Привет всем, Hola Todos, bonjour à tous, olá pessoal, and Hello Everyone! - and welcome to Day 3 of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival! Day 3 of the festival was marked by serendipitous events that hugely inspired me, and thus 6 October 2019 also marks the highlight of my vacation and probably one of the best days I’ve had this year! There’s so much to relate, I’ll be breaking Day 3 into two parts! So, brace yourself, hold onto your seat and/or your date, and I hope you grabbed a soda on the way in, because here we go!
Due to my dietary restrictions, I chose to sleep in a bit to recover my strength rather than attending the “Carbload for Cthulhu” and the “‘Prayer’ Breakfast,” which served me well, as once I started on my way again, I found that my medical condition was more serious than I realized, and I was glad I had an appointment with my doctor the following Wednesday (which she had her staff call me to move to Tuesday). Once again I wore a preplanned outfit, this time being my favorite burgundy dress with matching, 3-inch heel velvet boots. As much as I wanted to attend more of the live events, I also wanted to catch up on the blocks of short films, so I planned to focus on that for the first half of the day. However, if you take a close look at the *️⃣ on the schedule, you’ll see that events took a very different, unexpected turn that ended up benefiting me and cueing up the night’s feature film much more fabulously! I rushed to get to the theater on time, thinking I was running late, but actually arrived slightly early, as the 1st block of shorts actually started at 1:10pm, so I got a good seat and really enjoyed to the them. This block of films included:
“Z-GOAT: First Bleat,” “Neris,” “Exhibit Man,” “Hide and Seek,” “The Cultist Next Door,” “The Garden,” “In a Foreign Town,” and “Maw.”
All of these films were quite good, but my favorites were the first two and the last one.
“Z-GOAT: First Bleat,” for all that it has a very campy title, was actually a spot-on confrontation with an unknown, malignant entity derived from the concept of “the huntress becomes the hunted.” The Amazonesque heroine of the story was extremely easy for me to identify with, and since the dialogue was in French, I was generally able to ignore the subtitles. In a dystopian future, Darwina, the huntress, is initially hunting deer with a makeshift shotgun, when the deer is startled away by something other than her, and Darwina quickly realizes that she is no longer the one doing the hunting. She runs to help her father, a cowardly drunk, to escape, but the monster arrives and kills him. The monster itself, for all that it might be slightly comical taken out of context, was quite horrible in manifestation: it walked upright and had proportions like a human, but had a goat’s head; it that regard it made me think of images of Baphomet, but with more practical horns. However, its arms were more like tentacles that ended in sharp, lobster-like claws. The film closes with Darwina about to blast the Z-Goat before it kills her, with the film’s title suddenly emblazoned on screen with music in a style that reminded me of John Carpenter, famous for his film, “The Thing.” It felt like a horrific first installment of a new streaming video series.
Again, I’d love to tell you about all of them, but I’d be blogging all week! “Neris” was the best of the lot, IMHO; it featured what appears to be an aging grandmother telling a ghost story to her grandchildren...but actually turns out to be Cthulhuoid snake-mermaid relating the story of how she first arrived at that very place...and the children hearing the story are, indeed her “grandchildren,” although how human they are remains to be seen. When she is depicted in her younger state, she is both beautiful and terrifying, and she speaks in a voice, which, while still feminine, resonates with echoes of hidden power from across the cosmos in a tongue no man has ever spoken, at least not without being a worshipper of Cthulhu, lol. It went from zero to AIIEEEE!!! on the terror scale in 9 minutes flat. If you’d like to hear more about the other short films, just ask me in a comment!
After the first block of films, just before 3pm, I headed upstairs to catch the another block. It was impossible to see all of them this year - there were 45 short films submitted to the festival, the most in its history. I’m going to suggest that they expand it out to Thursday-Sunday if this is going to continue! However, the festival was sold out, and the line to get into the upstairs theater went all the way downstairs. While I was waiting, the beauteous Gwen Callahan (see above), one of the two current festival directors, came by to explain that the theater above might not have enough seats for those in line, as Roger Corman was still wrapping up from the previous show, and there was no guarantee that those already in the theater would be moving on to other films or events. After contemplating for a few minutes, I decided to head across the street to attend two live events and be on time, rather than be late because I couldn’t get into this film block. It was one of the smartest things I’ve ever done.
On the way down, I got two compliments on my outfit, one from a super cute, blonde girl, and the other from a woman about my age who said, “Those are FABULOUS boots!”
So, I arrived slightly early for the next event, a discussion on Mental Illness and how it affects and motivates the creative process, featuring John Shirley, known of for his many novels and his work on the screenplay of “The Crow,” as the moderator. I took the opportunity to finish my shopping, and was able to reconnect with Ross Lockhart, the publisher who ran Saturday’s writer’s workshop. Ross was very understanding, and agreed to send me a writing prompt after the festival the same way he would have if I had attended - the fact that I bought “A Spectral Hue,” one of his books, may have weighed in my favor, lol! Next, I purchased a book whose cover I had seen presented as a poster, and got the autograph of Matt Maxwell - and connected with his publisher, head of Broken Eye Books. Finally, I purchased a locally produced audio production of Frankenstein and got to know Mel Paradise, the creator of the cute octopoids I purchased as souvenirs for my friends at home. I have decided to call them “squashies,” using a word a girlfriend coined. Mel has a fun Etsy store if you like her work.
The discussion of mental illness was quite interesting and relevant to the festival in general with excellent insights from all of the panelists, especially Mr. Shirley. I included the ear of the attendee in front of me, because his name is Alan, a fellow writer who decided to start chatting me up. We swapped short stories, I showed him the logo I drew for my band, and I let him listen to a couple of song samples. Well, I guess I impressed him, because he joined me for the next event and the feature film later that evening! But there’s more -
The next event was “Strange Aeons Radio, live with Richard Stanley.” I had no idea what he was going to talk about. It turned out that he was discussing the feature film he brought to the festival, “The Color Out of Space,” which I was planning to see that evening! In addition to describing how he managed to get Nicolas Cage for the starring role, he also described how he created a character for the film as a tribute to a friend who had recently died - a friend, it seems, who was the only person he knew that honestly believed that Yog-Sothoth actually exists, and who performed a ritual to insure that the movie was made. Richard said that he hoped his friend’s life was not the price that it took for it all to manifest. I could tell he was speaking tongue in cheek, but I also sensed deep pain. Apparently, his friend became convinced of Yog-Sothoth’s veracity after reading a French translation of the Necronomicon. The actor chosen to play this unusual character was, believe it or not, Tommy Chong. My short story for the HPLFF deals with the translation of ancient text - and Richard’s discussion gave me an idea for a short story in which I can immortalize his friend as well, based on Richard’s own narrative. I’m looking forward to writing it!
After the live radio show, it was time for the dinner break, and Alan hinted we should go to dinner together - but I was still struggling with fatigue, and since my diet is extremely restricted, I knew I needed to go back to the motel and eat some of my own food to prevent risking an allergic reaction to restaurant food. That too, was a wise choice, as I discovered he chose to have pizza, which I cannot eat due to my allergy to tomatoes. But there was another serendipitous meeting about to occur - so watch my page for part II of The HPLFF Day 3 coming up after a short intermission!
💗🤗💋
- - Dhyani
