H P Lovecraft Short Film Festival 2023 – Day 3 – Providence Rhode Island

Hey hey! I am back after an inevitable health crash to post this final blog entry on the film festival. Such is life!

I attended the third and final day of the HP Lovecraft Short Film Festival which was by far the most popular, the biggest audience we’d seen and they seemed such a lovely assortment of people, some of them completely unexpected like a whole row of little old ladies straight out of church on that Sunday morning. Suffice to say they didn’t last long – just three shorts before the last got too gross for them to continue. But hey! At least they’re out there doing something new! Good for them! Also in the group was a large collection of clearly neurospicy people, a few Goth girls, some gamers, some artists.. it was lovely.

It was such a sweet gaggle of people that my travel companion, and the reason I was here, was trustworthy enough to leave his backpack in a chair to save his seat during intermission. I am not that trusting! Ain’t no way I’m leaving my purse to be pawed through by some ne’er-do-well. My wallet is in there as well as my meds. Not like they’re anything interesting – only if you happen to have a hankering for birth control or antacids but still. Even so the backpack was unmolested when we returned so who knows, maybe I’m the paranoid one here. These were good people. Happy people. Weird people.

Most of the films on the roster were world premieres so that is always fun. They made me want to make my own movie – a wee animated film of baby Cthulhu doing stupid antics to the tune of The Popcorn Song. I could do this. I might even be able to submit it. But I probably should be focusing on less frivolous projects. Food’s getting very expensive!

ANYWAY… where was I? Oh yes, the films! As I have done in Part One and Part Two of this festival, I will now add teasers about each film. No spoilers, promise.

First I’ll detail the feature film: Frogman: A found footage horror about a four foot tall anthropormorphic frog and an entire town that keeps his dirty frog secrets. To the other person in the theater who laughed inappropriately whenever the frogman jumped onto the screen: thank you. I like not being the only psycho in the audience.

The Weaver: Another cougar flick but with boogers.

Disassociation: All those who wander are not lost. Sometimes they’re just trying to rob you.

Our Tell-Tale Heart: There’s a reason the tell-tale heart is so iconic. It’s because it’s still a fucking terrifying idea. This time the cops are coming in.

Play It All Night Long: What happens when you piss off the music demons, stick around and find out.

Death Parts Us: Short, trippy, confusing enough for me to lose my attention span. My bad.

Oddities: As a frequenter of antique stores this one was written for me and my possessed doll loving heart.

Howie’s Flowers: This film was shorter than this sentence but still broke my fucking heart! WHY?!

The Wyrm of Bwich Pen Barras: SO THAT’S what Welsh sounds like! This one had severe folk tale vibes and I goddamn loved it.

The Stool with Pants and Shoes on: Very self-explanatory. Weirdly coherent. Great quirky humor.

Don’t Bother the Neighbors: Tentacles and Kung-Fu or Tentacle-Fu if you will.

Fax Repair and You: Old School special effects show off. Hardcore.

Nosepicker: Illustrating the one unifying concept of humanity: where there are children there will be boogers. Also, a way too literal interpretation of the boogeyman. Did I mention it was gross? So gross. Like very sticky wet gross.

Wizinski’s AC Services: When prank phone calls go wrong.

And that was that! Had a delightful time all three days and even bought a swank T-shirt. It’s got three hares and a human-y standing goat dancing around a campfire in the woods. Very Dionysian. Love it.

Until next time it’s been nice sharing this experience with my fellow weirdos. Much love!

August 22, 2023 0

The Athenaeum – Providence RI

So after the John Hayes Library we decided to keep on walking to “The Ath” as the locals call it. It’s another library but with its own unique charm. Apparently, it was in this library where Edgar Allen Poe had his marriage proposal turned down and H P Lovecraft also wrote about it in his many letters to friends. He seemed to have a great affection for it and I could see why.

Upon stepping in there’s a little room to the side you’re guided into and there was a woman at a desk handing out visitor stickers and politely saying that there was a suggested $5 per person donation but that it wasn’t required. I was already endeared to this place so whatever. Spending $5 here was a lot better than the $5 that the parking meter ate (no, I still haven’t forgotten about that.) In return for our most gracious donation, we were handed a little guide and told we could do a self-tour.

This place was kind of adorable. I was digging the whole vibe with the historic figure busts around the ceiling, the Roman statue at the entrance, and in the center of it all the bane of my childhood existence – A card catalogue. Today’s youth will never know the pain of having to search for “key words” manually by hand, flipping through index card after index card only to end up absolutely nowhere because guess what? The key words in your brain will NEVER match the keywords of the insufferable clerk that put this hellfire together. Made me a little nostalgic.

The guide was fun, we walked about looking at different things it was talking about and just generally digging the place. The downstairs had a distinct speak easy feel about it and this place did say it held a lot of cultural events so who knows! We then wandered accidentally into the rare volumes room and were quickly shuffled out by a very intense academic whose energy was let’s just say tightly wound. VERY tightly wound. The door we walked through was supposed to be locked. We held up our hands, swore we didn’t touch anything, and tried to back out in the friendliest way possible. I sighed, spending a day out in this college town was a bit of a mindfuck for me. It was the kind of place I always daydreamed about as a kid when I still had aspirations. I wonder if I had not had a total likely autistic burnout in nineth grade if I would have ended up somewhere like here… being someone like that guy, hidden by academia because the world is really too much, swatting at people getting too close to my drawers full of bones (as I would have studied paleontology not literature.) Life has not been easy or straight forward for me but I like who I am now and I’m actually grateful that I have come this far. I certainly enjoy life more.

And with that epiphany we decided to continue our journey to the Edna Biology Lab.

July 24, 2022 0

Edgar Allen Poe’s grave – Westminster Cemetery – Baltimore Maryland

Before leaving for Maryland my travel companion learned that Edgar Allen Poe was buried in Baltimore and asked if he could be lucky enough to see both the grave of H P Lovecraft and Edgar Allen Poe in the span of a month. I didn’t see any issue with this as I love walking through cemeteries and used to know The Raven by heart. So of course this was the first thing we had on our list of to-do’s and the first thing we actually accomplished.

Edgar Allen Poe is buried in the Westminster Cemetery which is still attached to a church and is gated with appropriately Gothic looking iron fencing. It was still daylight so we were able to go in and take a respectful look around. A few tourists were crowded around Poe’s monument but the rest of this dainty cemetery was unpopulated by the living. And boy was it unique! Despite being small it had a lot of character. There were historic markers spread out explaining that a lot of the important people of Baltimore were buried here. Some told stories of prominence while others shed light on tragedy like the mother who lost ten children in her lifetime. Because it was part of church property we got to see stones that were right next to the building a few which seemed to be under it. There were also a number of tombs that appeared to be bricked in above ground burials, the likes of which I have never seen around my New England home. I always thought this was the sort of thing cities prone to flooding did but maybe there was some other reason. Also nestled in a quiet and almost hidden corner (which we only discovered after our guest disappeared around a hedge) was a series of monuments that had some Egyptian flare. One was shaped like a pyramid, another had very Egyptian looking busts. I guess it was in vogue at the time.

All and all this gave the entire cemetery a very unique charm. I almost didn’t want to leave. And of course we found both the original grave of Edgar Allen Poe and his current resting place across the cemetery. Both were adorned with beautiful stones. I couldn’t imagine a better place for one of the founders of the horror genre to be spending eternity.

November 14, 2021 0