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Episode 499 - The Dunwich Horror Revisited (Patreon)

Published:
2020-05-14 18:09:55
Edited:
2024-12-12 19:02:12
Imported:
2026-06
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Join us on another trip through time and space - it's The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft!

We're discussing the story, the episodes and a couple of the film adaptations.

Tenth anniversary posters, t-shirts, totes and more available now - grab 'em!

Thanks to Andrew Leman and Robert M. Price for the being part of the original episode!

Next up: a bonus episode on MANIMAL!

Comments

Andrew M. Reichart

*Really* enjoyed re-listening to the original 4-parter the other night!

Peter Larsen

This was fun. Will the 500th episode be a musical version of "Nyarlathotep?" The opening number "The Audient Void" writes itself!

Stacy Schumacher

I realized something as I was listening to Chad describe his sound engineering, which having done a little recording, seemed interesting (that whole understanding how you two put an episode together thing). The description quickly resulted in me being completely unable to know what, if any parts were serious, and what were complete fiction. Fencing in Mr. Leman makes sense, obviously, but recording from across the field?

MortalGlare

Reading the description I almost lost my mind imagining that episode 500 would be about bloody Manimal 😅

Sanjay Mathew

I just wanted to say that with two kids at home and tons of essay marking (this combination gives you a cosmic horror experience like no other), I've fallen way behind on all my podcasts but I always make time for you guys.

Sweatin' to the Great Oldies

I think you picked just the right reading to feature in the show. The stress on how the location itself is corrupted - untrustworthy - is just the thing that Call of Cthulhu games and Lovecraftian film adaptations often fail to get right. Or even to address. The trick isn't to make a town full of weirdos, but to make a weird town full of folks turned so weird they can't get themselves out.

Joshua

A fun revisit of a classic. RE the film conversation though I thought it odd that the best thing about the old Dunwich Horror film wasn’t even addressed: the soundtrack! It’s a dull film, to be sure, but Les Baxter’s combo of his accustomed exotica plus some late 60s vamping groove makes one of the best scores of the era. Really. & Chad being musically minded I kept waiting for the “but what I dug about the movie was...” moment. Alas. Check the score out on YouTube, worth your time far more than the film.

H P Lovecraft's Cat

The whole Robert Price Mount Doom in Mordor speech was blown out of proportion.He simply made the valid point that Islamic Fascism had similar traits as Femi-Nazism ,which is true ,Liberal Fascism is a real thing ,just ask Chad as he tries to Escape from L.A. now.

Clyde Duensing III

I’m so glad you guys decided to revisit this episode. Back in the day I was a bit late to the party and didn’t find out about HPPodcraft until you were about 2/3 of the way through Lovecraft’s body of work, so I wasn’t able to comment on this episode as it happened, but man, I wanted to after listening to it. Overall I loved the show and you guys did a fantastic job, but in spite of the few truly funny lines he added to the show, I disagreed with almost everything Robert Price said: Lavinia wasn’t necessarily impregnated by her father, just because the twin looked like old man Whateley. Lavinia is related to him obviously, so could have passed on the family resemblance without his help. I don’t think the general store scene has anything to do with “The Gay Science” I don’t think “smells like thunder” means anything except that it smells really, really bad, not literally like thunder in any way. I was particularly annoyed by his theory that Old Man Whateley was in it for the money and Chris even pushed back a bit on this one. Not only is there zero evidence to support this, but the guy is still coaching Wilbur on how to open the gate to Yog Sothoth on his death bed. I’m pretty sure he was into it for the glory of the Great Old Ones, not the money.

Clyde Duensing III

I also think there was a motif regarding the whippoorwills that slipped past without enough comment. Chris mentioned it was cool how they died in the end and suggested that they died because they were tied to the Whateleys and when the last of them died, they died. Maybe, but I feel like something more was going on with them and it is super Lovecraftian in its implications. The whippoorwills supposedly waited to catch the souls of the dying. Four people/entities died in the story, and there is an interesting progression to them. First is Lavinia, who is probably the least evil of the characters. The night she apparently dies, the whippoorwills cackle all night suggesting they got her soul. Then Old Man Whateley dies. The whippoorwills quiet down. Wilbur comments, “They didn’t get him.” So the Old Man’s soul, one step more evil, gets away. When Wilbur dies, Lovecraft writes something to the effect of that the birds fly shrieking in terror from the terrible thing they’d sought as prey. Wilbur’s soul is so terrible the whippoorwills flee. When Wilbur’s twin brother dies, it’s soul is so monstrous that kills all the whippoorwills on the spot. So basically, in Lovecraft’s world, the more evil you are, the safer your soul is.

Clyde Duensing III

Finally, how on earth did you guys let the phrase, “jocose fish-peddler” slip by you without comment?

Zane Graves

When this episode dropped I thought back to the video panel the guys years ago for some of the Necronomicon backers. I (to Chad's horror, if memory serves), I defended the "effect" shots from the film. And then to hear Chris defend it, I felt justified. Or that my madness slipped into Chris' brain. Calling it a win either way.

Pagurus

Hey guys! Looking forward to the big #500! Like for so many other listeners your show has been a ray of escapist fun during boring or stressful streaks in my life these past nine years or so. However, I feel the revision of old episodes falls a bit flat (for me at least). If there is not much more to add to your previous coverage, why not just leave it at that?

Eric Sroka

I'm with Chad; I think Dunwich Horror is classic Lovecraft, and when I get asked for first story recommendations, this is one of my go-tos, along with Innsmouth. And I like the discussion regarding a "happy" ending versus relentlessly bleak ones. I've noticed that when I read Laird Barron I can see the ending coming a mile away. This in no way should detract from my like of his stories; but rather that sometimes it's okay to let the good guys win, even if only for a short while. And can't wait for #500. I think it's time for a shocking death or introduction of a new character, Chris's cousin; a street-wise tough from New Jersey. Something like that.

Steve

Dunwich, population 183, is just a single street now, with a pub, church, museum and a tea room. It's more below the cliff than on it. But it was England's second city before most of it fell into the sea.

Robert Daniel Pickard

The screening of Dunwich Horror at NecronomiCon Providence was pretty great. There was live accompaniment and Kaiju Big Battel style creatures that would pop-up when the movie got dull. About half way through the film was disintegrating as it was going through the projector and the band went into overdrive frantically jamming. It was a fun way to see that otherwise kind of "meh" movie.

Mandy Reznor (She/It)

I actually remember that Price NecronomiCon business in perhaps an odd way--I never actually saw any news or discussions about it at all, and certainly didn't have anyone to talk Lovecraft with at the time who might've given me their opinion; I just happened to see it firsthand because a bunch of video from that year's NecronomiCon had been put up on YouTube. This was so long ago I was still in the midst of my edgy nu-atheist quasi-libertarian period, actually. (That's American-style libertarianism, not libertarian socialism.) Even at the time I cringed away from my screen; ignoring the one to one association of Islam with fascism, it was just so damned *shoehorned* into the middle of his speech. Bob tends to make some solid choices when editing anthologies, but as a writer I've always found him subpar and as a person...meh. I did enjoy him on your shows, but then he had the chemistry of actually entertaining people to play off there.

Scott Morrison

I AM VALIDATED! NOT ONE BUT TWO MANIMAL REFERENCES!

Peter Larsen

If not the musical “Nyarlathotep,” how about “He” but on roller skates?

Matt Shank

I'm really loving these revisits, would love for this to become an annual or semiannual monthly theme.

Phil Estabrook

What a terrific set of podcasts. I relisten to the first 100 or so podcasts every summer. I normally get all the way up into the 200's really, but those early episodes are still quite special. A little amateur, sometimes awkward, but the improvement was astounding! I havn't listened to current podcasts since November so I have a great set ready to go. When I listen to more recent ones, I am blown away. The contrast between those first and these is remarkable. Can't wait for the the 500th episode. With luck, Lying Vincent Price will make an appearance...

Andrew M. Reichart

Harmony Korine as director of "The Dunwich Horror" is a BRILLIANT idea. Agreed: script by a Lovecraft nerd, but directed by someone great with characters and decay. Ooh can Werner Herzog be Wizard Whateley? When he and Korine get together, we get stuff like this: https://youtu.be/VcprxYDNPQo

Devin Morse

Richard Stanley is into the occult so he's perfect for adapting a story where the heroes defeat the monster by reciting a magic spell.

Pumpkin Jabba Peach Pug

12 insane things about Chad Fifer’s new musical production the “The Dunwich Manimal” that is leaving people speechless! Hmmmm.............Click.

DJW

Good to hear this revisited as Dunwich Horror is my favourite HPL story (probably because of the more pulpy feel to it ) and was also my introduction to the podcast I was writing an adaptation of the story for my local theatre group and found the episodes on itunes during research and found Chris & Chad's discussion a massive help in the writing process - the play turned out to be one of our better performances we'd done...and I think was more faithful than either film versions! As such it was great to hear this discussed and I"m curious how the future film version is gonna turn out!

David Halstead

What is the best story to introduce people to HPL? The first one I read was The Music of Erich Zann and I tend to use that as a recommendation because it's short. I'd heard about HPL in reference to Evil Dead and Re-Animator before that. I picked up a book of short stories after playing the Arkham Horror board game. As far as I can tell that game was the first time I heard of Cthulhu. I discovered HPL through Sam Raimi, Stuart Gordon, and the college friend who had that game and then sought out the writing on my own. Soon after I started reading I found this podcast. The episode out at the time was on Pickman's Model. From there I was reading and listening along to you guys, which helped to motivate the reading. I think the combination at the time helped cement my obsession with this stuff. Looking forward to episode 500!

Matt Bustin

One of my favourites of the original run, though Shadow Over Innsmouth probably edges it. Bob Price really added some interesting takes. Listening to the much later episodes on The Great God Pan it’s hard not to agree with Bob’s reading of Dunwich overall, and it’s also fascinating to see some of the ancient mythology and religion that HPL worked into his writing at times.

Andrew Trnacek

You commented on what a wimp Wilbur Whateley turns out to be but I look at it this way. You think he is going to be the villain in the piece but it turns out his brother is the big bad not him. I also took it from the description of his body and how it dissolves is that his material body really couldn't contain the 'otherness' and that he was always going to burst at some stage. Makes him slightly less scary but a lot more revolting.

Mark Andrews

I would love to see err um hear the Hamilton treatment in full. Or perhaps that will be the next poster? And so good hear to Andrew reading.

James Dunn

I agree that the 1970 movie was terrible, however it was responsible for getting me into Lovecraft as it was the backdrop to a LARP i did about 10 years. Two things that are good about this film were the haunting soundtrack and the intense opening credit scene, though it has nothing at all to do with the story of the film. Despite it's flaws I do like to go back and watch it every so often.

Michael Chidester

You guys treat Dunwich Horror like it's the only Lovecraft story where the good guys win, but that's never really seemed to be the case to me. Charles Dexter Ward, for example, also features the elderly educated man who learns magic and uses it to defeat the monster. Hell, Randolph Carter goes from cowardly sidekick to a major player who commands monsters, outsmarts Nyarlathotep, and parlays with Yog-Sothoth. (Though granted, Carter is basically a Lovecraftian villain who is cast as protagonist, and Zkauba is the typical Lovecraftian hero-victim.)