Category: Strains and Mutations

There is the space where homages and “fan fiction” will occasionally occur as a result, or the off-shots, of mainline experiments. Some may be imported from other places, but all of them are of my own design.

A Duet In An Unholy Place

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

He slowly approaches the Orthodox church: a dilapidated white ruin, crumbling in the setting sun. Before this, he had supped at the sotnik’s1 manse. The Cossack chief Zupanski , the so-called Gospodar2 of this meagre plot of land had reached out, had written to him of his grief and loss. Of his daughter’s last wishes.

As if he, the Graf von Orlok, had not been first reached by her.

The shadows gather around him as he enters the church. It is a monument to a broken arrogance, a decaying vanity. The Cossack soldiers and villagers give his large, lumbering form sway. Even those nobles at the sotnik ’s table felt uneasy by his presence, as he barely sipped at the wine proffered to him by virtue of his station. Perhaps, once, his people and theirs were enemies, or allies against other lost city-states. But here, he is a nobleman offering his condolences and vigil to their pannochka .3 Her father, aged premature by his loss, had said it was a pity that she had not lived so long, that she had been taken so foully, that he could not avenge the grievance of her having been taken from him so soon. Perhaps, the Cossack had said, he and the Graf could have been family had his beloved daughter survived.

The Graf almost grins under his moustache at both of those lies.

Katerina Zupanski lies in her coffin, surrounded by the dimmed portraits of saints, blackened by time and neglect. This place, supposedly sanctified, had been left for too long to the elements, and the forgetfulness of its builder to hurt the Graf nearly as much as it once could have. Most places founded by blood only strengthened and hailed one such as himself. This site, however, is not what he plans to ward himself against.

He had told the grieving father that he had brought his own holy text to read the girl’s last rites. The Graf von Orlok did not lie. In one large, long fingered hand he holds his book, inscribed with the seven-pointed star of a heptagram. He hears the doors close behind him as he reaches into his cloak, and takes something from his pockets with his other clawed hand.

The Graf sprinkles his grave soil around himself into a circle. He watches the young woman’s body, pale in her white funeral gown, her hair the colour of night, her nose bold, and proud high-bone cheeks making him wonder how she could have come from such lowly stock as her forebears. The long candles with their branches of bright red kalina4 bathe her face in an unearthly light. He reaches one hand towards her – as though the shadow of him lurches to possess her – and stops. No. Not yet.

He can wait three nights.

He takes one talon, and slices his palm. The Graf sprinkles his grave soil around him, murmuring an incantation from his book. Then, he settles down. He sits, his bulk still tall from the floor. And he waits.

*

She rises from her coffin. Somehow, she is more beautiful now, as her anger overcomes her corpse. Thwarted in life, trapped by her temporal beauty, Katerina walks slowly, silently, out of her resting place. Her feet do not disturb the dust of the ancient church as she stumbles towards him.

The Graf watches, his dark eyes glimmering in fascination as this ethereal creature approaches him, sensing him from her deathly state. Her footsteps become steadier. More sure. There is no power, beyond what she has put upon herself, past what fights to become free. Her eyes are blank as they stare directly and sightlessly at him. But the Graf knows she can see him. That she wants him. Of course she does. One appetite recognizes another.

She explores the space around him, her puppet-body examining the length and breadth of his power. He smiles at her as she seems to dance around him more sedately than St. Vitus ever could. Eventually, with almost disappointment in her somnambulist body language, she glides back to her coffin. Then, she lies back down and crosses her hands peacefully over her breasts again. For a few moments, the Graf thinks he can see her breathe. Fascinating. Then, she is still again.

Eventually, he gets up, breaking the circle with his feet. The cock has not yet crowed, and there is no virginal blood to help him sleep forever this morning. He considers her spell. He thinks about how they have taken the measure of each other.

The Graf looks forward to what she offers him the next night.

*

When the Graf comes to the church the second time, he considers Katerina. The little lady. He thinks about her last moments, the ones that her father and her people had not seen.

As the people avoid his presence, with him not bothering with the peasants, and the sotnik’s retainers noting how he barely ate their bread, or drank even vodka, he can still recall the night he sensed Katerina’s death. 

Katerina’s resentment had allowed her to treat with the entities of this land, and below, as his ambitions as a Solomonari5  let him bind his soul back to his own corpse. In the form of an old woman, she embraced the Old Ways as she rode the backs of the human beasts that always dominated her. The priesthood supported men as much as any noble or soldier did. Unfortunately, she challenged the wrong man that night, a young man in the cottage she used to lure her prey.

In the deep darkness of his slumber, he had felt her calling out for someone, for anyone, who could understand her pain as she lay dying, beaten, and broken. And his black heart found hers. It gave her just enough succor. Just enough time.

It had been hard to journey to this so-called Little Russia, to Kiev, but young Knock had proven his use. Orlok’s servant, an aspiring rechtsanwalt für grundbesitz,6 used his contacts to transport him this far, into a land not unlike his own. Orlok will remember those other qualities, perhaps to cultivate his devotee a little further. But Knock’s mind, while fanatical to their contract, his slow but steady temporal growth a testament to some level of ambition, paled by the loneliness and despair, and the absolute hatred embodied within this gorgeous porcelain of womanhood before him. 

Outside his circle of blood and grave soil, she hisses at him spitefully. Her voice rumbles and crackles like the depths of the Pit. Winds buffet the dust around them, making the walls tremble under their power. She practically hovers around him now, almost flying. The Graf admires her imperious, commanding fury as she tries to get close to him and seize his power. To conquer another man.

Yet as she claws the air with an electricity almost an echo of lightning, her own spell fails to overcome his. His deep voice reverberates like the Pit itself. He has been dead longer. She has only had three nights. She only has three nights, if he understands the ritual of her kind. There is a desperation in her words and movements. Her skin is blue now, yet her eyes seem more alive than ever. These burning pinpricks of fire only accentuates that feeling of darkness calling darkness. Like communing with like.

Eventually, she grows tired. She retreats, slowly, back to her resting place. And it is just as before. The Graf takes it all in. He knows this is not over. In fact, he is counting on it. There is one night left. One final moment. This is where she will be at her best. At her zenith. At her end.

And he will be there, to see what the being once called Katerina Zupanski can do.

*

She does not disappoint him.

He is glad of this. He traveled all the way to this small place at great cost, had awakened himself from his Castle, to see and feel in the flesh what he had experienced from the dark of his tomb.

Her wrath is both terrible and glorious. The winds are vaster now, her influence over the elements as tempestuous as her deathless, vengeful soul. Her teeth chatter and each curse is a spell created to destroy him. The windows of the church shatter. The icons of saints fall. And creatures fly down from the rafter. They crawl across the dusty floor. The Graf observes it all and marvels.

Upiór, spirits controlling the bodies of the lesser dead try to claw at his protections. Wurdulac, fanged creatures that usually feed off the people they loved most in life, are forced to assault him. And so many more lelkek, spirits of the trees and stones themselves, under her thrall come to her.

He would find it insulting not to match her, as he summons his own hosts. Bats, rats, and wolves leap through the windows her power destroyed, tearing at her creatures as they face each other down. His face twists into a death rictus as his spells match this little girl’s – this pannochka’s – own.

Then, the Graf has had enough. He tires of this child’s tantrum. He toes his circle, smudging the edge, as he comes forward. Katerina flies at him, and they wrestle in the church. He is larger, stronger, but she has the fury of her last night in her, and her natural place of power. She flings him into her own coffin. Somehow, it fits him, holding him as he sits up.

She floats over him, staring down at him in triumph. When she stands over him, and on him, he knows. He knows what she is about, and what she is going to do. He watches as she straightens the hem of her white dress, revealing her stocking. She smiles as she smashes her foot down into his groin. The Graf gasps, with air that he no longer breathes. Then she smiles wider, and stomps on his manhood again. 

He grabs her, suddenly, by the throat. He holds her up as their creatures rage around them. She chokes out a word. A name. The creatures, both of their forces, grow quiet.

But nothing happens.

She suddenly looks at him. It’s as though this dead witch truly sees him for the first time. One hand, a dainty blue finger, traces his thick eyebrows, his large eyelashes.

Viy.

The Graf’s stolen blood rages in his living corpse body. Katerina slides out of his grasp and around. She circles herself on top of him. Onto his back. She cries out, shrieking with glee from dead lungs, as she rides him. He sees her beaming joy. Her triumph.

And then, he starts to change.

He lets his power warp and twist his body. Bones break and reassemble into a four-legged position. His hair, on his head, his face, and his palms grow out. Even his talons elongate. All around the room, upturning more disused pews, and books and artifacts, the corpse-witch rides him, a giant wolf. Rats and scattering things flee in terror. The dead back away from their betters. 

The being once known as Katerina also changes. First, she folds into herself, and becomes a dog, as the wolf grapples with her. Then a cat, to escape him. But he holds her by her nape. Seizing her in his jaws. She changes back into herself as he bites her throat, mounting her, on her coffin. Her eyes flash with rage, but also lust as she runs her dead, blue fingers through his hair. The Graf von Orlok claims her, shooting his dead man’s seed into the cold unliving thighs of his new bride. Now she is free. Now she is his.

*

A plague hit those who came to the church the following day. Those that survived, fled in terror at the rats and the bloated corpses of their fellows, surrounded by the ossified statues of terrible monsters caught in the sunlight. 

The sotnik, Zupanski, fled to his estate. He locked himself in his room. But in the wavering candlelight, a shadowy hand reaches forward, holding him in place. He can’t move. The old colonel struggles against the unseen grip. He sees the portrait of his naked daughter, made to pose for him and the artist he hired, unveiled. Then, he looks at the portrait of his wife. His late wife.

The vastelina7 Zupanski, the dame of Katerina, stands before him. Not lost in the darkness. Not roaming the cabins of his land, or the corridors of their manse. Dignified in her finest dress, her dark hair greying, she looks down on him and the portrait of their daughter. He does not seem to notice the familiar gleam of fire in her eyes, so much like his Katerina’s, as the shadow holds him in place, as she reaches out towards him.

Afterwards, the manse is burned. The bodies of the dead are lost. The painting of Katerina Zupanski, once beloved property of her father, is lost in the flames.

*

Toma the Philosopher is left by his fellows in the barn. That was the agreement he and his other fellow seminary peers made with the hoary old babushka of this place. They were lucky. He is warmed by the drink left to them, and he settles down into the straw as he thinks about the seminary and the sickness that broke out in the village. It hit while they were gone on errands, and quarantine was swift. They were not allowed back in, and left to fend for themselves.

After being exhausted, they found their way to this cabin. He tries not to think about the last time he stayed in such a place. He vowed never to do so again. Not after the evil he faced, the temptation he barely kept from consuming him.

So when he sees the old woman in the moonlight, and realizes it is the same one. The same witch. The one that he thought he killed. The one, by God in Heaven, he tried to forget. It’s as though his heart’s blood has frozen into ice. Toma does not even scream as she comes forward. A dark claw almost seems to pin him in place. Rats come out of the straw. So many, just like the village outside the seminary. No. There are even more …. They screech around him hungrily, biting, clawing, and hissing.

The old woman’s face melts away, her shawl and dress vanishing, turning into white linen and revealing the terrifying beauty of the witch that has haunted his nightmares, that he thought he had killed without consequence. 

The being once called Katerina, her mortal life now fully mourned, stands over the young man’s body. Her groom uses his power to hold the seminary student in place. She smiles down at him, as she lifts up her skirt hem, revealing her garter, before plunging her foot down.

Pop Toma won’t die, she decides. For killing her, for freeing her, he won’t die for some time.

*

A plague begins to spread throughout Kiev, and the rest of this place that some called Little Russia. Then further. The krayina8 suffers as the Rus blame a ship that came from the Austro-Hungarian Empire for carrying rats into the land.

As city-states begin to rattle sabers, and corpses burn, in the night a cat and wolf run together through the grass. During the day, they will retire to a carriage that always seems to follow them. For his own part, he feels as though he may have returned to this world, prematurely, but there is much more to be consumed. And she, her life extended, feels like it is only just beginning; their danse macabre continues. 

  1. a military rank among the Cossack starshyna (military officers), the Russian streltsy and Cossack cavalry, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the Ukrainian Galician Army, and the Ukrainian People’s Army. ↩︎
  2. Slavic term for “lord” or “master” ↩︎
  3. a young unmarried lady or mistress in Ukrainian and Polish ↩︎
  4. a Viburnum opulus shrub, often called the guelder rose or snowball bush. Its bright red berries are a powerful symbol of love, beauty, youth, and femininity, and also represent home, blood, and family roots. Kalina also appears in the context of the Kalinov bridge, which connects worlds in Slavic mythology ↩︎
  5. a wizard believed in Romanian folklore to ride a dragon and control the weather ↩︎
  6. a German real estate lawyer ↩︎
  7.  interpreted to be a Ukrainian term for “landlady,” “lady of the manor,” or a feminine form of “owner” or “proprietor” ↩︎
  8. Slavic term for “land” or “country” or “a region or province” ↩︎

Friday the 13th: A Halloween Journey

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

When I first made The Horror Doctor, I was fascinated with the idea of Strains and Mutations. By no means I have been particularly exhaustive when exploring what could have been in the horror genre – specifically the cinematic, which is where my Blog tends to go – but I feel that there is a somewhat healthy medium between looking at what happened, and speculating on what could have been in a genre as mutable as horror. 

Halloween has come and gone, both the holiday and the series. And yes, I know that the day and franchise themselves will return – like all undead creatures or slasher killers tend to do. But consider the following.

Most horror fans probably know that John Carpenter and Debra Hill wanted to expand the Halloween series beyond The Shape – beyond Michael Myers. In 1982, Halloween III: The Season of the Witch came out. Michael Myers and Dr. Loomis were both presumably dead, destroyed in a hospital fire a year before, leaving Laurie Strode to recover from her trauma, and the terror of Silver Shamrock and its Halloween products for children and adults alike would make humanity fear Samhain again. But audiences wanted their clear-cut avatar of darkness. They wanted Michael back.

But just as Halloween returns, so does Friday the 13th. Again, most fanatics know that Sean Cunningham wanted to emulate the story beats of Halloween, and after the story of The Shape was seemingly over, he and writer Victor Miller introduced the world to the idea of Jason Voorhees in 1980. Interestingly enough, both Halloween and Friday the 13th came as their third films in 1982, but what is fascinating is that after the first Friday the 13th, the film series gained another producer in the person of Frank Mancuso Jr.

And it seems as though the creators of the second Friday the 13th film, director Steven Miner and writer Ron Kurz, also wanted to make the film series an anthology and changed their minds, perhaps the decision also had something to do with Frank Mancuso Jr.  Mancuso Jr. not only produced Parts Two and Three of Friday the 13th, but he also helped create another series. Originally called The 13th Hour, this television series made by Mancuso Jr. and Larry B. Williams was renamed Friday the 13th because Mancuso Jr. believed it would attract more viewers. And while Mancuso Jr. said that it was still a play on the idea of a dark and unlucky day, it can’t be denied that the title itself would bring in fans of a certain other franchise of the same name. But Friday the 13th: The Series is a different beast from its film namesake. Jason Voorhees never appears, or is even referenced in the show, unlike Michael Myers who actually exists as a fictional character in his own first Halloween film shown in Season of the Witch.

Friday the 13th: The Series is a television series released in 1987, after Halloween III: Season of the Witch and Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, where two adolescents named Micki Foster and Ryan Dallion inherit an antique store filled with cursed artifacts given to their late, and aptly named, Uncle Lewis Vendredi by the Devil. This framework allows them to keep having some kind of new evil to combat every episode while also granting the opportunity to have antagonists, and allies that recur whenever the plot needs them. The series itself ran until 1990, and while it isn’t perfect – sometimes the various plot points grow contrived, awkward, and flat-out ridiculous – Friday the 13th: The Series functions as something of an assortment of different candies all wrapped up in the same grab-bag. I especially love the fact that the series not only starts off during Halloween, much like its how its spiritual namesake was inspired from another Halloween, the cousins even have the assistance of a former stage magician and occultist – a more benevolent Uncle Jack Marshak to help them deal with the cursed artifacts that they need to collect and from which to protect the lives of others.

Fittingly enough, at least from my perspective, what Halloween failed to do in film as an anthological series, Friday the 13th almost succeeded in accomplishing as a television serial. Perhaps if Laurie Strode had continued in other films unrelated to Michael Myers, or if The Shape had never truly been vanquished from the first film and recurred as a background character in others, or as a revenant that could potentially return in other settings even with Haddonfield as a determinator, both John Carpenter and Debra Hill might have almost achieved what they originally sought. It might also be possible that had Miner, Kurz, or even Mancuso Jr. kept Crystal Lake as a location, they could have built a larger world and referenced it in relation to another bit of folklore they could have built upon. I mean, look at Jason Voorhees himself and his transformation from a waterlogged deformed child, to an imitation of the Moonlight Killer, to the iconic hockey masked fiend we all know and fear.

Horror is a mythology and a process. Monstrosities, and their stories, do not come up ready made and whole. They are a messy process. And who knows if it might have been possible to lean into that development, into that dark and bloody journey of figuring out what something horrible is, and how it can be faced, and encourage audiences to want to follow along. Imagine it as another dark road not traveled. It’s awesome where we have already been, but these creative nightmares are always something fun on which to speculate. 

Red Lips in the Castle of Blood

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

“I loathe that portrait.” Julia Alert says, her elbow locked with her companion’s, her nose upturned, the scowl on her perfect face all too clear.

Valerie looks up at the framed painting on the wall, inclining her white blonde hair slowly, glacially, in deliberate consideration. “It is a beautiful piece of art. The artist captured, at least, the surface feeling of you. Your forbidding look. Your tempestuousness. Your passion.”

Both women wear fine lace gowns, low cut, their skirts billowing out at the ground like flowers. Julia’s dress is made from a fine black material, while Valerie’s is white. Julia regards her companion, and her dark eyes seem to smoulder almost as much as that of her likeness in her painting. “Flattery.” She pats Valerie’s hand. “I’ll admit,” her eyes narrow, “that is the first time someone had assumed that this was my portrait, and not that of an ancestor’s.” Her eyes narrow. “Or an ancestor of Elisabeth’s.”

A faint smile forms on Valerie’s lips. “Interesting. It seems as though we have been both defined by an Elizabeth in our lives.”

Valerie’s pronunciation of the name comes out as a drawl, a dactyl vanishing in the shadows of the torchlit castle hall. Julia inclines her head, a resigned but amused smile acknowledging the other woman, as though noting that detail as well. She runs a hand through her dark golden hair as she turns back to look at the painting. “Do not misunderstand, Valerie. I used to love this portrait. It is well done. It has lasted years. Even decades. It was made to capture my beauty. To celebrate it. That is what they tell me.”

“But it is just so still. So … static.”

Julia stares, directly. The latter woman, for her part, keeps her eyes on the painting above them both, looking down at them all. “Yes. Precisely.” She regards her companion with as much intensity and focus as Valerie had the painting, before looking back at her facsimile and shaking her head. “I am tired. Of being here. Of being stuck here. In this place. In that time. Never changing. Never moving. A pretty good little thing to entertain, but that is all the meaning there will ever be. Just a bauble to be admired in an old house always having the same parties.”

Valerie takes Julia’s arm more firmly, inclining them away from the painting. They start to walk. Slowly. Languidly. It’s as though their gown hems are gliding on air. Julia takes one last look at her picture before moving full step, side by side, with Valerie. “I’m sorry.” She says, after a time. “I used to enjoy these ballroom parties. These celebrations. But I forget myself. There is nothing that can be changed. That is what I said. That is what I told her –” She sighs, and looks down for a moment, a rueful quirk forming on the corners of her mouth.

“You mean, to your Elisabeth.”

“Every time.” Julia says, without hesitation, caught in her own inner momentum as Valerie steers them onward. They move through the corridors, away from the music, away from the conversation, the sounds becoming more distant, ethereal, lost to time. “But it seems, at times, as though I’ve trouble heeding my own advice.”

Valerie moves her head, slowly back and forth, a bemused expression on her face. “If only our portraits could rot from our excesses and debauches, showing the marks of our years and experience, while we celebrate our lives, young and whole, eternally.” She sees the blank look on her companion’s face. “I believe that came from the work of an Irish author, of your Commonwealth?”

Julia rolls her eyes. “Probably after our time. Though it does sound familiar. Perhaps one of our other guests mentioned it in passing.”

“And imprisoned as well. Broken by it, at the end.” Valerie looks out into the darkness around them. “Perhaps you can only celebrate, only flout life, so many times before the walls of your bower become your fortress, become your jail, and then your only company. Your tomb.” Valerie stops, suddenly, her white dress standing out in the gloom. She places both hands on Julia’s shoulders, leaning in, conspiratorial, smirking. “And so, you continue. You defy that end. You escape those walls. That fate. A coward dies a thousand deaths, but a traveler lives a thousand more.”

There is a sour look, almost a pout on Julia’s face as she stares into Valerie’s, though it does not match the fire in her eyes. “You almost sound like Elisabeth’s journalist companion, misquoting the Bard at me.”

Valerie smiles, pushing back a strand of hair from Julia’s face. “My friends will be at the ball for a while?”

Julia leans her own face into Valerie’s, running her hand through her soft hair the colour of platinum. “You mean the young couple you brought with you?”

Valerie nods, resting her forehead against Julia’s. “I know that, especially to this fine … how do you say … Victorian -themed ball of yours, it is customary when visiting another’s home to bring gifts. A part of guest right.”

“It is very Continental. Or Old World as the Americans say.” Julia’s arms wrap around Valerie’s waist. “But it is also the duty of a hostess to provide party favours.”

“Well, Lady Alert.” Valerie’s lips brush the other’s, the ghost of a kiss. “I have enjoyed these appetizers. Shall we come to the main course?”

“Mes chambres.” Julia’s stringent tones have become quiet, husky. “Elles ne sont pas loin. Les autres seront occupés avec leurs nouveaux… millésimes de bourgogne.”1

“Bon.” The two of them regard each other for a long moment, with a whole other kind of hunger before separating, and holding arms again. “J’ai vraiment hâte de goûter au mien, ma chère.”2

“De même.”3 Julia replies, before inclining her head and her body towards another direction, another set of stairs. “But before my chambers, another detour. There is something else. Before midnight.” Her eyes are deep. “Something that I would like to show you.”

*

They lie together under the drapes of the canopy bed. The room is a gentle, but pervasive red. Valerie traces a finger tip down Julia’s exposed neck, a lazy, amused smile forming. “I cannot hear your heartbeat.”

Julia lies on the mattress, her hair, once neatly in a bun now completely down but not hiding her one thousand yard stare into the shadows made by the candles in her room. Finally, she turns towards Valerie on their pillow and smiles back. “Then you have done your job, Lady Chilton?”

Valerie laughs. A crystalline tinkling sound. “What fire. I am glad that it remains. I hope that we can appreciate this night. We have survived the time between the commemoration of Saints, and the place of all lost souls.”

“Your hair, gliding across my chest, my skin …” Julia strokes Valerie’s collarbone absently, “it certainly elevated me from any Purgatory where I might have been. I can understand, even remember now, why Elisabeth seeks such solace in the sensual. The ultimate escape. I would, and I will, do anything for that.”

“For you.” Valerie gets up, and begins to put on her dress, red this time, and a long, feathery white boa.

“Red becomes you.” Julia drawls, resting her chin on the palms of her hands, her elbows in the pillows.

“And you have become the red you were always meant to be, long ago.” Valerie straightens her garb. She smiles down at the other woman. “Are you ready?”

“Aren’t you scared?” Julia inclines her face. There is a defiance there, but her eyes are distant.

“My dear.” Valerie leans forward, and holds her face in her hands. “Look at me. A letter-opener, a book-knife in the heart. I have seen death more times than you can imagine. You are more than just art for men to admire, and for your Elisabeth to disdain and take for granted. This is an opportunity. Death is the first part of the greater journey. I am honoured to have seen the start of yours. Now is the time for new cycles. New dances. New stories.”

“Of course, Lady Chilton.” There is a reverence and, perhaps, a bit of playful mockery in Julia’s tone as she gets up to get dressed herself. “You know, having known the Blackwoods and the other families, I must confess that you do not look like a Chilton.”

“Only by marriage.” Valerie shakes her head. “Or so I thought.” She smiles at Julia’s questioning glance. “Let us just say that my husband was a bad little boy, titillated by young blood spilled in Bruges, but too cowardly to take anything in Ostend, or in your Mother Country. The Elizabeth I knew, she was the real thing. Far more than the ‘Mother’ that he left behind. So no, my dear Julia, I might be a Chilton, but in name only. And not in deed. If anything, I come more from a Countess ‘ line than from where I had ever been solely with him.” She straightens out her shoulders. “Now then, the hour is late. It is almost morning. Come, Julia. I will take you from this place, and we will continue our journey together.”

Valerie holds out one hand, waiting for Julia to take it. There is a wistful smile on her face, but an imperious mien to her gesture. Julia laughs, bowing her head, slightly but visibly.  She takes the other’s hand, letting her come to her feet. “You have a lot of confidence, my Lady.”

“Only in you.” Valerie responds. “You know the way out. I have only secured it. For the both of us.”

“And the others?”

Valerie looks lost in thought for a moment, her blood red fingernail tapping at her lip. “My friends are already permanent guests by now, yes.” Julia doesn’t answer, but that is a reply in and of itself. “I am sure they will remain entertained, and for entertainment. As for your friends, well you know the wager.”

“The reason you are here at all, yes.”

“The attorney made it clear to me.” Valerie and Julia step towards the doors. “One night. A … carriage, or conveyance will be waiting for us. This place, your prison, will become mine. My property. And I will raze it, to the ground, on your behalf. No more exhausting dances. No more deaths. No more men to compete with. No more Elisabeth. Just as I escaped from the shadow of mine, so you will yours. Only the voyage. Only the limits of Oceanus. Only the Night, for the two of us.”

Julia takes this in, and she smiles. “Yes.” Her face twists into a grimace of hatred for a few moments. “They have made their choices.” She turns back to Valerie, her benefactor, and so much more. “Now, we can make new ones.”

*

The castle walls and passageways warp and shift. But Julia, obediently, leads Valerie onward, knowing the way, seeking their final destination out of this place. Julia opens the passage in the wall, directing them both into the darkest chamber. They descend deeper, and deeper down until they finally come to the basement.

“Just a little further, my Lady.” Julia intones. She guides them, through boxes and tables. Mists, swirling at the edges of the chamber, begin to grow, obscuring the visibility of everything else in their way. Her cloak, the one she brought with her to the castle in the beginning, settles around her shoulders. There is something … familiar about some of the objects that they pass. This place, it looks like catacombs, older than the castle itself. She closes her hand over something in her cloth that she took with her as they move farther inward.

“What is this place?” Valerie murmurs. “They remind me of a family crypt … I sense much death here.”

“I believe,” Julia says, her own tone absent, “that Elisabeth’s grandfather, the first Lord Blackwood, meant it to be a family plot. But for some reason, his family never chose to inter their remains here. You saw the gravestones outside when you came in? That is where most of them … most of us lie.”

“Then what … or better yet … who is here?” Valerie’s grip under her cloak tightens, just a bit. “Tell me, my Julia. What should we expect here?”

Julia comes to a stop. The mists begin to rise higher. Two objects, in front of them, strangely enough become more definite. “You are a connoisseur, yes my Lady?” She peers back at Valerie. “The Blackwoods had another name, before their founder was given this land and title. Before he chose to build his castle here. I don’t think you would have enjoyed the taste of them, my Lady. They were called … Blackbloods.”

Valerie chuckles at that. “Blackbloods. You told me their founder was a Hangman? If they’d only known the Countess …”

“It’s true.” Julia nods. “Elisabeth’s grandfather was given this power for his executions. Her brother, from what I was told later, Thomas is worse. Yet it all started here. At the foundations. I imagine that Blackblood did more than just kill criminals and dissidents to the Crown to get this privilege. I think this is where he held the … other bodies. I am sure you can understand such things. Personally.”

That is when the objects in front of them come into focus. Two boxes. Oblong. One of them has a face inscribed onto it.

“Doesn’t that seem familiar to you, my Lady?” Julia asks, pointing at them. “They are not quite Iron Maidens, but …”

“Iron Maidens.” Valerie’s eyes narrow at Julia, at her impertinence. “How would I know of such things? They were before …”

“In a way, wouldn’t that be you?”

The figures materialize from the mists. There are so many of them. Most of them are garbed in nineteenth century clothing, but others wear clothing from different ages of England, and across the world. Valerie’s chin tightens. “I see that many others made the wager, then.”

“That is one thing I understand about gambling,” Julia says, stepping right to Valerie’s side. “The House always wins.”

The figures walk closer to the two women. Valerie remains tall. She does not flinch.

“Julia.” She says in a low voice. “I order you. I command you to see us through this.”

“I will see us through this, Valerie, if that is your real name.” Valerie turns to see Julia smiling at her. The other has let go of her arm. “You know, something occurs to me.”

“Julia.” Her name in Valerie’s mouth is iron. A warning.

“It’s just … well. I suppose traveling all across Europe, all over the world even, costs you a considerable amount of money.”

The apparitions of the castle loom closer. 

“Julia.”

“I mean, truly. You benefited from the good graces of your wards at first. I imagine the Chiltons did not give you the money you seek. And judging by your existence of wanderlust, of not being able to stay still, you must have run out of your original funds long, long ago. Let me guess? If you were to get out of here, you would raze this place to the ground, sell the land, and take all the money for yourself?”

“Julia, you are my –“

Julia laughs. It is a mocking, scornful sound. “Did you mean anything you said, Valerie, or whoever you are truly? Would you have let go with you?”

Valerie lunges forward, suddenly. Julia’s mouth widens into an O. A slender blade pierces through her chest and out of her back, where her heart would have been. Valerie withdraws the blade, as Julia staggers back, and crumples onto the ground. In the mists. But her laughter doesn’t end. It rings on, and on.

“Oh come on now, Valerie! Stabbing me in the heart, at this point, is a little on the nose!”

Suddenly, Valerie is surrounded. There are two men. One of them is in frilled finery. The other is topless, and heavily muscled. They hold both of her arms. She struggles, but it is no use. Julia steps out of the mists again, in front of the other figures, completely unharmed, her gaze piercing into Valerie’s with a sly smirk on her face.

Valerie’s face twists into shock and rage. “I turned you. I could not feel your heartbeat! You were mine!”

“My heart never beat, Valerie.” Julia says, with sweetened venom, as she comes closer. “And I never felt yours.” She leans in closer to her as the two spectral men hold her in place. “And I was never yours.” She turns to the men. “Thank you, William. Herbert. You know what to do.”

Then the figures surround Valerie. Their hands, their fingers, scratch at her. Their teeth find themselves in her flesh. Valerie shrieks Julia’s name until they, all of them, are swallowed by the mists and the darkness.

*

Julia Alert stands in the basement on her own. Her hands are folded in front of her as she regards one particular object. She looks at it almost as intensely as she had the painting of herself in the hallway of the castle. After a moment, she speaks in the direction of the object.

“Dr. Carmus finds you fascinating, you know. He believes that we are, in his words I believe, ‘localized’ versions of what you are. We’ve had so much time here, in this place, that we read a few of his works. I suppose that is one more way in which we could be related, you and I.”

Julia sighs, running her fingertips up and down the object in front of her. “Usually, we can only consciously exist one night once a year. The good doctor told us that human beings have three forms of life. Our bodies, that die quickly. Our souls, that we never truly understand … and our senses. I know our senses can continue a long time after we’ve died. The sensual life is long, and majestic. Blood is the best way to keep it going. I think, perhaps, that is how you have kept yourself going .. though you have been able to move, unlike ourselves. Blood feeds the five senses after we’re gone. And violence, well, it makes it feel all the more poignant. I am sure you find this very familiar.”

She moves around, her skirts twirling. “The young couple you brought us are new. But you are different. You always were. You weren’t exactly subtle, my dear Valerie. Even your voice sounds much older than how you look. Frankly, if anyone deserves to exist in a Castle of Blood, it is you, Countess .” 

She shakes her head, splaying her fingers out on the object in front of her. “Oh, I know who and what you are. I know you’ve killed many people. You like little girls, if I recall the stories. Alan wouldn’t understand. He was always such a do-gooder, even now. And poor, sweet Elisabeth is too squeamish for that sort of thing. Do not worry. We will not kill you. We are after all, all of us, murderers. By necessity. Lord Blackwood, Thomas, feeds us blood once a year to keep us in existence. To give us company. And I have it on the good doctor’s authority that we can use your blood to extend our existence for another year. To increase our sensual life. And we, darling, are nothing if not sensual. But with your blood in particular, even more than that of your darling couple, we could have longer. We might be able to even leave the Castle and its grounds. That is what you promised me, even though I suspect you never believed it would work. Just one more pawn discarded for the Countess, yes? But who knows?”

Julia shrugs her shoulders. “We might even be able to go as far as paying Thomas himself a visit. To … repay him for his generosity in keeping us existent. But you needn’t worry.”

Julia walks away. “Alan was a journalist before he joined us. He interviewed Poe. He likened your situation to ‘The Cask of Amontillado,’ you know? I think he almost feels sorry for you. It is a pity. I once thank you beautiful. Like a worldly Galatea. But really, I think you remind me more of a Ligeia than anything. Yes. Legends. Your fate, right now, reminds me so much of that legend of how you spent the remainder of your days locked in your room in your own castle for your crimes, slowly starving to death. How that must have driven you mad. No wonder you could never stay, willingly, in one place.

“But it is all right now, my dear Countess. All you have to do, now, is lie back, be still, be beautiful. And be useful. Yes. Close your eyes, and think of … well, not so much England, as we are already here, but Hungary perhaps. Yes,” Julia slowly grins. “That should be appropriate.”

Julia leans down, and kisses the sarcophagus in front of her. She gazes down at it, her gaze filled with transfixed contempt. There is a determination in her eyes as she rises fully to her feet. She takes a piece of cloth in her hands. It is Valerie’s cloak. She looks, meaningfully, at the sarcophagus and drapes the cape around her shoulders. She pushes back her hair from her face. Then, she walks away, leaving the sarcophagus and the other coffins in the darkness and blood. Beautiful. Marble. Still. 

  1. My chambers. They’re not far away. The others will be busy with their new… burgundy vintages. ↩︎
  2. Good. I really can’t wait to taste mine, my dear. ↩︎
  3. Likewise. ↩︎

The Case of The Haunted Palace

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been watching the entire Corman-Poe cinematic cycle – a series of eight films mostly based on the nineteenth century writer of the macabre’s stories – for a while, and have continued on into this Halloween month. I went into Roger Corman and Charles Beaumount’s film The Haunted Palace cautiously thinking that it would only tangentially be related to Edgar Allan Poe’s works, with some adaptation from H.P. Lovecraft’s novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward to a Lovecraftian, rather than a Cthulhu Mythos degree. 

What do I mean by that? 

More specifically, I thought it would be a loose adoption of Lovecraft’s plot focusing on the inherent malevolence and indifference of a reality based in cosmicism as opposed to specific elements of the Cthulhu Mythos- the Great Old Ones, Miskatonic University, and the like.

But I was wrong. And you know what? As an avid Mythos lover, and corresponding to the spirit of The Horror Doctor itself, I’m glad that the film adaptation wasn’t what I thought it would be. Of course, I’m not alone in this: Corman, the director, and possibly even the screenwriter, Beaumount, also didn’t believe this film would become what it did. Due to the intervention of American International Pictures (AIP), the film’s title was changed from The Case of Charles Dexter Ward to The Haunted Palace – forcing the addition of a few of Poe’s stanzas from the eponymous poem into the cinematic narrative. Corman wanted to try something new with his work. The result was different, but reminiscent of the horror-comedy experiment of The Raven – the film introducing Vincent Price and other classical horror actors, after the notable lack of them in Premature Burial, with its convoluted ending. However, AIP then made the decision to centre this work in the same continuity as Corman’s Poe Cycle, which, in my view, further obfuscated the film.

If anything, Poe’s The Haunted Palace poem is indeed more at home with something like “The Fall of the House of Usher.” The poem is incorporated into Roderick Usher’s song in Poe’s short story of that name, and could have easily been an epigraph or voiceover in Corman’s film adaptation. Nevertheless, the stanza “And travellers, now, within that valley/Through the red-litten windows see/Vast forms that move fantastically/To a discordant melody …” fits well with the preceding scene of Joseph Curwen conducting experiments- terrifying cosmic eugenics- on captive women who end up cursing the town of Arkham, somewhere in the eighteenth century. This fragment seems to hint at the Cthulhu Mythos creatures known as shoggoth: eldritch abominations and predominantly formless beings created by, and in servitude to the Elder Things; shape shifting beings that can form any organ or limb at will. These were the monstrosities contained under Joseph Curwen’s old estate in Lovecraft’s novella. Distinctively, in Corman’s film, there is one entity that is vaguely humanoid and wavering between realities, and whom Curwen and his followers utilized to forcibly impregnate young women from Arkham whom he had mesmerized. 

This might be a stretch, and indeed Poe’s “The Haunted Palace” is all about something that was once beautiful: the seat of a wise ruler was overthrown, the memory has become bitter and corrupted by the proceeding violence. You can see how that might fit “The Fall of the House of Usher” to an extent when you look at something beautiful becoming rotten through terrible acts, but Curwen’s estate is already a font of evil- taken from Europe, and transplanted there brick by brick to continue his family and coven’s work, into allowing the dark gods a way back to Earth’s reality through his mutants. 

It is generous to say that Corman’s The Haunted Palace is a fully faithful adaptation of “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” or even Edgar Allan Poe’s poem. 

There are several other key ways in which the film adaptation departs from the source material. One such factor is that of setting. One could make the argument that the origin of Lovecraft’s Curwen did indeed come from the eighteenth century, but the main story took place in 1928 and not 1875. It may be that Corman’s film is set in the nineteenth century, complete with horse and buggies, to make it fall in line with the background and scenery of the Poe Cycle – it essentially being Poe’s time period – but it is fascinating to consider how the grafting of Charles Dexter Ward to the late nineteenth century as opposed to the early twentieth might pan out, and how that would change the telling of the story. Lovecraft’s story takes place in Providence, Rhode Island while Corman’s work occurs in Lovecraft’s creation of Arkham, Massachusetts. 

Charles Dexter Ward is a bachelor amateur antiquarian who lives with his parents. He is fascinated with the history of his home and family. Through his research, Ward discovered his ancestor Joseph Curwen’s ashes in his old residence, and with more investigation into his occultic practices, he resurrected his predecessor. Ages before his death, Joseph Curwen had created a space-time spell that affected the flows of fate. This had his descendant – who aside from a birthmark, and a lack of a forehead pit and witchmark, was practically his ancestor’s twin – find, and bring him out of his “essential Saltes.” In the context of the novella, these “Saltes” are the basic compounds left from a body that can be reanimated into a humanoid form- to be controlled, and interrogated by a necromancer. After that, Curwen – who still speaks an older dialect of English – disguises himself as Doctor Allen. You may recognize this surname to be an important one in the world of the Cthulhu Mythos. Wearing a fake beard and dark glasses to disguise himself, Curwen manipulates Charles into helping him continue his work.

“The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” novella begins with what seems to be Charles in a mental institution having physically and psychologically changed. The entire narrative is about family doctor Marinus Bicknell Willett attempting to figure out what is afflicting his young patient, which leads him to discovering secrets of the world that he really did not want to know. In the end, Doctor Willett discovers that Charles died a long time ago, having refused to do something truly heinous for his ancestor. In turn, Curwen killed Charles, hid his remains behind an old portrait of himself – which led Charles in his quest to find more information about him in the first place – and took his place, hoping to continue his experiments. However, the good doctor realizes what happened, and has studied just enough Mythos lore to not only unleash an ancient spirit of immense power on Curwen’s lich colleagues Jedediah/Simon Orne and Edward Hutchison, but to also undo Curwen’s own resurrection as he’s trapped in his cell in the asylum. In Lovecraft’s work, a young man’s benign but misguided focus on family genealogy takes a dark turn, and he is taken advantage of by forces he doesn’t understand; ultimately, reason, logic and kindness win out against the darkness, avenging his demise. 

Corman and Beaumount’s cinematic narrative begins with Curwen and his mistress Hester Tillinghast luring young women to his estate. The purpose of this is to implant what seems to be Great One-Human hybrids inside of these women. Again, there are some interesting references evoked from their choices in name for Curwen’s mistress, the etymology of which has likely been based in Lovecraftian lore. She shares the surname of the mad scientist Crawford Tillinghast in Lovecraft’s “From Beyond”, and Hester possibly mirrors the name of “Hastur,” a terrible deity adopted by Lovecraft from Ambrose Bierce and Robert W. Chambers.

In the film, we find a completely different practice from the Joseph Curwen in Lovecraft’s novella: while the man was involved in the slave trade, and experimented on countless human beings, he and his compatriots seemed more fascinated with reanimating and tormenting the dead through their essential salts in order to question them, and gain their powerful lore. Necromancy seemed the word of the day for Lovecraft’s Curwen, and forbidden knowledge his ultimate vice- at any cost. Further, we know that Curwen had fled one witch trial before, and was prolonging his life unnaturally. He took a wife, and gave to civic pride in Providence to keep up appearances before the citizens raided his lair after hearing rumours of his atrocities. 

Corman and Beaumount’s work posits that Curwen, in taking Hester as his mistress, infuriated her betrothed Ezra Weeden. This, combined with seeing countless young women go to their estate, brought the wrath of Arkham down on him. Curwen’s death in the film seems far more personal, compared to the relative civic duty that Lovecraft makes clear in his work. Yet this also sets the way for personal revenge, as Curwen, in being burned alive by a mob, curses the entire town for generations until – one day – he intends to return. 

One hundred and ten years later, in the film, we get a Charles Dexter Ward who isn’t a young twenty-six year old introverted bachelor who loves antiquity, but an older, more cynical and sarcastic man, accompanied by his wife Anne to Arkham. They have come to this town to check on some property that is in Charles’ family. Charles clearly doesn’t even want to be there, and it’s Anne who is fascinated with this dark and dreary town with its sullen, unfriendly people, as well as many afflicted with a terrible mutation. In this version Doctor Marinus Willet, the only person in the town who isn’t superstitious, doesn’t even know them, but he guides them to the estate, informing them of what occurred before. Further, it seems to be Joseph Curwen’s portrait on the mantle in the estate that begins to affect Charles’ mind, and he begins to struggle with the spirit of his ancestor. It is interesting to note that this Curwen doesn’t try to befriend or even manipulate Charles. Charles himself has almost no idea what is going on. In the end, a hapless but kind man is overcome by the soul of his ancestor. The idea of bad blood telling is both a Poe and Lovecraftian idea, or a Gothic one at least. There is some resonance to Lovecraft’s “The Thing on the Doorstep.” While in “Charles Dexter Ward”, Curwen is resurrected from his ancestor’s remains, here he switches minds with his descendant, and no longer has a body of his own.

In fact, there is a moment where I thought Curwen would get his original body: when he and Simon Orne and Jabez Hutchinson- in this iteration, as his followers, rather than his friends and equals as in the original story- robbed a graveyard. However, that is only to get the corpse of Hester Tillinghast back, to reanimate her. It is the only instance beyond Lovecraft’s novella where we see Curwen use necromancy to raise the dead, and there is no mention of “essential Saltes,” just a repetition of the Latin word for “live.” I do have to say, though, that given the cold and dark beauty that is Tillinghast’s actress Cathie Merchant, I can’t say I particularly blame him.

However, whereas Lovecraft’s Charles Dexter Ward had his father afraid for him, and his family doctor fighting for him, in Corman and Beaumount’s work it is his wife Anne, played by Debra Paget, who won’t leave him despite all of his terrible changes in behavior after coming to the estate. In the end, she calls on Doctor Willet – the descendant of one of the men who helped burn Curwen – to help her and her husband. It is interesting to see the character dynamics play out in this setting. Lovecraft’s Curwen uses blackmail, extortion, and murder to get his way in “Charles Dexter,” as a matter of course, whereas the Curwen in Corman’s film is petty and spiteful against the descendants of the people who killed him the first time, but strangely proud of the man whose life he has now possessed. He almost admires Charles in resisting him, though only because of that “Curwen blood,” which of course is an extension of him. He is an entity that ruins Charles’ life, consuming it into the void that is himself, and attempts to rape Anne. When he gets tired of doing all of that, he even gaslights her to Doctor Willet, trying to get the man to take her away, and let him continue his plans. Vincent Price plays both Charles and Curwen, and the mental dynamic and struggle between them pretty well, but that is no surprise when you look at his dual-roles in Corman’s The Pit and the Pendulum a few movies ago in the Cycle. 

And those plans are sinister as all get out, even as they are amazing to someone who is a fan of the Cthulhu Mythos. You have a man who possesses a copy of the Necronomicon, a book that has links to the powers of the “Elder Gods” – or as Lovecraft calls them Great Old Ones – such as Cthulhu himself, and Yog-Sothoth. You also have the fact that the afflicted villagers and their ever-worsening mutations are reminiscent of the Innsmouth Deep One-Human Hybrids, and the Dunwich Whateley sons of Yog-Sothoth in Lovecraft’s work. This is not just a Lovecraftian film, you realize at this point, but a Cthulhu Mythos adaptation. And it is exciting to see something like that occur in 1963, long before Stuart Gordon’s films, and other depictions. This may well be one of the first cinematic adaptations of Lovecraft, and you can witness it through so many of these themes.

But while many of those elements – the Necronomicon and Yog-Sothoth – are referenced from Lovecraft’s story, several plot point in Corman’s film are different. Curwen’s ultimate plan in making Anne the mate of the shoggoth, the demonic thing in the wavering green pit, is foiled when Charles seems to regain control of his body. The townspeople attack the estate after Curwen used fire to assassinate two of their number. This actually troubles his followers, as, after waiting for Curwen to return for over a century, they wanted to continue resurrecting their dark gods. This makes the viewer wonder if there was going to be a mutiny, though it never happens. Then, Orne, Hutchinson, and Hester Tillinghast disappear, as Willet goes back to rescue Charles from the fire. I can almost forgive this rush job given how awesome performances were by Price, and Lon Chaney Jr. – who plays Simon Orne – but it does feel a little rough. Even so, I do like the idea that however we got to that point, there is the strong implication that despite the destruction of the portrait, Joseph Curwen is still in possession of Charles Dexter Ward, and ending the film on that dark note finishes strong. There is no stalwart, elderly doctor that vanquishes evil here. No banishment into dust. No deus ex machina destroying Curwen’s peers off page or off camera. Curwen continues on. Evil survives. 

It makes you wonder who had a far worse end: Lovecraft’s Ward, who at least got to die after all of his suffering, (though he knew the terrible truths of the world and was forced to commit unspeakable acts before he did so), or Corman and Beaumount’s Ward, who didn’t know anything before being subsumed by his ancestor’s malignant soul. The film’s end, and the thoughts they conjure up, tend to linger long after their stories are over.

It’s mentioned by Willet – or perhaps it was the descendant of Weeden – that the estate, or “the Palace” of Curwen and his family was taken from somewhere in Europe in pieces, and reassembled in America. I feel, too, that this is the case in a more localized geographical, but literary way in North America. According to Corman in his interview with Chris Alexander in Corman/Poe: Interviews and Essays Exploring the Making of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe Films, 1960-1964 A.I.P. took fragments of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem and attempted to expand it, to mutate and build blocks from it as the Elder Things – and sorcerers after them like Curwen – would shoggoth. One can even argue that Curwen and his associates learned how to reanimate the dead through breaking down organic beings into their salt contents by studying – and feeding – shoggoth as basic building blocks of life. But more like Lovecraft’s Herbert West – and it’s hilarious as there is a Benjamin West as one of the townsfolk that killed Curwen ages ago – in that they attempted to regrow this reptilian skin loosely over a whole other kind of body of work in Lovecraft himself. “The Haunted Palace” stanza, at the end of the film, “While, like a ghastly rapid river, /Through the pale door /A hideous throng rush out forever, /And laugh—but smile no more,” just doesn’t quite … fit. 

I am a fan of stories and films that use epigraphs – fragments of literary passages and quotes from other works – and even include parts of them within the body of their narratives. Even Lovecraft and Poe utilized these devices. So if I were to change anything about The Haunted Palace, (aside from not having Orne, Hutchinson, and Tillinghast vanish for no reason, or Charles suddenly return again, or Curwen falsify that act), and I had to make this very clear specimen of the Cthulhu Mythos in the cinematic medium fit in with the thematics of the Corman-Poe Cycle, I wouldn’t have used “The Haunted Palace” at all.

Instead of “The Haunted Palace,” one could speculate on what might happen if the filmmakers took another tactic. What if we go back to right after Curwen’s burning, and have Vincent Price recite in his velvety sardonic voice:

That motley drama—oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

And then end the entire film with the following lines on screen:

But see, amid the mimic rout,
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.

Just think about how these stanzas fit the themes, and the content of this film: the mob mentality, the plot of the film, the non-human elements in the form of the mutants and the thing in the pit, the desecration of the dead, and the ghouls that play with death and flesh. It goes back to the mutants, and the disease, and the curse. I mean, if you are going to name a Lovecraft Cthulhu Mythos story after Poe’s work, you might as well title it “The Conqueror Worm.”

But really, it should have just been The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, and if you look at “The Haunted Palace” as a genuine inspiration of this film, perhaps it is less a commentary on the film itself, and it more refers to its place in the Corman-Poe Cycle. It is placed in a continuity of lush and vibrant, startlingly colourful films, but it is twisted, dark, and cynical. Perhaps the poem talks about the beauty that once existed in the Corman-Poe Cycle, but is now consumed by Lovecraft’s indifference towards any concept of human life and  meaning, and the changing of a cinematic era: where all of that dark wonder has become shadows of what they once were. Chris Alexander, in his Corman/Poe, mentions that the change of writers – from Richard Matheson to Beaumount – represents a shift in the Cycle from an immersive experience of twists and turns to “the mechanics of plot.” He argues that the film is almost “pornographically direct” and he further calls Lovecraft the antithesis of Poe, and in his interview with Corman, the latter mentions how Lovecraft is darker and more overt: an approach that both he and Beaumount were looking for in trying something new.

And I think they did make something new, though not necessarily what they might – or might not – have been looking for. They made the first Cthulhu Mythos film for the general public. And while it might be awkward to place it into the Corman-Poe Cycle, as one of Lovecraft’s adaptations it is solid on its own merit for the most part. Like Lovecraft, while it might seem more blatant and steeped in realism, instead of the surrealism of the previous films, Corman’s film reaches into the supernatural and its inherent madness, leading to further grandiose and terrifying spectacles to come. 

How I Did It

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

Dedicated to Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks, My apologies.

Vith thiz roating I Hanz Vilhelm Friedreich Kemp, vill quyotely, unt vith gret purpoz, rekort mien accunt ov how I von. Ov ou I dit it. 

Ugh. Shit. Pardon my English. Or German. No one in Transylvania can tell the difference. I said, with this writing I Hans Wilhelm Friedrich Kemp will quietly, and with great purpose, record my account of how I won. Of how I did it.

Vater and Mutter were at it again in the tower, making like Act Three of Die Walküre. I was a quiet child, practically a mute. Vater had no patience for it, lost in his cognac, or his work. Mutter was kinder. No. Not kinder. She was nice. She played for us. I still remember the smell of her cigars, and the thrum of her violin. But, like always, they tended to forget about me. They left me with their manservant. Fritz. A mean, nasty sort of fellow. Always furious at me for staying in the bathroom for too long. It was the only place I had to myself. I could barely speak, child that I was, but Mutter and Vater were proud of me for using the pot. Der Großvater, never der Opa, never knew. Vater told me he did not know of me, but would see me when I had grown more. I was a big boy. I didn’t know what he meant. I didn’t understand. 

One day, in our cramped home that I loved, but was too small, Fritz tormented me again. He liked to see how close he could get with his matches. He knew I’d say nothing. I couldn’t say anything. Vater trusted Fritz, though he had reason to be angry with him. 

Once, when I was born, Fritz insisted he’d found the right person, one Abt Üblich. 

He read worse than I write, and Vatter flew into a rage, choking him until Mutter pried him off. Fritz. Always fidgeting with his tie. On his suit. It was always crooked. A man has to be presentable, was what he told me when he didn’t go on about how awful I looked. It wasn’t my fault. I was a sickly kind, as my parents knew. 

But that day, Vater and Mutter were working, and I could hear them. Vater calling her name over and again like she was lost, and it was a miracle to hear anything. Even now, I still hear the sound of the William Tell Overture, and The March of the Swiss Soldiers to this very day. 

It made Fritz mad. Fritz was always mad when Vater was with Mutter. I think he was jealous, and he growled like a dog when he flashed his matches at me. I kicked them away, while he laughed. But we were in my room, and while Fritz talked about needing a roll in the hay, I don’t think that is quite what he meant. But I saved him. I pulled him up to the rafters. I even straightened out his tie. 

I think he stopped working, then. And I was scared. So I took the secrets of life and death with me. The book. I took The Secrets of Life and Death with me. Shit. Vater lent it to me, to help me learn to talk. To read and write.  My handwriting is so messy.

And then I fled. 

The rest was a blur. People screamed when I went by. They said that a monster was on the loose. I was terrified. A monster? Where? I couldn’t see it. But it followed me. I hid. There was a talking doll near the lake. An old man that thought I was some kind of soldier, or mercenary. But then his family came, and the monster with them. 

And I wanted to go back. I wanted to find Vater and Mutter again. I wanted to tell them that I ran off. I wanted to say that I was sorry. I would be a good boy. A good kind. They didn’t come for me.

They didn’t look.

I knew why. The book Vater gave me told me everything. I handled it the best I could. But the villagers made a party. The rest. The windmill. The pitchforks. The torches. The marshmallows. Then it all came down. I thought I heard someone scream my name. 

By the time I woke up, I was under wood. Not waking up with wood, but it was on top of me. Not, not like that either. And I saw a big man beside me —

Again, not like that … Are you telling this story, or me?

Right. I growled. I could talk, but not well. And I was coughing. The villagers came. I thought this was it. But they pulled me out. They saw the man beside me. He was in pieces. I could have used some of those. They said the monster was dead. And he got me. 

Und ja. Die fiendje monsta dit ziz to me. Mien aye, und mien arm und hant. My apologies. My handwriting. And yes. The fiendish monster did this to me. My eye, and my arm and hand. The hermit gave me the idea. He thought I had more holes in me than Swiss cheese, but I realized that what I was was an Army Knife. I had options now.

They called me Kemp. And so Kemp I became. You would not believe how many drinks they gave me in the Beer Hall. How my new family doted on me. A survivor of the monster. A hero. Kemp must have been a big boy like me, before the fire and the wood got to him. Kinder, both of us, almost made kindling.

Almost forty years passed. Vater was gone, fled the land. I think he was on the rocks on a ship. I choose to believe he drank himself to death on a cruise. Mutter remained, working for Großvater until they pried his will from his bony fingers. I got a nice Prussian mustache, even though we are in Transylvania. I fixed my arm. I got a new one. From the lumber yard, I tell them. Sometimes both arms lock up, but the villagers never seem to remember which side is what. And fire doesn’t scare me anymore, after seeing it up close.

And I am not afraid of the villagers. These people accepted me. They look up to me. Many of them never even saw me when I first wandered off from my home. The high collars really help my neck. The hat I wear too covers my forehead. And my eye is fine. I just wear the patch for emphasis. Perhaps my German is too over-emphasized. It’s easy to lapse back into those growls. But they never notice that slip up. 

Riots are ugly things. Every once and a while, I stir them up before they can think of doing them themselves. The last great riot? That was when people got into a fight at the hall over whether Transylvania’s ruled by the Swiss, or the Romanians! Or if we are our own country! Fools! We are Transylvania. Where everyone knows each other, and little boys shine shoes, and men blow horns in their lederhosen. And where we brew beer, and brothels. Especially brothels.

And there are other little pleasures. I play with them. They see me. They respect me. They understand me more than they did their Baron. When Frederick Frankenstein came after the will, I wanted to have my fun. I hadn’t seen my home in years. Mutter wasn’t around. I heard the rumours, though. Just like that sweet music. They made another. Another monster. I went over to the Castle. These hands, even now, are hard to hold a pen. I could break this table if I wanted to. I did a few times. This time, I controlled that knock at the door.

I enjoyed Frederick’s discomfort. He asked me, when I flexed my stiff arm, like a toy’s, if I had a war wound. Pah. Nien, I said. It was … “It vaz ripped out of itz zocket,” I laughed. I had to. This was too funny. He had no idea, “by zi fiendish monster zat your grandfather created!”

Watching him squirm was the best part. I even got to play some darts with him later in the billiards room. I could never throw, not even when I lost that … doll in the lake. And if I did, I would have broken the wall. It was easy to distract him, and just place them there on my arm, and then the board. I couldn’t – I wouldn’t – reveal myself, but I was going to win.

And I did. I had my fun. I didn’t have it in my heart to hurt my cousin. My brother. My little brother. And when I saw what Frederick did for him, after playing some more with the villagers, I really did want to give them some sponge cake. I love sponge cake. But my hand came off. My cousin might be gentler, but he is stronger than I thought. That soun of a veetch. 

So off to the lumber yard. Ja. And then, to another time-honoured tradition. 

To the brothel.

But I, Heinrich … Henry von Frankenstein, will not need any timber for that.

Happy Halloween

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

For Diana Prince, Darcy the Mailgirl, of The Last Drive-In. Happy Belated Birthday.

From a shattered store window, a black and white television screen flickers with static. There is a picture on there, barely visible to anyone who might see it, who might remain. It’s as though a mashed pumpkin leers out from a space long dead, or alive not so long ago. 

Happy happy Halloween Halloween Halloween, the device chirps out, faded, stuttering, discordant, happy happy Halloween, Silver Shamrock …

It is the only sound in the silence that is Haddonfield now. 

It lumbers into the deathly quiet town. It had never left. Its breathing is laboured, muffled, from its exertions. The Shape tilts its head to the side, to look at the treats that another’s trick had made. It kneels down, bending on one knee, at one small form. It moves its mask off what’s left of its face. Just like the others, it notes to itself, filled with insects and snakes. They chitter and hiss in the growing darkness of the night, and the chill of autumn. The Shape sees them in the gloom and the dying street lamps, feasting on burned and rotted faces. Some of the masks have survived. Green warty witch faces. The leering facades of skulls. The visages of Jack O Lanterns. 

All these small shapes, their brains burned from the inside, boiling their blood, sizzling their nerve-endings, the ozone of electricity and elemental power unleashed, and then releasing compartments or using fragments of power to release the spontaneous generation of pestilence to swarm, and eradicate the larger forms nearby. The Shape feels nothing as it peels off those rubbery death masks, looking at the paroxysms of screams from the remains of the adults. It notes how some of them held the children, spilling candy and chocolate and apples all around them, offerings to a grim, arbitrary harvest that only The Shape can appreciate now, reluctantly. 

It looks at the remains of one of the masks, with its silvery component, its medallion and its piece of stone. For a few moments, it thinks it sees the rune of a Thorn on it. It pauses, and something shifts inside of it. Something deep in itself, in the place where its chest is, where it lungs are, and its heart resides. It can feel it. 

Nothing in this town is alive anymore. Nothing is alive anywhere. 

It can’t explain how it knows, even if it talked, even if there was anyone around to talk with about it. It looks at the knife in its hand, stained with chemicals instead of blood. There were trucks. After the televisions played the song, the endless cycle still reverberating through the town, through the country, perhaps even the world, it had made its way to those vehicles. They had been around the stores, the houses of families. These strange suited constructs, The Shape noticed they didn’t bleed or come apart like the others. Only chemicals and wires. Only plastic faces. One, if one still lived, might have believed The Shape to be disappointed by it all: to see these ends as anticlimactic. 

But The Shape doesn’t feel that way. Not at all. 

It feels … different now. These were all treats. And this was a trick. Something is lifting from The Shape, something it cannot name. 

It walks on. It breathes, more shallow, behind its own mask. It recalls finding it in a store, and even now it smells like devil’s rain. It considers going to another house. It pauses. It knows how far it would be. How easy it would be. But somewhere, deep in the void that it is, The Shape can’t find itself to bother. 

It knows that she is already gone. Perhaps gone while babysitting another child. Or hiding. It didn’t matter. Not anymore. 

There is only one place now. The Shape steps on crisp fallen leaves, scattered confections, slithering vermin, the burned and rotted corpses of parents and children, the scattered grains of broken dreams.

Until it finds the house. 

Its footsteps become heavier on the old floorboards. It closes the door behind it, more out of habit than any other purpose. It has been habit and instinct for so long, in any case. Blood, viscera, pain, killing has been the only thing it ever cared about. As it stomps slowly, ponderously, up the steps where a family used to be, long before this last Halloween, it remembers how disgusting it had been. Before it had been darkness, before it had been perfect. Before the doctor tried to mould an intelligence from it, before all of those experiments, before the fear, it remembered the revolting smell of skin and lust, and grossness of being. Of human bodily function. Flesh making flesh. It couldn’t stand it. The idea that something tied it by blood to blood. The knife had been cold and perfect. Then it moved on, it recalls as it comes to the room where it started, to the vessel that carried it, and the other thing that put it in that vessel. That girl. That woman. That man. 

Sister. Mother. Father. 

Little Sister. 

Ugly, there should never have been more than one of him. Stars and cycles. Blood. How much of it had been real? How much had any of it mattered? He stared that day into his own darkness, and knew that it wouldn’t stop until there was no one, and nothing left to kill. But it is quiet now. There is nothing. There is just the night. 

The knife drops from his fingers as The Shape loses cohesion, leaving him empty, possibly bereft. The mask feels artificial now, fake and dead. He slowly strips it off of him. The clatter of the knife echoes through his home. The cool fall air kisses his face almost unbearably, making him raw. Tears flow down his face. He kneels on the floor, near the window, looking for something. He remembers now. Before the doctor tried to kill him, before he tried to lock him away, before he experimented on him silent and helpless, before his parents locked him away, before he started all of this by ending it. 

He finds it in the floor boards. He sits down, cross legged, all of the force and momentum of what has kept him going now long gone. He has just enough wherewithal to put it on. And as he puts the old, small clown face on, he knows The Shape is gone. He smiles behind his old face to match it. He takes his treat. He sits against the wall under the window for a long time, before slowly sliding to the side, and slumping over onto the old, hard wood.  

And this is how Michael Myers spent his best Halloween ever.

Journal of an Olympian

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

Yo, Chris. Like we said, they were going to wrap up that Armitage Racist Sex Cult shit faster than DJ Jazzy Jeff getting thrown out of a Bel-Air Mansion. I still can’t believe the depths of this evil, crazy shit. It’s almost literary levels of what the fuck. How I get these? Groundskeeper Grandpa’s shack built more solid than that fucking house of horrors. Damn, man. I told you not to go in there. And hey. I’m TSA, remember? I got friends. Just, Jesus Chris. This fucking title too. Made a whole fucking memoir. Like Mein Kampf. Kind of glad most of it got burned in your fire. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

— Rod

It won’t be long now.

I’m afraid, of course. Any sane man would be, even at the cusp of an achievement like this. If there is even the slightest margin of error, I …

Marianne is worried too, but I’ve assured her that I will be all right. We will be all right. 

I’ve taught Dean well, and he already has a fine family of his own. They know exactly what to do. I see all of the issues now, in retrospect. The mind has to be prepared for the process, both parties to form the Coagula. It isn’t just the host, but the brain — the mind — of the pilot as well. I am so glad that I detailed that video recording while I still could, before this vessel fails, and I can finally get a new one. I hope it will be comforting to those who will join our Order. Perhaps, even our family. That Missy, she is a fine woman for Dean, and the rest of us as well. 

There were mistakes, I will admit it. Perhaps some hubris on our part. On mine. The Doppelganger Experiment was supposed to make this process easier. After all, while they did fail to have any influence over the populace despite what we might have promised that Administration, I still think they would still stand to be fine donors for those of us who are more fortunate. It was a stepping stone, certainly, to gaining the resources that we’ve needed to make this Transmutation possible, and the friends and allies to keep us strong and focused. The poor coloured Doppelganger already lost his original counterpart. I still think it’s unfortunate that the initial process was messy, at best. I suspect that that brain had been too damaged, even with Dean’s brilliant hands and the teachings of our Order such as we established them. Again, we didn’t account for the psychology of the mind, or needing another mind as a foundation to bolster the parts of the brain required to function. Or Missy. We really needed a Missy, back then. Even so, the subject survived with a few of his memories intact, though not enough to grant us — or our allies — any other leverage. If only we could have told the world that we saved such a man, such a politician. 

I’m so sorry, Mr. President. 

That had been our first real experiment. And it was a long road. Up until my time, the Order had pursued Transmutation, immortality, the Holy Grail, through spiritual means. There were so many leads. We had people, family even, in all different branches of endeavour, especially our greatest and most prominent American institutions. We even had a family member in the Orne Library itself, at that University in Massachusetts. We regained so much lore from him, back when we were the Knights Templar. He did a fine job, keeping out the … undesirables, the riff-raff, the dilettantes, and the unclean, while leaving the choicest morsels to us, and our friends. Recommended scholars only. Unfortunately, he was never the same after the Late Spring of ’27. He’d already been a fierce opponent of miscegenation, but that business in that village of inbred hicks broke him. He couldn’t see what needed to be done. It’s a shame, what happened to him in the 1930s, but he’d already been a shadow of his former self. He’d have been horrified at what we’re trying to do now, at what we are transforming into out of pure necessity. But we never had time for short-sightedness. We had to move on.

The Manuscripts were too fragmented, and only hinted on ways to do what we had to bloodlessly. Transcendence and a simple exchange of minds would have been nice, but we are still not evolved enough. It would have been too wasteful to let those other minds, and their skills die. Or worse, allow them to exist in our old shells without proper guidance. No, the body is still the only thing we have to work with, and the more sophisticated, if crude the better. No, two things from the University encouraged us, and me once I took over. I’d heard the stories about the coloured boxer in Bolton, and it was easy for those doctors to revive him. Even if my time in Germany hadn’t happened, even if I didn’t see the future in blood and muscle overtake me, I already knew achievements like these would be possible. That strength. That endurance. That resiliency. But then, there were the records. From Pluto. To think the world doesn’t believe it is a planet anymore. If only they knew the extent of it. Those records were incredibly useful. Only, we don’t want canisters. 

Flesh and blood is the key. Flesh and blood are the tools to ascension. 

The coagula is the way, the merging of Lower and Upper Egypt into the body of an eternal empire. The gods knew this, in any culture. They could cleave themselves together. And like Aristophanes’ story, that is exactly what we will do as we find our other, better halves, and guide them into perpetual life. Adaptation is the key. It always was. Artificial selection, cultivation, and a gentle guiding hand is all that’s needed to shape the perfect form to marry towards the perfect minds. 

Dean and Missy are a part of that in a more metaphorical sense. Hands and mind. Jeremy is a little rough around the edges, but he will come around. He favours the body, just like his Grandpa. I can respect that. Hell, I will be able to keep up with him when this is all said, and done. But the true prize is Rose. My darling granddaughter. She’s saved me. In some ways, she’s saved me more effectively than her parents. She has a new friend. She’s bringing him here soon. And I can’t wait to meet him. 

I’m tired. It’s been a long couple of decades, and there were a few times that I doubted our path. That I doubted myself. I am afraid, but it is just a shadow of the adrenaline I used to feel when I ran those races. When I sprung down towards that finish line. It was the fear of failure, of being left behind, of collapsing under my own weight. It was the terror of being humiliated, shown up, used up as someone better than me took my place. Because I was too slow. Because I wasn’t fast enough. 

But soon all our hard work will pay off. Everyone: the Greenes, the Kings, the Wincotts, the Jeffries, the Waldens. Even Tanaka. They will all profit from the fruits of our labour, and the discoveries of our alchemy. Baser elements transmuted into gold and platinum.  From mud into marble. 

From Black to White.

And they will always remember that it was the Armitages that brought them these gifts. And we will always lead them, and the Order, well. 

I can’t wait for Marianne to feel my strong, dark arms wrapped around her, and a stamina that will never tire. And virility that will never end. And she will have her time as well. Rose already has a new friend for my darling. I am so proud of her.

And I feel so fortunate to you too, Walter. Hopefully we will get a chance to talk before the procedure. You deserve far more than just an impersonal video tape. You will be my new lease on life. You will be my ascension to a new space that was barred to me. Titans need to be protected, and restrained. Centimanes will guard our gates. And Cyclopes will create our lightning. And you will be my lightning, Walter. You will let me strike faster, and harder than I ever did before. I will be able to start again. 

Yes. Thank you, Walter. Thank you for volunteering to give me this new chance. 

Because I haven’t forgotten Berlin. I’ll never forget that day. I will finally do it. 

I’m going to beat you, Jesse. 

I’m going to beat you.

Holy supervillain rant crazy rants, Batman. Pretty sure fucker was talking about Cthulhu shit, bro. Cthul. Lu. Shit. And the Clones around America too. Damn, dude. Not sure what we’re going to do about that. Kind of above my pay grade.

But there’s a whole list of names here. All those old white families. Cocky sons of bitches. And a bit about what they were going to do to you. And what these asshole sons of bitches did to so many others. Don’t worry. We’ll find them, Chris. We’ll get them. One name at a time. 

Lost Cause

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

For Mia Chainsaw

I know what you did. 

Oh, it was clever. Those kids came in, on their fancy bus, with their millennial friends, and they were going to take away what was rightfully yours. Ssh. Don’t speak. You can’t speak now anyway. I always had a suspicion, you see, about this town. About Harlow. But I never had proof. I never had proof about this place, or the areas surrounding it. They came into that homestead, you know, to that window into hell, and they found all the toys. All the “art.”

But they didn’t find them. Any of them. 

That’s when this town started to die. Oh, I bided my time Ginny. Can I call you that? I feel like we are connected somehow, you and I. Viscerally. No no. They had you on that ambulance too long. I know the distances. The heat. We’re in Texas, and many people just die on the way here. This town never dreaded sundown, or maybe that’s not accurate, is it? No. See, this small place here? Right. This place, where you were born, where you grew up, and where you are going to die soon — very soon from what the doctors tell me — is more of a sundown town. I guess it makes sense. I had of time, and some contacts here: like the one who phoned me up. It figures your family came here from East Texas after the Civil War. None of you like outsiders, of any kind. 

I guess that’s why it took so long for people to go to that property when my friends, and my brother were slaughtered by your local heroes. Your unsung boys. Your glorious dead.

No no. I know. The time they got there, the whole family was gone. A regular old Sawyer Adventure, am I right? 

And Tom Sawyer is running around again.

You’re probably not one for liberal Seventies culture, right Ginny? My friends and I were. We just wanted to see if my grandfather’s remains were safe. The irony, or the poetry I guess, is that I did have family here. In this land. In this place. I took it over again. Refurbished it. I came all the way over from the old Hardesty place, from my land, and I waited here. I wanted you all to be nervous. I wanted to be patient. I was waiting you to slip up. 

The problem is, I found the others. Seventies counter-culture. One was an easy rider, but he got run over. The other, Sawney Bean, was a cackling, mean son of a bitch. Not surprised you don’t understand the reference, but he liked to cook too, and trick people off the road. And that old man .. you know, he was apparently one hundred and thirty-seven years old. It reminds me of a short story I read in college. “The Picture in the House,” even heard of it? By Lovecraft. No. You probably think he was a queer, but anyone was Grandpa, the character in that story would’ve been him while he was still up and about.

There were few other freaks, too. But I’m not interested in them. 

I want Tom Sawyer. I want Ed Gein. 

The Moonlight Killer had a sack over his head like some of your great-grandpappy’s friends, I’m sure. But that … piece of shit had many faces. I studied about him, after I got my mind back, such as it was, as it is. Austin University had a good Law Enforcement Program. I studied all kinds of killers too, and how they work. The problem is, Ginny, is that I never saw his face. He was large. Tall. I never doubted for a second he could still be a threat in, what his seventies, like us? He’s not like us. His whole inbred cannibal family of killers are mutants. His fucking Grandpa lived over a century. No. I know he’s going around, killing those kids. 

You told him to go into your room. 

They didn’t get all the evidence. He’s the only one that came back. He had no where to go, after his whole family was gone. I know. Between me and Lieutenant Boude Enright, my Uncle Lefty, we exterminated those sons of bitches. My uncle didn’t make it, but I continued what he started. 

And he is the only one left. 

I’ve been by the old place. Oh, I’m sure you never had a tacit deal with the Sawyers. You just looked the other way. It was silent. Implicit. Strangers came into town, or undesirables, and they’d just disappear. I don’t need to go into who they are, or were, right? I think it’s pretty clear. 

Your last boy. The one in the orphanage. I can’t believe how many teeth I had to pull, to find anyone who’d talk about someone so large. So easy to see. He was in that house. Wounded. You took him out. You brought him to town. Got him as your ward. Adopted him. The town found him “mentally incompetent,” or nowadays developmentally delayed. He was nothing without them. I remember that now. They always bossed him around. Beat him. Told him what to do. I’m sure he enjoyed it, but he couldn’t so much as take a shit without their approval. He played when left to his own devices. We went into his playground, and we had no idea we stepped into hell. And then his family unleashed him and hell on a DJ named “Stretch” Brock. She’s a hard-ass now, despite them. Told me a lot more about that son of a bitch than I knew. 

How long did you keep his chainsaw in that room? Oh when those kids came in with that deed, you were already planning it, weren’t you. How long did he have, to take those rusted pieces out, oil them, put them together again? Putting the gas inside? Does he have some kind of workroom under your house? 

It doesn’t matter, really. Because, you see Ginny, you did me a favour. Before all of this, he didn’t have his mask anymore. It, and the rest, probably rotted away ages ago like all the corpses of all his family’s victims that were left. He’s been killing those city kids, and anyone in his way. He’s fast now. Cunning. Playing. But he’d never do it himself. He’s just an empty, blank thing on his own. A whimpering animal. He was all docile and placid for you, for years, taking care of your kids, and you. No one knowing who he is, but suspecting. No evidence. No proof. 

But then these fucking kids come in. Poor kids. I knew their grandparents, too, you know. We all know each other here now, don’t we, around these parts. They should’ve listened to their grandma. 

I’m not a grandma, Ginny. I am the last Hardesty thanks to your ward. And he is the last Sawyer. And you are the last McCumber. You could’ve handed him into authorities. You could’ve avenged the lives he and his family had taken. You could’ve made up for all the people you turned a blind eye towards as they went to their deaths. You could’ve saved young lives. 

Oh I know. I followed the paperwork. They didn’t have the deed. Yes. They fucked up. You could’ve come here. Challenged them in court. Even won. They didn’t have a chance, even with that fancy city money. But you got angry. They threw your sweet tea right in your face. They disrespected your great-grandfather’s memory. They intruded into your home. Into his lair. They woke him up, out of that puppy docility, out of dormancy. They brought him out of hiding for me.

You brought him out of hiding for me. 

You know, I think he loves you. The sick thing is, I think despite you using him as a killer, you treated him better than his entire family ever did. I’d almost feel sad for him, pity if he weren’t a mad beast that needs to be put down. 

No. Don’t struggle. You’re done. Your heart is too weak. Broken. He’ll find out. He’ll know what’s happened. He’ll lose his cool, and he will rage like a wild animal. More people will die, like those city kids, I expect. But they were going to die anyway. But then he’s going to get sloppy. Careless. He’s going to want his “Moma’s” body. Sawyers honour their kin by mummifying, or wearing them. But I got you first. 

I got you, and I will play all Little Red Riding Hood but, this time, I will be the Big Bad Wolf. And that sick bastard is going to suffer a long time before I’m done with him. Maybe he’ll really know what it’s like when someone takes away the only people you love left. Go to sleep, Ginny McCumber. The South’s not going to rise again.

Doctor! Doctor! Come quickly! Her heart stopped! I don’t think —

*

Yeah, she’s gone right? I’m sorry to hear that Doctor. Yeah, this letter is legit. I have custody of her body, and I will take charge of the autopsy. Yes, it is part of the continuing investigation into the killings. Is the suspect her ward? He ran when the ambulance picked her up at the orphanage, yes? 

Right. 

I’ve been reactivated for this case. Thank you for your time, and cooperation. I will do my best to find this killer for the State of Texas. 

I promise. 

Face Off

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

2022 Texas Chainsaw Massacre Spoiler warning in effect.

For Magi Savage: Happy Birthday. 

I finally got you, you son of a bitch.

I’m sorry Melody, Lila. I told you not to come here. But none of you listened. You didn’t listen to the police. You didn’t listen to your grandma, may she rest in peace. Just like we didn’t listen.

“You don’t want to go fooling around other folks’ property. If some folks don’t like it… they don’t mind showing you.”

But you liked showing us, didn’t you. 

Come on, you bastard. Right here. Right now. You killed everyone I ever loved. You almost got me. But you fucked up. I got away. I almost didn’t. It was touch, and go. Went catatonic in ’73. People thought I died in ’77. I think I was one of them. But I didn’t die, you motherfucker. 

Look at me. 

Look at me, goddamn you.

Those girls, those kids, opened a crack in a window leading to hell, but it’s me you … no. Fuck that. 

It’s me that wants you.

After 1973, it was all about you. In 1977, I heard you were on the run. You and that whole disgusting family. I went back to school in Austin. I learned how to shoot a gun. Went right into Law Enforcement. Been a ranger. I was always hunting you fuckers down, went I finally got my badge. But someone always beat me to it. Like my Uncle. Yeah. He started carrying a chainsaw, just like you. Two of them. It didn’t help him. 

No. I only need the one. This one. 

Studied more than Law, but Criminal Psych. See, I remember that house of yours, and all your little toys. I wanted to know what made your mind work. How you tick. You Ed Gein-wannabe in a family of Sawney Beans. I wanted to know how your fucked up mind works, because I wanted to do more than just kill you. 

I want to hurt you. I want to hurt you bad. 

Oh, you like this huh? I found your little precious mother in that field. No. Virginia McCumber wasn’t your Mama. She found you in that house, after everyone else was gone. Your were always the runt. The mascot. You did everything they told you to, but when they were all gone, you had nothing else but that house. And she found you. Took pity on a simpleton. All your trophies were gone. You had no reason to live without your cannibal kin. She took you in, and you did everything she told you to do. 

And then she died. 

A beast never sleeps forever. That’s her face, right? Made her a fucking taxidermic mummy just like Grandma. Well, here’s Grandma, asshole! Here’s Grandpa too! And Nubbins! And Bobby’s plate. And your father-brother or whatever inbred monster of a cook that took me back to dinner! Jerry, Kirk, Pam … even Franklin! Poor, annoying, sad Franklin. My brother. They’re all here. I decided to wear them. Do you remember me now, motherfucker? 

You made my Grandpa into a toy. That’s what we were in this neck of the woods for, in ’73. I just decided I’d return the favour. I want you to look at them. I want you to look right at them because they’re the last thing you’re going to see after I shoot you, cut off your arms and legs, and take your face. Maybe I’ll wear it. And dance around. Then I will burn all of this. Your family, my family, my friends, and you. I will turn you into ashes. You fucked around on my property! It’s only fair I finish what I started on yours!

Look at me, you cocksucking piece of shit! I wanted for this. I don’t give a damn about those girls, or anyone else. Not anymore. They all laughed at me, thought you were a figment. Or long gone. I didn’t care how many people you killed, or helped — as if you really did help out in a fucking orphanage for fifty years! I wish I could’ve exposed you to your Ginny! I wish I could’ve shown her what a monster you really are! 

I wish I could’ve killed her myself. Right in front of you. Just so you’d know. You’d know exactly how I feel. 

Don’t you dare walk past me! I’ll do it! I’ll shoot you! I’ll saw your balls off! 

Don’t. Fucking. Ignore. Me.

Don’t …

Why are you looking at me like that. Why …

Get back here. Get …

I …

I …

I don’t know what’s worse. I don’t know if it’s that you don’t care, or that you think we’re the same. 

But I’m not like you. I … 

I hate you. I hate you so much. I want you to suffer. I want to kill you. I … wanted to kill you. For fifty years. I’ve hunted you for fifty years. 

My family. My friends. My uncle. My brother. You’re the only thing left. From that time. 

Goddamn you. 

You’re the only thing I’ve got left.   

Ash Vs. The World

~ matthewkirshenblatt ~ Leave a comment

Ash has had it. 

Between the Book that nearly sucked him into itself almost as hard as Sheila’s enthusiasm, and the Book that’s bitten him also far less pleasantly, he’s narrowed it down to the one on the top of the rocky altar. He curses the Wise Man again for making him try to remember the ridiculous stuff, simple things, about “the words” and neglecting to tell him about which Book was which, and hopefully without any more fucking witches. 

He’s about to take it. But then, he does remember. Right. 

Ash clears his throat, throwing out his hands, perhaps getting points for dramatic gestures. “Klaatu, barada …”

And then, it fails him. No. No, this isn’t a thing. He knows this. He’s got this. He told the Wise Man. He’s a college student from Michigan State University. He’s good at memorizing useless trivia. He intones the words again. “Klaatu, barada, nick …”

Nick? Nick? Nick what? He recites a few words under his breath, each one with the letter “n.” But he isn’t sure. No. This is ridiculous. Ash said he’d get back to the Book that bit him, but the truth is, he’s done with this. He’s done with howling winds chasing him, with trees trying to eat him, broken bridges, with cutting off Linda’s cackling head, and the dead wanting to fuck him up. He’s sick of being bled on, black bile spewing on him, and getting torn apart. He’s definitely up to here with being possessed by demons, Deadites, or whatever the hell they are, and being thrown into a past of primitives, even if those grapes and those girls, and Sheila — kind, beautiful Sheila — are the best things after losing Linda, and barely knowing Anne, and his job at S-Mart, and trying to remember if he’s lost Cheryl too, and Scott and Shelly, or if it was Linda, then Anne and those other chuckleheads, and if any of this is actually real. The words are driving him just as crazy. He feels like he should know them, that they’re familiar somehow. Maybe he should have paid more attention in that Film Class elective. Right now, though, he wishes this was like he was in the fucking Wizard of Oz, because what could be simpler than tapping together some ruby slippers?

As it is, he’s tired of double-tapping these Deadite bastards. Ash just wants to go home. 

There’s no place like home, he thinks to himself, focusing on what he’s going to do when he gets back, thanking whatever isn’t insane in the universe and reminding him with that ghostly tingle in his stump that at least he didn’t lose his sexing hand. This bullshit ends now.

“Klaatu, barada, nic –” he coughs the rest of it out.

He looks around. Nothing’s happening. Just a creepy graveyard with three fucked up Books in it. He did it. It’s done. He reaches out for the Book of the Dead, ready to get this over with, taking it off the cold, rough stone. No problem. 

And that is when he sees it. It’s lightning, in the sky. No. It’s a shape. It’s coming closer. It’s …

*

Storm clouds gather in the darkening skies. Lord Arthur shouts orders to the men over the terrified screams of horses, and the cries of the people. In the middle of the turmoil of lightning and the thunder crashing, the Wise Man comes out. He looks around in the chaos, the wind whipping into his hood, and sweeping back his long grey hair and beard.

“Something is wrong!” He calls out, perhaps more to himself than to the rest of the people. “Something’s amiss …”

And that is when he looks up and sees it. The light …

*

There is something shining in the darkness of the firmament. It’s silvery, and round. It looks down from beyond the skies, from beyond the clouds, and the ozone. Only the stars are farther as it orbits the planet. 

A port forms, a dark rectangular shape opening into something not unlike a crypt of its own. A form stands in the black gateway of the hovering ship. It sees the electro-magnetic disturbances on the island below. It is not surprised. There had already been anomalous signs. Extra-dimensional, and temporal fluctuations had been occurring at an alarming rate. They weren’t due to directly visit this world for another six centuries. They were only to watch. To listen. Safeguards had been put in place as the proper protocols to prevent extra-dimensional incursions, these ones localized on another continent of this world millennia ago, were compromised: sending the signal to the ship. 

The figure’s head inclines. Its visor begins to rise. These extra-dimensional parasites, the servitors of their non-Euclidean creators, could not be allowed to spread: not on this world. Not on any other. An eerie light pulsates on the horizontal line of the figure’s face as a beam fires out, piercing the starry darkness … and making contact with the rotating blue and green sphere below it. The planet glows brighter than all the celestial bodies around it for a few moments before it disappears: completely and utterly vaporized. 

Gort stands at the entrance to the ship as it begins to close. Then, he turns around, and makes his way back in. His visual and audio receptors recorded everything. Even with the generations of Wise Men and the commands entrusted to them, this species could barely follow ritualistic instructions to protect themselves, never mind have been trusted to develop more powerful resources of energy, or making their way into the wider galaxy. This incarnation of the anomaly — what this world’s natives called the Naturom Demonto, the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis — has been destroyed. The potential incursion has been contained. For now. 

It’s a pity.

That human. 

He should have said the words.