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Study 174 - The Crawling Horror (Patreon)

Published:
2026-08-06 21:48:10
Edited:
2026-08-06 22:04:14
Imported:
2026-08
Tags:

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Content

Author Robin D. Laws joins us to discuss The Crawling Horror by Thorp McClusky, a protoplasmic pulp tale that prefigures Body Snatchers and The Thing! It's totally vombic!

Special thanks to our reader, Craig Johnson of Chad Vader and Welcome to the Basement!

Show notes:

Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff

And in this one they talk about ghost chiropractors!

Hamlet's GM Screen

Hamlet's Hit Points

Beating the Story

Much Needed Praise for Thorp McClusky

The Avon Fantasy Reader

The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis

Who Goes There? (and Part Two)

And don't forget to back Strange Stories: The Roleplaying Game!

Comments

Jb Lee

These weird leftovers from folk legends and supernatural fiction. like the creature not being able to come in unless invited or this eerie feeling when the thing is nearby, are just more evidence of how the earlier supernatural stuff was slowly being transformed into science fiction. This tale also reminds me of an Alan E. Nourse tale, THE COUNTERFEIT MAN, which was my first encounter with the Protoplasmic Doppleganger sort of monster. And it's pretty strange that Wollheim tried for "Vombis" to describe these sort of monsters, because the Yoh-Vombis things are more like leeches that eat your brain, not protoplasmic absorbers or duplicators. Maybe Hans and his beautiful voice wandered off to become Placido Domingo.

MonsterTalk

I think it's funny how most kids intuitively know that having your cover over you is adequate protection from most monsters. And adult home-owner parents are smugly thinking "That's ridiculous - real protection is derived not from a blanket, but from a mortgage."

MonsterTalk

I really want to tack on the Usual Suspects ending to this story. The doctor turns out to be telling this tale to the cops and - you know given the times - they believe him and he leaves the station... But then the detective notices that the rolling chair the doc has been sitting in has sunk a quarter inch into the wooden floor, its wheels collapsed under an incredible weight.

Rafe Ball

Hold on - the inventor of chiropractic was taught the technique by a dead doctor? You mean... he was a NECROSCOPE?!? "At last, after almost a century trapped in this coffin, I, the great Wamphyri, Thibor Ferenczy, am free at last! I shall wreak a terrible vengeance upon this world, starting with you, inventor of chiropractic D.D. Palmer... Wait, what are you doing?" "You've been stuck in that coffin for a hundred years? No wonder you're grumpy, that must have done a number on your back. Let me just make a little adjustment." "No, stop, I-" CRACK! "Ohhhh… oh, actually, yeah, that's a lot better."

Jim Cannon

Sometimes you just get a B-movie, or B-movie equivalent, in a weird story. And sometimes its a "good" B-movie. Sometimes its... this.

Our old pal Brendan Gardiner

“Nobody wants a slime dog” is the realization a person voices aloud once they are four or months into having agreed to foster a slime dog and it’s dawning on them that they were tricked into what’s likely a permanent arrangement.

Jeremey Guttilla

The end of the story made me realize that I want a serial tv show about a doctor that gets involved in weekly supernatural mysteries and dooms all the characters with his bad advice.

Ryan Thomas

And, with that, D.D. Palmer saved mankind from Dr. Ferenczy's wrath.

Ben A

What a wild protoplasmic phantasmagoria! The funny thing is that after Ooze, Slime, and Who Goes There?, i thought you guys had covered the foundational stories in this genre. And I felt like this one was genuinely overlooked until the last fourth of the story. Then I realized why both it and “vombic” never became more broadly known. Was the doctor somehow also in on the scheme for the ooze to succeed? On a side note, I thought the creatures in CAS’s Vaults tale were head-melting, inflatable sofa cushions. Nowhere in that tale is there anything like the monster crawling ooze in this story. So there are two reasons why that term never caught on. Great show as always! And it’s wonderful having Robin back on. What a treat to start the month (the show, and an entertainingly batshit story).

Jason Thompson

WOW! What a great story! Except that ending… I want to believe that it’s a dark ending and the narrator was fooled, like you did. But it is such a typical “I can fix her bro, lemme fuck the sexy vampire” story point that for that very reason, especially in the 1930s-1940s, it was probably intended unironically

Steve

That was great. I very much enjoyed Robin's editorial eye. I know what a blessing it is to have it peer in my direction.

The Last Human in Innsmouth

There were so many stories wrapped up in here. The events at Poruth Farm, Who Goes There, but I also felt some Michael Shea in there. Anyone else? The story about the sex worker and fat face up in the window? There was the scene where she comes home and sees what she thinks is her roommate with a John through the window and that gave me vibes for the scene in the bedroom at the end. Plus her unnatural draw to fat face was a little bit like a doctor constantly talking about it being beautiful.

It's a Ghost.

I interpreted the ending as unironic, so I was especially confounded when Hans (with the slime monster inside him) just walks away and neither he nor Dr. Kurt suggest that maybe they should seal him in some kind of unbreakable box.

Tom Prentice

The way in which Hilda and Bertha start merging makes an appearance in Richard Stanley’s Color Out of Space adaptation from 2019. I wonder if he was influenced by this story as much as Lovecraft.