August Pin-Up of the Month: Tracy Martin Tracy Martin Occupation: Production Operations Manager (@ Retail Solutions Inc – SaSS company) Favorite Book: My favorite recent book is Night Circus, but my all time favorite is Jane Eyre. Favorite Quote: “You miss 100% of shots you don’t take.” Wayne Gretsky He doesn’t specify which kind – I am a Jager bomb kind of girl. What’s your dream job? Elementary school art program director; they’re uninhibited and it would be fun and stress free! Tell us something we don’t know about you. I was in the active duty Air Force studying Arabic, when I met my husband nearly 20 years ago…we’ve been married since 1995 Favorite Creature of the Night: Vampires. Who wouldn’t want a real life Cullen around? Biggest Irrational Fear: As a rational person, I would have to say not being prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse. Lovecraftian Films Designed to Terrify What H.P. Lovecraft-themed magazine would be complete without a list of Lovecraftian-style movies? Ridley Scott, John Carpenter, Joss Whedon and Sam Raimi have all made films with a heavy Lovecraft influence. So, here’s a list to help creep the shit out of you and your loved ones. Die, Monster, Die! (1965) is a take on Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space. The film stars legendary horror actor Boris Karloff and is about a radioactive meteorite wreaking havoc on a small New England estate. Lovecraft’s original text is a seemingly impossible one to adapt to the screen due to the meteorite’s incomparable-to-anything-of-this-earth color. The film suffers from a weak script but does boast a tremendous performance from Karloff. The 1985 nugget Re-Animator is the most well-known of any Lovecraft adaptation. The film is a sometimes loose adaptation of Lovecraft’s Herbert West – Reanimator series. In the film, Jeffrey Combs plays Herbert West, a scientist who helps invent a serum that can bring people, and cats, back to life. He teams up with a medical student and together they get into Frankenstein-ian hijinks. It seems Combs became a popular choice for Lovecraftian film as he appears in a few others including 1993’s Necronomicon: Book of the Dead and From Beyond (1986). On a side note, Re-Animator was the code word for pot between Lester and Ricky in American Beauty. John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) is reminiscent of Lovecraft’s novella At the Mountains of Madness. In the film version, researchers are trapped at an Arctic station and are terrorized by a shape-shifting creature that has been frozen in the ice for millions of years. The Thing creeps into the station, taking the appearance of the researchers that it absorbs. There’s a solid performance by a bearded Kurt Russell as helicopter pilot turned hero, R.J. MacReady. Ridley Scott’s films Alien (1979) and Prometheus (2012) are considered to deal with Lovecraftian principles. Much like The Thing, both use At the Mountains of Madness as a primary source, the latter more than the former. Instead of the Arctic, we’re in space. The Evil Dead, The Evil Dead 2, and Army of Darkness make up Sam Raimi’s trilogy (before Spiderman). The first two films have Ash (Bruce Campbell!) battling unseen evil in a cabin in the woods, the final film sees him battling a very visible evil as he defends a medieval city. All three of the films revolve around the Necronomicon, the fictional book of magic that Lovecraft created and is now used to explain the unexplained and fill in the holes of a disjointed narrative. Children of the Corn is like Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth, but the film deals with a Midwestern town run by a cult of children who worship an elder god who inhabits the corn fields instead of a seaside town run by a cult worshipping an elder God of the ocean as in the story. And when that creepy manchild screeches at the ginger kid saying, “He wants you too, Malachi!” you’ll freak for sure. In 2012, Joss Whedon made Cabin in the Woods, a Lovecraftian horror flick with an updated twist. This film shows five young (and obviously wicked hot) college students venturing up to a cabin for a weekend of fun. What they don’t know is that an organization called the Faculty had somehow coerced them into doing so in order to sacrifice them to The Ancient Ones, gods who once ruled the earth. The Lovecraft influence is hammered home at the finale when one of the Faculty is killed by a merman; terrifying creatures from the sea are a Lovecraft favorite. Book Review: The Shadow Over Innsmouth I finished reading this story while spending the night at a run-down inn in the mountains of New Hampshire. It was dark, the pool was empty and secluded, and the place reeked of not waking up in the morning due to something the guy who wrote Saw would have thought of. Finishing a story meant to terrify probably wasn’t the best idea. Possibly inspired by his allergy to seafood, The Shadow Over Innsmouth shows how a town’s greed and/or quest for riches can lead to a deal with an underwater devil, which then leads to an interspecies marriage and an ancestor learning too much about his past. Told years after the incident occurred, this first person recount sheds some light on events seemingly covered up by the powers that be. Granted, the narrator is the one who called for the investigation in the first place, taking a trip to his New England family roots as a coming-of-age celebration. A budget-saving decision leads to him learning of Innsmouth, a small, run-down town in Maine that neighboring townies steer clear of. That piques the narrator’s curiosity, and the ensuing visit starts off eccentric and ends in a horror show. What happens next, what I considered the post ending, struck me as very odd, though brought everything full circle and grew on me the more I thought it over. Eventually, everyone needs to accept who they are, both the strengths and horrifying weaknesses. I specifically chose this story to review, as it was one that Lovecraft didn’t particularly like. He wrote in a letter to friend and publisher, August Derleth, that The Shadow Over Innsmouth includes “all the defects I deplore.” I wanted to read these so-called “defects” that he spoke of for myself. While the flow seemed a bit choppy at times, I still was captivated at every page and fearful at just the right spots. Lovecraft’s words, while outdated, painted a fantastic description of a decaying town. I could feel the foulness of each street jump off the page, and the vision of the hybrid creatures is quite clear. This story, the only one published on its own in Lovecraft’s lifetime, is pretty readily available. I found it in Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre, a collection that I bought in college that still contains a bookmark receipt from September 1999, and a simple Google search brought up numerous free ebooks and mp3 audio books. Lovecraft is a local cult figure with a plethora of stories to keep readers frightened enough to keep a battery-operated nightlight handy in case the electricity goes out. His influence on the horror genre is undeniable, and he is a true Rhode Island inspiration. Lovecraft’s Influence on the Locals HP Lovecraft is a famous Rhode Islander, right up there with Roger Williams. While unappreciated during his lifetime, Lovecraft has become a cult figure, complete with pilgrimages to his grave to honor him on the date of his death. His influence is not lost on local artists. I asked each of the following artists one simple question: How has HP Lovecraft influenced your art? Sean Branney (HP Lovecraft Historical Society): My colleague, Andrew Leman, and I run the HP Lovecraft Historical Society. We’ve made three motion pictures inspired by Lovecraft’s writings, a dozen audio CDs and countless other items, like shirts, props, playing cards and mugs. We have found tremendous joy in the works of Lovecraft and take pleasure in creating works that spread that joy to others. We’ve had the chance to collaborate with great artists and fans around the world and we owe it all to the “old gent of Providence.” The HP Lovecraft Historical Society is located in Los Angeles, CA. Chris Cox (Author): I got exposed to Lovecraft growing up in England, initially through my youthful obsession with the band Morbid Angel, who use the mythos as a primary topic in their music. I particularly loved the notion of the cosmic elder gods, asleep and dreaming throughout all eternity, being the source of all creation. And I especially liked that these ancient, sleeping beings don’t really care what we humans are up to. The idea of being absolutely inconsequential was very refreshing. I also found a lot of romantic power in the idea of entities so great and horrific that getting too close or catching a glimpse led to madness and insanity in the beholder; things too big to wrap our tiny heads around fascinate me no end. Part of the appeal is that we love challenges, and as a kid, I decided I would definitely be the one who saw Cthulu and lived to tell the tale! Derek Dubois (Filmmaker): Lovecraft is an interesting figure who has influenced so much of modern horror / weird fiction as we know it.