| H-Haid: New film ignites the 'Lovecraft in ol' H-haid |
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Posted: Sunday, September 13, 2009 7:04 am
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Back in the day, ol’ Hammerhaid was quite the H.P. Lovecraft fan.
And who’s H.P. Lovecraft?
Lovecraft is considered one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th century. Stephen King has called Lovecraft "the 20th century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale."
Dunno, maybe ol’ H-haid appreciated Lovecraft’s old-fashioned way of writing like this clip from Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family: “Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous.”
Hmmm, maybe all those big, archaic words made the H-man’s head spin?
Well anyway ... back in the day, Hammerhaid owned all the Lovecraft books available. One of his favorite tales was “Under the Pyramids” written by Lovecraft and Harry Houdini. Yep, the magician.
After reading them time and time again, Hammerhaid’s interest moved on to other less eldritch issues like “do it yourself” books and as Betty Lou calls it, “the *&^%$ Civil War.”
That was before hearing news this week that a group of local filmmakers has knocked out the Lovecraft classic, “Beyond the Wall of Sleep.”
The horror film is based on H.P. Lovecraft's 1919 short story of the same name. It first was screened July 30 at The Belcourt in Nashville.
A second screening was set for Friday at The Boro Bar & Grill at 10 p.m.
The film, directed by Nathan Fisher, is shot in a neo-noir style and with nods to B movie chillers, Twilight Zone and Universal Horror.
That bit of news got him prowling through his collection of boxed up books in search of the story of “hillbilly” Joe Slater.
Of course, Lovecraft never called his character a “hillbilly.” He had his own unique way of describing him ... “Among these odd folk, who correspond exactly to the decadent element of ‘white trash’ in the South, law and morals are non-existent; and their general mental status is probably below that of any other section of the native American people.”
Told from the viewpoint of an intern at a state psychiatric hospital, the story retold the ever increasing horrors experienced by Slater. His dreams bore a bit of genius and grew ever more horrifying until the stunning, particularly for the day, climax.
Hammerhead, after searching the garage, the storage building and even his ever dwindling book shelves, found the story on the Internet at hplovecraft.com. Dad gummit.
Like most Lovecraft efforts, it was a short, twisted tale of horror. You can see the movie’s trailer at myspace.com/sleep_movie.
Naturally, long, long ago, after seeing the covers on some of H-haid’s Lovecraft books, Betty Lou got spooked. He already knew better than to invite her to the viewing even if the short film is good enough to get invited to the 2009 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, Ore.
Once upon a time, Betty Lou had perked up when finding some of Hammerhaid’s “Lovecraft” collection on a dusty bookshelf.
“Love...Craft, is this what I think it is?” she asked. “But if it is, why does it have such a scary cover?”
Naturally, being the curious type, she didn’t believe Hammerhaid when he told her “Lovecraft” wrote horror stories, not “romance” novels. So first chance she got, she was sneaking in for a read. Just the first paragraph had her wrapping up the book and ordering him to get rid of all of them.
Of course, he just hid them a little better. In fact they were hidden so well that he eventually began to think his wife had tossed them. But, to be honest, they are still out there ... lurking.
T-t-t-t-that’s r-r-r-r-r-right.
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