Three More Horrors

 

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019): Based on a popular series of children's books compiled by Alvin Schwartz, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark often shows its origins in an unconnected compilation of traditional ghost stories, anecdotes, Hallowe'en games, and the occasional plot synopsis of a work of fiction. 

Things drag occasionally over the first hour but pick up over the last 40 minutes with a terrific sequence in a hospital and another running from the police station to the haunted mansion to close the film. Produced by Guillermo del Toro, who also  co-wrote the screen story. Nixon's 1968 presidential victory and the Viet Nam war run as real-world horrors in counterpoint to the supernatural ones plaguing the teenagers in the movie. Lightly recommended.

Host (2020): In this Shudder original, several socially distancing friends decide to hold a seance over Zoom. Hilarity ensues. One of the first Covid-19 horror movies released, Host is short (less than an hour) and to the point. 15 years ago, it was difficult to believe that people would continue to hold cameras on themselves and others while crazy shit went on. Now, it's entirely plausible, thanks in part to the smartphone and to a general uptick in our camera-obsessed culture. A very enjoyable horror movie. Recommended.

Constantine (2005): Very, very loosely based on the DC Comics supernatural investigator/mage created by Steve Bissette, John Totleben, Alan Moore, and Rick Veitch and developed by Jamie Delano and John Ridgway. 

Constantine is now an American based in LA rather than a Liverpudlian based mainly in London. A few character names remain. The supernatural stuff is almost entirely reworked. Somehow it's still enjoyable for all that, with some surprisingly weird CGI used to depict the world of demons, angels, and the supernatural. Because the Matrix series had already been a big hit, Constantine now uses supernatural shotguns and flamethrowers when he battles demons as well as the more traditional spells and sigils. 

Keanu Reeves is fine as John Constantine, as written, and Rachel Weisz manages an OK American accent as a somewhat improbable LA cop. The real showstoppers are Tilda Swinton as the Archangel Gabriel and Peter Stormare as Satan. But they could have just called this movie pretty much anything -- well, except for the fact that Time Warner owned the rights to the characters. At one point, Nicolas Cage was attached to play Constantine, which would have been a whole other level of weird. Recommended.

Godzilla, Godzilla, Dean Martin

Godzilla vs. Mecha-Godzilla (1974): The penultimate Godzillaverse movie in the original Toho Studios run demonstrates that old adage about history beginning as tragedy, returning as comedy, and ending in farce. 

Aliens send a giant robot Godzilla to conquer the Earth. Godzilla teams up with kaiju King Caesar, some scientists, and Interpol to save the world. King Caesar is easily the worst kaiju Toho ever created, a sort of cross between a lizard, a Muppet, and a team mascot. Godzilla demonstrates another new power, generating a massive magnetic field. Well, why not? Lightly recommended.

Terror of Mecha-Godzilla (1975): Original Godzilla director Ishiro Honda returns for this final entry in the original Toho series. That makes for a decent finalé, with Godzilla even strolling off into the sunset at the end, sort of. There's a bit too much Interpol vs. the Space Aliens action in this one which may have contributed to its series-ending low box office. 

Along with a resurrected Mecha-Godzilla, the undersea-dwelling Titanosaurus also battles Godzilla under the control of the aliens and a misanthropic human scientist and his alien-resurrected cyborg daughter. This last leads to a scientist-hero telling the woman, "I don't care if you're a cyborg, I still love you." Shakespeare, eat your heart out! Lightly recommended.

The Wrecking Crew (Matt Helm 4) (1968): Sharon Tate is pretty much the only reason to watch this unfunny, boring yet fascinating mess -- fascinating mainly because Mike Myers drew a lot of inspiration for the Austin Powers movies from the Matt Helm series, including Dean Martin's cover job as a fashion photographer. When someone says movies today are bad and overly parts of serials, make them watch this. And it's purportedly better than Matt Helms 2, 3, 5, and the TV series!!! Not recommended.

Horror Movies Seen As Pithy Life Lessons

• Phantasm: Don't have sex in a cemetery at night.
• The Night of the Living Dead: Frankly, just avoid cemeteries altogether.
• Dracula: Beware of illegal immigrants.
• Frankenstein: Early childhood education is vitally important to the development of a child.
• The Exorcist: Don't become a Roman Catholic priest: Low pay, high mortality rate.
• The Nightmare on Elm Street series: Don't take justice into your own hands, especially if it involves burning an alleged felon to death.
• The Friday the 13th series: Don't have pre-marital sex.
• The Hallowe'en series: Seriously, don't have pre-marital sex.
• Cujo: Have your pet regularly vaccinated for rabies and other diseases.
• The Omen: The Italian health-care system is a mess.
• The Invasion of the Body Snatchers: Home gardening can be a life-changer.
• The Day of the Triffids: Green energy is bad.
• Gremlins: Have your pets spayed or neutered.
• Pet Sematary: If you have young children, don't live close to a road.

Darker Companions: Celebrating 50 Years of Ramsey Campbell (2017)

Darker Companions: Celebrating 50 Years of Ramsey Campbell (2017): edited by Scott David Aniolowski and Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. : Excellent tribute anthology paying homage to the lengthy career of horror master and noted Liverpudlian Ramsey Campbell. Stephen King compared the experience of reading Campbell to being on LSD way back in 1981's Danse Macabre. 40 years later, Campbell continues to write -- and he'd been published for 17 years before Danse Macabre.  

The editors encouraged stories reflecting on Campbell's different periods, from his early Lovecraftian pastiches to later forays into X-rated horror, kitchen-sink dread, psychological horror, and many other modes. 

A couple of humourous, meta-fictional stories break up the often grim proceedings, none grimmer than Cody Goodfellow's "This Last Night in Sodom." The title is a nod to Soft Cell, the only soft thing about the story. All of the stories are good-to-excellent. Steve Rasnic Tem offers the closest thing to a pitch-perfect exercise in emulating Campbell's mature style. Other stand-outs include stories by Thana Niveau, Adam Nevill, Lynda Rucker, and Michael Wehunt. Highly recommended.

Cutting Edge (1986): edited by Dennis Etchison

Cutting Edge (1986): edited by Dennis Etchison: Contains the following stories:

Blue Rose by Peter Straub; The Monster by Joe Haldeman; Lacunae by Karl Edward Wagner; "Pale, Trembling Youth" by W. H. Pugmire and Jessica Amanda Salmonson; Muzak for Torso Murders by Marc Laidlaw; Goodbye, Dark Love by Roberta Lannes; Out There by Charles L. Grant; Little Cruelties by Steve Rasnic Tem; The Man With the Hoe by George Clayton Johnson; They're Coming for You by Les Daniels; Vampire by Richard Christian Matheson; Lapses by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro; The Final Stone by William F. Nolan; Irrelativity by Nicholas Royle; The Hands by Ramsey Campbell; The Bell by Ray Russell; Lost Souls by Clive Barker; Reaper by Robert Bloch; The Transfer by Edward Bryant; and Pain by Whitley Strieber.


Excellent mid-1980's original horror anthology edited by Dennis Etchison, one of horror's greatest short-story writers. Stand-outs include "The Monster," a rare foray into horror from Joe Haldeman (The Forever War, Forever Peace) that embeds its supernatural horror in Viet Nam. 

There's also a superior tale of religious angst and the common fear of getting lost in Ramsey Campbell's "The Hands." Les Daniels journeys into short fiction for a weirdly hilarious take on EC Comics-style ghostly vengeance, "They're Coming for You." Chelsea Quinn Yarbro offers a disturbing tale of disintegrating memories and consciousness in "Lapses." In all, a solid anthology with very few misfires. Highly recommended.

If It Bleeds (2020) by Stephen King

If It Bleeds (2020) by Stephen King: Stephen King returns to the four-novella volume he previously explored in Different Seasons (1982), Four Past Midnight (1990), and Full Dark, No Stars (2010). I think it's a stronger quartet than Four Past Midnight but not quite as good as Full Dark, No Stars and definitely not as good as the excellent Different Seasons. 

That last one yielded three movies from three of its novellas (Stand by Me from "The Body," Apt Pupil from "Apt Pupil," and The Shawshank Redemption from "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption"), while the fourth, still-unadapted novella is an above-average 'Club Story' ("The Breathing Method").

Onwards!

"Mr. Hannigan's Phone": Childhood nostalgia meets The Twilight Zone, as in "this is the most Twilight Zoney novella here!".  King manages to tweak an already-overused horror trope that started with telephones and moved on to cellphones. Bittersweet dark fantasy more than horror.

"The Life of Chuck": A backwards-moving triptych of linked stories exploring the title subject. Again, this is bittersweet and more than a little elegiac.

"If It Bleeds": Private investigator Holly Gibney of the Bill Hodges Trilogy and The Outsider returns to battle another supernatural menace. This is a horror thriller, enlivened by both the concept and by the always engaging Holly, who keeps her personal demons at bay while battling another monster hiding in human form. or forms. 

"Rat": King returns to exploring the lives of writers, in this case a man who not only has never finished a novel but was driven nearly insane by his last attempt to do so. We return to the unincorporated townships and fishing cottages of Maine, and an unexpected visitor with more than a bit of Monkey's Paw DNA.

Overall: Not much horror here, but certainly a worthwhile read. Recommended.

The Art of Self-Defense (2019)

The Art of Self-Defense (2019): written and directed by Riley Stearns; starring Jesse Eisenberg (Casey), Alessandro Nivola (Sensei), and Imogen Poots (Anna): Extremely off-beat drama-comedy in which nebbishy Jesse Eisenberg starts learning karate after being mugged, in turn falling under the spell of the weird, initially charismatic Sensei of his dojo. 

The film successfully navigates a line between satiric comedy and Taxi Driver-style revenge fantasy. Eisenberg is pitch-perfect as Casey before and after gaining confidence. 

Alessandro Nivola is also good as the Sensei. Imogen Poots does solid work as well as the best student in the dojo, one who nonetheless never gets promoted to Black Belt despite the obvious superiority of her skills. Perhaps most impressive of all is that writer-director Riley Stearns nails the ending. Highly recommended.

Plagues of the Past: The Ghost Map

The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic – and How it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World (2006) by Steven Berlin Johnson: Engaging, sweeping examination of England's last major cholera outbreak in London's Broad Street neighbourhood near Soho in 1854, and how two men ensured that England would never suffer from a cholera outbreak again. Medical Doctor John Snow and Anglican curate Henry Whitehead, both of whom lived near the outbreak, would form a somewhat unlikely Dynamic Duo whose detective work and scientific acumen would convince the medical and civil authorities of London that cholera was a disease spread by contaminated water and not, as then-standard wisdom had it, by 'miasmic' gases.

Much of the book is marvelous and humane, explaining the rise of cholera to being one of the world's great killers over the course of the last 200 years. Along the way, The Ghost Map also delves into the development of epidemiology, safe sewer and water-supply systems, and the toxic Social Darwinism that helped blind Victorian England to the true cause of cholera in its cities. The book also offers a tour through London's underground economy of night-soil men and cat-meat men and coster-mongers and 'pure' collectors (pure was a euphemism for dog shit), and their roles in keeping the 'above-ground' world running.

You'll also visit the horrifying cess-pits and cesspools and streets of 1854 London. You'll discover why alcohol, tea, and coffee were all integral to the urbanization of the world. But mostly you'll deal with these two heroes of science and rationality, Snow and Whitehead, as they individually and then dually seek an answer to the Broad Street Outbreak. 

Only in the last 20 pages or so does Johnson waver, as he suddenly takes the book so wide as to attempt to convince the reader that the world will be a better, more environmentally friendly place when everyone lives in cities (not suburbs -- cities proper). It feels like the beginning of a different book, one whose enthusiasm for urban living and disdain for rural living comes gushing straight out of its author and onto the page. All it really lacks is the line, "Since the beginning of time, man has longed to evacuate the countryside!".

But other than the writer's book-derailing, evangelical rant about the Great Goodness of Cities, The Ghost Map is terrific, informative, sad, and hopeful. Lift your glass of clean drinking water to Snow and Whitehead, who defeated an invisible enemy 30 years before humanity could reliably find cholera under a microscope. Highly recommended.

The Dead Don't Die (2019)

The Dead Don't Die (2019): Writer-director Jim Jarmusch's bleak, hilarious homage to the zombie movies of George Romero is an occasionally meta-fictional delight, though the wall-breaking is generally left up to Bill Murray and Adam Driver's small-town cops. Don't get too attached to any of the characters, and don't expect anything all that normal to transpire in the small Pennsylvania town of Centerville (the Pennsylvania setting is another nod to Romero's Dead movies). 

Driver, Murray, Tom Waits as a prophetic hermit, Chloe Sevigny as another cop, Tilda Swinton as a Scottish undertaker, and what seems like a cast of thousands all gamely walk and occasionally stumble into the apocalyptic night. Perhaps a perfectly cathartic movie for these COVID-19 times. Highly recommended.

Hellboy (2019)

Hellboy (2019): Savaged by critics and mostly ignored by audiences last summer, this soft reboot of the Hellboy movie 'franchise' is really pretty enjoyable and at least as faithful to creator Mike Mignola's epic comic series as Guillermo del Toro's first two Hellboy movies.

 David Harbour makes a perfectly good Hellboy under all that make-up and prosthetics. Ian McShane plays it crusty as Hellboy's adoptive father and head of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, one of a handful of organizations that protects Earth from supernatural disaster. But what price vigilance?

Hellboy doesn't play much like a movie, though, but rather a serial -- the creators cherry-pick characters and situations from what feels like 50 different issues of the comic. Hellboy in Mexico! Baba Yaga! Nimue (semi-hilariously pronounced as in 'Leonard Nimoy' by pretty much everyone)! King Arthur! The Wild Hunt! The boar-headed monster! To accentuate the serialesque nature of this movie, call it THE ADVENTURES OF HELLBOY and watch it in ten-minute segments. Recommended.

Hellboy in Mexico

Hellboy: House of the Living Dead, written by Mike Mignola; illustrated by Richard Corben (2011): Fun original graphic novel set during Hellboy's "lost months" while on a bender in Mexico during the 1950's, during which time he professionally wrestled and fought various supernatural menaces, generally while either drunk or severely hung over. Forced to kill a young wrestling, monster-fighting ally after vampires turned the young man into a bat-headed monstrosity, Hellboy went on a blackout-inducing bender, the end of which we see here.

Richard Corben's art combines the grotesque and the voluptuous in a variety of fun, pleasing ways, while Mignola's script strikes the right balance between humour and heartbreak. Hellboy has to face his guilt before he can get out of Mexico, but the whole voyage of self-discovery avoids the usual rote, Afterschool Special platitudes and lessons we often see in such a story. Recommended.

The Lighthouse (2019)

The Lighthouse (2019): Written by Max and Robert Eggers; directed by Robert Eggers: Is The Lighthouse Lovecraftian tentacle horror or a psychological study of men and madness? It's both! You know, like H.P. Lovecraft's sea-themed tale "Dagon"!!!

From the writer-director of The Witch, which also occupied both the supernatural and psychological portions of the supernatural spectrum comes this superior horror film starring Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson and really no one else as lighthouse keepers with a few too many secrets for a one-month tour on an island off the New England coast.

Pattinson is very, very good as an the 'kid' learning the ropes of lighthouse-keeping from suspiciously salty sea-dog, peg-legged Willem Dafoe. Reality seems to fall apart for both men in different ways as the stay lengthens and the weather worsens. 

Why won't Dafoe let Pattinson into the light-room, much less teach him how to run the light? What is up with the fresh-water supply? Why is that seagull so angry at Pattinson? What's up with the mermaid figurine in the bunk room? And will these guys EVER STOP MASTURBATING? Or is Dafoe, ulp, masturbating?

Eggers juxtaposes the wide open skies and seas of the island with the claustrophobia of the living quarters -- and of the outside closing in on Pattinson when the rain comes down. There are points at which Eggers seems to have learned some valuable lessons from David Lynch, perhaps never moreso than when he lightens the tone with the increasingly loopy arguments of Pattinson and Dafoe, during one of which Dafoe is almost reduced to tears by the possibility that Pattinson doesn't enjoy his cooking. 

Eggers is already a major directorial talent and a welcome addition to the ranks of serious, seriously creepy horror writer-directors. Highly recommended.

Plague Books Part Something

The Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories (1964): edited by Robert Aickman: Solid 'Best of' collection apart from the annual, numbered Fontana Ghost Stories paperbacks. 

Edited by the great and idiosyncratic 'strange story' writer (and English Inland Waterway enthusiast) Robert Aickman, this collection contains many great stories, including Algernon Blackwood's "The Wendigo" and Walter de la Mare's "Seaton's Aunt" along with Aickman's own "The Trains." It includes one stinker, the twee and mostly unfunny funny ghost story "The Ghost Ship." Highly recommended.

In the Shadow of the Master: Classic Tales by Edgar Allan Poe (2009): edited by Michael Connelly: A tribute to Poe from the Mystery Writers of America, whose annual award(s) is named the Edgar, after Poe. 

The early-20th-century illustrations by Harry Clarke are really nice. The stories are pretty much a 'Best of' Poe's greatest stories, along with poems "The Raven" and "The Bells" and an excerpt from Poe's great, truncated novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Also included are essays from members of the MWA on what Poe means (or doesn't mean) to them. As a Poe collection, you can certainly do worse. Highly recommended.

The Reddening (2019) by Adam L.G. Nevill

The Reddening (2019) by Adam L.G. Nevill: Gripping, grueling, visionary work of cosmic folk horror from the author of The Ritual and Last Days. Archaeological discoveries in modern-day Devon draw a grieving sister and a depressed Lifestyle reporter into an ancient mystery and an ancient horror. 

Mysterious underground sounds, a long line of disappearances and unexpected suicides, and the run-down farm of a minor rock-folk star of the 1960's figure in the narrative. So, too, people high and low lacking all empathy.

The mysteries of the ancient cult and its supernatural progenitors are vividly imagined and described, as are the psychologies of protagonists and antagonists alike. While not for the squeamish, the violence is modulated and necessary to the depiction of the cult and to the larger questions about humanity's love for ultra-violence. 

Nevill weaves social commentary into the horrible imaginings, with the worst instincts of humanity being linked to Brexit and austerity measures and the overall rise of xenophobia and fascism throughout the world. It's the sort of novel that justifies my recent blurby observation that Nevill's two clearest forerunners in British horror are James Herbert and Ramsey Campbell. Highly recommended.

Movies of the Plague Part One

The Haunted Palace (1963): adapted by Charles Beaumont from the poem by Edgar Allan Poe and the H.P. Lovecraft novel The Case of Charles Dexter Ward; directed by Roger Corman; starring Vincent Price (Charles Dexter Ward/ Joseph Curwen) Elisha Cook, Jr. (Cheaplaughs), and Lon Chaney, Jr. (Simon): Delightful romp from Roger Corman loosely adapts H.P. Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and quotes the eponymous Edgar Allan Poe poem. 

Vincent Price plays both an evil 18th-century sorcerer and his late 19th-century descendant whose body the sorcerer needs to possess in order to finish his nefarious plan involving some extremely rapey elder gods. It's set in New England, which doesn't explain one character's bargain-basement Irish accent. Alas, the adaptation doesn't include the "essential salts" of Lovecraft's superior, weird original. Recommended.

The Fast and the Furious Presents Hobbs & Shaw (2019): written and directed by a Vic-20 computer; starring Dwayne Johnson (Hobbs), Jason Statham (Shaw), Vanessa Kirby (Shaw's Sister), and Idris Elba (Slumming It for Money): Basically a Roger Moore-era James Bond movie that has suffered grievious brain damage. 

At this point in his career, Jason Statham's charisma has no gas left in the tank. Dwayne Johnson, so jacked he's cartoonishly bulbous, goes full-camp. Idris Elba actually seems to be doing something called 'acting.' Vanessa Kirby is intermittently charming as Statham's sister. Ryan Reynolds wanders through as a CIA agent who seems to be channeling Deadpool. Occasional ridiculous fun can't outweigh the tediousness of most of the writing. Not recommended.

Good Boys (2019): Produced though not written or directed by Seth Rogen and the other folks who brought you Superbad, this is basically a middle-school Superbad, sort of. There are some genuine laughs, but it's all a bit thin and ends with an interminable slog of sentimentality. Still, an adequate time-filler -- the most shocking thing about it is how innocuous it all is. Lightly recommended.

Midsommar (2019)

Midsommar (2019): [Credits Here]  Writer-director Ari Aster follows up the superior Hereditary with another smart horror film, this one in the vein of The Wicker Man or Children of the Corn. 

A grieving Florence Pugh tags along with her boyfriend -- an annoying sociology grad student -- and other annoying American grad students to visit the communal village of a Swedish grad student just in time for the special, every-90-years Midsummer festival, aka Lammas, aka, per a surprisingly recent Farmer's Almanac, "sabbats possible." Whee! 

Makes a weird trilogy from unconnected film-makers (the other films would be Let the Right One In and The Ritual) about how no location in Sweden is safe from horror. Florence Pugh stands out as the only really sympathetic major character. Highly recommended. 

Don't Think of the Purple Elephant

If you're wondering why you keep touching your face in public despite knowing that you shouldn't touch your face in public -- well, part of that is habit. But part of it is called The Rebound Effect, in which focusing on an action or a thought one is supposed to avoid actually causes that action or thought. 

Tied into all this is the Ideomotor Effect, first discovered in the middle of the 19th century in the process of debunking spiritualism. Thinking about things can actually cause the body to do these things unconsciously. It explained both spirit writing (and the later Ouija board). It also explained spiritualist Table-turning. 

And it's backed by later brain science -- simply thinking about moving your hand causes your hand to essentially fire up and get ready to move at the very least. But it can also cause involuntary movement.

Or in other words, over-loading people with a longer and longer list of Do's and Don't will cause some of them to do the opposite involuntarily. And the longer the list of Do's and Don't's, the greater the number of failures.

Which is my way of saying that if you're going to wear a face-mask, wear gloves as well. You're not going to remember every time you're supposed to wash your hands, and you're not going to always remember not to touch your face.

Also, 'Don't think of the purple elephant.'

Journal of the Plague Year Day One

Scary Monsters and Super Freaks

Birds of Prey (2020): [Cast and Crew]: Fun outing dominated by Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn, the best thing about 2016's misguided Suicide Squad. Having left the Joker and slightly reformed, Quinn ends up battling foul-mouthed Gotham mob boss Black Mask (an ebullient Ewan MacGregor, all f-bombs) for the life of an unfortunate pickpocket. 

Along the way, she teams up with Rosie Perez's jaded Gotham cop Renee Montoya (like Harley, originally created for Batman: The Animated Series), yet another Black Canary, and another Huntress. The Gotham City Police are especially hapless in this film. Batman and Commissioner Gordon appear to be on vacation for the duration. Recommended.

Brightburn (2019): [Cast and Crew]: Enjoyable, violent, terse story of an evil Superboy-type and the perils of parenting a super-powered sociopath. The end credits suggest a shared-universe sequel that would include Rainn Wilson's loopy vigilante from Super, also produced by James 'Guardians of the Galaxy' Gunn (though scripted by James in that case as well, whereas Brightburn was written by two of his brothers). Bring it on! Recommended.

Swamp Thing (1982): [Cast and Crew]: Totally solid B-movie from veteran horror director Tobe Hooper does a pretty faithful job of adapting the early issues of Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson's DC comic book Swamp Thing. 

Way, way better than the jumbled, misguided 10-episode Swamp Thing TV series of 2019. Louis Jordan makes a good villain as a much more urbane Anton Arcane than that in the comic book. Dick Durock is solid in the rubber suit as Swamp Thing. Adrienne Barbeau is fun as a gender-flipped Agent Cable. Would probably have been better if it had been R-rated to allow for more graphic violence, especially in the concluding battle between Swamp Thing and a mutated Arcane. Recommended.

Godzilla vs. Hedorah (aka Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster) (1971): [Cast and Crew]: Trippy late-stage Toho Studios Godzilla, now clearly a kid's series with an environmental message. Godzilla demonstrates a completely ridiculous ability to fly, a necessity when battling the high-flying Smog Monster. Hedorah's land-walking form looks a lot like Cthulhu after a week-long bender. Often intentionally funny, sometimes horrific, and sometimes with musical and animated sequences! Lightly recommended.

The Strange Cases of Rudolph Pearson (2008) by William Jones

The Strange Cases of Rudolph Pearson (2008) by William Jones: A fun bit of retro-tinged Cthulhu Mythos-infused stories that form a cycle. Set in 1920's New York, The Strange Cases of Rudolph Pearson pits the titular Columbia University English literature professor against a series of evils human and otherwise, but mostly otherwise.

The whole thing has a pleasingly pulpy feel, cleanly written and clever at various points. It's the sort of thing I think of as Cthulhu Mythos Comfort Food. It's not daring or revelatory or even all that frightening. But it is entertaining. Jones makes Pearson an engaging character caught up in situations that change the way he looks at the world. And at himself. 

Pearson turns out to possess the Cthulhu Mythos equivalent of magical powers. This comes in pretty handy as Jones' addition to the Cthulhu Mythos, a hideous devouring being from outside our universe, may be about to break through in New York thanks to the machinations of a Blue Blood New York millionaire.

Jones throws in a stereotypical Irish cop as an ally for Pearson, along with a plucky female archaeologist. The novel makes some clever tweaks to Lovecraft's ghouls and to more traditional monsters, including mummies and ghosts. There's nothing here to make your brain hurt or to set the cosmic senses tingling -- and sometimes that's just fine. Recommended.

The Arcanum (2005) by Thomas Wheeler

The Arcanum (2005) by Thomas Wheeler: If there were an award for worst fictional depiction of H.P. Lovecraft, this novel would certainly finish in the Top 5. 

At least. 

Screenwriter Thomas Wheeler tries for a sort of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, only with real people and not fictional characters. This team is The Arcanum of the title and in this novel consists of H.P. Lovecraft, Harry Houdini, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Louisiana Voudon 'Queen' Marie Laveau.

Set in 1920's New York, The Arcanum pits our rag-tag group of ghost-busters against a sinister plot that's actually a large-scale version of a standalone, supernatural-themed episode of The X-Files. Many references appear to earlier adventures of The Arcanum, now deprived of its creator as his murder by telepathy starts the events of the novel in motion. 

Wheeler depicts Lovecraft as a slightly less cowardly, more magicky version of Ichabod Crane in Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow. Houdini is a bland cipher. It's hard to make Houdini boring, but Wheeler does it. Conan Doyle gets the most prominent role as the de facto leader of The Arcanum. He may be in his early 60's, but Doyle is totally buckling those swashes against the forces of Evil.

It really doesn't help matters that Wheeler wedges Lovecraft's Great Old Ones into a fairly standard Christian narrative in which the Devil, angels, and Nephilim all appear. Aleister Crowley shows up as a lazily written Crowley, twirling his mustache and leering. OK, he doesn't have a mustache. But he is a one-dimensional jerk.

Perhaps the most unintentionally funny moment comes when Lovecraft wields one of the Eltdown Shards. The shards were created by Richard Searight and used by HPL in his portion of the group-story "The Challenge from Beyond." However, Wheeler, who does not seem to do research all that much, re-imagines the Shards as the fossilized arm of some creature, enhanced by what is basically an Iron Man glove to tap their power. And here I thought they were tablets!

There are probably thousands of better stories featuring HPL, Houdini, and Doyle as characters. Hell, you can just read the story HPL ghost-wrote for Houdini, "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs," aka "Under the Pyramids." You can read about a fictional team-up of Houdini and Conan Doyle in William Hjortsberg's excellent 1996 novel Nevermore. Or you can read The Arcanum and laugh and laugh... Not recommended.