The film you mention is The Haunting, I think, made in the 60s iirc and starring Russ Tamblyn of Tom Thumb and West Side Story fame. One of my favouritesSnowy wrote: ↑Sat Aug 25, 2018 10:11 amMy thoughts then:
SpoilerIn my view, the story is definitely evocative of Poe - some of the wording I think is deliberately similar.
I had not realised until reading Doug's comments that chronologically these were the first references to the Necronomicon, 'mad arab' Abdul Alhazred or the plateaus of Leng, all regular references in the Mythos.
I did also wonder at the means available to these two. Apart from the room of strange lights, smells, liquids etc:
So as well as the means to create the room itself, they also have some expertise in taxidermy. Additionally I had to wonder what the 'nauseous musical instruments' consisted ofAround the walls of this repellent chamber were cases of antique mummies alternating with comely, life-like bodies perfectly stuffed and cured by the taxidermist’s art, and with headstones snatched from the oldest churchyards of the world. Niches here and there contained skulls of all shapes, and heads preserved in various stages of dissolution. There one might find the rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and the fresh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children. Statues and paintings there were, all of fiendish subjects and some executed by St. John and myself. A locked portfolio, bound in tanned human skin, held certain unknown and unnamable drawings which it was rumoured Goya had perpetrated but dared not acknowledge. There were nauseous musical instruments, stringed, brass, and wood-wind, on which St. John and I sometimes produced dissonances of exquisite morbidity and cacodaemoniacal ghastliness; whilst in a multitude of inlaid ebony cabinets reposed the most incredible and unimaginable variety of tomb-loot ever assembled by human madness and perversity
It was this passage that got me the most though, the concept of a collection of "rotting, bald pates of famous noblemen, and the fresh and radiantly golden heads of new-buried children" is pretty chilling.
In response to the questions Doug poses:
1. How scary did you find the story?
It riffs on some of the elements I always found HPL to be a master of - sounds, occurrences, happening out of sight of the protagonist. One of first real scares was watching an old B&W film about a haunted house in which you never see anything. It is all noises, coupled with the gradual uncovering through exposition of the story of the house. You can be in no doubt that the place is haunted and does not want the people there (but will not let them leave) but you see nothing. That intangible sense of terror really gave me the creeps back when I watched the film, and is probably one of the reasons I love HPL's writing as he evokes that same sense.
2. What do you think The Hound actually is?
Not knowing the early chronology of this story in HPL's initial works, I thought that it was a nightgaunt for much of the book. I did ponder this, wondering if it might also be a Hound of Tindalos, but a little online digging (I can't find my old CoC player guide) shows this to be the creation of another Mythos writer who came after HPL, so that was out too.
Where I settled was on something along the lines of a Mythos ghoul which has somehow stumbled across the pendant, gaining some additional ability (in this case some affinity with the 'great bats' which carry it). If I recall, HPL ghouls were referenced as having canine heads, although HPLs own illustration from the story Pickford's Model doesn't show this
3. Why do you think the protagonist kills the vulture with his spade at the end? Is there some kind of significance of this, or is he just a psycho? ¬_¬
I had a couple of thoughts on this. The one that resonated the most with me was that the protagonist has been jolted out of the reverie that he and St John have been indulging in by realising how foul a level they have sunk to, and that they have created their own doom by descending to. The vulture, a carrion-eater, is symbolic of what they have become and the killing of it likewise symbolic of the desperate scramble back from the brink - albeit too late.
4. Slightly loaded question, but who do you think is the real monster in this story?
The obvious answer is the protagonists, but while they do engage in some abhorrent behaviour they don't actually cause anyone any harm in so doing. I am not sure whether this makes them monsters, or just extremely fucked up. The Hound is unquestionably a monster in the dictionary sense, but you are given no rationale behind why it does what it does. After all, it has lain quiescent for a long time, and only kills to get back the pendant that was taken from it. Whether the unfortunate thieves or the protagonists, you have to think that had they not each stolen in the first instance they would not have met with such a potent nemesis.
Never, never, never under any circumstances watch the re-make, not even to see Catherine Zeta-Jones' bum.
