film Doomsday for our edification: "An extremely gory and violent film, Doomsday proves impressive in terms of its stunts and action sequences, but it also features some narrative blind alleys. The result is movie of intermittent success, of some highs and a few lows.  It’s fun recognizing all the influences and ingredients when they appear on screen, and Doomsday never fails to rivet the attention."
• Here, I pointed you to a review of The Blessed Man and the Witch by the inestimable Nev Murray and a review I wrote for Mark All's novel Death Metal.

Illustration by Tom Sullivan from Call of Cthulhu's supplement S. Petersen's Field Guide to Creatures from the Dreamlands.

Charlie Charlie

First we had séances, and they were pretty neat.

Then we had Ouija boards, and they were pretty neat, too.

Now we have Charlie Charlie:

Here's how it works: Take a piece of paper and draw a single horizontal line and a single vertical line that meet in the center. Put a "YES" in two opposing sections and a "NO" in the other two. Place two pencils across the middle of the drawing in a plus-sign formation, with one balanced atop the other so that it can spin.

Ask aloud, "Charlie, Charlie, are you there?" or "Charlie, Charlie, can we play?" and the top pencil will likely move at some point because of how it's balanced. However, some players believe it's a sign that "Charlie" is in the room and ready to take questions.

According to the BBC, Charlie Charlie's origins are murky, but it's clear they have nothing to do with Mexico.

It's an occult ritual like many others: you gather up your materials (pencils, paper), you draw a figure with words on it, you attempt to contact forces beyond the physical, and you complete the ritual with a valediction.  In fact, you actually have to ask the spirit you're summoning if you can end the ritual, and say good-bye when you're done.

So if the people engaging in the Charlie Charlie Challenge take it seriously, they believe, if only for a few moments, that the laying of one pencil upon another can, under certain circumstances, enable one to communicate with a demon or other potentially malevolent spirit.

Instead of gravity and air currents moving the pencil, it's the spirit world.

At least with a Ouija board, you need equipment like a board and planchette.  A séance requires a group willing to hold hands and, typically, a crystal ball.  Charlie Charlie is the most dumbed-down form of divination I've ever seen.