The Blog In Yellow

Of course any work in horror has some connection to the writer's experience. For Lovecraft it was likely his father who was put into an asylum when Howard was young. This stress was furthered by his father's sudden death and his love-hate relationship with his mother. So what did Lovrcraft fear? What pushed him to write such horrifying stories? Perhaps he feared he would subcomb to his father's madness. Even before genetics were well known the idea of inheriting insanity was a fear. Look no further than Arthur Machen's work "The Great god Pan." Now we know madness for it's different forms and have a ready category for almost all types from bipolarism to schizophrenia and psychosis to Cotard's syndrome (person thinks they are dead.) The brain has many oddities that have yet to be understood even 100 years after Lovecraft. Lovecraft even writes that the greatest fear is that of the unknown. It's like a rubix fear, a fear of being unable to put all th...

 I've decided to write a second piece today since I'm of the mood. I've been think about how to bring more people into my world and get feedback on my writing style and blog. One of the ways suggested was to make short videos on TikTok or Youtube, a fate that is as fearful as death to me. I don't want to be on camera, I have stage fright. But maybe this will help cure it. You have to face your fears and blah, blah, blah, you know the phrase. I would like to do a short video on each god and character in the Lovecraft universe, similar to what Mr. H, a youtuber, did with Clive Barker's Hellraiser series. At one time Clive Barker's work was good enough to warrent action figures of his Cenobite characters. Characters that idolize pain and suffering as a way to achieve ecstacy. I was never a huge fan of Barker's...interest in such things, but the lore such as the books and comics were always facinating. When I read Barker's earlier work I have to play "o...

 If you don't know, FPS stands for First Person Shooter. A type of game genre where the viewpoint is from the eyes of the character and the gun sticks out in front of the player to simulate holding a gun. This makes it easy for the player to point at the enemy and shoot them akin to reality. Many games have you take cover and hide from enemy bullets but the better versions, called "boomer shooters" after the "age" they dervive from, allow you to dodge bullets by slowing down time, using powerups or avoiding projectiles. At this time, we are looking at a shooter boom that has flooded the market with dozens of such games. "Forgive me Father" is one of the older titles but still has a unique draw to it. You play as either a priest or a reporter in the mid 1920s looking for a family member in the midst of Lovecraft country. Standard enemies such as fish people, Lovecraftian monstrosities, and the ever-annoying cultists stand between you and the goal. Enemi...

There's a certain contrast in good horror stories that goes deeper in the skilled reader's mind. Child horror is the monster, the werewolf, the monster in the closet, the cthulhu under the water. These are the horrors you see but when you dig into the representation behind the monster that you begin to see the true horror. Let's take King's The Shining. Despite the movie's handling of the material, there are stark differences between the two mediums. The book has no elevators from the underworld opening to unleash gallons of blood, no axe killings, and no twins who want to play forever and ever. So what is the book about? Adult fears. Jack is haunted by his past drinking which has nearly cost him his marriage. Combine that with his loose temper and you have a recipe for a psycho in the movie. But King plays his hand differently. The book sees Jack Torrence as not a psycho but a broken man trying his best. In fact, Jack is the main protagonist, a flawed one but the s...

According to my fellow writers I'm wasting my time with this blog. Apparently between the fifteen years that I've started my original blog, people have moved on to video diaries, which I hate. If I'm going to drum up some attention, I need to be on tik tok. What I'm doing now is equivalent to writing a journal and leaving it on a path bench hoping someone will read it. It's sad the people don't sit down to read any more but to be honest, I'm scared of putting myself out there. What if people don't like it, what if I make a fool of myself, what kind of equipment do I need? Fears and worries won't bring me answers. To get this book to go, I must step forward.

Today, I am at work so I'll make this post a bit short. The world Eldritch is commonly associated with Cthulhu and Lovecraftian themes but the term reaches farther back. We can look at The King in Yellow or The Great god Pan which I'll be going into detail later. Like I said in my previous post it's a shame that there isn't a more diverse fan base like a Machenverse (Pan) or a Chamberseverse (King in Yellow). But in fairness Machen's work is one of the few previous authors whose work could be condensed into a universe. If you want a more modern retelling of Pan, look no further than Stephen King who's work "N." and "Revival" pay homage to Machen's work. Both tell stories of people affected by other worldly effects beyond their control. Both have haunted my subconscious. "Revival" in particular is a favorite since it blends the Lovecraft and Machen genres into what we think of today as Lovecraftian. I should point out that Steam ...

 Let me talk about something that came up during my research: the difference between terror and horror. To be specific, terror is the dread feeling before the action and horror is the dread after. For example, Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece Psycho. We see a woman showering in a small bathroom. She's alone. Someone opens the bathroom door and approaches the curtain. We can't see the figure but we know the woman is in danger. This is the terror. As we zoom in on the figure in the back, the curtain is ripped away and the music cuts into the audience. Ree, ree, ree, ree, ree, ree, ree, ree! The woman screams as she is stabbed again and again. She's confused, we'er confused, and afraid. The knife mercifully stops after a few stabs and the woman falls. The camera drifts from her face to the blood slipping into the drain. This is the horror. The build up to the stabbing is the terror. We feel the fear build up in us as we watch "Mrs. Bates" approach. Then we have...