The Whisperer in the Darkness - a review

It's not everyday one gets to attend a worldwide premiere, but it seems the stars were perfectly aligned and I happily got to watch The Whisperer in the Darkness in a way I never expected to: in a proper movie-theater. And yes, I am indeed referring to the brand new, black and white cinematic take one the eponymous, brilliant and quite famous story by H.P. Lovecraft, that the ever-creative HPLHS has revealed at the SFF-Rated festival.

The movie, filmed to resemble a high-profile 1930s production, follows Lovecraft's story pretty faithfully and quite imaginatively, but only up to a certain point. Up to this particular point the movie is lovely indeed. The atmosphere works, the actors are more talented than your average Hollywood fare, the music is haunting, the special effects feel delightfully retro, the film's pace is successful and deeply lovecraftian, the directing is really good, the necessary mood is conveyed and everything feels old, dark and very mysterious indeed, having me believe I'm watching a true horror masterpiece. A movie better than HPLHS's very own, very excellent and very silent Call of Cthulhu. 

Alas, this was not to be the case. After said  admittedly vaguely defined point (sometime after the first 35-40 minutes in the movie, to be more precise) The Whisperer in the Darkness choses to drive madly into the realm of silly action, in what can only be described as an ill-advised attempt to ape mainstream movies. It obviously fails, while succeeding at alienating its intended audience. A fair and marxian verdict would thus be: close but no cigar. 

The Hammer Studios Documentary

Hammer's very British and very brilliant Hammer Horror movies are, as all of us are quite aware, some of the most iconic and timeless series of scary movies ever produced. So, uhm, I do (for various undisclosable reasons) believe the time to watch a pretty amazing 1987 BBC documentary that traces the history of Hammer Studios has come. Make some tea, bake a couple biscuits, find some spare minutes and enjoy:  

It's all about the music

I have been struggling with the notion of writing about something completely different for weeks now! We have been informing you about books, short stories, films, games, TV series and more, but we have never even mentioned music in this blog. I know you're thinking this is a blog about everything horrid; not about music. Bare with me though.

How many times have we seen a film or a series and couldn't take the tune out of our heads? How many times have we read a book and played tunes inside our head? How many times have we heard of a song or a melody and said "Wow, this would be a good fit for that movie or listening to this is like reading Edgar Allan Poe!"

Who doesn't remember the theme song of the "Exorcist", or "Freddy's song"? How they make us feel when we hear them unexpectadly..

Truth be told music plays a very important role in the success or not of a movie or a series or even a game. Melody can make something memorable.

Sometimes the notes convey feelings, sometimes there is a song, lyrics and melody preparing for what we are about to see. Either way can you even imagine the most important scenes of classic films without their musical garments? Imagine "Psycho" the most famous of scenes, the shower scene, with no music.. It's not the same is it?

It's a fact that whenever the music starts to change or gets more intense we know that something is going to happen, we feel the monsters lurking coming for the kill.

I thought about publishing a top ten of melodies coming from horror related things, but once I started I just couldn't narrow them down only to ten! I gave up and instead this came up: just a few lines dedicated to all those composers who have made us jump from our seats, gave us the chills, scared or even made us grin.

Closing I give you a tune that is so hard to forget and I'm asking all of you out there to check in and tell us which are the melodies that haunt your dreams?

Divis Mortis and the Zombie Apocalypse

Divis Mortis: an interactive survival game is, quite surprisingly, an interactive survival game that gives players a slim chance at surviving the zombie apocalypse. What's more, this being a particularly well written piece of interactive fiction (a text adventure, if you prefer) it actually manages to feel realistic and tense. Divis Mortis is a game without a graphics and thus a game that doesn't favor guns. You will not be shooting zombies in the head. You will instead be frantically searching for makeshift weapons, food, water and a safe place to take a nap in a beautifully crafted and at times humorous world.

You can happily play Divis Mortis in your web-browser and -as nature intrended- for free via this link. Oh, and if you've never played such a game before, I strongly suggest you start by typing help. Enjoy! I know I did.

At the Mountains of Madness

At the Mountains of Madness is one of the rare, yet always magnificent, novellas by H.P. Lovecraft. It was written back in 1931 and is rightly considered among Lovecraft's greatest oeuvres. Set in the Antarctic, the Mountains of Madness is a brilliant tale of cosmic horror, that casts a wild view at archaeology, provides with more than a few ancient horrors and still manages to terrify on a wholly different level than your average bogeyman story. Then again, reading is believing, and by following this link you'll be able to, yes,  read the whole story in all its literary glory. For free of course. 

A way to say we are sorry...

Holidays are finally over. So it’s time we all went back to our lives as before. I know that there was a big promise breaking from our part so this is me trying to make up for it.

We had promised a top ten list about scary Christmas stories that were never posted. Our sincere apologies for that, I just hope that the following piece can make up for it. Since the post was promised to satisfy readers and not watchers I thought that a classic gothic tale by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would do the trick. It can of course be no other than “The Hound of the Baskervilles”.

When one listens to the name Sir Arthur Conan Doyle one usually thinks about Sherlock Holmes and detective stories. That is actually true so what is a detective story doing in this kind of a blog?

Well, when the supernatural and old tales of curses and hellhounds are incorporated to the story how can we not be tempted to write about it?

The story takes place in the English country; at “Baskerville Hall”. A vast estate surrounded by moors swamps and the aura of mysterious ghostly presence. Found dead with a horrified look on his face somewhere in the haunted woods of his land Sir Charles Baskerville, terrifies his heirs reminding them of an old curse.

Sherlock Holmes is called upon to investigate the circumstances of his demise and is made aware of a tale long forgotten. One of Baskerville’s ancestors enslaved by lust and madness sells his soul to have what he cannot. His life ended hunting what he desired and one of his hounds was the collector of the price paid. And so the curse begins for all male heirs of the Baskerville estate.

Footprints found at the crime scene suggested that Sir Charles was desperately running away from something that could only be described as a ‘gigantic hound’, while Holmes receives threatening letters telling him to avoid the moors...

Has the Hellhound been unleashed once again claiming the souls of the Baskervilles?

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s impeccable writing takes the reader to a place filled with fear and agony. Highly recommended “The Hound of the Baskervilles” can and will satisfy even the most demanding of readers. You can read it -for free- right here.

And for those who prefer watching to reading there are at least two dozen attempts to capture the feeling of the story in film, but if you ask me the ones that actually do are the black and white ones. There is something unearthly about the absence of color that makes those films even darker…

And a very cthonian Xmas to you too!