Colour from the Dark
thang ornithorhynchus
I'm about to lay my hands on Colour from the Dark (2008) which IMDB
reviews suggest is possibly the best HPL movie rendition ever. Anyone
seen it (no spoilers please)?
Cheez
thang
Aaron Vanek
It does have spoilers, but they are mild and I warn you before each
one. If you want to avoid spoilers entirely, read just the top and
bottom of the review;
the words before "MILD SPOILER" and the words after "SPOILERS OVER"
Aaron
Al Smith
> My review of it is here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1318056/usercomments
>
> paragraph, so just read the top and the bottom if you want to avoid
> any spoilers.
>
> Aaron
Sounds interesting. I'll give it a look.
-Al-
thang ornithorhynchus
I just watched it with my wife, who knows who HPL was and has seen the
original Dumwich Horror a long time ago, and that's about it for her.
She tried to watch a bit of Dagon, but neither of could sit through
it, it was so bad. Anyhow, she finished this one and thought it was
ok. She is inclined more towards your review than the following one
on IMDB and she thought the ending was unsatisfactory.
My opinion as a seasoned HPL reader and watcher was that it was much
less than perfect. However, in the vein of HPL, it *was* SF horror
rather than demonism. There was no doubt the colour was a malicious
lifeform, not a devil. For instance, when Pietro pitchforks the
grandfather in the stables, he states, malevolently, "you have no god,
you have no soul". It doesn't have religious overtones at all, the
blasphemies are just that, blasphemies as part of the malevolence.
But, the cliches. The dream sequences melding into more dreams. The
bad SS officer. The Jewess shot and left undiscovered. Home made
doll, bad flourescence...yet strangely, I was fond of it. The
rectangular farmhouse backlit by desolate sunsets and scudding clouds,
straight out of HPL. The nasty muttering by the thing, the ecstacy of
Lucia pulling her cheek apart so the eyeball could be seen, and see,
Pietro's premature grey hair, the unhappy ending...
All in all, worth the watch. I would mark it a little above yours.
The whole problem with movies like this is that HPL is extremely dated
and, in my view, declining in popularity. New forms of expressing his
works and legacy must be found or he will be over, like MR James and
Ambrose Bierce etc were eventually over (their works are admired
still, but no one writes in their style any more).
One other thing, I was interested in your comment that you prefer
other HPL movies to this one. Mind indicating which, might be one
I've missed or maybe need to see again.
thang
Al Smith
> My opinion as a seasoned HPL reader and watcher was that it was much
> less than perfect. However, in the vein of HPL, it *was* SF horror
> rather than demonism. There was no doubt the colour was a malicious
> lifeform, not a devil. For instance, when Pietro pitchforks the
> grandfather in the stables, he states, malevolently, "you have no god,
> you have no soul". It doesn't have religious overtones at all, the
> blasphemies are just that, blasphemies as part of the malevolence.
Don't you see the repeated deliberate desecration of the crucifix as
having religious overtones?
-Al-
Dunwichsouth
> having religious overtones?
Heres a touchy point... Dreams in the Witch House:
Keziah Mason was "Struck with panic" at the sight of Walter Gilman's
cross. I don't know what Lovecraft was thinking when he added that...
But a good story none the less.
thang ornithorhynchus
wrote:
No, I think it was more subtle than that. The director and script
writer would have known in any case HPL genre which generally was
horror SF, broadly speaking. The creature was malignant and part of
its torture of the people it inhabited was the gradual deformation of
all they held dear. Part of that process of torture was sexual
propriety (Pietro was saddled with both sisters unbribled rampant),
their firm Roman Catholicism (hence the spitting on the crucifix, its
melting, stabbing the priest, etc) and their morals (Pietro and Lucia
both became murderers) while - and this is important - they were
forced to realise what they were doing!
Again, as Pietro's world lays in ruins and he murders his friend, he
states to his friend "You have no god, you have no soul". This is the
creatures final torture to both Pietro and his friend as both lay
dying, before Alicia's corpse is reanimated and closes in on the last
survivor.
thang
Al Smith
>> Don't you see the repeated deliberate desecration of the crucifix as
>> having religious overtones?
>
> Heres a touchy point... Dreams in the Witch House:
> Keziah Mason was "Struck with panic" at the sight of Walter Gilman's
> cross. I don't know what Lovecraft was thinking when he added that...
> But a good story none the less.
Keziah grew up as a Christian. The cross brought back old memories
for her.
-Al-
TJ
> On 9/28/2009 5:03 PM, Dunwichsouth wrote:
>
> >> Don't you see the repeated deliberate desecration of the crucifix as
> >> having religious overtones?
>
> > Heres a touchy point... Dreams in the Witch House:
> > Keziah Mason was "Struck with panic" at the sight of Walter Gilman's
> > cross. I don't know what Lovecraft was thinking when he added that...
> > But a good story none the less.
>
> Keziah grew up as a Christian. The cross brought back old memories
> for her.
>
> -Al-
>
did. So what. Y'all have some kind of problem with it, trying to
explain why he did it, or explain it away. That's all due to Dirk
Mosig's influence. Again - mehh. Way too much is made of that,
imo.
I liked Dunwich Horror and Dagon, as you know. I also liked The
Haunted Palace. I watched Haunted Palace years before I ever heard of
HPL - and like The Portrait of Jenny, I never forgot that movie. And
The Dunwich Horror movie got me to get a book with HPL stories, I
found it so interesting. 1st story I read tho, was Call of Cthulhu.
I thought the story Dunwich Horror was eh - my mom thought it was
stupid - mind that she was extremely well read.
Al Smith
Everyone's entitled to an opinion, even our moms.
-Al-
TJ
LOL, well, I didn't like the story much either. I thought the movie
was 100 times better. There are actually a very few stories HPL wrote
that I like, considering all he wrote. There is really no
characterization at all - unless I MAKE one for the characters and
turn it all into fun - and well, I've said it before, the "moods" he
tries to create don't exactly translate to everyone. Or, what the
hell is a blasphemous flute? A flute that plays so out of tune, made
by a tone deaf person, that people with good ears cringe upon hearing
it? Guess so. Nothing spooky about tone deafness - and so forth.
There are people that rave a restaurant with eh or even bleh for food
- because of the "ambiance."
There are people like me that go for the food. Fuck the ambiance. It
means nothing. I don't even notice it unless someone points it out.
And well, whether it's a shoggoth in the water coming at me or a shark
- makes no difference and I can't outswim either. Sharks are very
real. Shoggoths aren't. I love the ocean and swim in it anyway. And
yah, I've seen hammerheads and kept very very still :) And when a
dolphin chances to come VERY close, ya know, I can't tell WHAT it is
until it comes above the water. But I can see its fin. Yah, the
heart just about jumps out of my chest. Yup.
Imo, some dance pals of mine with their schizophrenic son that they
stupidly brought along for the first time the other day - that was
SPOOKY and they really should put the son away before he kills
someone. That's more spooky to me because it's real. Wilbur and his
brother just ain't real. So - therefore I can honestly say that if
Wilbur showed up, I'd invite him to our table. But if these pals show
up with that son again, they are not welcome. No way. Sure I can say
that. Wilbur ain't real.
Dexter. I wonder how many real serial killers watch that (probably
all of them) and get ideas. Heh.
thang ornithorhynchus
I liked only the bit at the end where I remember the protagonist
falling upwards. That stuck and I think I saw it at least 20 30 years
ago. The rest sucked I thought, but I can see how it might be
introductory.
thang
Al Smith
Thing is, though, Lovecraft didn't want to describe the real. A lot
of other people were describing the real, and Lovecraft wasn't
interested in imitating them. He wanted to describe the
extravagantly unreal. Since he was a self-centered and arrogant
soul, that's what he did.
Many readers can't relate to anything much beyond their own everyday
experience. For example, lots of people can't enjoy science fiction
of whatever variety because it is so far removed from their
experience, their imaginations are not up to the task of coping with
it. My sister's that way -- she reads mysteries, thrillers, romance,
best sellers, but never science fiction of any kind.
Lovecraft is always going to be a little bit beyond some readers. He
was a genius. His writing is daringly original. He paid very little
attention to what was expected of a writer in his day. Yet his work
is far above the level of quality of average genre literature. Those
who like it, like it a lot.
I like almost everything Lovecraft wrote in the horror vein. His
other attempts at fiction are weak, to put it mildly. That's because
what he was good at was what he called "cosmic horror" -- he was
good at imagining unusual types of cosmic horror, and at
transmitting them via his short stories. He sucked at character
exposition and development. He sucked at writing action scenes. He
was a bit better when it came to plot. Lovecraft had the good sense
to focus his energies on doing what he was good at. Thankfully, for
those of us who love his work, he didn't try very hard to do what he
was poor at.
-Al-
TJ
>
> Thing is, though, Lovecraft didn't want to describe the real. A lot
> of other people were describing the real, and Lovecraft wasn't
> interested in imitating them. He wanted to describe the
> extravagantly unreal. Since he was a self-centered and arrogant
> soul, that's what he did.
Exactly, but for me, HPL's unreal is entertaining, enjoyable and quite
fun. NOT scary in the least, for me. It never was. OH, I read that
other Hodgson story, the short one, forgot title already. You
suggested it when I mentioned Glenn Carrig. I didn't find it scary or
very interesting (I forgot the title of it!). Glenn Carig is probably
the only story I ever read that seriously spooked me. There is ONE
scene in an Anne Rice novel, Memnoch the Devil, that near made me jump
out of my beach chair and yell out loud :)
>
> Many readers can't relate to anything much beyond their own everyday
> experience. For example, lots of people can't enjoy science fiction
> of whatever variety because it is so far removed from their
> experience, their imaginations are not up to the task of coping with
> it.
I'm not that way at all. I LOVE sci fi - hard core noromo sci fi.
Star Gate series, and etc. That is hard core sci fi. I also like
science. I just do not find it scary if I read it. I thought Dunwich
Horror was an ehh story. But you know the ones I loved. All hard
core sci fi, except for Call of Cthulhu, which I regard as a mystery.
Being able to relate to something is very different from being SCARED
of something. The whole HPL thing for most fans is all about that so
called cosmic horror - the aloneness etc. Well, if a person never
thought the cosmos noticed them since cosmoses are not the types of
things that "notice" then that doesn't work. I'm not a western white
person, Al. I'm also not a male. I know what Euro or the few wasp
kids I ran into (or Irish?) were scared of - I used to be a kid, so I
know. I was just never scared of the same things. I remembering
being 6 and thinking they were stupid kids. Either that, or they were
completely unable to verbally convey WHAT was scary about "going in
the cellar" or whatever - which also, imo, makes them stupid kids.
My sister's that way -- she reads mysteries, thrillers, romance,
> best sellers, but never science fiction of any kind.
>
> Lovecraft is always going to be a little bit beyond some readers.
There is nothing in Dunwich Horror that was beyond me or my mom. I
just think the story is not that good at all and definitely not
scary. Look at the westerners. Now their Big Boo is 2012. When will
they GROW UP? The Mayan, also a professor, is sick and tired of all
this "Western nonsense" stuck onto something he knows quite a lot
about - Mayans.
He
> was a genius. His writing is daringly original. He paid very little
> attention to what was expected of a writer in his day. Yet his work
> is far above the level of quality of average genre literature. Those
> who like it, like it a lot.
I like SOME of his tales, as you should know. You know, just because
you LIKE all of them, or most of them, doesn't mean that they are
"beyond" someone that doesn't care for most or all of them. Some
folks say that Shakespeare is above the and etc etc etc. Well? I'm
not swayed by that at all. I grew up watching sci fi, some seriously
HEAVY sci fi - long before I ever heard of HPL. I can't go back in
time and erase all the heavy sci fi - and actual science - that I knew
and read HPL as if that didn't exist.
>
> I like almost everything Lovecraft wrote in the horror vein. His
> other attempts at fiction are weak, to put it mildly.
?? The only stories I know that HPL wrote were all in Arkham House
books. I liked the mythos stories, most of them. Pickman was OK -
but you know I guessed the ending before the punch line came. Sooo.
That's because
> what he was good at was what he called "cosmic horror" -- he was
> good at imagining unusual types of cosmic horror, and at
> transmitting them via his short stories.
Al, what you and everyone else is calling cosmic HORROR - I find
cosmic, but not horror. I have to wonder if anyone reads serious
science and finds horror in there. I would imagine they WOULD, if
they understood what they were reading.
He sucked at character
> exposition and development.
Yes, but I tended to MAKE characters as I read. That's what Burleson
and others understood as "the reader also writes the tale, along with
the original author."
> He sucked at writing action scenes.
Ok, but when he said "riot" well, I lived through one of those. He
didn't have to write the action. Some of that stuff in SoI was very
very close to home - I had just LIVED THRU it - only it wasn't Deep
Ones :) I had no problem "seeing" any of the many the scenes in CoC.
I think he's quite good at that with the mythos tales and maybe a FEW
other tales I thought were OK (like ones I guessed the punch lines
in). I thought that was quite good (it's my favorite story, you
know).
The thing is, and I've said it before, when the "boys" got hold of it,
after reading the story about 20 times, they "realized" that Castro's
testimony was invalid. They had a fight with Lumley whose characters
always relied on Castro, who said "but HPL SAID this." It was an all
out war going on, it ruined the fun and good nature that prevailed
before the "boys" got their hands on it. None of them thought that
the things LeGrasse said were in doubt. WHY NOT? You see, as I read
that story, Al, I knew that LaFitte was a very real person (and yeah,
HPL PUT THAT in there). When the descendents of LaFitte's men are
being kidnappened - that's a pattern - with a motive. Why didn't the
cop pick up on it - or if he did, why not tell that to Thurston? 1.
shitty cops or 2. he lied. Was Castro insane? Or did he pretend to
be insane to get off the death penalty? Did he tell the cops the
truth considering he was tortured, (his confession EXTRACTED from him
HPL said extracted). And so forth. I didn't have to read the story
20 times to pick up on any of that. I got it the first time I read
it. I read carefully. I also read analytically.
He
> was a bit better when it came to plot. Lovecraft had the good sense
> to focus his energies on doing what he was good at. Thankfully, for
> those of us who love his work, he didn't try very hard to do what he
> was poor at.
I like SOME of his stories, as I said.
>
> -Al-- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Al Smith
> Hey there, see in. Got some time here :) Snipping much.
>> Thing is, though, Lovecraft didn't want to describe the real. A lot
>> of other people were describing the real, and Lovecraft wasn't
>> interested in imitating them. He wanted to describe the
>> extravagantly unreal. Since he was a self-centered and arrogant
>> soul, that's what he did.
>
> Exactly, but for me, HPL's unreal is entertaining, enjoyable and quite
> fun. NOT scary in the least, for me. It never was. OH, I read that
> other Hodgson story, the short one, forgot title already. You
> suggested it when I mentioned Glenn Carrig. I didn't find it scary or
> very interesting (I forgot the title of it!). Glenn Carig is probably
> the only story I ever read that seriously spooked me. There is ONE
> scene in an Anne Rice novel, Memnoch the Devil, that near made me jump
> out of my beach chair and yell out loud :)
Do you like Asian horror? How about "The Grudge?" That's scared the
stuffing out of me. I'm talking about the remake with Sarah Michelle
Gellar, not the original Japanese film which I haven't yet seen. The
remake of "The Ring" was also very frightening when I first watched it.
We northern European types are very closely in touch with the weird.
It talks to us on a deep level. The unseen can become very real to us.
-Al-
TJ
> On 10/11/2009 9:47 PM, TJ wrote:
>
> > Hey there, see in. Got some time here :) Snipping much.
> >> Thing is, though, Lovecraft didn't want to describe the real. A lot
> >> of other people were describing the real, and Lovecraft wasn't
> >> interested in imitating them. He wanted to describe the
> >> extravagantly unreal. Since he was a self-centered and arrogant
> >> soul, that's what he did.
>
> > Exactly, but for me, HPL's unreal is entertaining, enjoyable and quite
> > fun. NOT scary in the least, for me. It never was. OH, I read that
> > other Hodgson story, the short one, forgot title already. You
> > suggested it when I mentioned Glenn Carrig. I didn't find it scary or
> > very interesting (I forgot the title of it!). Glenn Carig is probably
> > the only story I ever read that seriously spooked me. There is ONE
> > scene in an Anne Rice novel, Memnoch the Devil, that near made me jump
> > out of my beach chair and yell out loud :)
>
> Do you like Asian horror? How about "The Grudge?" That's scared the
> stuffing out of me.
I didn't like it, and I didn't find it scary. Didn't like the Ring
either. I think you scare easily :)
I'm talking about the remake with Sarah Michelle
> Gellar, not the original Japanese film which I haven't yet seen. The
> remake of "The Ring" was also very frightening when I first watched it.
>
> We northern European types are very closely in touch with the weird.
> It talks to us on a deep level. The unseen can become very real to us.
Uh, well, what you northern European types tend to call weird, is
normal for us Central Asian types a lot of times. I don't scare
easily, I've said it before. Grudge and Ring tended to have "BOO"
quality - like how when people hide and you walk in a room and you
don't expect it and someone says boo. I never used to jump. LOL. Oh
well. I'm hard to sneak up on, too. I just know that even as a kid,
things that made kids run screaming out of a place didn't tend to
bother me - I'd go look what was up - usually armed with something.
Try waking up in the morning to find the new baby with its face chewed
off. Scary? Oh, we knew exactly what did it. Nobody had to see what
did it.
The unseen can be very real to a great many types of people - but
that's not the same as being scared of it. The two shouldn't be
equated.
I remember ol Reza telling a story to me and other kids that was
supposed to alleviate everyone's fear after seeing some horror movie I
don't remember and then there being some wacked guy doing things to
people at gunpoint after kidnapping them to somewhere in trunk of his
car (that was real). Combined with the horror movie - all the kids
were spooked. Well, talk about a barrage of fuming parents hailing
down on us for scaring the shit out of their kids so bad that they
were wetting the bed and couldn't sleep alone with lights out
anymore. And what Reza told them was supposed to alleviate the fear.
Worked for me. Not for them.
>
> -Al-
Al Smith
>> Do you like Asian horror? How about "The Grudge?" That's scared the
>> stuffing out of me.
>
> I didn't like it, and I didn't find it scary. Didn't like the Ring
> either. I think you scare easily :)
>
I am the nervous type.
-Al-
TJ
Ah, OK. I got time :) I have a beach pal that FREAKS, nervous wreck,
even before she gets to the doctor's office. She got some abnormal
liver test a few months back. Well, she used to be quite overweight,
big bulging belly. She lost it all so much she's now underweight.
THAT is how scared she was. If you guess that I can't fathom this,
you are right. I've had abnormal results plenty of times. So I get
it checked out, when I have time. And I SHOULD know better than to be
that way - after all, I worked in epi.
I'm not the nervous type at all, and I really don't scare easily at
all. Then again, I know, for 20 years of it, what it's like to live
and have to go to work in pure hell. Nobody should have to walk to a
bus and see 4 severed heads facing East. Or know that down the block,
the little boy had his penis cut off in the park. Or another little
boy beaten bloody and his bike stolen. Or see a person's head blown
off 1 foot away. Or have to shoot someone. Or knife someone. Or see
their mother raped and mugged and never the same again. Or always be
armed and ready. Like in some war zone overseas, exactly like that.
And so forth. Those things, Al, they are SCARY. Gov. is supposed to
protect citizens. Nope. When the mobs were making the cities
dangerous, the people demanded the gov. fix that. It got fixed. But
not this time around. Terrorists roamed the streets and it was OK.
They weren't called terrorists. They should have been called that.
If I read "Shadow Over Innsmouth" and tuned into the "really way too
close to home" in that story, I'd hate Lovecraft and never read any of
that stuff again. So, I tend to put a happy turn on the tale. Make
fun out of it. "Hey, lets JOIN the EOD." "It's like the Mafia." The
ending is quite happy - he goes in wonder and glory to the ocean.
That story was so close to reality that my brother couldn't finish it
and refused to try again. He didn't even get so far as to find out
that THEY weren't humans at all. He got up to the hotel escape and
running thru town - that was enough. Way too close to reality. He
started to feel like he wanted to start killing people in vengeance,
so he put the book down. Another person we knew, a guy, had the same
experiences and got just as far in the tale. He started to feel the
fear he felt in real life when something very similar happened. And
he gave it up.
About movies. Sure, lots of them have BOO factor - plus the music is
there and all. Like "Back Street" - the last one of that movie made
(Susan Hayward, John Gavin), it's cry-your-eyes-out-for-hours sad -
WITH the music. And I'm not a romantic. Males cried their eyes out
when I showed them the movie. It's REALLY freaking sad. But in real
life, people I have known that were dumb enough to end up in
situations like that, didn't get an inch of sympathy from me. I
thought they were fools. So there is a huge difference, watching a
movie on screen, great actors, great music - and boo hoo hoo for
hours. But real life? "Oh, what idiots those people are." LOL. Now,
reading a story in a book, the same story "Back Street." I have no
idea how that would come off, but I can guess that it would come off
to me more like real life could come off "these characters are stupid
fools." It's not visual, there is no music. Anne Rice wrote
something in the 2nd Witches book that had me sobbing so bad I
couldn't see the text and had to put the book down for a while. She
pulled that off.
Movies, visual and with the music, are nothing like reading books.
Lots of movies have BOO factor. That Wes Craven movie I raved -
"They". I would not watch Grudge or Ring again, I really thought
those movies sucked and barely remember them. But I did watcn "THEY"
again. But in real life when I've heard noises like that (heard in
"They") - usually my hair doesn't stand up on end so I know it's
raccoon, cat, maybe snake, dog, perhaps something really dangerous (as
when I first moved here, it was the middle of the woods). If my hair
stands up on end (this has to be instinct), then I KNOW it's a rodent
- mouse or rat. And it always is. Lately people around where I am
have been having encounters with a brown bear, LOL. Well, actually
that's not LOL. Could be lethal. Further South of me, coyotes
attacked dogs, even dog on leash after it knocked over the man walking
it. Coyote made off with the dog. Ate it. Panthers too. Panther
lept over fence and ate someone's dog. Lucky it wasn't a child
playing back there. But if a rat or mouse makes a noice, my hair
literally stands up on end - that has to be instinct. Why that
doesn't happen when panther is prowling around, I don't know. Snake
in drain pipe didn't phase me either - I let it live there if it
wanted to stay there. It took an alligator to kill a woman for people
in Sanibel to get guns out and start shooting them. Can't have
alligators living where there is civilization and lots of people.
Finally, they realized that - DUHHHHH.
You know, that story of that guy Klug or Krug - I wrote something in
Cthulhu Cultus about it - a one or two page account of the bare facts,
since it was SERIOUSLY mythosish - that was a true story - that
happened about 30 minutes from me, next to a dance club I go to.
Carol Price asked me if I went there to check it out. I said HELL no
- tons of fire ants are there. LOL. It's all low shrub stuff there,
almost impossible to walk in. I'm familiar with the area and have
seen it. Something scared the bejesus out of the guy, a tourist - and
he first started running from a tent he was in yelling about big
worms. Next, he drove off in his car, not far from the club I go to.
They found the car, his wallet, too. He went missing for 3 days and
helicoptors with high tech equipment searched, dogs searched - he was
GONE. Then the guy shows up cringing 50 feet away from where they
found his car, cringing to a fence there, half naked and in shock, I
think dehydrated too. What the fuck? Nobody knows what happened -
but where the hell was he? In the hospital, he wouldn't talk, he just
wanted to go home. Wherever he was, he was on bare feet. Helicopters
with high tech equipment and DOGS could not find him. DOGS! The
reason they got all that high tech stuff out for the search was that
in Miami, vacation there was getting a bad rep due to the local human
garbage doing things like setting tourists on fire. You know. So -
SW Florida did NOT want a bad rep with tourism. I'd like to know what
he saw in his tent!
Anyway - reading about a shoggoth is definitely not the same thing as
seeing one on film. That's what I meant by "I'm in the ocean, it
doesn't matter WHAT's after me if it's lethal. I'm dead since I can't
outswim it." That's how it comes off when I READ something like
that. But films - a movie, that's different. Maybe for shoggoth
"Caltiki the Immortal Monster." Ok, that was a scary movie! SHIT
when it came up out of that pond - and remember the SOUND EFFECTS?
Did you ever see that? Oh yeah, that did it. Scary! I can STILL
remember that sound. When I read about shoggoth, not sure whose
description of one, I thought about Caltiki. But there went Bob Price
for an eg, "what was so scary about that, 3rd world flame throwers
were used against it" and so forth and so on. UGH. It WAS a scary
movie. Period. So then, using that logic, what's so scary about a
shoggoth?
Some of the most COSMIC stuff I've ever seen was on SciDiscovery
channel, about the cosmos and physics. And just what MIGHT they make
with that latest collider they're building? Maybe a small black
hole? Hawkings doesn't think so - but is he 100% positive? LOL.
See what I mean? HPL wrote about some cosmic stuff that seriously
reminded me of a black hole - HPL being ahead of his time but also
known to have listened in on science lectures at Brown U, right? But
when I read HPL, I knew what a black hole was. HPL had the Color out
of Space vanishing in a black hole near Deneb (paraphrasing). Did he
KNOW there really was a black hole near Deneb? Understand, when I
read the story, I knew there was a real black hole there. :) I'm
pretty sure that HPL did not MEAN "black hole" the way I READ "black
hole." See?
I remember Outer Limits when it was first on, the old BW episodes and
a lot of that was heavy. Some of that was what I'd call haunting. It
didn't have BOO factor. "The Creeping Unknown" was haunting - you had
to listen to what they said and pay attention - there wasn't much to
see in that movie. Also haunting, imo.
I think my classifications are different. Cosmic WOW (good feeling).
Cosmic awe (also good feeling). Same as the feeling when there is a
BEAUTIFUL sunset here. Same feeling. Then there is Haunting
(uncertain feeling, it stays with you, makes you ponder things) - and
haunting doesn't have to be a sci fi or horror movie at all. It can
be drama. BOO factor. HPL's mythos tales, which are the ones I like
and remember, are all wow and awe. Wonderful ideas. Beautiful,
even!
That is how I've already felt about these, from the first reading.
HE was terrified of quantum leaps - that doesn't mean the readers are
going to be terrified of that. Lo and behold, all of a sudden the
Yith race are good guys? Wait a minute, did people read the same
story I read? Quantum leaping doesn't scare me, but what the Yithians
were doing was seriously bad shit. And sure enough, Quantum Leap was
not a horror show. What terrified or horrified HPL, might not do that
to a reader. It might seem beutiful, wonderful, put a smile on the
face, like WOW. HPL might have found "Sea Quest" or even "Sea Hunt" a
horror show - seems like he would. What would HPL do in a theater
showing "Jaws?" Probably have a nervous breakdown. THAT was a
horrific movie, but it didn't keep me out of the ocean. I already
knew sharks were there :) BUT - I also know about car accidents - and
I have a car. See how I mean?
When I say, and I've said it before, that HPL was talking about my
cultural deity in "haunter of the Dark" - and now a professor of
theology agrees - well? Sure that's not gonna be scary to me.
Northern Buddhism isn't supposed to scare people. LOL. But where did
HPL get that from? Some book? He claimed it was a dream. The dream
"Nyarlathotep" seems like it can be summarized by calling it "the Pied
Piper appears and lures people to oblivion." The void? That's
mentioned a LOT in N. Buddhism, when said in English. The Void. My
question is, WHY would that be scary? I also wonder WHY death is
scary, mostly to western people. I understand pain or severe injury
is scary, you don't want that, no no. But is anyone scared of going
to sleep? HPL woke up so horrified by that dream that he wrote half
the story still sleeping and could barely get the horror of it down on
paper. But where is the horror? Pied Piper lures people into..... a
phony war in Iraq? Vietnam? Is that LESS spooky? The way I read the
tale, they vanish into the void. OK. Not spooky. They cease to
exist. At least they don't come back with legs blown off or some
other awful thing.
> -Al-
TJ
Lord have mercy. This is a good HPLian film? My review of it: IT
SUCKS. It is B O R I N G times 100. But I can also see HOW they'd get
THAT out of the story HPL wrote. Ugh.
marika
"TJ" <tj...@post.com> wrote in message
news:04c034f0-aecf-4e94...@m11g2000yqf.googlegroups.com...
I have to ask, was he on Lake Michigan, hallucinating, and actually
talking to the Tool Time guy ? Because the method of extraction was the
same
I only ask becauase Michigan native and television personality Tim Allen
voiced two radio
and three television commercials that promote golf, water related
vacations and a trail-themed spot that promotes hiking, beach strolls
and museum visits. Currently under production are two additional
television ads that feature urban dining and nightlife and outdoor
activity. Four print ads and outdoor billboards focus on golf,
outdoor activity and lakes. All ads carry the tag line: Pure
Michigan - Your trip begins at michigan.org.Michigan.org, Travel
Michigan's Internet gateway to travel information, features more
than 11,000 attractions, events, hotels, resorts, restaurants and
other tourism-related businesses.
http://www.michigan.org/PressReleases/Detail.aspx?ContentId=A20DF0E3-4DEC-411D-B5DC-A3B2132A78B7
King Rat
recommend, my co-host that day didn't like it. The review has a few
spoilers, but tried not to gove too much away. It's one I will probably
watch again, but the CGI was distracting in some places, and I felt the
anti-christian sybolism was a little out of place, but then again, what are
the characters going to turn to but their religion when all else fails. My
2 cents.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/douchecast5000
--
http://www.jafmp.com/
"thang ornithorhynchus" <th...@spitzola.com.org.net> wrote in message
news:io8jb5lqpgo0rdvnn...@4ax.com...