tardy, yet again

It seems that we've missed two fairly significant dates that came and went, recently: an actual Friday the 13th and the birthday of cosmic horror author H.P. Lovecraft. The former isn't that excusable, since we've listed each month in which the thirteenth falls on a Friday up until July 13th, 2012 in our Seasonal Horror Calendar. However, dropping the ball on the latter wasn't as bad, at least in our opinion, because we hadn't thought to look into it before.

Well, we here at the Darkley Niche are rectifying that last mistake by making H.P. Lovecraft's birthday our latest addition to the Seasonal Horror Calendar. Normally we wouldn't include birthdays in the calendar. In the case of such an influential horror writer, however, we will make an exception.

August 20th - H.P. LOVECRAFT'S BIRTHDAY

'Dagon' (2002)

While inspired only in name by H.P. Lovecraft's earlier short story "Dagon", it is, however, an adaptation of our personal favorite, "The Shadow Over Innsmouth". The film's greatest deviation from the written work is its change in setting, moving it from the New English town of Innsmouth to that of Imboca, Spain. Francisco Rabal's superb performance of the tragic town drunkard is not to be missed.

Additional H.P.L. suggestions:
- 'The Call of Cthulhu' (2005; silent film created by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society)
- 'H.P. Lovecraft's Necronomicon' (1994; anthology of three H.P.L. stories)
- 'Re-Animator' (1985; eighties adaptation of the same-name story)
- 'Masters of Horror' season one, episode two, "Dreams in the Witch-House" (2005; modern adaptation of the same-name story)
- 'Evil Dead' trilogy (1981-1993; incorporates H.P.L.'s Necronomicon)

Monstrous Wildlife: Graboids

Monstrous Wildlife from Frank Robnik on Vimeo.

Having seen the entire 'Tremors' movie franchise and Sci-Fi Channel television series, this parody educational video brought a bemused grin to my face.

Hot as the Dickens

For our Darkley followers who still have a case of Christmas in July fever, albeit it's currently August, here's a special seasonal episode of Doctor Who, "The Unquiet Dead," featuring none other than Charles Dickens himself. How appropriate to pay homage to the author of the Yuletide, ghost story classic, 'A Christmas Carol'. You can bet your stockings that this episode is going into the Niche's Seasonal Horror Calendar.

On a side note, we felt that we would include our opinion on these risen corpses by stating that our definition of "zombie" isn't inclusive of these particular undead. Or at least we're hesitant in labeling these walking dead as such, and here's why.

Films the like of this, Sam Raimi's 'Evil Dead' trilogy being another prime example, though sometimes considered zombie cinema use possession as the means of reanimation (or transformation, since many of the possessed in Raimi's trilogy are still alive). Sure, the possessed corpse oftentimes attacks the living, but that doesn't distinguish it automatically as a zombie in our book.

The one particular detail that we look for is whether or not the corpse feeds on the flesh of the living, or at the very least the recently deceased. As far as we're concerned, a reanimated corpse that doesn't eat flesh is simply a reanimated corpse. There may be the occasional exception, but that's our general rule of thumb.

"...then you sent me in a room full of zombies!"

So apologies to Rose, but we must respectfully disagree with you on this one.