IBC124 Mike T Lyddon

Award-winning writer, producer, director and artist Mike Lyddon joins us in the Gilman Hotel. We talk HG Wells, remakes, Night Gallery, ghouls and Mike's remarkable documentary Lovecraft In Florida Part One - including the Barlow house, the Ancient City and walking in HPL's footsteps.
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Mike's Website     Rumble Video (search for Pickman's Model, The Doll, Lindemann's Catch, and The Catepillar in particular.)     The Thought Monster

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:11

Welcome to Usma Stranger.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Greetings travellers and welcome to episode 124 of the Innsmouth Book Club. As you can see, we've brought you straight to the faded splendour of the Gilman House Hotel today because we have an esteemed guest waiting for us upstairs. I'm one of your guides, Rob Poynton. In fact, today I'm your only guide, as my colleague Tim Mendys is stuck out at sea at the moment. Yeah, Tim booked uh a pleasure cruise at Captain Quint's boat tours this morning, and word has come in that they're actually stuck out on Devil's Reef. I'm sure everything will be fine. The boat will be back at some point. I would imagine it will be a couple of day trippers lighter because you know that's the price you pay for visiting Devil's Reef. We call it Dagon's Toll. Anyway, before we go upstairs to meet today's guest, just a reminder of the Innsmouth Literary Festival 2026 being held Saturday, September the 19th in Oddly Moist Bedford. Now, of course, we've announced our guests of honour, author Stephen Jones and artist Les Edwards. We're also pleased to announce some of our other guests, including Marco Visconti. Marco is a practitioner and expert on the Western esoteric tradition. He's an author of many books, but he has just recently released Black Stars in Dim Carcosa, Necronomican Field Notes. We're also delighted to welcome from Across the Pond our old friend Heather Miller. Lovecraftian scholar, and of course, author of Ripples from Carcosa, Haunted Landscapes and True Detectives. And as regular listeners will know, Heather actually visited us here in Innsmouth just uh a few episodes ago. Also from Across the Pond, but Canada this time, we're delighted to be welcoming Stephen E. Wall. Stephen is the host of the Delapore Media Podcast, an excellent podcast that we've mentioned a few times here on the show. And Stephen is going to be one of the guests on our panel on suburban horror. So we're looking forward to that. Now, of course, if you're a patron of the show, you get free entry to the ILF. Just let us know you're coming and we'll put you on the list. But you can also order tickets through Eventbrite now, and I'll put that link up in today's show notes. Alright, let's crack on. Time to tread those worm-eaten boards up to room 428 to meet today's guest. And here he is, it's a special Innsmouth welcome to Mike Leiden.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Greetings, Rob.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

How's it going? All right. Very well. Is this your uh your first visit to Innsmouth?

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Rob, don't you know? I've always been here in Innsmouth. I had to do it.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Marvelous. You had to do it. I I like to think also there's a little bit of Innsmouth in everyone as well, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Indeed. Indeed. Uh that's something that I hope we get to is uh talking about some some of the Lovecraft adaptations to uh to film. Because that's uh that's a quite a a mixed bag of greatness and sadness.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Almost tragedy in some cases.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Oh yes, certainly.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Well, you're the ideal person to talk about this because you, of course, you are uh very well known as being a filmmaker, also uh an author, an artist, and I believe special effects as well. Special effects makeup.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Yes, I I like dabbling in the special. It it's it's one of those things with being a very low-budget filmmaker, you end up wearing many hats in production. And uh, so making these films, all of which are you know the feature films I've made, have all been under$30,000. So$30,000 is like nothing, right? Um so you end up everybody that's part of the crew typically has carries two or three jobs, you know. So if you have a seven-man crew, you you've got you've 20 jobs that need to be done. And so everybody's doing two or three jobs. Um and even sometimes the cast. We get the cast, and somebody's not acting in a scene, they're holding the you know, the boom mic.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Holding the boom mic or something. Wow. Sure. I think what's remarkable about that, having uh it's something we'll we'll get into, no doubt, having worked with artists and singers in particular, is getting a singer to do anything other than sing is quite a remarkable feat, generally, you know.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Yes, yeah, and that's a little it's a little different, I think, when you're like when you're on set or out on location doing a film. Many actors are eager, like because you know, it it's you're there, it's like, okay, look, somebody's gotta hold that light, or we can't shoot the shot. And that it they they will come in. They will typically, I you know, I have rarely run into any prima donna circumstances with actors, uh, because they're all the way that I that I hire actors is is twofold. One is that, like, for instance, in New Orleans, uh, we made a few films in New Orleans. You have actors in New Orleans, but you also have a lot of theater actors as well. This is great because you can go to uh the various theaters. Some of those actors are very keen to be in films. They just haven't crossed over and they have, you know, it's very difficult, for instance, to suddenly be on an episode of uh NSI or whatever, you know, like the the big studio productions.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

But uh in low budget films, yes, you can approach theater actors and say, look, we're doing this film. And uh if you're interested, you know, here's the script. We do a read-through, see if it works. And it that's the key, you know. It it's it's something that I don't know if people realize it or not. I see so many very low-budget films where you can tell that the uh producer, you know, or dur and or director is using their friends, and their friends cannot act. You've seen this, I'm sure. Yes, yes, absolutely. You don't need to. It's unnecessary. You know, you can you can find people that are that can actually act, that are willing to do it. They may not have film experience. That's really not the the issue, you know. If they're if they have theatrical experience and they're good, you can bring them into the film realm. You know, it is different, they're not standing there projecting on a stage, so there's a there is a you know, a bit of uh learning curve, let's say, a little bit of a learning curve onset with the film, but you end up getting a very good performance, you know, the that that you're looking for for that character. And uh I it's it's just you know, it's one of those things that you anywhere you are, I think almost in any city, there's gonna be a theater group. They're going, you know, yeah. So that's uh that is my absolute advice to anybody that's that's making very low budget films, if you can't afford the actors, you know, and that's often the case, you know. Sometimes it's and then you run into here you run into screen actors guild issues, uh and uh that's a whole other deal. But uh at least you can approach the local theater troops and see if you can, you know, pull some actors that way.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Yeah, it's an interesting source for film actors.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Oh, yes, yeah, and and another thing with me too is that when you're making a feature film, it's a minimum of 15 days. It could be a 20-day shoot, you know, uh unless you're unless you're insane and you're trying to shoot it over three days, like over a weekend, which which has happened, you know, before, not with me, but I've I've heard of these things. But when you're shooting over a 15 or 20-day period, that's a long time. It's a lot in it, and that 15 to 20 days actually translates at least into a month, maybe six weeks, two months, because you're shooting in blocks, right? Sure. You need to keep those actors. Yeah, because if suddenly an actor drops out two weeks into the production, you're just uh it's it's bad news. So you pay them. Yeah, that's the whole thing, folks. If you're making a film, plan on paying your cast and crew. I have done it for every production I've made, and I will continue to do that because that's how you keep your cast and crew. Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Yeah, well, that there's so many parallels with music. I mean, when I left school, I got involved in music and was sort of professional, semi-professional for a while, and one thing I found when I got back into it was this willingness of people to work for nothing in the aim of getting exposure. And my good lady wife always says, Yeah, but exposure kills people. You right, yeah. Why would you not recompense someone for their skill and their talent and everything else? Sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

I mean, and and the thing is, is that if I mean, even I it it it's the same thing applies for me, even if I'm making a short film. It's the same because they are there's a lot, it's you know, yeah, making a film is kind of can be a brutal thing. You can end up working 12 to 14 hour days, and it it kind of becomes this odyssey, right? Where on at the 12th hour, it's like two o'clock in the morning or something, people are just it it's struggling, right? And uh the knowing that they're going to get paid something out of this is just huge uh for that suffering. Uh and and I that's for me, it's just it's a it is a thing where if it's if it's you know a$30,000 film, ten thousand dollars of that is going to pay the cast and crew. That's how I the way I look at it because it's uh that's where it's at. You know, if you don't have a cast and crew, you have no movie. Yeah. Well, I think we'll get to this if we get to Lovecraft adaptations, a really good example of this with Rod Serling and the Night Gallery. I don't know if you're aware of the Night Gallery. There was a 1970s TV show that unfortunately did not last very long. But uh they did some Lovecraft adaptations and uh some other really, really cool adaptations like Algernon Blackwood and so forth. But there was just no budget for special effects. They had to rely on the actors, the dialogue. If you watch an episode of Night Gallery, you know exactly what I'm talking about. 90% of it is just is dialogue. It's actors, you know, like really typically very good actors that they would get for these episodes. Very little, if any, special effects because they had no budget for it, you know, and and and I believe it was Paramount that was just so stingy. And and Serling even talked about it. He was like, yeah, you know, they love the movie. There was a movie made, right? And uh really good film. It was popular, it's highly rated, critically praised the whole thing. And they were like, hey, we're gonna make a TV series, the Night Gallery. But we're not gonna give you the money uh that you require for any special effects or anything other than getting these actors. That is really it. Uh, and he he was understandably frustrated at the idea of hey, you know, if you love this the movie so much, why are you giving me the show and just cutting me off with this just really minuscule budget per episode?

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

And uh I can see his frustration, you know. So that the series only lasted, I believe it was two seasons.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Sadly, not uncommon story, isn't it, when you start dealing with corporations and creativity. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

You're absolutely right. The same thing happened with the night uh stalker, culture at the night stalker. Yeah, huge movies, right? The Made for TV movie, the original film about the vampire, was the highest viewed TV movie in history at the time. It was hugely popular. They jumped on it and they were like, Wow, this thing, let's make this into a series. Once again, they were like, Yeah, but we're not gonna give you a budget for it. And it lasted one season.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Yeah, for something that obviously specifically needs a budget for a certain type of special effect. You know, you you're not doing a sit-in-room drama, are you? No at some point, you need a creature of some sort or you need something going on.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Oh, yeah, there were some doozies there, something like in a rubber mask. Oh my god. I mean, it is like you just the dialogue, the writing is was exceptional, right? And then he goes to confront the creature or whatever it is, and it's just like, oh my god, it's just the nature of it. And as you say, you're absolutely right. It's like they they see something, they see money, and they're like, hey, let's ex let's do that again. And this is why sequels and sequels upon sequels, you know.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Oh, I know, it's endless, isn't it? How many Spider-Man origins now?

SPEAKER_00 15:22

You know, yeah, and you know what's incredible about that in particular is that you know, uh Sam Raimi makes the original Spider-Man movies, right? Makes the first three.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

For some reason, eight years later, the studio decides, hey, you know, we need to re do a reboot because that one's just too old. It happened eight years ago.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

I know, too old. I'm watching Nosferatu is a hundred years old, and I think it's great, you know.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Yes. Yeah, you're absolutely right. You know, I it it's there is a strange thing there too, and I think there's a it's something that I saw years ago. I would like to uh talk to a kid or see kids react, like you go into a blockbuster video store or your your local video store or whatever. And uh a kid would be like, Yeah, I'm not gonna watch that. It's in black and white. You know, it's not in color. And so you you're like, oh my god. And that's it, right? Isn't that the the whole deal? It's like you either your brain either functions on the prospect that, yes, you know, there were a lot of great movies made in the 1920s and 30s, in particular, the science fiction, horror, and fantasy, a huge golden age of those of the genres of of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. I mean, just amazing stuff. And uh a lot of people just won't bother with it because it's in black and white.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Oh, yeah.

unknown 17:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Can we go to your uh origin story? What what was your first encounter with horror in general and in particular with Lovecraft? What drew you in to Lovecraft's cosmic horror?

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Yeah, you know, that is kind of strange with Lovecraft, it came a little bit later. Like, for instance, when I was, let's say, between the the years of 10 and 16. Those are those are huge years when you're getting into science fiction and fantasy. I think you would agree, especially that time. I was uh a huge, I loved H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, of course, the classics, right? Some of those things you're not gonna understand at the age of 10. The like the full ramifications. H. G Wells was he was working on various levels with his books, and I think that's one of the great things about him. And you you appreciate that much later in life. You know, those are uh like his political satire and some of those those uh stories, the science fiction stories, uh, it's just fantastic. You know, The Time Machine is one of those great political satires that uh it's very interesting. I think H.G. Wells is I still consider him to be one of the great science fiction writers, like in pure science fiction, you know, uh his concepts. From the island of Dr. Morrow, Lore of the Worlds, uh you know, uh Food of the Gods, uh the Time Machine, all of these were like, these were like key elements that are completely used today constantly, over and over again. It's amazing how relevant Wells is. So getting back to you know that age, like H.T. Wells, I was reading Jules Verne. Um I loved Edgar Ice Burroughs. You know, especially John Carter of Mars. Not so much Tarzan, but John Carter of Mars just kind of really got did something for me. And I I loved the art. Frank Frazetta, of course, did a lot of those covers for the books, and I was like, wow, this guy's great. And naturally at that time, I was also reading magazines like Creepy and Eerie. And the that early, the early creepy and airie stuff uh from the 70s, and 80s, all it did start changing in the 80s. But right in the 70s, you still had Frazetta doing covers and a lot of other great artists doing uh work for uh Creepy and Eerie magazine. So I loved that. I was really into that. But then at some point, I would say like 15, 16 years old, I started getting into uh modern science fiction or speculative fiction. So suddenly I flipped into like uh reading stuff like Harlan Ellison, Philip K. Dick, uh Philip Jose Farmer was another uh, you know, and I was really into that. Very much into that. Uh and it was what really wasn't until, believe it or not, the 80s. I don't, I I think it was, wasn't it early 80s? The first reanimator film came out.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Yes, yeah, that yeah, it was like about around that kind of time.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

Right. And I went to see it, you know, and I I thought, my god, this is hilarious. And it's just fantastic, and all these insane things, and and Jeffrey Combs is just West, Herbert West, his mannerisms and everything. I was just like, wow, this this is just great. Then I started reading, really reading the Lovecraft in earnest. So it was like at that period, that was the film that made me go back and and start reading the real Lovecraft stuff, right? Uh, and uh that just totally changed me. That was that was one of those things I at that point, I was like, wow, this is like really great horror, and it's beyond horror. It is to me, I call it science fiction horror, it's not supernatural. Uh totally. Yeah, he Lovecraft wrote very few supernatural tales, and for a good reason. I think he just thought it was kind of a bunch of guff.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Really? No, he absolutely was he was a a total. Materialist, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

And uh so that was the thing that I loved. Science fiction horror. After that, I started getting into like trying to find old issues of Weird Tales magazine. Ah, yeah. And I just that was it. I have several uh issues of matter of fact. Let me let me this is one that you may get a big kick out of. 1934, my good friend. Check this out with that Brundage cover. Oh, and look at the writers here. Edmund Hamilton, Clark Ashton Smith, David Keller, Paul Ernst, QB Cave, who was just one of the greats in Weird Tales at the time, and Hazel Held.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Ah, right, right, who Lovecraft uh worked with. Is it Horror from the Museum?

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Yeah, exactly. Lovecraft. This this was, you know, he was doing a lot of revision work for these people like Hazel Held. Uh she would come up, she obviously she would, or they would come up with the concept, but they couldn't write it, right? They couldn't really get the whole thing done. So uh Lovecraft would come in and revise for them, you know. And uh this one happens to be, and it's just such a great story. I love the story. Winged Death, and it's got a really cool illustration. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

It's beautiful in it. But there's there's that black and white again, right? You know, so yeah, they've got the colour covers because they've got a retract you on the newsstands, and of course, Margaret Brundage. Uh well, this is why Robert E. Howard had so many half-naked women in his stories, right? He knew it knew he'd get the cover slot.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

Of course, of course, it you know, that was another thing, Robert E. Howard and his relationship with Lovecraft via letters. It's insane. There are apparently two approximately 500-page volumes on just the letters between Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, and they never met.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

They never met. No, and the same with Smith as well. We work in the Strange Shadows podcast. We've got a book called uh Dawnwood Spire Lonely Hill. That's the letters between Smith and Lovecraft. And that again is two volumes of I mean densely packed. You know, and um some of Lovecraft's letters are longer than his stories. I mean, they're they're 12, 15, 20 pages, uh, and the Florida stuff, particularly, we'll get onto, you know, some some really great stuff there.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:45

And they provide uh an amazing insight into the mind of a writer and the creative process and all sorts of things.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

That I think for its time was probably quite unusual. I don't know that we have anything similar for Wells or any other writer, really.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

I don't think so. I really don't think so. And you know, it's an interesting thing. I did you ever see the film called The Whole Wide World?

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Oh, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

But Robert E. Howard, right? Yeah, I liked it a lot, that it was you know, it's like you try to condense a life into a 90-minute movie, and it that's that's what you get. Yeah, but uh the fact that and they could I my complaint with that film is that yes, he does mention Lovecraft, that he's been conversing, you know, they've been exchanging letters at one point in the film, and that's it. Like they never get beyond that, and they could have had another scene, and that's what I was hoping that would happen is that you know, Robert E. Howard would be, I don't know, writing a letter back to Lovecraft arguing about something in his life, which he did. He shared all the terrible things, you know, the his how would you say it? You know, his his own battles within his mind that were raging. And he shared those with Lovecraft. And I think it was back and forth with that, and that's a fascinating aspect of their relationship. Oh, yeah, yeah. And that's something I think that they could have, they could have just added a scene that that uh made that more instead of well, yes, I've been the writing of letters back to the.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

I got a postcard from this guy in New England kind of thing, yeah. Because their their letters across the board were were very detailed, and it was a lot more than, hey, how you doing, you know. Oh god. All the various themes of their works and and observations. Uh well, Lovecraft was famously very critical of uh virtually every other writer, with with a few exceptions, you know, Howard Smith and one or two others. He didn't mince words, old HP.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

That's that is true. No, he didn't. And it's kind of funny that he did, I mean, he of course he greatly admired uh Robert E. Howard uh and his writing. Uh and you would think that's interesting because it's kind of like, well, it's this whole supernatural, you know, barbarian world of that whole type of thing. But I don't see how you couldn't, because it is it's writing that is when you read a Conan story, for example, or even a Robert E. Howard horror story, of which he did write, you know, several, anyways. And the ones I've read are very effective. Uh it's just the way that his style of writing, the what he his process for writing, and that is very well portrayed in the film, the whole wide world, where he's sitting there at the typewriter and he's just yelling out. You know, he's just insane and tense on the typewriter, and everything that's coming into his mind, he's just you know, into it. He's acting out in his mind, and it's going on to paper. Uh, but but he's speaking it, you know, as he's typing it, uh, and and acting it. And that's intense. That makes for intense writing, you know. And in Conan, it's like you you read Conan's stories, and it is it's intense and gripping in that sword and sorcery kind of way. Not very complicated, you know, in in my opinion. It's just it's what it is, it's sword and sorcery stuff, right? You know, but it is incredibly effective. And uh I it just when you think about that period of time where these guys are like exchanging letters, all of these things are going on, especially, I would say, more importantly, from about 1930 to up until the time of Lovecraft's death. That period, that window of time is just insane. Everything's going on. You've got you know, another writer who wrote a few stories for Weird Tales. She was one of the only Weird Tales writers that ever got a story adapted into a feature-length film, and uh that was uh The Thought Monster, Amelia Reynolds Long.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Oh, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Yes, she wrote The Thought Monster. It was published, I believe, 1930 in Weird Tales, and in 1958, it became the feature-length film Fiend Without a Face.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

Ah, right.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

I remember that one. I love Fiend Without a Face. I've got it on Crite. There's a Criterion edition of Fiend Without a Face, and it's just fantastic sci-fi horror. What I call, you know, once again, that science fiction horror thing. And there's a Lovecraftian angle, and you know she was influenced by Lovecraft. There is no doubt about it. When you when you read the story and then watch the adaptation, it's creatures, uh, you know, this scientist that brings these creatures into our physical dimension through the sheer will uh of thought, right? That's that's what's going on. He develops this technique with this a machine, which he gradually builds up strength, and these creatures materialize, but they're invisible at first, and that's the terror of the entire thing. You you can't see them, and of course you can hear them, and they sound horrifying, and then you're dead because they suck the brain and spinal column out of your I never knew that was from a wheel t weird tell story.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

I've seen that movie and enjoyed it. I never realized. Oh, that's that's excellent, that's great.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

The thought monster, yeah. And if you look on YouTube, uh there is at least one audio version of it, very good audio version, The Thought Monster by um Edward French. Okay. Edward French. He does the uh the the and he's done some other great Lovecraft uh audio as well. I personally, my favorites are Wayne June, and uh there's another guy. Uh he's similar to Wayne June. He's got that voice, you know, where it's just so good. Just spot on for Lovecraft, right? You just dah, right in there uh with it. But uh yeah, so that's the thing with you know, at that at that period of time, just getting back to it, I start really started getting into Lovecraft heavily in the 80s. And it was it had a lot to do with Stuart Gordon's movies, right? You know, that I gotta say, even for their, you know, you watch Reanimator, it's like well, okay, he just took this 10-page story and you know, or whatever it was, and just made it into a feature film and made it kind of into a horror comedy. You know, let let's let's be.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But having said that, something we often say is Lovecraft, there's a lot more humor in Lovecraft than people give him credit for, I think.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

There is.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

And I I think that's something that comes across in the letters, particularly between Lovecraft and Smith, is they're they're ribbing each other a lot, yeah. You know, and inventing these stories about each other and all the rest of it. It's very playful.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

Yeah, you're absolutely right. There is a a kind of twisted dark humor, and I just as a matter of fact, I that was another thing. Like, for instance, okay, when I was a child in the 70s, I did watch those Night Gallery episodes and the Lovecraft episodes, Pikman's Model, right? Pikman's model is a key example of a really good Lovecraft adaptation for a no budget. And once again, they didn't have the group the budget really for the special effects, but in this particular case, the creatures in Pikman's model, they did pretty well. They actually they they look very good. And one of the best things about that are the paintings. The Night Gallery was all all about the paintings, right? It was Rod Serling in the gallery introducing the stories, which are all a series of paintings. And in Pikmin's model, there are like at least a dozen paintings, right? Because they go to the artist's loft, and you see the paintings all around and so forth, and these just hideous creatures and doing various things. They couldn't get as gruesome, of course, as he does in the story, which is pretty graphic and it's it's great. I just love that story a lot. Um, and uh, but that being said, I think that they did an excellent job. And once again, it's Night Gallery. You've got uh I think it's Bradford Dillman, the actor who plays Pickman, the artist, and he's really good. He's such a good actor. And so, you know, they did land those really good uh TV and film actors to play key roles, you know, uh in in these Night Gallery episodes, which saved the episodes, in my opinion, and very good writers to adapt the material. Because in that particular one in Pikmin's model, in the original story, it's you know, it's there's an art club, as you may recall. He's the in this the guy that's talking about Pikmin is a member of this art club, and he's fascinated with Pikman's art, you know, and like how how could he possibly get that realistic with those the creatures and so forth and the paintings? And in the Night Gallery episode, they it's an art school, and Pikmin is teaching like classes of of students, and like one of the classes is all women, right? And they're they're these he's teaching them painting, yeah. And one of the women just becomes obsessed with Pikmin. That's that's what happens. But Pikmin's like, look, uh, you don't want to be any, you know, you don't want to have any part of what I'm dishing out.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

He's already got a ghoulfriend, you know.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

Right. Exactly. Exactly. And that's the interesting thing about the story, because in the story, of course, they it's kind of a weird, they they flipped it for a little bit of a romantic interest, you know, with the woman, and she's obsessed with Pikmin. But it still works really well because she she finds out where he lives in the north end, as you recall. This is like Boston area, right? It's the north end, it's the creepy old decrepit north. She finds the loft, she goes up there and she's in the loft looking at all the paintings, and she's like, Oh my god, this guy. And he walks in, of course, and he's like, uh, how dare you, you know, uh follow me back, or you know, uh, why are you hounding me like this? And at that point, of course, the they hear the creatures uh scurrying about uh, you know, in the hallways and stuff, and he goes out and he fires the shots. This is exactly how it is in the story.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

And he comes back in and uh she flees, she gets out, um, and uh comes back later with her father, and they're collecting the paintings, but the one painting gets lost. It's like in this little it's like a crate type of thing, but it it they it gets shoved in there. That's how that's found years later, and why they're talking about this painting, right? In the in the story, it's a photo, as you may recall, and that is the most disturbing thing that they for some reason or another, they didn't do. They did not do the thing where he's like, Yeah, so I put it in my pocket, and then a few days later he pulls it out, and he's like, Oh my god, it's the creature. This isn't a a photo of a painting, it's a photo of the creature in real life, you know. Taken from the from life, yeah, yeah, taken from life. Absolutely fantastic. What a ghoulish story. And here's something I don't know if any of you in your your talks about Lovecraft, uh, and maybe it, you know, as far as like the story, Pikmin's model goes, has has anybody brought uh the idea up that these creatures in Pikmin's model, these creatures, these subterranean creatures, right, that have been around for hundreds of years, centuries, definitely. They also point this out uh specifically in the Night Gallery episode. He's talking, he's like, Yes, you know, these tunnels, these vast underground tunnels which lead to the marshes and lead to the ocean. And he's like he's theorizing that these creatures came from the ocean originally. They got into the tunnels, they're like these subterranean creatures, and they evolved.

SPEAKER_01 39:14

Ah, that's an interesting take.

SPEAKER_00 39:16

Yeah, what did they what did they come in at? Were were they deep ones?

SPEAKER_01 39:21

Were they deep ones originally? Oh, that's very interesting. Because this is the thing with Lovecraft's ghouls, they're very different from you know, the origin was probably the Arabic ghoul, which is a demon, basically. It's not a a dog-faced man type creature. It's something so where did Lovecraft get this from? So the the origin and how people become ghouls is always up for discussion.

SPEAKER_00 39:47

Yes, and it's in the story, he does say that. He says, uh, yeah, he he he he mentions it in the story in the night gallery episode. They really specifically, the guy is like saying, Yeah, look, they can't, I think they came in from the sea. Uh, you know, and uh I just immediately thought, wait a second, is he you know, what is coming in from the sea if it's Lovecrafty? And and you know the guy that wrote the the the adaptation uh knows Lovecraft, right? He's he's one of the horror writers for Night Gallery, I forget which one, but uh it may have been Serling himself that wrote that adaptation.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

Richard Mitherson did a lot of stuff, didn't he?

SPEAKER_00 40:31

And Atherson did a lot. Uh there were a few other key writers, you know, and uh and key directors, no doubt about that. There were just certain people that could handle the material, especially the hardcore material and and stuff like Pikmin's model. They did Cool Air, was another Lovecraft adaptation for Night Gallery. The Doll by Algernon Blackwood. Oh boy, is that one of the creepiest?

SPEAKER_01 41:00

I've not seen that one. I've not seen that one.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

Well, here's the thing. Uh I don't know if they're on YouTube. I can tell you that there's several episodes, including the doll and Pikmin's model, on Rumble. Rumble is just like YouTube. Okay. If you go on Rumble and you search for night gallery episodes, it should they should come up. You can get it on DVD. You can get all of the episodes, of course, on DVD. Uh but as far as online, it's possible that they had it's, you know, maybe they're on Amazon Prime. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 41:39

I I think I've seen some of them on YouTube, and I think there is maybe one series or or something on Amazon. I've got a feeling. You mentioned people like the QB Cave there, you know, very overlooked. So many of these writers uh are overlooked. And all you need do if you wanted to do another uh Twilight Zone or Night Gallery, like you say, get those old editions, take two or three stories out of each uh issue. You've got enough there for six seasons without even trying, you know.

SPEAKER_00 42:09

Could you imagine, Rob? Could you imagine uh Weird Tales as an anthology series?

SPEAKER_01 42:17

There you go. That's that's the name of it. Netflix Weird Tales. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 42:21

Oh my god, yeah. Only if there was somebody like Stuart Gordon, uh God rest his soul. He's left this mortal coil. But uh, somebody like him, it would be, it would have to be somebody that understands uh that era, the horror, the science fiction, the the original uh stories and so forth, uh, and understands it enough to go, all right, well, you're not just gonna throw a bunch of jump scares into the story and think that you can uh uh scare people, you know, and call it horror. You you do, you know, you have to adapt the story basically like the story uh it was written. Uh obviously, with certain you're you're unless you've got the money for a period piece, you're gonna have to, you know, it's gonna be modern times, etc.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

Oh yeah, again, yeah, but but but that's but that's like the the the trappings, isn't it? You know, it you can change that superficial aspect, but if you don't hit that that cosmic vibe, man, then it's what yeah, what's the point?

SPEAKER_00 43:35

That's the thing.

SPEAKER_01 43:36

I was thinking really the only one who got mainstream success was Block, really, wasn't it? Block and and even he got he got screwed over on Psycho.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

He did, he did, yeah. I mean, and they all all of these guys, it's a sad story, but look, you know, I mean, you know it, I know it, by this time, as of today. Lovecraft has been gone for what almost 90 years, right?

SPEAKER_01 44:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

He died broke. He was completely, he was like the classic broke writer, right? A great writer who had not been realized. And Poe was the same way. Poe was getting notoriety, but he was still broke. He's a matter of fact, he died penniless in the actual. Well, he was basically, at the time they found him, he was literally penniless and he was dressed in rags, like somebody else's clothes, in lying in the snow. They took him to the hospital. He died a few days later. And it was, you know, there are various the stories, uh theories behind what happened. It's possible that uh according to documents, he was on his way, he was going to go somewhere else on a business trip. He had his business clothes on, which was one suit. That was it. That was his business attire. And he was waiting for the train. He's gonna take a train. And uh apparently uh it uh the only thing I can think of, I mean, he liked to drink and uh he liked to gamble. Yeah, yeah. My theory, and I think a lot of people share this theory, is that yeah, he got into a card game, he lost his butt, and uh he lost it to the point where he gave up his own suit. The guy gave him his shabby clothes, he wandered out drunk in the snow, it's like snowing. He just fell, he like passed out, fell over into the snow and was exposed for whatever hours and taken to the hospital and died. It's it's just an amazing, it's just an incredible tragedy, you know. Like, and when you think about it, but that's probably about what happened, or he was simply robbed. But why would he end up in somebody else's clothes?

SPEAKER_01 46:09

That but then the clothes thing, yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, it it it it certainly makes sense. And I mean, uh well, I guess like most people in those days, health was not that common, right? It wasn't, you know, yeah, uh, with all the stuff that was going around, which of course forms the the part of a lot of his stories as well.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

It's true, yeah. That was the 1840s, right? The late 1840s when he died. And uh so these people they died tragic, poor deaths. I mean, they were they basically, as you said, Poe was really penniless. Lovecraft was certainly penniless. To date, their works, their their stories have generated billions of dollars in revenue, which just makes you shudder. Uh it's I mean, it's great because they've they're so huge and they will remain big, right? And like H. G Wells, I think, another one that will remain in the consciousness of especially science fiction and horror in the in this realm. Clark Ashton Smith, I think, is is up there too. Yeah. Uh, and and other writers, you know, they're they're they're up there. Those two guys, though, Poe and and Lovecraft, like share this kind of dynamic, right? They're they're they're separated by many decades, but they have this, there's a connection. There is a powerful connection. And it's it's a it's just uh to me, it's like I think about that and I'm like, my God, this is like the suffering of artists, like the the the writers, without being, you know, without trying to sound like I'm an artist, so I must suffer for my work. No, they just did.

SPEAKER_01 48:03

Yeah, I mean, it it has become a bit of a cliche in a sense, but you think of Van Gogh and and similar artists as well, sure, it it's not an uncommon theme, and we can speculate about people's states of mind and mental health issues and everything else. But at the end of the day, if you do something, I think particularly if it's new and innovative, which both of those were one and Van Gogh as well, you know, a lot of the old painters survived because they took commissions from the crown prince of Bavaria or whatever, right? Portrait of the royal family. Uh if that's not your bag and you're doing your own thing, then life's gonna be tough, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 48:41

Yeah, it it is true, and and that was it was simply the way it was with both of them. And they weren't living the lives of the suffering artist, you know what I'm saying? They were the real deal, you know. Poe was an alcoholic, he was a gambler. Lovecraft had nothing to do with that. He was a teetotaler, as far as I as far as we know. No, no, that's that's pretty pretty much exactly. So that's even more tragic. I mean, it's just like he was so poor that he could not diagnose a cancer that was growing, you know, in him until it was too late. Yeah, these are the types of things that just I think about that are you know they're real, they're real. They, you know, it's not you know, like something that you can you can uh hype, uh hype. Because it's already at the extent of like it's tragedy. There is there's no place you can go. Could you imagine a and I don't know why it has not happened, somebody should have done it. As a matter of fact, I I think years of go uh years ago, uh Del Toro should have done it. A film based upon the life of Lovecraft.

SPEAKER_01 49:57

Oh, absolutely, yeah, yeah. Well, let's get into that because not really touched on your work. Which has been great. So you're basically um in a nutshell, filmmaker, but you've covered documentaries and fiction in what the horror Lovecraftian field I I guess would be uh the overall genre.

SPEAKER_00 50:19

A little bit, although I like science fiction uh well, yeah, yeah. I mean, for instance, I did a film uh back in 2016, First Man on Mars, which is kind of like a sci-fi horror comedy, right? It's uh it's about this billionaire, and it was pointed. It's this is you'll get this, I think, immediately. Uh, he's a billionaire. He wants he's like, I'm gonna go to Mars, and I'm gonna land on Mars, and I'm gonna be the first guy on Mars. And uh his his name is Eli Cologne. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 50:58

Satsu.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

Satsu Yeah, exactly. So and so, and uh so he goes there to Mars and he thinks he's gonna find he thinks that it's mineral rich. Like that he's upon landing on Mars, he's gonna claim Mars and he's gonna get all the gold and silver and all this stuff, but there's nothing. Yeah, and he's like, he's on Mars, he's like, God damn it, there's nothing here. And uh so he gets back and is you know, goes comes back to Earth. But what happens is that on Mars, he scrapes his hand on this rock, and of course, it infects him. So when he gets back to Earth, he's turned into this monster. And so it's first man on Mars, he's this monster astronaut roaming around the swamps of Louisiana, just mauling people to death. And uh, so it that was the whole thing, and I had I was able to add a little stop motion animation into it as well, just a bit, uh, which worked out I think pretty well. It it was once again very low budget. The the total budget of the film was$14,000, and the amazing thing is that 80% of the film is shot on super 16 millimeter film, so that was about$8,000 of the budget right there.

SPEAKER_01 52:23

That's that's expensive stuff.

SPEAKER_00 52:24

It is, but it looks so good. Yeah, it I mean, it's like I love film, I love the old school shooting on film. There are still filmmakers today that shoot on film, and that's it. Rob uh I think it's yeah, Robert Eggers the lighthouse. Uh Robert Eggers, yeah. And so forth. That's all film. Okay. And he he yeah, he's the it's just beautiful, it's gorgeous. So it's alive, you know, it's just expensive, so you gotta have that, you know, you gotta plan for the for that budget. And uh so I was that was the last film that I shot almost entirely on film.

SPEAKER_01 53:09

There was just one other thing about the first man on Mars, because I uh when I was reading up, you you mentioned a film that's a personal favorite of mine and really rarely gets ever mentioned as as part of the influence of that the incredible melting man. Yes, which uh that's always been a top ten film for me. But I I talked, I I mentioned the name and people go, what no? I've never seen that.

SPEAKER_00 53:34

I love it, it's fantastic. You gotta check this out. Uh, you're gonna love this. I still have the incredible melting man on super eight film. A super eight, there he is. Nice condensed version, of course.

SPEAKER_01 53:51

Eight minutes does that say 150 feet?

SPEAKER_00 53:53

Wow, super eight, yeah. Eight minutes, a hundred oh, it's it's 150 feet. Typically, these are 200 footers. Yeah, I don't know why it's 150, but this one is, and uh it is it is color and sound.

SPEAKER_01 54:11

That's amazing, that's amazing, and again, talk talk about real-time effects. There's a film that you know hits it on the nose, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 54:19

Uh it's beautiful. And and uh what what a funny thing, Rob, is that uh when First Band on Mars came out, of course, I had it went out to various uh places like Room Org and whatever Fangory and stuff to get reviews, right? Yeah, and uh so one of the reviewers, it was I think it does it's a place called horror the video vault. I I'm just gonna say the video vault because I guess that rings a bell, yeah. Yeah. And he it talked about a quotable line. He called it uh first man on Mars is the incredible melting man for the 21st century.

SPEAKER_01 55:01

Oh, that's got that's gold, that isn't it? You you couldn't write that better yourself, could you?

SPEAKER_00 55:06

No, no. I was just like, yes, and people and I'm going, yes. And people are like, Why? God, the incredible melting man sucked. I'm like, no, that was a great point. Yeah, uh, it's so good.

SPEAKER_01 55:24

That's like um Tim's story about he he writes uh a lot of English love crafting stories set in the 1930s, and the review said in a disparaging way, this is PG Woodhouse meets HP Lovecraft. Tim said, Great, thanks very much. There's my strap line.

SPEAKER_00 55:42

Yes, are you kidding me? Oh my god, yeah. I mean, it's yeah, and that's what when you realize, like, just where, like, if you know people or I don't know, somebody makes a comment that you don't even know them, they you know, they're like, Oh god, well, incredible melting man was terrible. So, you know, why would he you know put that on his on his blue on the back of the Blu-ray with all of the quotes? Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_01 56:13

Yeah, well, they're off the Christmas card list, right? Those people.

SPEAKER_00 56:17

Exactly. Exactly. You know, uh, so the uh so what happens, uh yeah, so I'm in Peru. I'm I do Witch Tales, yeah, the horror anthology film. And then and those were based upon 1950s pre-code horror comic stories, right? Right, right, uh of the obscure horror comics, the ones all of the comic book publishers that went out of business because of the comics code authority. Yeah, that was when it kicked in in 1955. A lot of those places just they they died because uh you know, they there was nothing left to do. Except, you know, of course, now you EC remained, and they went on and they of course did Mad Magazine and stuff like that. So they had that route to go.

SPEAKER_01 57:08

But that was it. They they changed it to magazines, right? This is how they got around the code later on. That's exactly what happened. Marvel did the same. I remember with um Savage Sword of Conan, which had limbs being chopped off and all that. It's a magazine.

SPEAKER_00 57:23

Exactly. And that's what happened. That was creepy and eerie, which came out in the mid-60s, along with eerie publications. Uh, this is another guy, Myron Foss, who what he did, God, incredible, this guy. Uh his story is insane. His story is he's absolutely just one of the publishers of the 1960s that would make a movie that people would not believe. Um he uh created eerie publications and came out with magazines like Weird Tales of Voodoo, uh, horror tales, terror tales, and there were these garish magazines with incredibly graphic cut covers of like monsters ripping limbs off of people and uh just the whole thing, blood all over the covers. And all of the stuff on the inside was just reprints of the 1950s horror comics. Genius, genius, that was it, but in in large magazine format, so the that was beyond the comics code, nice just beautiful, beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 58:38

That's cool.

SPEAKER_00 58:39

Uh so I I of course I love those a lot of those stories are are damn good. I mean, there are there are some just really good uh horror stories from those those old 50s comics. So I did the Witch Tales uh anthology, ended up moving back uh to getting divorced from my Peruvian wife, I should say, and moving back to the United States myself, uh to Georgia, the state of Georgia. I was there for a year, then I moved to Florida, and I've been here for about five years. But uh in that time, uh being here in Florida, I you know, I hadn't I always knew that Lovecraft had visited Florida, right? But I never knew the extent to, you know, uh I mean his uh trips here, which I count as possibly it's at least three trips, three separate excursions from Providence down here. Maybe four, right? Now, the first uh let's see, he started 1931. His last trip was 1935, in 1934 and 1935. He made uh two trips to Deland, Florida, which is south of St. Augustine, to visit Robert Barlow. Right now, Barlow became a key archivist for Lovecraft. He's a historical figure unto himself, in my opinion, because he was left with some of the manuscripts, some of Lovecraft's great manuscripts in his hands, which eventually found their way to August Derelith and uh the great Arkham House. I love Arkham. That's another thing, too. It's like people will say things about August Derelith and so forth, as far as his writing skills. I don't care. I really, you know, I the guy, the fact that he really did resurrect Lovecraft with Arkamouse is the main point.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:58

Yeah, for us, no derlith, no Lovecraft, basically. I mean, uh, it's as Stark as that, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:03

You know, yes, yeah, that is it. And it's you know, it's one of those things where you know, in that line of people, I think Barlow figures heavily right in there. Without Barlow, some key manuscripts would be gone. They would like I couldn't even imagine. What if Barlow just died or something happened and he he didn't care and he threw the manuscript.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:32

You think the amount of stuff that letters are just thrown away, uh because who would keep it, you know, a load of old papers, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:38

Right. Except, of course, it was Barlow, and he realized the what he had, which was uh that was the his to his credit.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:48

And he was downstairing with Barlow's family for uh quite a number of months, wasn't it? I believe.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:53

So well in all in all, I think about he was it seems to be like two to three months at that house.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:02

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:03

Like in two different trips. So let's say like six weeks or so per trip, he was at the Barlow residence, but then he would take off, he'd go back up to St. Augustine, you know, and the first trip that he made to Florida was in 1931. He he comes into Florida, he goes to St. Augustine, he's there for two weeks. Then his idea is to go South, Florida, all the way down to Miami into the Florida Keys, then go to Cuba. That was his destination, his final, his like, you know, most southernly destination. But by the time he got to the Florida Keys, he was he was like, Oh, yeah, I don't have enough money. I'm never gonna make it back if I go to Cuba. So he ended up going back, you know, of course, north, and he went to uh oh boy, it's the town. Well, uh Henry S. Whitehead. He is another guy, uh, weird tales writer of note, no doubt about that. Jumby and other stories. Uh he liked to do those uh what would you call kind of voodoo-oriented uh West Indies types of horror. Very effective, really, very good writer. And he was also a uh priest. Yeah, he was totally like he was a priest. Uh he may have been Pentecostal. I am not quite sure, but in any case, what happened is that Lovecraft went to visit him in Dunedin. That was it, Dunedin, Florida, on the Gulf Coast of Florida. So, you know, it's kind of like uh how should I do this again? Got this, you got the two coasts of Florida, right? It's like a long leg.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:03

You got Gulf Coast and you got Atlantic Coast. So he was on the Gulf Coast. Yeah, he visited Henry S. Whitehead for a few weeks. He was definitely there for at least two weeks, and then made his way back up to St. Augustine, like just kind of meandered up to St. Augustine, was there for a few more weeks, and that was the his first excursion to Florida. So that's key because he talks a lot. Of course, he exchanged a lot of letters with Henry S. Whitehead. Yeah, you know, and it was shortly after that, uh, months, I I believe months after that, that uh Henry S. Whitehead died.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:45

Yeah, yeah. And I he passed away, didn't he?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:47

Quite right, right, shortly after that. Uh, you know, so Lovecraft was fortunate to at least be able to meet one of the people that he would been corresponding with so long. Uh but his take on that was 31, so that was a few years before he would even get over to Deland, Florida, and the Barlow residents. This is where he discovers the ancient city. The first time that is, and it's called, believe it or not, Rob, that is what St. Augustine is referred to, the ancient city.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:26

The ancient city, because this is the oldest city in America, or European city, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:32

Yes, 1565, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:34

Uh which is incredible when you think is incredible. We we tend to think America, a couple of hundred years, you know. What's what's that saying in in America? Like uh a hundred miles is a short distance and twenty years is a long time, and in Britain it's the other way around.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:50

Yes, that that's exactly true. And the thing is, is that yeah, it's of course this year we here in the United States, it's our 250th birthday, right?

unknown 1:06:02

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:02

250 years.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:04

What? It's like a child's birthday or something. And uh when you think about, yes, but you know, at 40 years, they're gonna celebrate 500 years uh of St. Augustine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:21

And Lovecraft, I know from the letters you know, we've looked at in the book, certainly wrote a lot to Smith about that place in particular, and he absolutely loved it, of course, the architecture and everything.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:32

Yes, and it changed his views because he was, of course, as you know, he also, I think he may have, I believe he he ultimately it was two cities. It was St. Augustine, it was Charleston, uh, South Carolina, right? And he loved Charleston, South Carolina because of the architect. Once again, that just the amazing architecture and so forth. But then when he went to St. Augustine, he discovered the Spanish architecture, the even more ancient, and he was like, I've never realized this existed, you know, here in the United States. This is incredible. And of course, he talked often to everyone, to Robert E. Howard, you know, various people, August Deryland, about living in Florida. He was like moving to St. Augustine because it was uh he felt better. It seemed to like kind of work in favor as far as his health went. He was he said he felt better than he, you know, did in I don't know, in years.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:42

Right. Right. And it, but it's just so funny to think in terms of that. It's such a contrast when you consider this Lovecraft. You think about Lovecraft, you think about New England, you think about Providence, Rhode Island cold, dark, scarves and gloves and things scuttling under Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:06

It's a little paraffin heater or something. Yeah, you don't think of him as like being on the beach, do you? I bet I bet he even undid his top button, didn't he? You know, took his tie off.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:18

With a Mai tie, you know, drinking and relaxing on the beach. I it yeah, it it was what it's something where you when you read the letters, he's like, Yes, I, you know, it was something like I I I rolled my pants up and sun my legs on the you know, on the bench in this park or something in St. Augustine. Uh yeah, and so there's that thing. There's that weird type of thing where you're like, well, this guy just writes the darkest cosmic horror that anybody's ever written, really. I don't think it's been even anybody's come close to it to this day. And uh, and yet he's like talking about sunny Florida and like how he'd love to move there and and so forth. And it so I started reading, that's when I started, you know, getting into when I was here, uh finally and living in in Florida, uh the letters and so forth. So I would read like this a few of the letters uh that from you know, exchange between him and Robert E. Howard or August Derriff or uh any number of uh of people and when he would talk about St. Augustine. The more I read, the more I realized, wait a second, this guy just didn't visit here on a like on a vacation. He was here for yeah, you know, between the that those that period of 1931 and 1935, which was the last year that he came down, because of course his health when he's you know 36 and then 37. He yeah, so from 31 to 35 in those years, he was here for approximately six months in total. That's a large chunk of your life in a five or six year span uh to to be in one state. So he was compelled. That I guess this is what I'm getting at. He was compelled to be in Florida. He thought it was I could see it now. He's suffering from probably the beginning effects of the cancer in 34 and 35. He comes down to Florida, he starts feeling better. He's like, ah, this is much better, I you know, and that would make total sense. Uh and uh so when when I started getting into this, when I started realizing just how many things that he uh encountered, because he was the kind of guy, he's like me, exactly. I do the same thing. If I go to a place, like if I go to St. Augustine and I've I I went to St. Augustine, I just walk. I walk around, I walk around, I'll walk the I could walk 20 miles in a day. Yeah, just walking around, right? That's exactly what he did, you know, and uh that's really the way that you figure out, you find out about a town or a city that you're interested in. You can't just take a bus or something. I mean, it it's you that's you know, if you've gotta go like if if it's uh kind of a distance out of town or something, and you've gotta go you gotta do that. But otherwise, if you're in the city, you just walk because you're that's how you're gonna find out.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:48

We we were in Venice once, and that was on a coach tour because we were we were staying in Rimini, that's how we got the coach up to Venice, and you join this tour party where the guide holds an up an umbrella, and you know, and we were wandering around. I said to partner at the time, Oh, fuck this, let's go down this little alleyway. And we just spent an hour or two just wandering, and it was magical.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:09

Yes, you know, that's exactly it. It's the only way you absorb a place, you know, that at least for that limited period of time that that you're there, right? Lovecraft did this, and I would say that after about six months, uh you know, in that period of time in Florida, he he absorbed St. Augustine. There is no doubt about that. He knew it. He would talk about it's amazing because you you figure out, well, he was at the Rio Vista Hotel in 1931. He stayed there and he talks about this. He's like, you wouldn't believe it. I'm paying$4 a week for a good room at the Rio Vista Hotel. Four dollars. And uh he's like, I've got a view of the sea, you know, and the whole thing, it's just insane. He's eating uh breakfast, lunch, and dinner for like 80 cents a day or something, you know, just that type of thing. And of course, he's very, very budget-minded. You see this in his letters where he's tallying the you know what it costs for him to live when he's on vacation and stuff, and of course, because that guy was he was literally living down to the last penny. There's no doubt. He was, you know, uh, but so that that whole thing, the the St. Augustine trip in particular, and obviously him staying in the land at the land at the Barlow House, yeah, was incredible uh to realize for me. And then the one kicker, Rob, that really got me to do this documentary, to go there, to drive across Florida and find these places, was that I was reading some I was in like uh reading comments in some horror-oriented uh chat room or something, right? It was it what it was like it wasn't really like a chat room, though, it was like a forum, right? Where people could just uh leave comments or whatever. And this guy, this was years ago, this was God five, four or five years ago. He's like, Hey, I found the Barlow house. And I was like, what? And he posted a Google Maps like satellite image. Now, this had the road, the main road, which is the Deland Eustace Highway. And I could find so once you find that and you know the land is up here, it's gonna take you like five minutes to pinpoint exactly where that house is, right? I was like, holy crap! And so I did that. I matched the map and I went on to Google Maps, and I was like, there it is, the house. And of course, you compare that to Lovecraft's drawings of the house, that's it. And he did, he made a few drawings of the house, yeah. Uh and I was like, Yes, so I you know made my plan. So I was like, this is it between that the the land house, which is still standing. It's incredible, it's still there, it's intact. I don't know about the interior because it's all boarded up, of course.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:37

Oh, right, right. So there's there's no it's not occupied at all. This this is that kind of timber boarded house, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:43

It's quite a distinctive looking it's a it's a it's partially a log cabin of logs. They they you know did the they halved the logs. Yeah. So you've got like this uh it's hard to describe. You've got to uh it's in the it's in the documentary where you see it like you see the logs, and then on some parts of the house it's just like the flat, you know, the the weather board type stuff, but then other parts it's the logs. And so Lovecraft was there when the house was being finished with the first time, right? As he was creosoteing, he was helping the family creosote the logs. Oh my god as they were put chopping them and putting them up on you know to finish the house. And so I I'm like I get to the property, it's like just overgrown, it's just you know, uh it's abandoned, right? They've got a notice on the front door in yellow, say, you know, saying this is a pro something, uh property, not condemned, but do not trespass. No, yeah, don't do not trespass. It's all boarded up. I would never I'm just one of those guys that I would never think of like breaking into a place like that. So I got all the footage of the outside, but then of course he also talks about the shed and the lake. So there's these other two. It's a big problem, it's gotta be like at least an acre. Fair size, then it must be fair. Yeah, it's pretty big. And there's the shed. I see the shed back there, it's still there, it's intact. It's just I go back there, uh, I walk inside because it's just open. It's just like an open shed. You walk in, and there's there are like four or five of the original logs sitting there in a pile. My lads. I was just like, holy Toledo, it hasn't even been touched. And you know those were the logs that they were using, you know, they were having those logs and putting them on the on the thing, and they they just were left over, like four or five logs from the project.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:04

Uh and otherwise, it was empty, the shed. You know, there was a couple of canisters of stuff on a shelf, and then there was a an at you could walk up and there was like an attic space that I presumably you could kind of walk, crouch, walk into, you know, on the upper floor. Uh, and that was it. Uh, and then of course there was the lake. So then I was like, okay, I've got to, you know, because they were they talk about they get into a boat and they're rowing out on the lake. Right. Yeah. And so I'm like, well, okay, I gotta get a shot of the lake. And it's in the it's in the documentary, in the first part of the documentary. And I I'm going, I'm getting as close as I can. Then I hear something big moving. Like in the in the it's like there's gators all over the place. I mean, there's no doubt about it. I did not see a gator, but the sound that I heard was not a snake. It was definitely an alligator or something. So I backed off, of course. I got photos as close as I could, you know, of the lake. The lake is totally overgrown. You can barely see the water itself. It's got like, you know, just uh various flora coming out of it. It is it's totally different, right? But it's you can see it that it was that lake that you know they they were rowing in. And uh that was pretty much it. I mean, I just kind of walked around, I was getting kind of angles where I knew that Lovecraft was because of his drawing. I was in there if he was exactly that type of thing, and then of course he and Barlow went to the old sugar mill, which was just north of uh Deland. I guess technically still in Deland, but you've you know you've got to take a car to it. Uh and so there's a famous photo of Lovecraft standing in front of the sugar mill. They got the su the sugar the wheel behind them, you know. And I got that. I found it, I took the photo with the wheel, you know, as it is today. And of course, it's all fixed and nice looking and everything, but it's the same. It's the one. And uh it's stuff like that. So there was there was that in the Deland area, in the house, the Barlow House and so forth, and the surrounding property that was fascinating because it was a lot easier to track where Lovecraft. He just was all over the place in that on that property, you know. So walking around there was just weird. It was strange because the house is, as I say, it's intact.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:59

It's unchanged, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:01

It's not basically, yeah. Basically, it's it's they hadn't modernized it or anything. It was the way that it was built, it's just totally boarded up. And uh I I figure that uh it's you know, unfortunately, in the back of the house, all of the upper windows are gone. So rain comes in, that house is it's gonna, it's gonna just sometimes. It's gonna go. Right. Um so so it was a matter, I I just thought, well, what what could you do? If you were a millionaire, you could buy the property, probably. If you were like a Guillermo del Toro, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:46

Yeah, you you might think that someone might nudge him and say, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:51

Yeah, it would be it would make a most amazing convention spot. Oh my god. Like for a tour. That'd be something, wouldn't it? It would be. And it's look, it's a it's a it's a piece of history that still exists, that's a major piece of history in the life of especially the latter, right, in Lovecraft. Uh, that's still there. I don't know about the buildings, for instance, in in Providence, which ones are still up. Uh, there are a couple, I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:27

Well, we we went to Providence in about 2001, I think, 2002 maybe. We we basically flew into Boston and did a drive-arour, and that included Providence and Rhode Island. Oh, cool. And um, I was surprised at that time at how little was there. There's a plaque on the library, yeah, and that was it. And of course, I'd been online. All right, if we go here, we can see there's the Fleur de Lee's house, and there's you know, I think one one of the houses you lived in it was moved or something, wasn't it? There was a right, there was a weird thing. So, yeah, you can see all that, but there was nothing. You're right, no tours, no nothing. I think that's changed now. I think now you can go on on tours and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:11

And they, yeah, I think with the popularity, well, I don't know about now, but there was a popularity with uh the Necronomicon Providence or something.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:21

The Necronomic, yeah, because they hold the Necronomicon there every other year, isn't it? I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:25

Yes, I think that's it every other year. Yeah. Uh so they definitely, of course, when they have that, they have tours, as I understand it. They, you know, they have the the various uh tour other the guests of the convention and so forth, go out and they they do a little walking tour. But it they even may have separate walking tours now of that area for Lovecraft. Um but uh yeah, it it's like that's this is something, Rob, that is like in the land with the Barlow House, it's just totally abandoned, overgrown. Like nobody's doing tours. There's no, there's nothing. There is absolutely nothing. There is the one thing that I that really helped me when I was looking for the house, there is a uh, which you see, you see this also in the documentary. There's a mailbox that is totally brick, it's constructed of brick, it's rather large, you know, and it's out in front. So no other house on that highway has got something that looks like this. And uh so that was a good, you know, kind of a marker, a good indicator. Uh, but going and then, of course, going to St. Augustine, there were a few problems. Like, for instance, the Hotel Rio Vista that he famously stayed in when he first got there, for he's he was there for at least two weeks. He may have gone back to that location and stayed longer. It's gone. So you can't, you know, now it's like a strip mall or some stupid thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:07

It's a shame you can't you can't stay in the Lovecraft room.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:11

Right oh my god. Is there I wonder, is there any place like that, Rob? That it that like in Charleston? I wonder if there is a hotel to remain.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:23

I can't think that'd be interesting. Maybe anyone out there would would know. Is there a place where Lovecraft stayed that you could stay in on his travels? Uh I know the the apartment is still there in New York, right? Where he lived with Sonia Green. Right. I think that that that apartment building is still there, but obviously someone else is living there. I don't suppose they'd like people.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:48

Although they probably would make a small fortune.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:51

Well, there is that. Enterprising person would buy that and then do it as a Lovecraft and Airbnb, wouldn't they? You know.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:58

There you go. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:00

Lovecraft's living room.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:01

Imagine that. That would be that's gotta be something to find out though, because if there is a place in Charleston, I might have to uh I might have to check that out. I'm not that far. Charleston, South Carolina is probably I don't know, maybe 300 miles from here. Maybe maximum. So it's not that bad. Uh and it would be I've you know, I mean, there are places you can go, obviously. The the I mean it's the land. He was in the shed, and he was obviously in the shed because they were creosote the logs.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:44

That's what makes it really personal, isn't it? That sort of little detail. Yeah, someone was here and he said, but you know, that's a real connection, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:51

But of course, he was in that, he was staying in the house. Unfortunately, the house is boarded up, and uh so it's one of those things where I only go so far.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:01

Do you know who owns the house still? It'd be interesting to did did the Barlows just move out at some point and no one else moved in, you know. I wonder what the the history is.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:11

I think it's owned by it's yeah, I I definitely I would say that it is owned by another entity now. Another entity, yes, but lives in the lake. Right. Oh my god. Uh Nessie Jr. in there. Um but uh no, the uh it just it's the way it is. It's like obviously it's abandoned, it's boarded up. They posted the yellow notice on the on the front door. The yellow sign. The yellow sign, yeah, exactly. And uh it looks like it's just been left to rot. Like over, you know, in in 20 years, that house is gonna, it's it'll be I think it'll be gone. If if They could still they could somebody could save it. That's my point here is that if they sealed those windows in the back, the the roof itself, I looked, I took a good look at that roof, and it's huge. I mean, because the the house itself is pretty big. The roof is in great shape. I mean, there's like I to me, it seemed like 99% of all of the tiles are intact. You know? I mean, they're obviously aged, maybe some are cracked a little, but still there.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:34

Yeah. So it's good going for a roof of that age, then that must obviously put obviously well put together, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:41

Yeah. The roof is not a uh an issue. It's just that these open, large open windows and the rain, we get the the rain in Florida is just can be like well, torrential in the first place. And you get uh tornadoes, you get extreme storms. They just blow through every year. I'm sure that that house gets hit by at least one really nasty storm. So it's just it's a matter of time. That's what I'm saying. It would be a I think a better bet if by some miracle there was some place where Lovecraft stayed at, like a hotel or something in char and Charleston would probably be the next best bet because he was there for many weeks. We know that. Uh, and he loved yeah. So I mean I don't know if I have to look into that because he leaves his address. Remember that? Like in the in the letters, he'll be like, you can reach me here, uh, you know, in Charleston via this address. He would stay, he would also stay at YMCA's, I think. He even said that.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:54

Sometimes he he wrote the letter on the on the hotel stationery, right? Because he didn't have a couldn't afford a notebook. So he's writing on postcards and and the backs of envelopes and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:06

Anything that he could possibly get his, you know, hands on.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:10

Very interesting line of inquiry, that is, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:14

Yeah, that's something that you know. Uh I'm gonna have to now take a little maybe a look see. I mean, let's put it this way. Right now, I am uh a bit behind schedule on the second part of the Lovecraft edit. I'm editing, right? But it is way bigger than the first part. It's double the length, at least you know, yeah, it's just involved because it is Saint Augustine. It's also, I've got a segment on Henry S. Whitehead. I've got to include that, even though it's not St. Augustine, it's just important. Uh and all of the things about St. Augustine, uh, there is just it's massive. There, you know, there is the he goes on about the cemeteries there, the fountain of youth, the mummies that were found, you know, the Indian mummies, yes. Uh, things that are, you know, you've got to. And the amazing thing, Rob, is that well, I don't know if you've ever found any. If you have, let me know. Any letters that Lovecraft wrote where he's talking about St. Augustine, where he talks about pirates.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:26

Okay. I'll I shall have a check in the um in a Dornwood Spire book.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:31

Okay, okay. Because the most arguably some of the most famous pirates were attacked Saint Augustine, right? Robert Searle is one of them. He's just one of those guys that was infamous uh pirate. And so you would think that he would have mentioned something about the the history because he talks about, you know, uh Aviles, uh Menendez, the founder of St. Augustine, who named the place St. Augustine. He talks about the Spaniards and everything. I could not find one thing where he's like, yes, but those damn pirates kept attacking, you know. Not one thing, not one thing. So in the in my documentary, I've I've got that. I I cover the pirates, the early days of St. Augustine, because it's just a key part of that city, man. It's like amazing that they repelled and they stayed alive as long as they did. There at one point, pirates raided the city, and literally everybody in the city fled into the swamps.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:47

That's a tough place to survive anyway.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:51

Yeah. Right. Yeah. But they came back and the city was still there, although it was all messed up and plundered and pillaged and everything, as the damn pirates.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:01

That's pirates for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:02

Yeah. So that's a big part of this uh the second part, uh, which is technically it's you know, once again, it's Lovecraft in Florida, the Ancient City. That's what I call it. There is even a church called the Ancient City Church, believe it or not, in St. Augustine. That is a great name for a church. It's absolutely amazing. So uh I figure now, the way that things are going, I should be done with the second part by the end of May. That's what I'm yeah, that's what I'm looking for. Another month, another solid month of editing. It should be done. Uh and then the idea now that the the the first part has been in the film festival circuit. I immediately, when I finished it, I was like, I'm putting it in those film festivals and to get it out there, right? The important thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:02

I was gonna say, where can people see it in part one?

SPEAKER_00 1:34:05

Well, at this point, it I'm still awaiting the future film festivals to respond to see if I'm in them or not. Now, this is these are I should start getting more notices at the end of May through June. Those notices will be for festivals that take place in September and October of this year. You know how it goes. You get notified, and then it's like months later. Yeah, yeah. Um, so that's how it goes with that. But one of the main things that happened with the first part is that it won for Best Short Documentary at uh a Night of Horror uh Film Festival in Wisconsin, which is a biggie. It's a it's in terms of horror film festivals, that is one I always knew about. I just never was able to submit because I always missed the time slots for submission. This time, though, I was like, I got I kind of went in early uh with this film because of the way I finished. I was done in December with the first part, right? So then I could start submitting right at right off the at the bat in January. And uh so it was, you know, it's been in thus far, it's been in three festivals. That was the last one, a night of horror film festival. Uh and uh the next sh I I think I should hear something in May for a festival that's coming up in August or September. So it's there's gonna be a lapse here.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:49

And then what I'm thinking is that I'm not going to submit part two separately into film festivals. What I'm gonna do is I'm going to put them both together. So it's gonna be like a 40-minute, it'll be the full 40-minute documentary.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:02

The full 40-minute feature, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:04

Then I will get it in a few select film festivals uh and release it as a documentary on, for instance, on Amazon, so people can watch it, rent it.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:17

And then on Blu-ray. Yeah, that'd be cool. Uh, and that would be like I'm talking August, September of this year. It would be uh ready for that. So that's what's going on with that. But at the same time, I was also doing a uh shooting for a documentary I haven't even touched yet, about all of the shooting locations for the creature from the black lagoon movies. Oh, that's a neat idea. Wow. Which is just everywhere. I mean, I Rob, I live like 12 miles south of me, is Wakula Springs. Right. That is where they shot all of the underwater scenes of the original Creature from the Black Lagoon, where Riku Browning is swimming in the uh it's just amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:06

Talking about old black and white movies and real-time effects, there's one that still stands up, right? It's incredible. Amazing outfit. I can't remember the name of the woman who designed it either. I can't remember the name.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:17

Yeah, it's uh Millicent Patrick.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:19

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:20

She does she designed the head. Right. Another guy, this guy, uh Jack Kavan, designed the body, and he built the body. You may not be able to see that back there, but that's the a photo of the creature swimming on the wall right there.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:39

And to the right, it's kind of obscured by the monster head. But uh there is the cameraman down there in the water with his 3D camera unit. Underwater 3D camera. Underwater 3D in 1953. That is something. That is something. So that's how they filmed it because they released it in both ways, right? They released it in 3D and then they released it, you know, norm normally. I never saw it in 3D. For years and years, I just saw the yeah, and I often wondered why. I mean, I could see that it was a gimmick. A lot of films were coming out in 3D at that period of time.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:21

Unnecessary for this film. It's such a great movie. It is like one of those films that you know uh and kind of love Lovecraft adjacent.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:30

You can't help but think is a cousin to the deep ones, right? Is in is on the family tree.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:37

Yes. And uh, I mean, you know, John Carpenter wanted to do a uh remake of it years ago, right? And uh also uh somebody else was it was it may have been Guillermo del Torre. Well, he did his kind of weird version of it, which is the cut the shape of water or whatever. I oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I remember that.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:04

And he was like, Yeah, this is kind of my thing of yeah, it was it was okay, I thought it was okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:11

It was okay. Yeah, I I've I've enjoyed it, but it's not it's not a film I've gone back to, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:16

No, yeah, I saw it once and that was enough. This one I've seen, I've well I've got it on Blu-ray. Uh and I've seen it, I don't know, dozens of times. In any case, that's the documentary. After I finish the Lovecraft one here, editing in the next month, I'm gonna take a few months off from editing because it's really driving me insane.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:36

Totally agree.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:37

Right now, it's just it's it's God. I mean, I it it there's just so many elements to it that suddenly I was I realized I was like, oh my god, you know, this thing is like uh the the areas, the aspects of St. Augustine, in that not only historically, but when Lovecraft was visiting there, uh it's just mind-blowing when you, you know, I'm just looking at it because what you need to do, of course, is find your visual elements, right? Whether it's public domain, uh fill old films, yeah, yeah. Like uh whatever they call them, you know, like well, old uh travel log movies, for example. This is St. Augustine in 1920, or what you know, whatever. And then uh you've got uh images, of course, just uh uh I found some of the most most gorgeous postcard images, original from the 20s and 30s, some with Lovecrafts writing on the back and send postcards to people. So that's gonna be in there. Uh, but there's just a lot of elements to this, and I don't want to make it like this 25-minute long, boring thing. So it's gotta be like, you know, there's a lot of stuff in it, and it's gotta be lively. Yeah, that's the thing. It's gotta be engaging. So it's definitely I've got another good month on it. But uh one other thing that I haven't even we haven't even talked about, just briefly, I want to mention this because it is important. Of course, as you know, probably uh Thursday night, April 30th, is Waltergus night.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:32

Yes, right, or Walbergis not Pergus Not to be precise. Um, we must be precise if we are speaking the German, correct?

unknown 1:41:41

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:43

Exactly. Of course, it's like it's it's the what what would you call it, the springtime Halloween, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:41:49

That's exactly what my wife said yesterday. She said, Oh, I'll purchase next time. Yeah, springtime Halloween.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:55

Yeah, and I can dig it. I mean, it's when all you know, you got your vampires, witches, demons, ghouls, and stuff walking the face of the earth. That's basically what it is again. Uh and uh it's it's good. I like it. I I'm gonna run with that. Uh, and I love the fact that, of course, Lovecraftiana magazine, they're they're quarterly, and their their issue is coming out, the Volpergestadt issue. Uh right? Yes. Have you seen it?

SPEAKER_01 1:42:25

This issue I haven't no, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:27

Could you go to Amazon.co.uk and it's uh, of course, volume 11 because it's they've they're starting the new volume. Yeah, that's that's my cover.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:38

Ah, brilliant. That's great. That's a very nice, colorful, striking image, very sort of flames and bonfirey kind of thing going on there. Yeah. Yes. I shall put a link into that to the show notes. Yeah, we love Gavin anyway. Gavin's a great guy.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:56

Oh, he's great. He's great. Yeah, I know you mentioned you contributed to it, and and uh it's uh if you look at the Lovecraft oriented issues or or magazines that are out today, it's one of the best in my opinion. Oh, yeah. Uh and not only that, but Gavin, he's a great chap.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:17

And I think that he's he's kept the quality of the magazine up uh very well. Of course, obviously, well, you have contributed, Tim has contributed uh to it. Uh I have, just with my illustrations. You know, I do some, you'll see an occasional illustr interior illustration. Right. Uh I've done one other cover that was for Halloween of 2021. That was the Brown Jenkin cover. Uh I just love I love something about that brown Jenkin. Um but uh most of what I've done has just been interior stuff, uh black and white stuff, and I've got a few in this issue as well. Interior illustration.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:07

Well, and and he he packs so much in, Gavin. I mean, just the list of contributors there. Yes, you know, some things you get, and there's maybe three stories in it or something. No, this is full to burst in, isn't it? Lovecrafting.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:20

It is, and there's the one thing that I've read from it thus far that I've I'm I'm going to obviously, when I get into it, uh check out more, but there is a really cool Howard Phillips Lovecraft A Modest Assertion by Carl Reed. Highly recommended. Uh it's it is just my only complaint with that is that it's too short. It could have been uh longer. It is intriguing. It is really quite cool. It covers, well, he talks about Lovecraft as a kid, you know, as a five-year-old child, uh-huh and is great, you know, staying at his grandfather's house. Yeah, and so for it. Interesting. Really fascinating stuff. Um, so the cover that I did, it's literally, I call it Valpurgisnacht, because that's what's going on there, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:45:18

That's what it comes across. That does the job. Marvelous. Like I say, we'll we'll put a link into that. And um, where can people find you online to keep up to date with what you've got going on?

SPEAKER_00 1:45:30

Well, probably horror anthology movies.com.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:34

Okay, we'll we'll st we'll stick that into our show notes, of course.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:38

Yeah, all one word. Uh or you know, no no spaces, horror anthology movies.com is uh is the best with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:50

Marvelous. Well, Mike, it's been great having you in as a guest. I've really enjoyed our chat. I see uh Mr. Sgt. is pulling up in the bus outside, so it's time for us to leave. Of course, as a guest at the Gilman House, you get to stay overnight. But I think for a Florida nut I think you can handle Innsmouth quite easily, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:11

Yes, yes, there's nothing like Innsmouth.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:18

Brilliant. Thanks very much, Mike, and good luck with all your endeavours in the future, sir.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:23

Thank you, Rob. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me on your show.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:29

Okay, folks, that's it for this episode. I'm sure Mr. Tim will be back next week. Uh, perhaps you'll have an interesting story to tell about what went on on Devil's Reef. Or then again, what happens on Devil's Reef probably stays on Devil's Reef. But uh, yes, there we go. As always, thanks to you, our listeners, and a big thanks to our patrons as well for supporting the show. If you'd like to join them, check out our Patreon site. If you sign up, you get access to bonus content for the Innsmouth Book Club and Strange Shadows. You get a quarterly copy of Innsmouth News, and of course, you get free entry to the Innsmouth Literary Festival. Alright, that's it for me. Thanks to Mike again, thanks to you again. It's Rob Poynton saying goodbye and good luck.