We weren’t able to make all of Saturdays activities but we showed up in enough time to catch quite a few of them. Luckily for me traffic was waaay better and we got there early enough to catch a bite to eat without having to eat it while jogging like the day before. I also got to see a gondolah and a deaf couple having an increasingly intense argument with sign language on our walk there. Those were firsts for me.
The vendors were still set up with T-shirts and happily chatted with patrons, the ticket seller remembered us from the day before. I mulled over a sweet little button-up shirt with a cthulhu on it but it was $50 and I realize since getting fat (and growing a stupidly pendulous set of boobs) that cute button ups are best left in my youthful days of thin androgyny. Now if I get a button up shirt that’s half a size too small my boobs are peering through make-shift windows between the buttons and buy one too large and suddenly I’m swimming in a trash bag. Annoying. Curvy people like being cute too.
ANYWAY, once we got in I looked around at an audience that was a couple times the size of the previous day although the theater was far from packed. They were however enthusiastic, even if small in number.
On this night we got to watch several blocks of shorts and a feature film. They were as follows:
Onan’s Harvest: I would have titled this Something Pagan This Way Comes. Just a lot of creatures, and masks, and weird magic in the woods.
After the Fall: Maybe it’s the state of the world today but this one seemed a metaphor for living under fascism via a be-tenticled sky creature.
Triangle: Which was actually a pyramid but I won’t be pedantic. Nothing like basing an entire short on a locked pyramid shaped box with floaty numbers and an attached warning from the village witch.
Five-Star: I’m really scratching my head on this one as I remember absolutely nothing from it. The blurb of it reads, “A diligent locksmith is on a quest for a five star review.” Soooo…. I’m guessing he failed but whose to say! Not me. *nervous chuckle*
Observer: A classic space horror, watching the last memories of a deceased crew.
A Serpent’s Touch: The only thing I remember about this one was the font was so weird I thought it said A Serpent’s Couch. The blurb reads, “In 16th century England Tennebris and his son mourn the passing of the family matriarch.”
The Second Grimoire: Evil books take hold of the minds of those who keep them.
Feature Film: Daemons. This one was a fun throw back to 70’s acid tripping horror, though it takes place in the modern day and is a little more socially conscious. A real We’re All Mad Here kinda film.
Shorts of Madness was the next block which is always a crowd favorite as it is the humor shorts.
Taylor and the Strange John. Is John a frequenter of prostitutes or a toilet? That was my question. The former. Crude but in a mildly shocking giggle kind of way. It’s nice to see a tip of the hat to the working girls.
Sea Legs: Pirate brothels have never been so tenticle-y.
Fisher of Men: A classic hillbilly show down with the opponent being a swamp monster. Quirky simplistic humor that really worked. This one had me laughing pretty hard.
Dry January: A comedy about being a college age fuck-up and deciding to go sober… which for some reason includes a very up-chucky crab man. 🦀
Burned Cans for Aluminum Children: Fun with Play-D’oh! Stupidly cute/funny.
Gusti the Strong vs The Merman: This one is 100% silly. Does not take itself one iota seriously. But still absolutely hilarious. A real joy to watch.
And that was this year’s wrap-up for me although there were several things going on Sunday that we didn’t make it to.
Its that time of year again, time to brandish some scary T-shirts and join the other lovable weirdoes at the H P Lovecraft film festival. This year has been BRUTAL. Things are bleak and we are already feeling like we’re living through a horror movie. Still, it was a MUCH needed break to attend this year. Curiously traffic was horrendous getting into Providence so we ended up late, scarfing down some fast food while jogging to the RISD. We made it just on time, though one of our companions had to relinquish the burning hot fries he had failed to eat while jogging. No food in the theater.
It was a small but dedicated crowd this year. On this night we got to see a block of horror shorts followed by a 40th Anniversary viewing of the ever-grusome satirical cult classic Re-Animator followed by a Q & A with the screen writer, which was for me more entertaining than I anticipated.
The shorts were as follows:
The Outsider: A three minute animation making it’s US debute from Canada. This one showed the struggles of a lonely cyclops just trying to find their people with a comical twist ending.
Stargazer: Answers the question what if stars could come to earth as people and seduce socially fucked up astronomers.
Undertone: I think I was mentally somewhere else for the entire 13 minutes of this one. Despite this being yesterday I remember exactly nothing of it. SORRY.
The Music of Erich Zann: A recently restored 1980’s short depicting how music can drive you mad. Cosmically mad. Ahhhhhhh.
Where the Shadows Feast: This one wasn’t just horror but also a film noir with a black male lead and I must say, I am all here for that. He did a great job and the “shadows” were effectively scary/unnerving which is a high compliment coming from me. Generally I just find horror monsters hilarious… which I think is why people keep looking at me with recognition. Oh, the psycho laugher is back. 😬
The Itch: If ever there were a horror concept I’d be intimately aware of it’d be this. I’ve itched off layers of skin on many occasions and have had yeast infections so angry its made me want to fuck a wad of steel wool. I have not however accidentally killed myself itching too hard. This one had a fun rivalry and a couple twists.
Thrift Store Ouija Board: This one was just super juvenile. Teen girls having a super stupid teen girl spat with the aid of a ouija board. Also if you’re wondering the moving triangle piece on a ouija board is called a planchette. You’re welcome.
And then that brought us to Re-Animator which I’ve seen but apparently repressed 90% of it. The only thing I remembered was the actors. They looked familiar. Sorta. But anyway, it was gorey, gross, and fucked up in that special kind of way that you only see when a group of writers gather around and egg eachother on to write the most depraved thing ever. I respect it for that. I respect it more for adding humor over the top of that. It is however very much a movie of its time with the only woman present a bit of an annoying bobble-headed blonde. There was an attempted rape scene enacted by a decapitated head so that was… just ewe. Honestly, I felt this was more ewe than all the other ewes. And there was a lot of other ewes.
Afterwards the screenwriter Dennis Paoli took questions and talked a little about it. He explained it was a very short run film that only played in a handful of theaters because it was unrated (GEE, I WONDER WHY) and that it gained popularity when it came out on VHS. Now its a cult classic and I’m happy it was never remade. I can deal with 70’s gore but hyper realistic current gore would be too much for me personally. He also accidentally brought the mood of the entire room down by pointing out all the themes in the movie that made it so terrifying – male researchers who don’t know when to stop, the promise of great wealth to potentially evil creations, a broken health care system, humanity’s fear of death, and even the horror of college loans are probably all worse today than 40 years ago. Weren’t we all here to momentarily escape the bleakness of current American living?
Luckily he cheered us all right back up by wandering way off the beaten path and telling us how his theater play version of Peter Pan was banned for nudity. Peter Pan was re-imagined as a hippie, Tinkerbell was his boyfriend, the Indians were replaced with black folk, the pirates were Chicago police, flying was just tripping on acid and the flying scene was both male and female actors dancing naked to In A Gadda Da Vida. “And we didn’t even change the dialogue at all from the origional. It just worked.” And now I want to time travel to see this. I already had a soft spot of fucked up retellings of Peter Pan since I saw an absolutely god awful independant film called Neverland: Never Grow Up, Never Grow Old where Tinkerbell was a user/seller of fairy dust, Neverland was an abandoned amusement park, and Hook was a Pan-obsessed leather bound pedophile. This makes me nostalgic for the independant film era of the 2000s before corporations bought them all out and turned them back to shit. To be fair this entire film festival makes me want to start making my own little films. Probably animation as I don’t have the people skills to successfully convince a handful of “actors” to run through a park acting crazy or whatever I’d need to accomplish such a task. My creative mind is still aching to play, even as the rest of me is crushed by currant circumstance. Tell you what though, if ever globalized healthcare and universal basic income become a thing here in the US I promise I’ll make y’all a little film.
I’m not going lie, I’ve been absent from my blog because my life has been absolutely insane lately, and I haven’t had the spoons to do fun stuff like travel. That being said, I still wanted to attend the NecronomiCon, billed as, “the international conference and festival of Weird Fiction, Art, and Academia!” I mean… who could resist with that tagline? Probably neurotypical people now that I think about it. Thank the Eldrich gods I’m not one of those.
This year we wanted to attend some of the short films and the live radio show but also wander and hit some things we hadn’t in previous adventures – like the art exhibit and a puppet show. We started at the vendors, obviously, to check out which artists and crafters had shown up with adorably crocheted abominable horrors and whatnot. The first artist was indeed exactly that and boy did she know her audience! Her creations were perfection for anyone who loves the cross section between horror and cute huggable things. I almost bought a tiny baby Cthulhu in a plant pot but decided maybe I should wait on that as the place had just opened after all. This woman mopped the floors, with her competitors though. She almost sold out by the end of the day! I was more than impressed, so much so I took a card saying that I could find her at crochetmecurios on facebook and beyond.
Beyond this there were artists with paintings, prints, wood etchings, T-shirts, books galore, and even the most inventive take I have ever seen for a bra, aptly titled, “The over-the-shoulder-beholder-boulder-holder,” which you can totally buy at Dogzillalives’ Etsy Shop for a very befitting $666. As much as I LOVE that I’m also not that loaded (or perky-breasted) so I ended up buying mostly postcards as well as a wood etching and a small print. My companions bought crochet things, T-shirts, DVDs of former film festival shorts, and a variety of other things. Clearly this room was dangerous so we meandered out and started walking to our next destination – the art exhibit. It was a bit of a walk in a little gallery next to Lovecraft Arts and Sciences which is a fun little bookstore if there ever was one. Since we got there early, a few minutes before it actually opened, we wandered into the bookstore and checked it out. This place is also dangerous for weirdoes with spare change. What it lacks in size it makes up in uniqueness. I ended up with a book titled Death in Early New England: Rites, Rituals, and Remembrance which is soooo niche and sooo my kind of rabbit hole! Every time I hit this bookstore it always has something cool.
From here we ambled back somewhere else for the film festival and watched the first block of shorts. They were all very tame, I must say, nothing too outlandish, mostly going back on old tropes about our cursed colonial settlers. Though one did imagine, in the most brutal way possible, what it might be like to be kept as a pet by an alien. It was less Fantastic Planet and more Dr Rat as they started as lab subjects before becoming less than loved pets. It was… creative.
From here we made it to a shadow puppet show because why not? When one comes across a shadow puppet show there is no other option but to see what it’s all about. That one was an experience. We got there early, once again, as a crowd gathered outside this tiny establishment. You might wonder who was in the crowd, waiting as an adult to see a puppet show, and you’d be surprised it was quite diverse in age, gender, and expression, though that one very particular guy was also there asking everyone if this was an American styled shadow puppet show or a Japanese styled puppet show. No one knew. Or cared. Well, except for him. He apparently really loved Japanese culture. Eventually we’d be herded into this tiny room with a stage, all 300 or so of us. It was immediately hotter than the sun from everyone’s body heat and I couldn’t really stop my intrusive thoughts from telling me cuddling up like sardines was how people die, god forbid a fire should break out. My intrusive thoughts are always super cheerful like that.
ANYWAY, there was one woman putting on the whole production. She played a recording to narrate the story which was a voice actor and a theramin playing in the background. We’d hoped for a live theramin but I guess a recorded theramin is better than no theramin at all. I was just sad the aforementioned music was more high-pitched screeching noises than cool hovering woo-woo noises. We were warned this was a low budget production. It was entirely done via an Old School projector and what appeared to be colored cellophane scraps and bits of cardboard cut into silhouettes. I was a bit distracted by the fact much of the cellophane pieces had random bits of scribblings on them and as well as scratches and at times tattered edges but hey, one person’s trash is another person’s…. shadow puppet. All joking aside it was actually well done. I enjoyed the story and the silhouettes were apt. But it was time to be off once again.
We made our way back to the vendors where I then bought the things I’d eyed earlier but still had some time to kill so we decided to check out the gaming rooms. By this time I must have been showing my wear. I was getting very tired both physically and mentally. It’d already been a long day. So long in fact I forgot to mention we’d already found food at some psychedelically inspired cafe and did a mini walking tour where we glared at the shunned house of Lovecraftian fame which now had a cute little terrace and a sign that read in French, “Warning, weird dog.” Of course, the second my fatigued non-gaming butt walked through the door the woman at the table immediately told us all about the free coloring pages and crayons and showed us to some empty somewhat dark tables. BLESS NEURODIVERGENT CROWDS. That was the kinda break I could use! But first we noticed the vendor tables. I thought that’s why we were up here but my companion actually had no real inclination this would have it’s own separate vendors and was immediately smitten as a magpie at all the shiny things. I do love shiny things myself but I don’t know what they are or what they signify. Nonetheless I took a pamphlet from a pirate(?) boy and made it look like I knew what he was talking about when he discussed his new game described within it – as one does – I like to be encouraging. And then I handed it back to someone who very likely had more knowledge than myself and went back to playing with the giant die with the floaty eyeball in it. I don’t need to know shit to enjoy that! By this time we had 10 minutes to hurredly color before the doors closed so we did so. Man, it’s been a LONG time since I’ve used crayons. They’re like coloring something with cheap birthday candles. But it was stupid fun and we got to hang up our precious artwork next to the others who… clearly spent more than 10 minutes on theirs.
Onto the live radio show which was the H P Lovecraft Historical Society’s Dark Radio Theater’s presentation of The Shunned House. We had no idea this too was also filled to the brim with people and just like the puppet show we were left without a seat standing numbly in the back. I hadn’t worn my knee braces all day and I was one hurting puppy from all the walking. I decided I didn’t need to see anything (it was a radio show after all) and sat on the floor with a gaggle of others. That was no less painful as I had no back support and half my body was going numb. Those who had room just lay down. I was entertained by the show itself and the little story it told but because I was also blind to the stage I had the double entertainment of the audience bursting out in weird noises at random whenever the screen up front prompted them to help out. I was also delighted to see someone else taking a cellphone photo of the same patch of rug I’d taken a photo of a year before. It’s a pretty design! Actually, the people at these things always add to my joy of the whole event. Their choice in wardrobe is always wonderful. This year there was a Fantastic Planet T-shirt, a full-blown rat suit, the aforementioned pirate boy, and a chick wearing a tutu wound with lit Christmas lights. The last of which was likely on her way to the ball – which is extra I’m told. I said yeah, extra extra as you’d also need to find something bomb to wear. Someday.
All and all it was an exhausting but very much worth it day of hanging out with fellow freaks and geeks. Until next year – love y’all!
We’d been wanting to go to Sleepy Hollow New York for quite a while now to check out their infamous cemetery – the one that was once terrorized by the ghostly visage of a headless horseman. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was written about this place and the author of said classic tale of horror, Washington Irving, was also laid to eternal rest here with other members of his family. Obviously, we had to go see that. We chose October hoping everything would be a vibrant celebration of Halloween and we were not disappointed!
However, getting there proved quite a challenge. I was on day 2 of my usual 3-day migraine and despite probably better judgement decided to drive down there anyway. Google said the trip should take 3 hours, but I knew it’d be longer. Traffic in that area is always horrible. I was right. My migraine pounded as I drove through every traffic jam I could muster, even getting rear-ended at one point. Eventually I was forced to stop at a service station to take a piss break or explode. We also took the time to eat lunch in the parking lot, thank god.
We arrived after 3PM only to find this is one of those cemeteries with stupidly short hours closing at 4:30PM! Uggggghhh. We drove through it a bit trying to see things by the car but this was definitely set up as a walking cemetery for the most part. I parked at the church, we quickly located a map, and joined the throngs of other weird tourists. I immediately found the grave of Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919), Scottish-American industrialist, steel magnate, and philanthropist. Interesting but that’s not what we were here for.
We headed immediately towards the Civil War Memorial which was nice as far as these things go. But I was keener to find Washington Irving which we did next. He had a bunch of people gathered to peer upon his stone which was very ordinary and uniform amongst the other stones in his family plot. I left a penny. People had thrown all sorts of coins, very few were pennies! But I guess…. most people don’t carry pennies on them these days like I do.
We really hoofed it from here trying to see as much as possible in a very short amount of time. This cemetery however was quite hilly and I struggled to breathe as I overheated trying to get up the massive amount of steps. This overheating this is really starting to affect what I can do on a day-to-day basis. It’s Autumn for pity’s sake! Not like it was 80 degrees out! And so there I was, panting like a peasant at the foot of an egregiously ostentatious Rockerfeller monument that was bigger than most houses (and not to be snarky but also quite boring to look at.) Another mausoleum across the way was somewhat smaller but looked like it might hold vampires or treasure or something else interesting. See, if you’re going to throw away good money for the dead you might as well make it individualistic!
My favorite parts of the cemetery were actually the bridge the headless horseman galloped over (although it is no longer the original bridge – another stands there and is just as cute) as well as the oldest part of the cemetery near the Old Dutch Church where all the stones from the 1700’s were. Being this was New York and not Massachusetts or Rhode Island the stones were distinctly different being made of not slate but sandstone. Still the Cherub heads seemed to be very popular.
This cemetery was one of the most immaculately maintained and well gardened cemeteries I’ve seen. The large trees planted very strategically around the place added to the eerie charm of the place. I loved this cemetery and would love to come back when we’ve planned it better to either spend an actual day doing a deep dive or perhaps do a night tour – of which there are several (though all the tickets for the rest of the year are sold out. Maybe next year??)
October might be the usual time for all things blood and gore but this year the festivities started a month early with a delightful musical misadventure. We’d caught this tour as they were going through Nashua NH, stopping at a cute little theater with parking for maybe 10 cars max. That was the first fun part. I’m not at all convinced I didn’t cuddle my Prius up somewhere it wasn’t supposed to be but luckily no one seemed to notice this unauthorized vehicle in the lot we found. The area wasn’t exactly bustling with activity. It was really weird. I used to come to Nashua NH exactly once a year to shop for school clothes at the mall when I was a kid and I remembered it to be this huge scuzzy city. Now coming back to it after I’ve been through Boston and NYC and I found myself intensely underwhelmed. It’s funny how things change.
As I got out of the car I was greeted with snickers and giggles, “Did you remember to bring a change of clothes?”
“For what??” Once again I was either not exactly running with all the information or it’d gone by my ears so long ago I’d forgotten. No, I did not bring a change of clothes, who brings a change of clothes to a play?! I mean I know the play is about a dude with a chainsaw for a hand but… oh god, that sounds messy.
As we walked into the theater they had a raffle going for an odd prize. It was like one of those giant foam sports fingers but instead of a finger it was a chainsaw. Cute. Looking around the audience was presumably a very neurospicy crowd. Tufts of vibrant unnaturally colored hair and funny tee shirts were scattered throughout this gathering like rainbow jimmies on a cupcake. It was nice. You know how much I love my fellow misfits.
Having bought these tickets way the hell in advance we were able to sit front and center. Directly behind a weird black box with tubes coming out of it. Huh. Odd. Is that…. a blood sprinkler? Because the nozzle seemed to be pointed directly at me. Hmmm..
When the play finally started we were treated with a cast delivering only the campiest of lines with the same inflection and unwarranted enthusiasm as a 1950’s film on hygiene. There were enough innuendos, puns, and dad jokes to last a lifetime. And between all the singing and bit humor there was a malcontented tree. Fucking loved that tree. May have been the best character in the play!
And as much as I was loving every cheesy bit of this it still wasn’t gory. By now my purse was tucked under my plastic covered chair hopefully well out of way of the splash zone. We’d all passed up on the offer to buy a $5 poncho. I’d been to the Blue Man Group before, they also sold largely unnecessary ponchos. We’d all take our chances. Then came the infamous chopping off of the hand scene and blood spurted straight into the air on the other side of the audience, like a lawn sprinkler. Pfft. I could handle a little mist like that. Little was I to know that just because of where I was sitting I’d been specially chosen for a blood bath like no other.
I was only halfway expecting it but luckily my reflexes kicked in before my brain did and I closed my mouth and eyes as a geyser of fake blood shot directly at my face, DRENCHED every bit of me, stopped, AND THEN STARTED IN AGAIN. The audience laughed uproariously as I ineffectively held up my hands, not exactly sure what to do. That blood was COLD and I was starting to regret my decision not to wear a bra that night. But you know what? Of all the places to let my titties wander feral and free (as goddess intended) I guess a horror musical is at least fitting. There was no part of my T-shirt, face, pants, and shoes that wasn’t sopping wet by now. Even my hair was dripping and I thought I’d experienced the last of it but no. For comedic effect I got one third blast as I heard my dearest yell-laughing, “OH MY GOD!” Splatter zone my ass, this was a drench zone! And I loved every bit of it. Except maybe the taste. We decided the blood must be unsweetened Kool-Aid. But I get it. Got to use something that’s not too sticky!
You might think that was it but actually that was just the first half of the show. The second half was much bloodier and the sources of the blood were coming from all directions not just the sprinklers. Audience members who thought they were safe 3 rows up were absolutely not safe. I felt a little bad for the two wearing white T-shirts who got drenched as well. But everyone seemed to be really enjoying this absolutely absurd series of events.
We had so much fun and were in very high spirits when we finally left. I found my emergency hoodie in the car and changed in the backseat like a hobo before driving the hour home. I had an absolute blast and would very highly recommend going to see this production if you too love campy horror, unlikely musicals, or just happen to need a bath in Kool-Aid.
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!
It’s that time of year again! Where all the local eccentrics gather for a good old fashioned scream fest. Or chuckle fit. Depending on if you’re one of those people. And it’s really nice because we can attend this year with a clear conscience since these films are all independent and are not part of any ongoing writer strikes. So, the cute local theater gets their share of attention, the films get theirs, and the whole audience benefits as well. It’s sweet really.
So, who is really attending these things anyway? A surprising amount of people if I am honest and they seem to be from all walks of life. I was even happily surprised by a handful of unrelated black people who showed up. Why? Because HP Lovecraft was apparently just as appalling a racist as he was a horror writer and because of that I can see why most people of color would probably want to stay away. That being said there seems to be a marked effort by these particular fans to be as not racist or shitty as possible with an eye towards diversity as you’ll see later. But really the biggest reason I was so happy to see a few melanin-gifted faces here amongst the crowd is because I think it’s hilarious. I mean if I were black I would make a point to like HP Lovecraft and inspire others to do the same – just to see the poor bastard roll in his grave. But that’s me. Spreader of joyful chaos.
The film festival this year was held at the Columbus Theater with a few other related events at different spots around town that included readings, walking tours, and a few mixers. And let’s not forget the vendors! An assortment of lovely Lovecraftian T-shirts, some horror books, and various delightful arts and novelties were available.
We attended for both blocks of short films as well as the night’s much longer feature which were separated by a small 20-minute intermission. Without spoiling anything I’d like to give some very short “reviews” of each film (more in the spirit of a teaser because they were all wonderful!)
To Fire You Come at Last: A rich 17th century arsehole may or may not get eaten. (This one was British and had some fun twists!)
Night-Gaunts: PUPPETS!!!
Ihruqax: This Swedish film shows a young blind woman just trying to figure out what’s going on when madness starts spreading through her sighted peers.
Dead Enders: Clerks but with facehuggers. And yes, it was just as funny as it sounds.
A King in Yellow: Deaf girl gets foisted into a seriously trippy series of places and events.
Terror: 11 minutes of confusing back-to-back flashbacks. Would not suggest watching if you are prone to seizures.
The Temple: This Canadian film features a bunch of Germans in a U-boat speaking French and being subtitled in English. I know, that shorted out my brain a little bit too. But after the initial confusion it was actually a super decent film!
Then there was the night’s feature film Gods of the Deep which was where a deep-sea submarine fiddled about the ocean’s bum. (Don’t know why this review is in British. I may have had a stroke.) It also answered the uncomfortable question how close you can get to tentacle porn without actually being tentacle porn…
And that was the evening. All and all it was really quite pleasant. I wasn’t at any point scared but I did get a few good laughs, a few may have been at inappropriate times but what can I say? I’m off in the head.
I admit that conventions are not part of my world. And a horror convention seems even more out there but I like being a wild card and having someone share their special interests with me which is how I ended up here. And as an added bonus I LOVE weird people and this seemed like it might have a whole den of them.
Really my usual companion wanted to see the live radio show. He’s super into them. So on Saturday after he got off work we drove directly the convention. It would leave us plenty of time to catch the radio show. I was excited to see it too but I had to take a few days to prepare for it as I am not one for crowds. Or city life. Or people really. Got off to a bit of a bad start when we spent a TON of time in traffic which was acting insane. Usually, I can deal with this just fine but on that particular evening it put me on edge.
We parked at the mall as it was cheaper but that did mean we’d have to walk through the mall on a weekend evening and holy crap was it swarmed. I’d have trouble with this even before Covid. I carried on and did the best I could but then I had to ride an elevator, walk through one of those weird human hamster tunnels over the street, and ride several escalators – the last of which was ungodly narrow, steep, and claustrophobic. Escalators had been my nemesis since childhood and everything was setting off my sensory overload tonight.
Eventually we found a big room full of vendors with a $5 per person admittance fee. We forked it over and looked around. There was all kinds of weird betenticled art everywhere. Paintings, prints, giant plushies. It was an odd rabbit hole to fall down but a fun one. Still, this was not what we were looking for. We asked where the general admittance was and was told we’d have to walk over the Biltmore down the street which we did.
The Biltmore itself is supposed to be haunted. In fact it has such a reputation it was on my list of places to poke at even before this convention but tonight wasn’t the best night to be doing so. I walked in and there’s all sorts of absolutely garish 1920’s art nouveau architecture and design which when done well can be stunning but this place? I dunno, it just seemed so tacky to me. And disorienting. I can’t even describe how I was feeling at that point but it was almost like I was wearing those shitty drunk goggles they give children to make them not want to drink. Just everything seemed somehow off. It was a weird energy for sure – whether I can blame this on the place being haunted or just my own sensory overload I don’t know but that’s where I was at that moment.
We found the people at the take in register for the convention but they said they’d already packed up hours earlier and were no longer selling tickets or making allowances to see the radio theater. My companion was deflated. I was too. I had struggled mightily for this one and now it was a no-go. I asked if the radio theater would be there tomorrow and yes, it was a different show, but they would be there performing something. We decided to come back the next day. Let me tell you I was happy to be home after that.
Sunday came around and we headed out fairly early so we could see at least some of the short film festival at the library before the radio show. We got out on time and were able to buy tickets and even better I was feeling much less over stimulated!
We walked to the library but we were a bit early. There was a sign on the door saying it was closed on Sundays except for the convention and then in small letters that it’d be open at 12:05. it wasn’t 12:05 yet so we stood politely at the door with another man who claimed to have “just rolled down the hill” to get there. A librarian popped out and happily burbled, “Thank you for reading the sign! Everyone else has just tried to come right in!” She then highlighted the part about opening up at 12:05 before replacing it on the door. By now several more people had gathered and were now chatting about how far they travelled and then all about cats. This would be an ongoing theme on just about everyone I eavesdropped on. Who attends horror conventions you might wonder… Cat people. That’s who. I mean yeah there are those decked to the hilt in Goth gear, the heavily tattooed, those who look like they’re suffering existential dread, the odd rat enthusiast, some queer rebels, a large swath of neurodivergent peoples annnnnd amateur mycologists otherwise known as mushroom lovers. That last one caught me a bit off guard.
Finally we were allowed in and made our way to the theater – an actual tiny theater, in a library. This was new for me. And it was cute! And cozy! And Old Timey looking. And to their credit the first film they showed was suitably distressing. It was about keeping a living consciousness in a computer which is always a little unnerving but they seemed to make it over the top uncomfortable. Maybe that’s a good thing, I don’t know.
From there the films ranged from familiar old tropes, to psychological horror, to comedy horror. I was having a good time with it. And it was interesting to see just what people were doing to make these little films which had to be a shoe string budget but most you couldn’t tell. Afterwards one of the film’s creators came up to do a Q & A and my companion got into it by asking a question. I was happy to see him involved even if I myself would rather die than ask a question in a public forum. That’s just me and that’s OK.
We stuck around for block two which started with a claymation short which obviously tickled my own special interests. And there was one some time afterwards that was really low budget – just one dude sitting in front of a green screen playing with a plush bat, that actually was still amazing somehow?? And hilarious! I don’t know, I was impressed. Actually most, if not all, of the shorts kept my interest for the most part. There was a couple I was hazy on but I guess that’s just part of the experience. It was hard picking a favorite.
We decided to skip the last block of short films and instead go to grab a bite to eat before listening to a dramatic story reading before attending the radio show. So off we went. I’d read over the program schedule for fun and I was amused with a lot of the offerings. Cthulhu prayer breakfast, a lecture on missing persons, and weirdly enough a group therapy session. I guess in acknowledgment of the fact if you were here you might be the sort to benefit from a little group therapy sesh. Actually, a lot of the lectures looked super intriguing, but they were from the previous few days. They were the sort of things I could plunk myself on a seat and just spend a day listening to random lectures. Yeah, OK, maybe the crazy ticket price was worth it. There was a lot going on.
Making our way out of there I met a woman on the street who had the same cutesy baby Cthulhu T-shirt and we laughed. She asked if I’d seen the Craft-thulu T-shirt and I said I had it. It was just a weird, sweet moment – two oddballs recognizing each other’s oddness.
We ate at the mall and I picked up one of my books from the car which I’d leave on a bench in the park to be found. Part of my book bombing/book crossing campaign. The dramatic story telling was actually The Willows by Algernon Blackwood read by Robert Lloyd Perry and let me tell you – it was indeed dramatic! I was expecting a nice little relaxing story time, just sit in quiet and listen to someone read to me like I’m a child. No, not quite. It did start off nice and soft but the deeper into the story we got the more impassioned and loud our narrator and the music behind him became. This in combination with the fact they dimmed the lights set my brain off. I basically forgot where I was, immersed completely in the story, seeing it in vivid detail in place of the very real surroundings around me. I started to fidget and scratch at my skin just to keep myself grounded in reality. My companion too really enjoyed this piece. Curiously so too did a young woman wearing noise reducing headphones. She hadn’t been the only one wearing some sort of deadening device. Even I was tempted to put in ear plugs as a lot of these events were getting a bit loud for me. I wondered if these people were also somewhere on the spectrum enjoying a day out the best they could. So far the diversity of each crowd was keeping me quite happy.
And when it was all over we were in the right place to just stay for what we came for – a performance of Curse of the Yig performed by the Dark Adventure Radio Theater. I should probably note that going into this I have not been a huge fan of any kind of radio. Yes, I listened to War of the Worlds and got a good giggle in my youth but that is where my interest in this activity ended until I met my companion who has on numerous occasions shared his love of these performances by playing them in the car on our many trips. And it’s been pleasant but I still didn’t fully comprehend why seeing it live would be any better. It’s radio after all.
It started with a lot of fussing over the projector and an apology to the audience that the cast they had painfully ensured was diverse for this adaption of an H P Lovecraft story was down to a skeleton crew and just looked like a buncha white people again. It might seem like a strange thing to say but H P Lovecraft unfortunately was even a hardcore racist for his day and although there are lots of people who love his wild and whimsical style of writing there’s a lot less of us who agree with his politics. But white supremacists being who they are probably would find a good ‘hero’ in Lovecraft which is why the rest of us decent folk have to try so very hard to take the good and leave all the bad. It’s a noble effort.
Anyway, the radio drama started with just four people voicing all the parts (including the dog who barked intermittently at various scenes.) Every once in a while the projector would show something to the audience asking them to make a noise for the background. Oh, so it’s audience participation that’s different, I see. Granted all the noises were the same…. wind, the rattle of a rattlesnake, hissing… these are all the same noise. None the matter I found it adorable and quite fun. By the end I got it. It was worth coming to see live. Even better they gave the hardcore fans a ‘clue’ with which to decipher a code. My companion of course got up and asked for a code card at the end and brought it home to happily solve it. Again, it was nice to see this sort of involvement.
It was getting late when we left and my companion was concerned I’d had enough activity for one day but he did mention there was one last film showing 4 miles away at a theater. I said it’s OK, we can go check it out, and so we did. And the parking gods must have been smiling on me because there was a parking spot right near the theater that was next to an intersecting street meaning all I had to do was drive into it without properly parallel parking which I STILL have not learned how to do. No matter!
That’s how we ended up at the Dunwich Horror Picture Show. We knew this was a screening of the 1970 movie The Dunwich Horror, which is a terrible movie, but we didn’t really understand the Picture Show part of that. Rocky Horror mashup? Hard to say.
I did what I always do… looked around the audience. And that’s where I found them – a group that had been remarkably absent most of the day despite my theories they should have been everywhere – the gay men. Oh sure, I’d seen a couple adorable lesbian couples here and there but this seemed to be the hub where all the men were. Scores of them. Which made little sense to me as the Dunwich Horror is CLEARLY a film about one straight white dude’s rape fantasies (which is very in step with horror from the 70’s.) If you’re wondering why I thought such a large portion of the queer community would be at this convention it’s because I grew up in the 80’s and 90;s when every villain was still queer coded and although that was supposed to be a bad thing I also knew this backfired and many still LOVE queer coded villains. Honestly, how can you not? They’re fucking hilarious. Also so much of the crowd today seemed neurodivergent and again there’s a disproportionally large cross section of people who are both queer and neurodivergent. I was just happy my amateur psychology worked. I was comfortable here now the world made sense again. Also the theater was dark so it was kinda perfect for my nerves.
So, what was it about the Dunwich Horror that was so great? Well, it had a live band playing the soundtrack and an announcement at the beginning saying, “We know this film is terrible. Feel free to heckle it. Just make your comments funny.” And the audience complied! But that wasn’t even the best part. The best part was the wildly gesticulating people in Cthulhu costumes who’d come from the sides of the theater to do a crazed interpretive dance to distract you whenever the dream sequences got too rapey. How cool would that be just to have that on standby whenever something triggering comes up? Like no, you don’t want to look over at something potentially distressing, look over here AT THE DANCING TENTICLE MONSTER! WOOOOO!
It was all a very happy and positive experience. My companion even got to take a break to enjoy remembering some other happy memories at this theater. While doing so he tried to thank me for coming with him today to enjoy the weird things in life and I…. would have replied it was no problem if I wasn’t distracted by the John Waters Christmas poster. Now that’s a whole other brand of weird (and I’m all for it!)
All and all I am super happy we did the Dunwich Horror as it was the perfect way to end the evening and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Maybe a little too much if I’m honest. So, was it worth going into the city, a place I normally avoid? Oh yes, absolutely. And it looks like someone picked up my book that I left sooo… there’s always that.
New England is the place to live if you’re into horror. The reason is pretty simple – we have a long and strange history that revels in the terrifying. From our first white settlers we’ve have been a deeply superstitious bunch and this is pretty apparent in the case of Mercy Brown.
Mercy Brown was a young woman in Exeter Rhode Island who died at the tender age of 19 in 1892. She was the latest victim of consumption, a disease that was ravaging a good deal of her family and the surrounding community. Today we know tuberculosis is caused by a highly contagious bacterial infection of the lungs but back in Mercy’s day this wasn’t well understood and locals believed that it was the wrath of the dead – specifically that diseased corpses were raising from their graves as vampires. It was a belief born to the fact that consumption was a wasting disease that took months or sometimes years to kill a person who by the end would frequently look like a shuffling emaciated corpse coughing up blood.
The Brown family previously had lost their matriarch, Mercy’s mother, as well as her sister and herself. When the family’s only son was also hopelessly ill drastic decisions were made. After gaining permission from the community the mother and her two daughters were exhumed so their bodies could be examined for signs of vampirism. Mercy, who was likely held above ground in a local crypt for those two cold months, showed remarkably little decomposition (likely due to being frozen and/or kept in fridge-like temps.) This was seen as proof that she was the vampire responsible for the continuing deaths.
The crypt in question still lies to the far left of the cemetery.
From here things got a bit gruesome. In an attempt to save her brother’s life and stop her own post-death rampage the community removed her heart and lungs, cooked them on a pyre, and when nothing but ash remained they were ground up and fed to her brother. Sadly this folk ritual had no effect and he followed his sister to the grave just a few months later.
These incidences were recorded in the newspapers at the time and were thought to have influenced horror writers of the day – mainly HP Lovecraft but also potentially Bram Stoker. There had been at least eighteen other cases of vampire exhumations in New England’s newspaper reports which suggests there were probably a lot more that went unrecorded, a fact that has been reinforced by recent archeological finds of other strange burials, some being kept down with bricks, others with their bones and skulls being made into a grim cross. However Mercy is fondly remembered here as “The Last American Vampire” for she was the most recently recorded. This ritual is still practiced in some rural regions of Romania and possibly a handful of other countries even today despite laws being made against it.
The grave where her heartless body rests has been visited by all sorts of strange folk including myself and my travel companion. She rests in the Chestnut Hill Cemetery behind the Baptist Church in Exeter Rhode Island. Her grave can be seen from the entrance to the cemetery and lies underneath an evergreen tree. It’s a small white marble stone in her family’s plot that’s hard to miss because other visitors have left pennies and other little trinkets. There’s supposed to also be a little guest book in a Tupperware tub but I didn’t see that – it might have been picked up because of Covid precautions. I was however amused by two Disney princess band-aids stuck to the stone as I left my own penny.
