Friday Links: The Towering Inferno, The Devil's Bottles, and The Mark of Satan

The day we've all been waiting for: Friday! Let the revelry begin. As you celebrate, why not take a look at what happened over the week in the world of the bizarre, horrific, and just plain weird?

• Violent Shit: The Movie got an interesting write-up at The Slaughtered Bird: "Fans will be divided – they already know the story and want to see blood spraying as Karl hacks his way mercilessly through those that stand in his way. What they get is a benchmark to work off. Setting a new scene, a new pace, a new style…"
• Sean Eaton wrapped up his must-read analysis of Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath at his always-erudite, never-derivative R'lyeh Tribune: "Another striking aspect of the novel is its overt religiosity.  This is a very temple-ridden, priest-ridden, prayerful adventure. In the very beginning, Carter “prayed long and earnestly to the hidden gods of dream” and asks for a formal blessing from two priests, whose advice—essentially: ‘Don’t mess with Great Ones’—he ignores."
• The Horrors of It All brought us The Devil's Bottles.
• In Japan, ghosts are taking taxicab rides: "Taxi drivers working in towns in north-east Japan that were devastated in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami are reporting picking up "ghost passengers". At least seven drivers in the coastal town of Ishinomaki, where nearly 6,000 people died after it was battered by tsunami more than 30 feet high, claimed to have encountered phantom fares."
  
• At his Confessions of a Reviewer!!, Nev Murray reviewed Dallas Mullican's A Coin for Charon: "The plot has been done before. Hasn’t it? Serial killer that is seemingly impossible to trace and stop, with the main cop having a troubled past that interferes with his life on a daily basis? Yeah I seem to remember a few books and films with a similar vain. What makes this different then? Why does it hold your attention to the very end? This would be where tick three for writing skills comes in."
• The disturbing film Room got a poignant write-up from Jeremy the Critic: "The plot details of the screenplay (adapted by Emma Donoghue from her own best-selling 2011 novel) are almost incidental, as the commercials and trailers freely gave away what most would consider spoilers under different circumstances. It's also an ordeal, albeit one built on the foundation of logic and sound decision making by the filmmakers. And none of it comes together without the two performances at its center, functioning as a single unit."
• Zombos' Closet opened, and out fell issues one and two of Shriek! The Monster Horror Magazine. Take a look at them: they...they have to be seen to be believed.
• John Kenneth Muir dipped way back into 1974 to discuss an old favorite, The Towering Inferno: "Essentially, the film suggests that if the contest for a business is between turning a profit, or insuring the safety of its customers….the bottom line is going to win out, and people aren’t. As we discover early in the film, shortcuts have been taken on the fiery building’s electrical wiring by a morally bankrupt subcontractor, Simmons (Richard Chamberlain). Simmons wasn’t exactly acting alone, either. Jim Duncan (William Holden), the head of the construction company, was going perilously over-budget on the project, and needed Simmons to save two-million dollars...somewhere."
• Ruined Head reviewed Ann Loring's 1968 novel The Mark of Satan: "Unable to escape the considerable shadow cast by Rosemary’s Baby, The Mark of Satan casts a web of diabolical intrigue around its innocent young heroine, but fails to provide the least bit of surprise in delivering its occult chills."
• Albert Pyun's Alien from L.A. got the House of Self-Indulgence treatment: "Every time they would refer to "Africa," as if it were a country, I would cringe. Thankfully, all references to "Africa" cease the moment Wanda arrives in... "Africa." Judging by the climate and architecture, I'm guessing she's going to Egypt or Tunisia."
• Here, I reviewed the movie Pay the Ghost, told you about R.M. Huffman's Leviathan, and pointed you to an interview I conducted with Adam Howe at The Slaughtered Bird.

Illustration by Earl Geier for Call of Cthulhu's The Complete Dreamlands supplement, 4th edition.

Friday Links: Rogue Redcaps, Reptoid Tunnels, and The Making of Jaws 2

In addition to my big news there's lots of stuff going on in the world of the strange, the macabre, the horrific. Let's take a look back at what happened over the week.

• Sean Eaton began a must-read series of pieces analyzing H.P. Lovecraft's novel The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath at his always-incisive R'lyeh Tribune: "S.T. Joshi concurred with Lovecraft’s evaluation of the novel, which he dismissed as “charming but relatively insubstantial”.  However, Lovecraft’s renowned biographer felt that the novel was autobiographically significant in that it served as a snapshot of Lovecraft’s psyche at a particular point in his life, circa the late 1920s.  In my view the novel seems to be a kind of culmination or systematization of various ideas Lovecraft had been developing in various stories at that time in his career."
• The President of the International Association of Exorcists had something interesting to say about the Devil: "'Satan is not the god of evil against the God of the good, rather he is a being who God created as good and who, with some angels — also created good by God — became evil because they refused God and His kingdom with their free and final choice,' Father Francesco Bamonte, president of the International Association of Exorcists, wrote last week in Vatican Newspaper L'Osservatore Romano."
  
• The little-known but much-dreaded Reptoids' tunnels under Los Angeles were discussed at Ghost Hunting Theories: "The legends state that the key room is the directory to the rest of the city, and to the historical gold record tablets. These gold tablets were slabs of gold, 4 feet long and 14 inches wide. The tablets were believed to contain the records of the origins of the human race, and the history of modern man in the Americas, including details regarding the history of the mysterious Mayan people."
• It's been Karen Malena week at Nev Murray's Confessions of a Reviewer!!. Start with part one of this in-depth interview and keep scrolling: "It’s a scary thought especially when you write dark characters to realize that they are parts of you. For how else could we make this stuff up? You dig deep down into yourself. I also like to joke with people I know and say, “You better watch. You never know when you’ll end up as a villain in one of my books.” But seriously, I think all writers to some extent utilize people and situations they know. Or at least parts of them."
• It's going to seem a bit silly at first, but really, go take a look at these vintage photos of loving couples that Vintage Everyday posted. Some are funny, some disturbing, some just weird.
• Micro-Brewed Reviews reviewed the film Ex Machina: "Ex Machina is a small and relatively contained movie with an incredibly tiny budget for something of this scope with a cast that can be basically counted on one hand; a nice little throwback to the sobering sci-fi tales of the late 1960s and ‘70s."
• Hammer Horror Issue 1 emerged from Zombos' Closet (I'm always amazed at the material he posts: simultaneously nostalgic and bizarre).
• Holly Evans posted a piece of short fiction at her blog that's definitely worth your time, titled Rogue Redcaps: "The stench of old blood and rotting meat surrounded me while I tried to clear my head through the agony. A nail slowly ran down the side of my neck following the line of one of my butterfly tattoos there, I punched in the direction of creature it belonged to. The darkness shattered, bright white light filled my vision before it settled into a warm light that allowed me to see again. I wished it hadn’t."
• Cool Ass Cinema reviewed the book The Making of Jaws 2: "Authors and heavy duty JAWS fans, Pisano and Smith, have amassed a great deal of behind the scenes stories, anecdotes and rare photos from many who worked on JAWS 2; this extends to those who worked, albeit briefly, on the production before being fired and replaced. Among those released from the picture early on included a handful of the young cast, one of which was Ricky Schroder (SILVER SPOONS [1982-1987])."
• Here, I discussed what social media can't do for you as a writer, and announced the publication of the sequel to The Blessed Man and the Witch, titled The Nephilim and the False Prophet.

Illustration by Kevin Ramos for Call of Cthulhu's Cthulhu by Gaslight supplement.

Friday Links: Jeruzalem, Satan's Blade, and Yuletide Yog-Sothoth

The last Friday Links before Christmas! Yip yip yahoo! So, what's been happening in the world of the bizarre, the strange, and horrific?

• A demonic apocalypse film called Jeruzalem released a trailer that's worth a look.
• At his Confessions of a Reviewer!!, Nev Murray has been thrilling us all week with his Top Five lists of best books he's read this year. Start at the bottom and get clicking. You might recognize a title or two, and if you don't, then you know what you should add to your reading list!
• Fascination With Fear told us about three Christmas monsters that aren't Krampus: "It isn’t surprising to see Japan at the top of the list, as their folktales are equal if not more terrifying than the Germans’. Namahage are demonic ogres that dwell high up in the mountains—how they have come to live there varies by region. All year long they watch each household in the village and monitor the children’s behavior, keeping notes in a little book."
• The 2006 remake of the movie Black Christmas came up From the Depths of DVD Hell: "Yet another remake while one which chooses to tackle Bob Clark’s 1974 original which as I covered in my review of the original was also one of the first slasher and one which would have a much more subtle tone than the slashers which followed in its wake."
• Monster Times Issue #30 from February 1974 fell out of Zombos' Closet: "Issue 30 of The Monster Times gives Long Island a bad rap by providing way too much coverage on The Horror of Party Beach, annoys comic book fans with an assessment of The World's Worst Comics, and goes ape over John Landis's Schlock."
  
• Zombots has a brilliant article on Jewish mythology in movie and television horror: "I didn't cover the golem in my rundown of Jewish "monsters," largely because it's the most well-known creature of Jewish myth. For that reason, the golem often appears in Jewish-inspired genre fictions. The X-Files, of course, has a golem episode (season 4, episode 15: Kaddish). The last name of the Jewish family who play a central role in this episode is Luria. It bears mentioning that Issac Luria, who was a 16th century Jewish mystic, features in a number of Jewish folktales in which the rebbe deals with the supernatural. The Luria family in the X-Files and their use of a golem suggest that someone at work on the show had at least a passing familiarity with Kabbalah."
• Breakfast in the Ruins picked up another striking novel: Gideon's Ride by John Creasey.
• At Sean Eaton's always-brilliant R'lyeh Tribune, guest blogger John L. Steadman talked about The Dunwich Horror and the Christmas season: "The Christian mythographers, for various reasons, have shown interest in Yog-Sothoth.   The most prominent of these myth makers and the most representative, Robert M. Price, in Biblical Bits in Lovecraft (2013), imposes a Christian interpretation on Lovecraft’s great tale, The Dunwich Horror (1928). This tale develops the interesting idea of sexual congress between the Great Old Ones and human consorts.  In the story, Wilbur Whateley’s grandfather evokes Yog-Sothoth on the top of Sentinel Hill on Candlemas evening, 1913, and afterwards, Yog-Sothoth couples with Lavinia Whateley, a deformed albino woman."
• Of course, no self-respecting horror fan would do Christmas without another look at Silent Night, Deadly Night. The Dwrayger Dungeon does it right.
• The 1984 slasher flick Satan's Blade was the subject of an interesting post at Chuck Norris Ate My Baby: "On the surface, Satan’s Blade is a terrible slasher film. It’s not particularly well made, sharing more in common with a public access show than something like Halloween or Black Christmas. The performances, while being consistent, are amateurish and best comparable to that of an eighth-grade school play. And even the story – which focuses on two groups of vacationers being stalked and slashed by a guy who, as it turns out, is possessed by the spirit of a killer mountain man wielding the titular blade – is somehow convoluted, despite being so simple."
• Here, I celebrated my brief status as #1 and told you about my five favorite horror books of 2015.

Illustration by Nick Smith for Call of Cthulhu's Cthulhu Casebook supplement.

Beyond Lovecraft: Less Than One Day Left!

The picture says it all, folks:

This is it: the last push. It's not too late to invest in the Beyond Lovecraft Indiegogo campaign and become part of something extraordinary, something original, something made just for you that will have your name on it.

I've talked before about my experience with author Jasper Bark and artist Rob Moran: see for yourself why I'm such a fan of both of these skilled men. Beyond Lovecraft, a love letter to the Cthulhu Mythos, promises to be a true work of art, a book you'll look through again and again.

Art, true art, doesn't come cheap.  Remember when the special effects company behind the film Life of Pi went bankrupt despite winning an Academy Award? Our convenience-based culture is moving away from appreciating the skill and work and agony behind every piece of treasured artwork, whether it's a book, a painting, a vase, or even a graphic novel, and when we lose that, we lose artists. Artistic success is becoming a crapshoot, a function of blind luck leading to viral popularity. We can and should push back against that, and one way is by supporting independent content creators and their projects. Here is a great place to start.

Give yourself or a friend an early Christmas (or Hanukkah) present and invest in Beyond Lovecraft.

Beyond Lovecraft: Where My Money Meets My Mouth

There are 17 days left to contribute to the Beyond Lovecraft Indiegogo campaign.

I've never met Beyond Lovecraft's writer Jasper Bark except in cyberspace. He contacted me after I wrote a glowing (and deserved) review of his short story collection Stuck on You and Other Prime Cuts to thank me. (As an important aside, Beyond Lovecraft's artist Rob Moran did the extraordinary chapter illustrations for Stuck on You.) 

Later, I reviewed Jasper's graphic novel Bloodfellas, which was an awesome piece of work. You'll note that Rob Moran also did the covers for Bloodfellas. 

Months later, Jasper asked me to help with the marketing and sales efforts on Beyond Lovecraft, and I was of course enthusiastic about the project: a great writer and a great artist working together on my favorite horror subgenre is definitely a match made in R'lyeh (so to speak). As a terrible cynic and rugged individualist I'm nobody's fanboy, but I knew I had to get in on the ground floor of a project like this. 

In addition to volunteering my time, I contributed to the campaign: I went for the Pickman's Model perk, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how Rob transforms me into a Lovecraftian nightmare.

Finally, I have also donated a never-before-published short story to the project titled Beneath the Ziggurat, where Lovecraftian horrors, Spanish conquistadors, and Aztec natives collide. A short excerpt is included at the bottom of this post.

At the time of this writing there are 17 days left to donate to Beyond Lovecraft. If there was ever a time to contribute, it's now. What are you waiting for? The perks alone are worth the investment. Be part of something great, something made especially for you. 

Even if you're still on the fence, please share the link to the campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/beyond-lovecraft#/ to get the word out. Thanks!

Beneath the Ziggurat

(an excerpt)

My hands shake, but that is due to age.  As my life creeps toward its end, the fear that has gripped me for decades has loosed its fingers.  See you the splashes of ink, the words that meander upon the page?  As I said, it is age.  I will die soon.  I should have no more to fear.

Matlaltemoc was the name given me on the fourth day after I emerged from my mother’s womb, shrieking as all newborns do in confusion, terror, and loss.  The date was 6 Acatl 1 Ehecatl 11 Malinalli, or, as Friar Rodrigo would have it, April 15, in the Year of Our Lord 1511.  The latter is the “correct” date, just as my name was “corrected” from Matlaltemoc to Mateo Alvarez, also thanks to Fr. Rodrigo.  I bear him no ill will.  What good would it do?  He is long dead, or worse.

For the most part the Spaniards have been good to us, we free people of Tlaxcala.  So they should: with our help, Hernán Cortés annihilated our hated enemies the Aztecs.  My father, Jaguar Warrior Itztli, died in the last siege of Tenochtitlan alongside hundreds of Tlaxcalans and at least a dozen Spaniards.  I remember little of him. 

Not long after the fall of the Aztec empire, the Franciscan friars came to save our souls.  Mictlantecuhtli , Xochiquetzal, Centeotl and all the rest of our gods were replaced with the gentle Jesus Christ, who died on the Cross for our sins.  Fr. Rodrigo stayed in my village of Panotla to build a church and teach us Spanish.  At his end, he thought that Jesus, son of a greater God, would be stronger than what we found beneath the ziggurat.  

The palsy that causes my hands to tremble has increased.  Perhaps it is fear.  Shall I tell my tale, then?  No more dissembling?

Of Busts and American Colleges

The president and the chancellor of the University of Missouri have resigned due to pressure from students over three or four unconnected campus incidents that have been characterized as racist. Now students across the country are up in arms, protesting university leadership and demanding changes to the college and financial systems of the United States.

There's no easy way to put this, so I have to say it straight out: nobody who supports trigger warnings, complains about microaggressions, or demands a "safe space" free of disagreement will ever achieve greatness in any field of endeavor worth mentioning.  And yet the American college system is where such concepts are birthed, promulgated, and put into practice. What these young revolutionaries are demanding is destructive and poorly thought out at best.  Lacking ideas, lacking the work ethic and accomplishments and education of the people they seek to destroy, what they'll replace the current system with is unworkable.  Granted, the current system is absolutely terrible, with overpaid professors filling young skulls with rancid, politicized custard from a bully pulpit, but it's better than forgiving all student loan debt, demanding free public college education, and upping the federal minimum wage to an arbitrary $15.00/hour. That doesn't just affect colleges: it affects everybody, and it's not possible to implement.

Compare that to what's going on in science fiction literature, where certain authors have been ostracized by a small but powerful (and vocal) minority devoted to redefining the genre. Their latest success is replacing the bust of H.P. Lovecraft with something else as the World Fantasy Award because Lovecraft held racist views. Renowned Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi has since returned his World Fantasy Awards, saying:

I was deeply disappointed with the decision of the World Fantasy Convention to discard the bust of H. P. Lovecraft as the emblem of the World Fantasy Award. The decision seems to me a craven yielding to the worst sort of political correctness and an explicit acceptance of the crude, ignorant, and tendentious slanders against Lovecraft propagated by a small but noisy band of agitators.

I feel I have no alternative but to return my two World Fantasy Awards, as they now strike me as irremediably tainted. Please find them enclosed. You can dispose of them as you see fit.

Joshi correctly made the point that the outrage over Lovecraft's racism is selective, at best: John W. Campbell and Bram Stoker were also racists, yet still have awards named after them. Why?

Like the protesting college students, not one of the people supporting the removal of Lovecraft's image from the World Fantasy Award will ever achieve greatness. None of them will ever have the same effect on genre fiction that Lovecraft had. They're destroyers, not creators, and what they'll put in place of what they've torn down is without value.

Friday Links: Embrujada, Charles Herbert, and Devil Times Five

As we start the next holiday countdown, this time to Thanksgiving, let's look back at what happened in the world of the strange, the unusual, the horrific:

• Nev Murray, the UK's foremost fan of turkey dinosaurs, reviewed the novel The Other Boy at his Confessions of a Reviewer!!: "Now, for whatever reason, I didn’t fancy this one. Don’t ask me why. I have no idea. I think it may be because I have never heard of either authors. I am generally a bit sceptical of collaborations, especially when it is authors I have never heard of. Very especially if it’s a husband and wife team. I have been there before. It didn’t work out so well. However, I have faith in the chaps at Dark Chapter Press so decided to give it a go. How did it work out?"
• Professor Kinema talked about the late, great Charles Herbert from inside Zombos' Closet: "At one Monster Bash several years ago Charles Herbert was sharing a table with B-movie/schlock producer/director Bert I. Gordon and his daughter, Susan.  He was very fan-friendly and we had one brief chat.  I bought a few items, he autographed a few items and, with Susan, posed for a few photos."
• The Horror Digest had this to say about the movie Last Shift: "It's not that I'm in awe by what I just saw but more like ummm what the fuck just happened? Also I need to change my underwear. Also seriously what just happened? Oh right THAT. Hot tip: If you're not into shitting your pants every 5 seconds, maybe stay away from this one." (I'm not into shitting my pants at all, so this is a no-go for me.) 
  
• At Jim Mcleod's Ginger Nuts of Horror, Mike Duke reviewed the movie Stung: "Later, once its dark and the party is in full swing a horde of the wasps burst out of the nest entrance and begin flying around and stinging some of the guests who, within in a couple of minutes collapse with seizures and then have a human sized wasp sprout out of their now shredded bodies. Here’s where the blood and gore begins to run rampant."
• Continuing our film theme, House of Self-Indulgence reviewed the 1981 movie The Loveless: "These cats have the market on coolness cornered, and no small town is going to cramp/undermine their style. Whether they're lighting a cigarette or dragging a comb through their greasy hair, everything they do has the potential give off an air of cool. In a way, I kind of feel sorry for those saddled with the task of being cool nowadays. I know, nothing's technically been cool since at least 1985, okay, maybe 1986, but that doesn't stop people from trying."'
• Embrujada was the subject of a post at Die, Danger, Die, Die, Kill!: "The problem is that Sarli’s character, Ansise, is married to Leandro (Daniel de Alvarado), a despotic lumber baron with a malfunctioning pee pee. This means that we get to see scenes of Leandro futilely humping the leg of a supine Isabel Sarli while weeping. In fact, if watching a voluptuous woman have blighted sex with catastrophically ugly old men is your thing, you can put those worn Ron Jeremy tapes away, because Embrujada is the only film you will ever need from now on."
• Sean Eaton reread Herbert West: Reanimator at his incisive, brain-ripping R'lyeh Tribune and analyzed the experience for our reading pleasure: "Herbert West: Reanimator is for the most part a pre-Mythos tale, and like The Horror at Red Hook (1927) derives some of its weird imagery from vaguely Judeo-Christian or Greek and Roman mythological sources.  (The latter story contains appearances by Satan, Lillith, incubi, succubi, Moloch and so forth.)"
• I Think, Therefore I Review brought us four movies from the 1970's involving bizarre children and/or horrific mothers: "Devil Times Five – Teen idol Leif Garrett and his sister Dawn Lyn make for some creepy youngins in this 1974 picture also known as Peopletoys – and a dozen other titles for good measure. Eerie seventies lullaby notes ironically accent the snowy vacation spot, yuppie couples, and old fogies as perilous, icy, winding roads lead to vehicular disasters. Nuns and kids should be a sign of safety, however, real snow filming, old fashioned cars, and past technological isolation up the apprehensive mood."
• Here, I reviewed the movie Bone Tomahawk and The Mighty Jewmanberg's book Super Syndicate: When Heroes Divorce.

Illustration taken from Call of Cthulhu's The Complete Dreamlands supplement.

Friday Links: The Haunted Palace, the Altay Princess, and Zombie Ninjas vs. Black Ops

Halloween's over, sadly enough, and as we recover and get ready for next year's holiday, let's take a look back at what's happened over the week in the world of the strange, the bizarre, the horrific:

• Mondo Bizarro reviewed the Australian movie Zombie Ninjas vs. Black Ops: "The Film is about...well, you can probably guess.  What you wouldn't guess, however, is the tone of the Film.  Despite the Troma-style Title, this Film is pretty much played 100% straight.  Alright then.  The Story involves mutated super-soldiers, the plot from Die Hard and lots of fighting."
• At the penetrating, perspicacious R'lyeh Tribune, Sean Eaton brought us an archetypal terror from Lovecraft contemporary William Sloane: "Stephen King, who wrote the introductory notes to the most recent release [of The Rim of Morning], notes that Sloane once met Carl Jung, the famous psychotherapist and J.B. Rhine, a renowned expert in extrasensory perception at a special luncheon in 1937.  Jung had read an earlier version of To Walk the Night—it had first appeared as a play—and was apparently impressed with Sloane’s work.  Jung’s notion of the mysterious archetypal feminine principle, the “anima” is strongly echoed in Sloane’s character of Selena LeNormand."
• The Slaughtered Bird reviewed Adam Howe's Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet: "I’ve written long & hard about Adam’s storytelling and it’s here in abundance, more so than ever before in fact. I can’t imagine why he restricts himself to the novella but it makes for a pacy, breathless and tightly wound read without ever feeling rushed or crowded. To compliment the oddest of tales are characters that never feel out of place, and with exquisitely torrid back-stories as a rule." (Interested readers can find my review of this book here.)
• Nev Murray reviewed Jonathan Janz's Wolf Land at his Confessions of a Reviewer!!: "The plot is not unlike some of those old horror films you might have watched when you were younger. Basically the werewolves come to town and it is a battle for the good to survive against the evil. The difference with this story is the fact that people know from the outset that they are dealing with werewolves. There is initial disbelief at what they have witnessed but at the same time an acceptance of what is happening and a desire to stop the evil in whatever way they can."
  
• Breakfast in the Ruins deconstructed Roger Corman's Lovecraft film The Haunted Palace: "As in so many things, Corman was ahead of the curve in choosing to adapt Lovecraft. Whilst HPL’s name may be ubiquitous in horror fiction today, he did not actually attract a widespread readership until mass market paperback editions of his work began to proliferate in the mid/late 1960s. At the time Corman was planning this film, Lovecraft’s following was still a closely-guarded cult within the wider cult of Weird Tales/fantastic fiction devotees, his reputation kept alive largely via the expensive, small-press editions produced by August Derleth’s Arkham House."
• Shock Volume 3, Issue 2 from May 1971 was the latest bit of horror to fall out of Zombos' Closet.
• Demonic possession is on the rise in the Philippines: "'These days we have around 80 to 100 cases at any given time,' says Father Jose Francisco Syquia, the chief exorcist at the archdiocese's Office of Exorcism. The sudden increase in cases of possession has stretched the country's few exorcists thin and, according to Fr. Syquia, most Philippine dioceses do not have in-house exorcists. As a result many of the faithful are turning to "healers and occult practitioners" in the hopes of curing the afflicted. This route, however, only attracts the demonic and exacerbates the problem, says Fr. Syquia. By the time the exorcists from the archdiocese of Manila are able to see people, the victims are in bad shape."
• Some of Siberia's most bizarre mysteries were the subject of discussion at Ghost Hunting Theories: "Siberian Ice Maiden "Altay Princess": From 5th century BC, this mummified lady was found in a subterranean burial chamber. This tomb was on the border of China. She was buried with food and with her horses, facing east. Her skin still showed tattoos of deer shapes. She was buried in a beautiful gown and leggings and a 3-foot tall headdress, a fur, a mirror, and deer figurines. Interestingly, DNA testing proved her to not be of Asian descent as the Altai's in the area."
• At the Film Gutter of Jim Mcleod's Ginger Nuts of Horror, Alex Davis introduced us to The Girl Next Door: "If there's a single thing that elevates this movie, it's Blanche Baker's role as pretty much the sole adult in the lives of the children of the neighbourhood. In the beginning she's free in giving out the beer and cigarettes to all the youngsters, but her attitudes towards men, women and sexual relationships are warped to say the least. And Meg is soon enough a victim of her ire, resulting in a couple of beatings and unpleasant scenes."
• Soiled Sinema sprayed us with the Aussie film Salt, Saliva, Sperm and Sweat: "A 47-minute piece of outstandingly outlandish and obscenely offbeat Australian iconoclasm, the alliteratively titled flick Salt, Saliva, Sperm and Sweat (1988) directed by experimental musician, composer, academic, film scholar, and sometimes filmmaker Philip Brophy, who is probably best known for his satirical slapstick biopunk horror flick Body Melt (1993), is indubitably one of the best kept secrets of Australian cinema."
• Here, I talked about social media strokes and why I'm no longer hunting skunk apes.

Illustration by Tom Sullivan for Call of Cthulhu's S. Petersen's Field Guide to Cthulhu Monsters.

Free E-Book for Halloween!

From today through November 1, my novella Dreadedin Chronicles: The Nameless City will be free through Amazon.

Combining themes of Lovecraftian horror, ancient evil, teenage angst, and zombies, it's a short, punchy read that takes place at this time of year: Halloween!  In it, high school sophomore Paige Ashton and college freshman Ryan Kincaid face a terrible horror that seeks to not only consume their town, but the entire world.

The supporting characters were taken from local teen volunteers, and takes place in Dunedin, Florida, home town of Henry S. Whitehead, a horror author and friend of H.P. Lovecraft himself.

I guarantee at least one hour's worth of horrific entertainment with every copy, or your money back! How many YA, PG, non-PC Lovecraftian novellas are you going to read this year?  Pick up your copy today!

Beyond Lovecraft: Pickman's Model

Several years ago I had the distinct honor of working with Peter Fuller, arguably one of the most talented reproduction armorers alive today. Peter's a true artisan in addition to being a good man, and I'm privileged to call him a friend.

One thing he said to me is that in today's culture it's rare to own something of worth, something you use and look at and treasure that another person made just for you. Furniture, silverware, and even artwork are typically mass-produced and sold as part of a set or created to fill a stylistic niche.  We've lost our connection to the artist, to the craft and effort and sweat it takes to make something valued.

With that in mind, take a look at this short video from my friend Jasper Bark:

As perks go, this can't be beat.  At the brand-new Pickman's Model level you get a physical copy of Beyond Lovecraft, something you can hold in your shaking, horror-numbed hands as you read; an electronic copy of the same to take with you when your hard copy becomes too soaked with fear-sweat to carry; a 100 page behind-the-scenes e-book so you can truly learn what Man Was Not Meant to Know; your name inscribed on the honor roll of contributors for bragging rights; shout-outs on social media so everyone in the world knows just what kind of disturbing stuff you're into; and that most priceless thing of all: a piece of art by a true artist created just for you.

There are only ten Pickman's Model slots available, so don't wait until the last minute to see if there are any left: get yours right now.

Even if you can't afford your slot at the moment, please do what you can to support this extraordinary project by sharing the Beyond Lovecraft Indiegogo campaign link: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/beyond-lovecraft/x/12314422#/

Friday Links: Bad Apples, Baked Apples, and The Duke of Burgundy

Last week's Friday Links had to be canceled due to multiple family engagements, so I'm making up for it with an extra special Friday Links, just for you.  Yes, you.  Let's get after it:

• It's been all Bad Apples all the time this week at Nev Murray's Confessions of a Reviewer!!: "So it’s my turn to confess. I have had this on my Kindle since it was released last year and have never gotten around to reading it. I am slapping the back of my hand as I type. Know how difficult that is?"  Read on to find out!
• Continuing our apples theme, Ghost Hunting Theories showed us some very neat things to do with everyone's favorite fall fruit.
• The Horror!? delved into early 80's nostalgia by discussing the slasher film My Bloody Valentine: "George Mihalka’s Canadian slasher is one of the handful of entries in the sub-genre I truly love, so it’s no surprise finally getting around to watching the uncut version of the film doesn’t change much about my opinion."
• Sean Eaton analyzed Edmond Hamilton's The Earth-Brain at his always readable, always trenchant R'lyeh Tribune: "In The Earth-Brain, adventurer Clark Landon has become a human epicenter for unusual earthquakes and seismic activity wherever he travels in the world.  He avoids the interiors of tall buildings and keeps far away from mountains to avoid avalanches.  Cities in Newfoundland, Norway, Russia, Egypt, Italy and other places are ruined as he travels through them, and thousands die amidst the rubble.  He is wracked by guilt and terror—cursed for an act of sacrilege committed a couple of years before."
  
• At Jim Mcleod's Ginger Nuts of Horror, Alex Davis tackled the horrific film Aftermath: "The visuals leave little to the imagination, but one thing that is effective in the first half of the movie – and even more so in the second – is the use of sound. The music in the film is used very sparingly, so what we mostly have is a funereal silence (not a word of dialogue spoken by any of the characters) punctuated by the crunching of bone, the squelching removal of organs and the insidious sound of saws and knives cutting through flesh."
• The Ringmaster's Realm reviewed Wyrmwood - Road of the Dead: "Recently, I have been staying far away from the zombie genre, as many of the films that have been coming out lately seem tired and played out. Fortunately, I am glad that I picked this one, because it took an interesting route outside of the box and created something rather original." (Interested readers can check out my review of Wyrmwood here.)
• At Zombos' Closet of Horror, Zombos presented the Jungle Woman pressbook, which demands your attention.  Note the name of the actress playing the titular character.
• The bizarre movie The Duke of Burgundy was an interesting topic of discussion at The House of Self-Indulgence: "I liked how the relationship in this film was two women, as opposed to a man and a woman. What I mean is, I'm glad it wasn't a man dominating a woman; I can't stand maledom. And while it's true, I do prefer femdom. The relationship depicted in this film can't really be classified as "femdom," as it doesn't properly identify who the dominate party is, and both parties are women."
• Here, I talked about a very good bad guy and described that careful face people sometimes put on.

Illustration by Earl Geier for Call of Cthulhu's Blood Brothers 2 supplement.

Beyond Lovecraft Update

I've described why I'm supporting Jasper Bark and Rob Moran's Beyond Lovecraft Indiegogo campaign here, so if this is the first you've heard of it, please click the link to learn why you should get excited about the project, too.

Or, better yet, see what Jasper himself has to say.



This is where we are with funding so far:

As you can see, we're still building momentum.  To bring it home, though, we need more: more exposure, more backers, more funding.  That's where you come in.

For just $25.00 you would not only get an electronic copy of the graphic novel, but also a 100 page behind the scenes Beyond Lovecraft e-book and have your name on the honor roll of contributors to an extraordinary project.  That's a damn good deal.

For 25 bucks you can be this guy, figuratively speaking

The perks get better from there.  Check them out.

Even if you can't provide funding now, please share the campaign link: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/beyond-lovecraft/x/12314422#/

Thank you, and I hope to see you browsing the shelves of the Library of Yith soon!

Beyond Lovecraft

Regular readers of my blog know that I'm a big fan of Jasper Bark, a writer of uncommon skill and character.  His short story anthology Stuck on You and Other Prime Cuts and graphic novel Bloodfellas have received rare and enthusiastic five-star reviews from me and other finicky readers.

I'm thrilled to announce that Jasper's developing a brand new graphic novel titled Beyond Lovecraft.  Billed as a "grim and cosmic love letter" to the Cthulhu Mythos, it combines his writing with the extraordinary work of artist Rob Moran, who did the arresting, disturbing covers for the Bloodfellas comics.

While they've secured Markosia Comics as a publisher, Bark and Moran want to take this project to the next level.  To that end, they've started an Indiegogo campaign to raise extra funds.  This is what Jasper himself has to say about Beyond Lovecraft:

This is a great chance to contribute to a project that you'll be proud to have your name on.  The perks are very neat, ranging from Mi-Go level all the way up to Azathoth...and beyond.

One of the great freedoms of independent publishing is that it allows creators to push the boundaries of storytelling and narrative in ways traditional publishers are typically loath to attempt.  Jasper has proven that his work not just flirts with those boundaries, but expands them, taking the reader places he or she has never even dreamed of.  Think of it as the difference between an equilateral triangle and a non-Euclidean figure birthed from an obscenity living in the gulfs between the coldest, furthest stars.  Sort of.

Every little bit helps, and even if you're not in a position to donate now, please share the link to the campaign so Beyond Lovecraft can get the attention it deserves.  The campaign's goals are clear, and you'll know exactly where your hard-earned money is going.

The stars are right.  Great Cthulhu has finally risen from His house in R'lyeh.  What to know what happens next?  Click the link and get on board!

Friday Links: Pixels, Ancient Giants, and The Invaders

It's been a long, draggy sort of week, but you made it to Friday!  Let's celebrate by looking back on what happened over the last several days:

• Martin Lastrapes did a podcast with one of my favorite people in horror, the inimitable Jasper Bark.
• At the always-readable R'lyeh Tribune, Sean Eaton analyzed my favorite Lovecraft story, The Shadow Out of Time: "Its broad panorama of Earth’s existence in time and space, combined with its well-wrought depiction of the Great Old Ones and their interaction with human destiny form the basis for all kinds of interesting narrative possibilities.  Had the author survived the late 1930s, The Shadow Out of Time would have made an excellent starting place from which Lovecraft might have launched additional novel-length projects."
• The Film Connoisseur reviewed Pixels: "What this movie is though is a nostalgia bomb. If you were born in the 80’s and played video games in arcades the way I did, you will feel a shot of nostalgia in your system. I have to admit it was cool seeing a giant Pac-Man eating up taxi cabs and city streets, especially since I’m such a Pac-Man nut! It was awesome seeing a giant King Kong throwing barrels at Adam Sandler, and then there’s this scene where they simply throw as many old video game characters on the screen as they can, so you’ll see Frogger, Q-bert, Paperboy, Centipede, Galaga, Space Invaders…and that’s without counting all the other characters from 80’s pop culture that show up in the film like Max Headroom, Ronald Reagan, Madonna and Hall & Oates."
  
• In Detroit, a statue depicting Baphomet, the Prince of Darkness, was unveiled: "Ultimately, the Satanic Temple hopes to have the statue placed permanently next to a sculpture of the Ten Commandments monument now in place near a state courthouse in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, or outside Arkansas’ Statehouse in Little Rock, where a Ten Commandments monument also is planned."
• Nev Murray reviewed Adam Cesare's novel Mercy House at his Confessions of a Reviewer!!: "Our main characters in this book stand out big and tall for varying reasons. Harriett is nuts. There is no doubt about that. Her son Don and his wife Nikki are doing the best they can for her. She doesn’t see it like that. When the “thing” happens her level of nuttiness multiplies by a million. She goes on a horrific rampage with only one mission. Get Nikki."
• Zombos' Closet belched out an awesome pressbook from the 1959 film The Rebel Set.  
• John Kenneth Muir reached back into the 1960's to bring us that classic TV show The Invaders: "In this case, the series depicts a WASP-y figure of the establishment (David Vincent) suddenly introduced to the new America of the mid-to-late 1960s; the sub-culture or emerging counter-culture. Through his "radical" belief in an alien invasion, Vincent finds himself shunned by figures of the American ruling class (co-workers, government officials, the wealthy, and so forth) and even hunted by them (particularly the police force). These individuals now view Vincent with disdain because he has forsaken his safe "role" in white, middle-class American society for that of a prophet...a doomsayer warning of planetary emergency."
• Jim Mcleod himself reviewed the horror movie Scream Machine at his Ginger Nuts of Horror: "Scream Machine could be viewed in one of two ways, it could be looked at as a loving homage to the works of Troma, or it can be viewed as a pile of steaming shit.  I would imagine that some of it will come down to just how much you like Troma  films. However,  I don't think that the filmmakers' mothers, after drinking a potion of kindness, could view this film as anything other than a pile of steaming shit."  Read the whole thing to get the full effect.
• Ghost Hunting Theories may have found proof of ancient giants in the Grand Canyon: "We also have a legend of ancient giants being found in a cave in the Grand Canyon, hiding from a catastrophe with an inventory of all their seeds and animals and treasures by a man named Kinkaid in the early 1900s."
• Here, I talked about the new masculinity and pointed you to a review I wrote of Alan Rodgers's novel Fire.

Illustration by Tom Sullivan for Call of Cthulhu's S. Petersen's Field Guide to Cthulhu Monsters.

GNoH Reviews: Legacy and Carus & Mitch

At Jim Mcleod's Ginger Nuts of Horror, I reviewed two novellas/long short stories.

The first was Legacy, by JG Faherty:

"It tries very, very hard to be Lovecraftian, using all the relevant phrases and names, but it does so at the expense of plot and characterization."

The second was Carus & Mitch, by Tim Major:

"It’s got some interesting characters, a bizarre and unfortunate family dynamic, a terribly grim setting, and a series of mysteries that remain unsolved."

Short books, but are they worth your limited reading time?  Click to find out!

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.

Friday Links: Slow Torture Puke Chamber, 1982's Poltergeist, and The Horror at Martin's Beach

Even though it's been a short week here in the States, it just means we've been busier the last few days.  Let's hit it:

• Bob Pastorella at This Is Horror provided us with a horror comics roundup: "Herbert West has died…twice. Somehow, he was resurrected, and now funds his bizarre experiments by harnessing the psychedelic powers of the human pineal gland. Reanimator has returned to full force in comic book form, and even the slumbering Elder Gods approve. Dynamite brings Keith Davidsen (Poison Elves) and Randy Valiente (Headlocked, Vampirella Bites) together for this four part miniseries."  He also includes a review of Jasper Bark's Bloodfellas here, a graphic novel I'm reading myself.
• Nev Murray reviewed Tamara Jones's Spore on the heels of a two-part interview at his Confessions of a Reviewer!!: "Think zombie story. Now scrap that and think of a zombie story with a difference. Living, breathing zombies that are trying to earn their place back in society. Do they deserve it? Should they be scorned? This story raises a lot of questions about our society in general. What we believe in. What we have faith in. What, some you may consider to be insane, believe in. Interesting? It is when it’s told as masterfully as this."
• At the inimitable, invaluable R'lyeh Tribune (happy second blogiversary, by the way), Sean Eaton discussed Lovecraft's collaboration The Horror at Martin's Beach: "L. Sprague de Camp, in his 1975 biography of H.P. Lovecraft, relates how the idea for the story originated.  While visiting Sonia Green in a small Massachusetts resort town, the two went for a stroll along the shore on moonlit evening, and heard “a peculiar snorting, grunting noise, loud in the distance.”  Green suggested this might provide Lovecraft an idea for a story, but he encouraged her to write one instead."  I snort and grunt too, but only at mealtimes.
• Zombos' Closet of Horror brought us a lobby card that really demands your attention.
• There's a lot of really good material up this week at Ginger Nuts of Horror, so I encourage you to click through and get reading.  One highlight is Alex Davis's review of the film Slow Torture Puke Chamber: "With that said, this film will be well off-limits for the faint of heart, and probably a sore test for even regular viewers of the kind of movies we cover at Film Gutter. We have puke, bile and blood by the bucketload – particularly in a horrendous scene featuring the truly disturbing Hank Skinny – and no shortage of piss used in various perverse sexual scenarios. Throw into that mix some truly upsetting sexual violence and what you have is probably one of the most incendiary films ever committed to celluloid."  Mmmm mmm mmm!
• Modern Horrors hosted a very interesting roundtable discussion about a very bad film: "Going into Human Centipede 3, I pretty much expected it to follow the formula of the previous two and try to top them. It successfully hits the mark in being vulgar, vile and offensive at every opportunity.  As the movie progresses it pokes fun at the previous two entries and had me laughing throughout. I also enjoyed Dieter Laser’s performance and his ability to scream every other line. But honestly this is a movie I’d only watch once."
• John Kenneth Muir gave us some very trenchant analysis of Poltergeist: "Secondly, specific images and compositions in Poltergeist, as also seen in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1973) highlight the notion that the world has grown disordered and unnatural under a "malefic influence." Again, this is a virtual trademark of Hooper's canon.  Think of the upside-down armadillo on the highway or the corpse atop a gravestone in Chain Saw.  Those images find distinct and unique corollaries in Poltergeist.  A woman is attacked by a ghost and pushed...to the ceiling.  A family's pet bird is found dead on its back behind the bars of its cage, and so forth."
• Here, I wrote about Memorial Day and American Exceptionalism, Charlie Charlie, and a review I wrote for Cthulhu Lives!

Illustration by Tom Sullivan for Call of Cthulhu's S. Petersen's Field Guide to Cthulhu Monsters.

GNoH Review: Cthulhu Lives!

At Jim Mcleod's Ginger Nuts of Horror, I reviewed the Lovecraftian anthology Cthulhu Lives!:

"With a foreword by Leeman Kessler of “Ask Lovecraft” fame and an afterword by noted Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi, the short story anthology Cthulhu Lives! drags the Cthulhu Mythos flopping and gibbering into the 21st Century, making it relevant to today’s technological culture."

Which of the dark tales within are the most sanity-draining?  Click to find out!

Friday Links: The Thirteenth Floor, Out of the Aeons, and The Female Frankenstein of Fifth Avenue

It's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday...

• John Kenneth Muir analyzed the underrated 1999 film The Thirteenth Floor: "In other words, the sense of reality in the novel was layered, with worlds upon worlds stacked atop another. In each world, the individuals inhabiting it believed they were "real," not simulations...but were in error. The Thirteenth Floor faithfully recreates this creative dynamic, and features all the trappings one expects of the sturdy film noir format. The film then applies these standards to its science fiction premise with aplomb and meticulous attention to detail, both in the depiction of its 1937 setting, and in charting the possibility of multiple realities, with personalities overlapping."
• Sean Eaton deconstructed Lovecraft and Heald's Out of the Aeons at his compulsively readable R'lyeh Tribune: "Strictly speaking, Out of the Aeons is not really a story at all so much as a pastiche of ideas and imagery from other more famous works by the author.  There is no dialogue, characterization, or conflict, and except for the final two sections, nothing actually happens other than scholarly research.  To be fair, with careful editing, sections IV and V, and some of III might have formed the germ of an interesting and even unsettling story.  The notion that petrified human remains might house an intact intelligence and consciousness over centuries is a perennially intriguing one."
• Frankensteinia brought us the Female Frankenstein of Fifth Avenue: "One year before BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935), there was The Female Frankenstein of Fifth Avenue! That’s how Paramount Pictures pitched Mary Morris' character, "the vicious, venomous New York aristocrat" named Victoria Van Brett, as the sinister star of the 1934 chiller, DOUBLE DOOR."
• Nev Murray reviewed Marty Young's novel 809 Jacob Street at Confessions of a Reviewer!!: "Finished this story just a little while ago. My skin is still crawling. This is an exercise in how to write something that will have you reading with blinkers on until the very end, with nothing disturbing you."  I think he liked it.
• At Wag the Fox, Gef Fox reviewed Dark Screams Vol. 2: "It certainly started off strong enough with the likes of Robert McCammon and some good ol' small town horror in a tale called "The Deep End." It's a really good, gripping story about a grieving father convinced it was a monster that killed his son at the town swimming pool and not the latest in a long line of drownings. Folks are always praising McCammon's novels and rightfully so, but if there is a collection of his short stories somewhere, then I need to track it down, because he has a real knack for those too."
• At Jim Mcleod's Ginger Nuts of Horror, Alex Davis interviewed Phil Stevens about his horror film Flowers: "Most of my time is spent painting and drawing. In this process, there is no dialog. I don’t really verbally socialize, so there is no dialog even outside of my art. Therefore, a project without dialog came only natural to me. On the production side of things, I really hate writing and recording dialog - just wasting so much time and energy trying to get lines to sound halfway decent without burning out my cast."
• The Cathode Ray Mission showed us some stills from Battle Royale.
• Here, I discussed the terrible film God's Not Dead and pointed you to a review I wrote at Ginger Nuts of Horror for Alan Spencer's novel B-Movie War.

Illustration by Nick Smith for Call of Cthulhu's Cthulhu Casebook supplement.

Friday Links: Frog-Gigging, Snowdon on Laymon, and Betty and Barney Hill

It's Friday, so let's hit the links:

• Nev Murray discussed the difficulty of being a book reviewer at Confessions of a Reviewer!!: "So, where was I……yeah, people started to like my reviews. The most important thing for me was the fact that people started to tell me they were buying books purely from my reviews. This was a turning point for me as well. I was thinking right I really like this book, and the author is a pretty damned nice chap or chapess as well so, it would be nice to help them out and give them an honest review and hopefully someone else would pick their stuff up."
• Zombos' Closet of Horror scanned Chilling Tales of Horror and Suspense Vol.1 No.1, May 1969.  It's all in picture form, so go there to feast your eyes.
• At the eminently incisive R'lyeh Tribune, Sean Eaton continued his batrachian series with Part 2: The Hazards of Frog-Gigging: "H.P. Lovecraft’s venture into batrachian horror, The Moon-Bog (1926), employs the fairy tale device of humans being transformed into frogs, though the mechanism and purpose is unclear.  In the story, a wealthy landowner contrives to drain a swamp on some ancestral land he has inherited.  This provokes the local genius loci with disastrous results.  The Moon-Bog is a fascinating story on many levels, and worth reading in the context of Lovecraft’s later “Yog-Sothothery”—his term for work that was later categorized as part of the Cthulhu Mythos.  The Moon-Bog was discussed at length in a previous post.  (See also A Horror of the Amphibious.)"  Part One of this series can be found here.
• At Ginger Nuts of Horror, Neil Snowdon was kind enough to reprint an interview he'd done with horror master Richard Laymon in 1995: "I think the reason that my books always retain a ‘weirdness, a nastiness, brutality etc’ is that I like writing about that sort of stuff. I find myself drawn to it. Give me the most innocent situation, and I’ll start imagining ways to turn it ugly.  Fortunately, there is a market for that sort of thing.  In a recent review of QUAKE that appeared in the HUDDERSFIELD DAILY EXAMINER, a Hilarie Stelfox wrote that I am ‘obviously writing books with one eye firmly fixed on the till, knowing that the public’s appetite for the mean, nasty and repulsive seems unending’."
• Horror Movie a Day reviewed The Houses October Built: "But the huge cast is also part of the problem - there are just too many damn cameras, and our main group is too interchangeable for the movie's own good. It's hard enough to distinguish the four guys (one has a beard, that helps) at its center, but it makes it even harder when they're seemingly always running two cameras but not necessarily showing everyone else in the frame (and camera #1 never picks up camera #2, I don't think). Sometimes you can figure it out pretty quickly, other times the scene will nearly be over by the time you realize who is holding the camera, which is a pretty big issue, I think."
• At Ghost Hunting Theories, the abduction of Betty and Barney Hill was discussed: "At the suggestion for regression hypnosis, the couple agreed. They both reported bald-headed alien beings that had slanted large eyes and grey skin and pear-shaped heads. They both also reported some kind of gynecological testing and sperm sampling."  It is not known if the Hills' respective anuses were probed, but it's likely, knowing the Grays' proclivities.
• Here, I reviewed the movie Devil's Pass and offered some reminiscence about and analysis of The Omen III: The Final Conflict.

Illustration by Earl Geier, taken from Call of Cthulhu's Fatal Experiments supplement.