>It’s News to Me!

>While browsing through Comcast’s OnDemand service, I discovered that the “Preferred Collection” menu (found in both the “Free Movies” and “Premium Channels” sections) contains free movies that aren’t listed in any of the other movie categories. If you want to see films like Curse of the Demon and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, I highly recommend it!

Thanks to laughingsquid on Twitter, I found out that somebody made a fire-breathing Godzilla snow sculpture.

In other Godzilla news, IDW Publishing has worked out a deal with Toho to publish a comic book called Godzilla: Monster World. The comic, which will be released next month, will also feature appearances by other monsters from the Godzilla franchise! Licensing issues prevented that from happening in the Marvel and Dark Horse Godzilla comic book series, although this will not be the first time an original American comic book will feature other Toho monsters. That honor goes to Trendmasters’ one-shot comic book, although it would have happened sooner if Atlas Comics’ proposed Godzilla series had ever been realized. Hardcore fans will note that the promotional Godzilla vs. Megalon comic doesn’t count since it was a loose film adaptation rather than an all-new adventure.

Your dreams have come true…there is an Alien Pez dispenser.

The Warner Archive has released an official DVD-R of the rare Rankin-Bass/Tsuburaya Productions giant turtle movie, The Bermuda Depths. It’s right up there with Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and Legends of the Super Heroes in terms of highly sought after video rarities released by the Archive.

Someone is actually making a sequel to The Killer Shrews. I hope they either call it “Shrew Fast Shrew Furious” or The Killer Shrews: The Squeakquel.

The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, best known to readers of this site as the makers of The Shadow Over Innsmouth audio drama and the “Scary Solstice” CD series, have announced that their film adaptation of “Whisperer in the Darkness” will premiere at this year’s H.P. Lovecraft film festival. Those booking a room at the Crowne Plaza Hotel to attend the festival should use the code “HPL” before checkout in order to get a nifty discount. For more information, please visit its official Facebook group and/or the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society Facebook group. Oddly enough, that last group posted a picture of a fungi-infected spider that nicely illustrates the sort of head structure Lovecraft intended for the Mi-Go of the story the film is based on.

Also on the Lovecraft front, Bang! Productions Ltd. and Colin Edwards have completed an audio movie version of Lovecraft story “The Dunwich Horror.” Although the concept of audio movies predates this adaptation, it does seem to be the first drama-style audio movie that is in 5.1 sound and plays in theaters (as opposed to “direct to CD/MP3” release). For more information, please visit the official website.

Finally, I’d like to announce that we have some updates coming to the site this year. Gravedigger’s Local 16 is in the process of being redesigned and moved to a new server. We’re also in the process of adding images to older articles. Although we originally only intended to add cover scans to old reviews, we’ve also been toying with the idea of putting pictures in other articles. Please let us know what you think of this, or anything else you would like to see here, by contacting the Front Office. While you’re writing, please feel free to discuss your favorite podcasts, as we’re in the process of creating an official Gravedigger’s Local 16 podcast with music, stories and more! More will be posted about this as it develops…

Tales of Cthulhu

Cthulhu is an interesting case in the world of horror literature. Although easily the most popular of Lovecraft’s creations, so much so that the Lovecraftian interconnected literary universe is referred to as the Cthulhu mythos, he actually doesn’t make many actual appearances in the bulk of mythos tales. In H.P. Lovecraft’s original stories, Cthulhu only appears once in “The Call of Cthulhu,” then is only referenced in other stories. The closest thing to another physical appearance is the account of the star-spawn of Cthulhu’s battles with the Elder Things in “At the Mountains of Madness.”

The reason for Cthulhu’s scarcity is most likely due to both Lovecraft’s preference to suggest horror rather than show it outright and the phrase “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.” Those who have read the “The Call of Cthulhu” know that it means which translates as “In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.” As a being who can only awaken “when the stars are right” to destroy the world as humanity knows it, it makes little sense to have Cthulhu constantly awakening. Having a human protagonist repeatedly defeat him would destroy all sense of the Great Old One’s menace and having Cthulhu fulfill his destroy would drastically reduce the amount of stories that could be written in the same universe. No, it is far better to have Cthulhu wait silently in the background, as the idea of his rising is far more frightening than a story about it could ever be.

That said, Cthulhu is a very impressive monster and the temptation to use him in a story must be enormous for Mythos writers. Many have picked up where Lovecraft left off, with stories ranging from straight horror to pure comedy. One of the more infamous ones is August Derleth’s “The Black Island,” wherein an atomic bomb is dropped on Cthulhu! Although that tale is sadly unavailable online, I have gathered a nice little collection of other stories that involve Cthulhu in one way or the other:

“From the Parchments of Pnom” by Clark Ashton Smith is more of a description of the contents of a fictional book than it is a story, but it does offer some insights on Cthulhu, including a family tree!

Although sadly incomplete, the preview for Ian Watson’s “The Walker in the Cemetery” is enough to whet the reader’s interest. Like all the stories in the Cthulu’s Reign anthology, “The Walker in the Cemetery” deals with what happens to the world after Cthulhu rises. However, this story is unique in its depiction of Cthulhu. Not only does it feature multiple aspects of Cthulhu in various sizes, but a seven foot tall one traps a bunch of tourists in a never-ending Genoan cemetery and starts to slowly pick them off. Just keep in mind that it comes off more as a 80’s European gore movie (with some Rose of Iron thrown in for good measure) rather than a straight Lovecraft story.

Nick Mamatas’ full-length novel Move Under Ground also deals with Cthulhu’s awakening, this time done in Jack Kerouac’s Beat style. In fact, Kerouac is one of the main characters!

Neil Gaiman takes things in a more humorous direction in “I, Cthulhu.” In it, Cthulhu tells his life story to a servant with a very familiar last name.

“A Colder War” by Charles Stross takes us to an alternate version of the Cold War, one where the Russians have a secret weapon from a sunken undersea city…

Although Cthulhu only has a minor appearance of sorts in Bruce Turlish’s “The Final Pronunciation,” the importance of it cannot be denied and it has dire consequences for everyone involved (although not in the way one would expect).

Did you like the artwork used at the beginning of this article? It’s by a very talented artist named Cyril van der Haegen and has been used on the box art for the Call of Cthulhu Collectible Card Game published by Fantasy Flight Games. Both Fantasy Flight Games and the artist were kind enough to let me use that painting in this and if you like it, I hope that you’ll at least visit their websites (if not buy a copy of the game). Interestingly enough, said card game has “story cards” in it, which could potentially let players create their own tales of Cthulhu…

Thanks to Fantasy Flight Games and Cyril van der Haegen for use of the image!

We Wish You a Mythos Christmas

The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society has given the world a ton of cool Lovecraft-themed goodies, from the modern silent movie version of The Call of Cthulhu to the “Dark Adventure Radio Theatre” audio drama series (as covered in my review of The Shadow Over Innsmouth installment). They’ve even released not one, not three, but two Christmas albums! Both A Very Scary Solstice and An Even Scarier Solstice are chock-full of creeped up Christmas classics and the only thing scarier than the subject matter is just how good the singing is! But don’t take my word for it, just check out this fanmade video for “I Saw Mommy Kissing Yog-Sothoth” from A Very Scary Solstice by aabeeceed.

As if that wasn’t enough, the HPLHS also has a page with free sheet music and clips from the albums!

Merry Christmas!