In which Howard Phillips Lovecraft receives full screen credit for the very first time…and really wishes he hadn’t.
Stephen Reinhart, an American, travels to Arkham, England, at the invitation of his girlfriend’s mother. He arrives to finds Susan’s family in the grip of a strange force, which has blighted the surrounding countryside and brought illness and death to the Witley household.
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Could this force be:
(a) Radiation?
(b) Unspeakable evil from beyond?
(c) The family chickens coming home to roost?
(d) All of the above?
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YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE: Unfortunately, due to some organisational issues, the screeners for The Whisperer In The Darkness have not reached the relevant parties in time for this Roundtable. However, when they do arrive, the film will be reviewed, and you will be notified here as usual. So, as they say, please watch this space.
#1 by Ed on February 27, 2011 - 11:22 pm
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Good stuff, Liz. You could always count on Karloff to bring a little class to even the crummiest horror movie.
#2 by The Rev. on February 28, 2011 - 4:24 pm
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As soon as I saw what movie Lyz had reviewed, I was waiting for her reaction to the mutants, which I, upon my viewing of this movie last year, had found rather adorable (if bigger than I’d expected; the screenshots I’d seen before did not give a sense of size).
I was not disappointed.
“Awww, Mutants-ey!” indeed.
#3 by lyzard on February 28, 2011 - 6:48 pm
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Since watching – and cooing – I’ve been amusing myself by trying to figure out what, exactly, those mutants were mutated from.
I wouldn’t put it past Susan not to even notice that the family pets were missing…
“Fluffy?”
#4 by The Mud Puppy on February 28, 2011 - 8:26 pm
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Damn, I still want to see this just for those mutant critters.
#5 by lyzard on February 28, 2011 - 10:06 pm
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I don’t think I have used the word “cute” so often in my life, as I have during the weeks of this Lovecraft unit.
Sad, really.
#6 by Jen S on March 1, 2011 - 1:26 pm
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Lovecraft: (penning final word of latest masterpiece) There! That should terrify any reader into insanity!
Liz: Awwww! How cute! Who’s a cute little mutant? You are! You are! Got yer nose! Oh, wait, that’s not your nose… oh well! We’s just adorable little lumps of critter, aren’t we?
Lovecraft: SON OF A @#%!!
#7 by lyzard on March 1, 2011 - 3:32 pm
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You should have been around when I started getting teary-eyed over the fate of the unspeakable things in The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward.
#8 by Blake on March 1, 2011 - 8:33 pm
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Dear god, Lyz. Why can’t there be MORE women like you who feel this way about cinematic monsters in this world?
#9 by lyzard on March 2, 2011 - 3:54 pm
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Because most women learn, the first time they react like that and see how it makes other people give them that look and start to back away, not to do it again.
I always was a slow learner.
#10 by The Rev. on March 2, 2011 - 4:46 pm
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Most women were led astray, it seems. A woman like that is a treasure, not a freak.
Stupid majority of humanity anyhow.
#11 by Ken on March 2, 2011 - 6:02 pm
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And here I thought it was because most women, and most men, are descended from people who did not find snakes, octopodes, spiders, and tigers cute – because the ones that did find them cute didn’t live long enough to leave descendants. So much for Darwin.
#12 by Read MacGuirtose on March 2, 2011 - 7:13 pm
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One could possibly make that argument for snakes, spiders, and tigers, but octopodes? How many people have been killed by an octopus?
#13 by The Rev. on March 3, 2011 - 1:25 pm
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It entirely depends on whether those people who find them cute are smart enough to enjoy said cuteness from a distance…
#14 by The Rev. on March 2, 2011 - 4:44 pm
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I know, right? *sigh*
#15 by Jen S on March 1, 2011 - 8:08 pm
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Now, that I find adorable.
#16 by lyzard on March 2, 2011 - 7:21 pm
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You’d need to check the stats on the blue-ringed octopus for that – there have certainly been fatalities.
(An Australian animal causing fatalities!? Unheard of!)
#17 by Read MacGuirtose on March 2, 2011 - 7:28 pm
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Fair enough, but then again I’m pretty sure there have been far fewer fatalities due to octopodes than to dogs, and humans don’t seem to be predisposed be averse to canines…
#18 by lyzard on March 2, 2011 - 7:55 pm
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THAT, my friend, is the line I always use against the anti-shark brigade.
#19 by Ken on March 3, 2011 - 8:44 am
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Remember also that the octopus is intelligent and, like the dolphin, only kills humans when it can get away with it. Note how they spend all their time looking innocent, but those eyes are always staring at you…
#20 by Jen S on March 3, 2011 - 12:19 pm
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Helloooooo, human… come closer, closer, into my many arms….HAH! DEATH HUG!
#21 by lyzard on March 3, 2011 - 3:30 pm
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To agree with both Ken and the Rev— Blue-ringed octopuses only DO kill people and only CAN kill people when those people are stupid enough to pick them up and hold them in their hands. There’s your Darwinism for you.
#22 by Ken on March 3, 2011 - 3:57 pm
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Yes, that is why I do not fear the blue-ringed octopus. That, and I’m ten thousand miles away from the Continent of Death and Fosters Beer. Unfortunately, I’m on the same continent as the Pacific Northwest tree octopus, and dread walking in forests lest one drop on me.
#23 by Braineater on March 4, 2011 - 9:39 am
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… says the woman whose first instict is to cuddle a shoggoth.
#24 by lyzard on March 4, 2011 - 3:33 pm
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Now, be fair. I think my only declared intent of immediate cuddling was for the aliens from Warning From Space. Otherwise, the first reaction tends to be waving my fists in tight little circles while making embarrassing squeaking noises.
Which…I guess takes us back to the beginning of this thread, and the issue of why women don’t generally behave like this…
#25 by Ken on March 4, 2011 - 4:07 pm
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I just had a bit of a Lovecraftian “correlation of the mind’s contents”. Take a peek at the aliens from Liz’s review of Warning From Space. Then visit the Unspeakable Vault of Doom at http://www.goominet.com/unspeakable-vault/vault/338/ and look at his rendering of the Elderz, who created the Shoggies.
Coincidence?
#26 by lyzard on March 3, 2011 - 4:00 pm
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While you’re walking in those mountains that The Beginning Of The End teaches us surround Chicago, no doubt.