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Study 051 - Sweets to the Sweet (Patreon)

Published:
2023-07-20 14:00:00
Imported:
2026-06
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Robert Bloch is BACK with a tale of witchy child vengeance: Sweets to the Sweet!

Special thanks to reader Levi Nunez of Loot the Body. Check out this review of his game Skate Wizards from Bob the World Builder!

Next up: The Penance by Saki, and a bonus episode on The Doom That Came to Gotham animated film.

Comments

Robert Curtin

If I can be a bit vulnerable, and a tad contrarian for a moment, as someone who was in the girl's position for a time, this story would have been awesome to read at her age or around there. The downtrodden being given, though vicariously, power to fight back against those adults who we felt powerless against, speaks really strongly to those children. I would have loved to read this at the time. I DO think this could be for children, at least what you've covered in readings, I was definitely reading stories like it at a very young age. Also, rheumatism sucks! As someone who hates heat like H.P. hated cold, even the treatment sucks. Love this episode, and I really like how it brought up some uncomfortable things to think and talk about.

Stella B.

Long time listener, first time commenter (in a long time, at least), and if you guys have any questions about witchy-related things, feel free to drop me a line! I've been a professional witch and tarot reader for the better part of a decade now, and you guys got things mostly right re: poppets vs voodoo dolls. I also just wanted to say, Voodoo got its similarities to Catholicism from slaves worshipping the Christian God/the Saints on the surface, but actually continuing their traditional religion under the table. As always, I absolutely love the stories you guys pick for the show! This one is a particular favorite of mine, mostly because this is similar to how I got into the craft as well. I had a rough home life and it started off as pure catharsis, giving at least an illusion of control to a chaotic world. Later on, I started putting the pieces together, but that's a story for another time. Anyway, count on Robert Bloch to have a kickass story!

Alexandra Schoell

Aside from possibly being viewed by a person who suffered abuse as a child as a wish fulfillment sort of story, it could rather be viewed as an example of how abuse creates more abusers. Erma suffers extreme physical and mental abuse from her father and her deciding to become a witch could be seen as her beginning to mimic his abusive behaviors and/or a case of "If all I'm ever seen as is this thing I'm not then I'll become that thing and really give them something to be mad about!" which is very common in cases where a person can not escape the person, people, and/or circumstances that cause them to suffer. Erma already has no friends and is unable to properly socialize with other children, and when she makes this choice to embrace her father's cruelty she drives away the housekeeper (who was certainly the only person who actually cared about her) possibly in an attempt to keep her safe from what she was about to do, or to remove the one person who could have maybe talked her out of it. Its tragic because Erma knows that the housekeeper isn't going to save her, and would only be a small comfort in continued abuse. So in the end she throws that comfort away and inflicts the same cruelties she's suffered back onto her father like a dog who finally bites back after years of being hit, and when she's cornered and at her most desperate she kills her abuser and is free. Its sad because while there is a sense of joy and relief that she's free, there's also a lingering sense of dread as she now has this new found "power" and knows how to use it to hurt others as she herself was hurt and in the end may just become another abuser like her father. Saddest of all, given how young she is, she has no idea that this has happened.

Eric - Speaker in Digressions

Glad you'll be doing an episode on "The Doom that Came to Gotham." It has a great cast and some good moments, and I appreciated their changing a couple of the Robins into characters that would have made HPL cross the street in fear, but I think the plot was a bit too overstuffed with DC characters and trivia. And Bruce's parents were totally not costumed for 1903 or whatever.

Jason Thompson

A lot of Robert Bloch’s horror stories, like Tales from the Crypt, do take place in that sort of “world where everyone sucks” which I think is on display here. For me the one line which really jumps out as particularly cruel is when the girl, who’s been beaten and verbally abused by her dad, is described at the climax as a “spoiled” child. Um, ok? Nice ending tho.

Paul Meagher (Ma-her)

For a deep-ish but fully digestible coverage of the voodoo religion, here's a plug for James Holloway's podcast 'Patron Dieties' where he talks about myths and religion to incorporate them and their themes into fantasy role playing games. You've had him on the show of course, as a reader and a guest to talk about The Necronomicom. He just happens to be covering the voodoo religion for his podcast right now.

Ben A

Yeah, this is definitely not a feel-good tale by any stretch. And yes, it has a Tales from the Crypt vibe; in fact, in the uneven Creepshow movie from the early '80s, I recall the wraparound tale featured a psychologically traumatized kid acquiring a mail-order Voodoo doll/poppet that he used to harm his abusive father. I'll also note here that the title was well-chosen by Bloch. It's a quote from Hamlet, when his (evil) mother leaves flowers for the dead Ophelia. I think in the context of the play, the "sweets" are the flowers themselves, though the quote as a whole brings to mind the tragedies of that play and the funeral & graveyard scenes in particular. It's fitting that Bloch chose it for this tale. Using an implied desecrated holy wafer ("the body") as part of the poppet, and its consumption by Irma as candy, gives the title an extra dimension of meaning. In all, it invokes bringing unnatural death to the family. I agree with Chad that our social mores about what is an "acceptable" or at least unremarkable form of violence versus what we consider to be over the line seems to be arbitrary. You all have covered so many gruesome deaths in the many tales you've discussed over the years, but they are often not written too graphically or are so unnatural or supernatural they don't register as especially transgressive. Rather, they are entertaining, which is something for someone better versed in social psychology to unpack. But it's the deaths that are closer to reality--like the children in Child's Play, or Willie in Notebook Found in a Deserted House--that are horrific and push us to disgust. Great selection of stories this month!

Ben A

Oh, and Chad, you needn't look far for a Friday the 13th episode that includes a cursed doll. The first episode, "The Inheritance," involves a doll that kills others for its owner. But strangely I don't recall any episodes that include voodoo dolls, and only one that has voodoo in it at all. "Wax Magic," which is in season 2, does involve making effigies out of wax, and there's the classic "Scarecrow" episode, where the pictures of victims get pinned to the cursed object before hilarity ensues, so those have voodoo doll-adjacent ideas.

Matthew Alderman

I was actually at a baptism this weekend, that of my fourth godchild, conducted in a delightfully crumbling and atmospheric Victorian church in central Baltimore according to the old Latin rite, complete with multiple (minor) exorcisms, which is traditional. The baby behaved angelically throughout the whole thing. I’m only halfway through the episode so I may not have all the details, but I’m rather confused by both the appearance of baptism here and your correspondent’s solution, as the reception of the consecrated Host (the wafer) is not part of baptism, and It would be securely locked in a tabernacle (a safe on the altar) as usual during the proceedings—precisely to avoid such theft, which is not unknown even today. Unless mass was being held before or after (as baptisms during mass are only a post-Vatican II fad), I suppose. Though maybe Irma was misinformed. I do know that the font was traditionally supposed to have a locking lid to prevent theft of holy water for superstitious purposes, but I am unsure what those might be. The only other thing I can think of is the rite of baptism includes promises made to reject the devil’s works. Maybe she wanted to make a ruckus at that point.

Matthew Alderman

I will make one final comment that the title reminds me somewhat, if we are bringing up the Eucharist, of the phrase in the Greek liturgy (which actually does give communion to infants) of Τὰ ἅγια τοῖς ἁγίοις, or “Holy things for the Holy,” which also appears in the Mozarabic (Spanish Visigothic) form of mass, but I assume this story is neither populated by Greek immigrants nor takes place in Toledo in Spain, the one place where the old Mozarabic liturgy persists. (Also, a small, flat Eucharistic host, would make a very strange and difficult to attach doll head, and setting aside the sheer disgust of such an act to believers such as myself—as a sacrilege it doesn’t get much worse than that, but I understand if that doesn’t really transfer to those who don’t share this belief —the logistics don’t make much sense to me.)

Professor Murder

3 things 1: You said this story doesn't have a happy ending, but I disagree. Why should Erma seek out some new adult who will fail to act in her protection? Isn't she better off on her own in a sense, at least based on the story's clear themes? 2: I dug the Tales from the Crypt take, but a proper Crypt ending would have the uncle coming back down the stairs, until to find Erma holding a new doll, with his greasy comb over and ill fitting lawyer's suit on. "Some things are going to change around here dear Uncle..." Cue screaming as we cut to a cackling Cryptkeeper. 3: #Ermadidnothingwrong

Joshua

I found it jolting when Chris said this story would be more digestible with a happy ending. ‘That was a happy ending!’ I said aloud in the car. Erma, through her witchcraft, becomes her own liberator. If there had been some adult or social institution to save her it would’ve robbed Erma of her agency in the story reducing her to something to pity in the beginning then simply a consolation at the end. As written, that crack of an ending isn’t just the head coming off her abuser but also the ties to the adult world that failed her. There’s an exhilaration that accompanies her vanishing into the night as she now had tools of her own making to carry with her. Witchcraft as a tool of liberation for oppressed peoples is a long narrative & this story, perhaps accidentally, seems prescient.

Ann Knight

Don't know if y'all are aware of this, but Bloch wrote a segment of the 1971 film The House That Dripped Blood based on this story, also called Sweets to the Sweet. The father in the film (played by Christopher Lee) is not as unsympathetic as he is in the story. Child actor Chloe Franks plays Jane, who gives a great performance. It's on youtube; worth a watch.

David Halstead

Have you discussed the Ray Bradbury story Zero Hour from the Illustrated Man collection? An excellent creepy kids story. It got adapted for the radio show Suspense in 1955. CBS received some angry letters about it after it aired, from what I understand.

KateSherrod

I used to find that whole "exposition as dialogue" thing deeply irritating and hacky, but the older I've gotten, the more this has just come to seem, at least sometimes, as verisimilitude. For instance, I have close relatives with whom I have very little in common and thus we have very little to talk about, but instead of awkward silences we seem to have unspoken agreements that is better to have a conversation we've had before, explanations and all, than no conversation at all. I was wearing an onion from my belt, as was the fashion at the time... Then, too, also as I've grown older, I am less and less sure whether I've shared a particular thing with a particular person before, so that blurt about "you know his wife died" felt totally natural. Modern speakers would probably add a rhetorical/confirmatory "right?" to the statement, either to acknowledge that you might have already told them that or are otherwise aware that the other person knows that already but is maybe starting to sound like they're trying to ignore it, deny it or gaslight you about it. And it can also be used to emphasize something, like "hey, that's my brother you're talking about" which usually also carries a suggestion that the other person shouldn't be or that they're being being a jerk about your brother. In this instance, it emphasized pretty well that the lawyer, who is being a jerk, saw that he could shut the woman up by making her feel like she's the one being a jerk when telling the lawyer that his brother is being a jerk. There, I just convinced myself. I still think it's unnatural and hacky if it's a whole big long speech that's an exposition dump, but in cases like this, it was just a way for the lawyer to avoid the subject that his brother is actually way more than a jerk. Or something. Anyway, terrific episode and I see it's already provoked some great discussion. Kudos all around!

Darth Pseudonym

Voodoo dolls are indeed largely an African rebranding of the European poppet, but to be entirely fair, hoodoo (which is a distinct form of sympathetic folk magic) does sometimes involve humanoid figures used as sympathetic links or containers for a spiritual entity. In particular, while the whole "stick pins in it" seems to be largely european witch-lore, in many parts of central Africa, nkisi or minkisi are statues or other objects used to house spirits, and the Kongo tradition of nkondi ("hunter") minkisi often involves pounding nails into the statue. There's a whole complicated web of relationships between Vodun, voodoo, and hoodoo . It's not surprising, since the version that evolved in the Americas was constructed by people taken from a variety of populations, transported against their will and enslaved, and forced (as much as their slavers could) to forget their cultural heritage. Mashing up elements from multiple sources is practically guaranteed under those circumstances, and with only a few centuries of existence and no single text to solidify any sort of canonical belief system (like the Quran or Bible), it's often more a group of related idiosyncratic beliefs than a single coherent religious system. As I understand it, Voodoo is angled more towards being a specific religion, while hoodoo is a complicated smear of beliefs and practices that borrows from multiple sources both African and European in origin, and it's still the subject of a great deal of study (which is becoming harder over time as the number of practitioners dwindles).

Jason of the K

I must applaud Bloch for his strong willpower in resisting the line "Sam said to Ms. Pall, "In my brothers library are numerous eldritch tomes of unspeakable lore, namely the Necronomicon, Unaussprechlichen Kulten, and Des Vermis Mysteriis...but you know all this." :P

Sweatin' to the Great Oldies

A thought experiment: Would this story be worse if Erma used her newfound power to bewitch her father into becoming a delightful, caring, and magically sympathetic parent? Or to allow herself to escape and live on her own as a delightful, caring, and magically sympathetic person? Is the torture and murder necessary for this story to work? And if so, what does that say about us?

Rafe Ball

With all the talk of voodoo, worth mentioning that the excellent Monster Man podcast (by friend of the show James Holloway) is covering vodou in his Patreon bonus series ‘Patron Deities’ at the moment.

Jonathon Alvis

Wow, another core memory unlocked. It’s such an odd sensation when that happens. The title sounded vaguely familiar, but it wasn’t until the penultimate scene that the memory came rushing back to me, mostly intact. This story really unsettled me when I was in the third and forth grade. It was in an anthology called “Terrors, Terrors, Terrors” that I used to regularly check out from my local library. In the decades since then I had long forgotten the title. Searching for all anthologies with this story in it allowed me to narrow it down, and looking at a scanned print copy in the internet archive confirmed it. There is a photo collage illustrating this story that used give me chills. It’s worth looking at, anyway, as a reminder of how much easier it was to get spooked for 80’s kids. Interestingly (at least to me), there is an H.P. Lovecraft collaboration in the anthology as well, “The Horror in the Museum”. This blows my mind because in my recollection I was introduced to Lovecraft much later, when I was 12, and discovered “The Lurking Fear and Other Stories” in the Waldenbooks horror section (remember when there was a horror section?). The anthologist is Helen Hoke, and she put together a lot of scary horror anthologies directed at YA readers. Another thing that jumped out at me as I went down the Hoke wormhole online, was that my experience was not unique. Apparently lots of similarly aged people have fond memories of discovering Hokes books as young kids and subsequently having the bejeezus scared out of them. Great show, as usual, and thank you for helping me recollect a treasured memory.

Forrest Rush

Sorry guys, I have to strongly disagree, but as usual I should probably go back and actually re-read the story as it has been literal decades since I last read it. I remember loving the ending as to me Irma was off on wild adventures a la The Outsider. It was, at least in my teen mind, that connection between witch girl and newly born ghoul that really made the story work for me. I think I wrote way way back in HPL Literary Podcast days how The Outsider was my first Lovecraft story as a pre-teen and how it profoundly affected me. In addition, I embarrassingly mis-read it and misunderstood it for far too many years as I thought it was about the birth of a baby ghoul which I overly-identified with. Somebody should’ve picked up on that. Oh well. Anyway, by the time I was 13 or 14 I was always intentionally or not on the search for more stories like it, about misunderstood kids coming into ungodly powers. Worn out copies of Carrie and X-Men were pretty much de rigueur floor covering in my bedroom for most of those years. Her abuse by her father just fit in with all these tales whether from King or Marvel or whomever. The clueless until far too late uncle was the clumsiest part in my opinion as he should have suffered unjustly at Irma’s hand or at least exposed to greater horrors. Or so kid me wanted. Like I said somebody should've been paying attention.

Derrick Mcmullin

I think that as adults were hardwired to view danger to children as inherently worse then danger to adults. Adults in a purely survival sense have made it and have hopefully already created the next generation but children haven't and must be protected. Also I know when I became a father for the first time I became much more sensative to child danger.

Andrew Brown

As usual, love it! But I have two thoughts: ONE, you really, really, really need to do some of the James White Sector general stories. You owe it to yourselves to see that strange doesn't mean bad. And the good guys can win. And TWO: the older I get the less I think a story says about things in general. I've become very jaded with trying to read into a story any commentary about societies. I've been burnt too many times....

Andrew Brown

Is it me or did anyone else get reminded of Roald Dahl stories?

The Spider Incident

Chris asks "should this story go to such a dark place?" to which I emphatically say, YES!

Beanz

Did this make anyone else think of "The Crucible" through a Bradbury lens? There is no proof that Erma actually did anything to her ::insert expletives:: father aside from delight in his suffering and develop an interest in the thing he accused her of being. Even though I would like to see her take that revenge against her father in a Poe-esque revenge tale, I think a decapitated head would find it hard to scream. The constant focus on whether or not she's a witch, based on things that trigger our imagination, and the verdict we deliver, are very "The Crucible." The ending also made me think of the ending to "The October Game." The camera pans out from the scream in an otherwise pleasant looking house, without knowing what's actually happened.

Ravewolf

It's sad to think of how different things could have been if only the girl had been treated with love instead.

Elisheba

How dare you disrespect White Zombie?! Bela Lugosi’s eyebrow acting is impeccable! Ok, it isn’t exactly good, but Lugosi is great.

Beccameriel

Oh wow! I’d completely forgotten I’d recommended this, so was delighted and surprised to get a shout out. I’ve found an image of the copy I had. It was definitely in the children’s section of the bookshop. The 70s was a great time for children to access horror in the UK. Loads of our tv was deeply weird: Tomorrow People, Children of the Stones, The Ghosts of Motley Hall. I loved it all which probably explains my adult self. https://biblio.co.uk/book/deadly-nightshade-haining-peter/d/1432433017?aid=frg&gclid=CjwKCAjww7KmBhAyEiwA5-PUSlF0bjKWqbKEYxmOkW7v6YvTL72ll9EVGAWZ-StuekTS800PLyjIDxoCUecQAvD_BwE

ESTY

Nobody mentions the film Candyman? “Sweets to the sweet” is the monsters catchphrase and it is spray painted across his lair