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Study 065 - The Living Dead (Patreon)

Published:
2023-11-02 17:58:23
Edited:
2023-11-02 18:02:08
Imported:
2026-06
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Treat that Halloween hangover with a shot of Blochtober! We're discussing Robert Bloch's Nazi vampire fable, The Living Dead!

Special thanks to reader Paul Fricker of Mason and Fricker's Eldritch Stories and The Good Friends of Jackson Elias!

Check out this 90s-lookin' book cover for Great Tales of Madness and the Macabre, compiled by Charles Ardai.

THE GRAND GUIGNOL!

Comments

TenTimesTeeth

I've been obsessed with idea of The Grand Guignol for years and was surprised to learn recently that the actual theater has a pretty dark connection with World War 2 and the Nazis. Though popular for decades, theater attendance dropped off steeply after the war. When it finally closed its doors in 1962, the Grand Guignol's final director, Charles Nonon, is reported to have said "Before the war, everyone believed that what happened on stage was purely imaginary. Now we know that these things- and worse- are possible." While the horrors of war likely played a part in the theater's declining popularity, the theory leaves out another, arguably darker truth: despite protests from many of its actors, the Grand Guignol regularly staged performances for German audiences during the Nazi Occupation of Paris. There are even accounts of high-ranking Nazi officers personally congratulating cast and crew for their performances and realistic special effects. It's easy to see how everyday Parisians would see the theater's actions during this time as an appeasement of- or outright collaboration with- their Nazi occupiers!

Robert Curtin

I love these World War horror stories, still have to pick up World War Cthulhu. Love that cover! My favorite shade of hideous!!

It's a Ghost.

What a fun little Robert Bloch story.

Sweatin' to the Great Oldies

I imagine most of us would be pleased with the revenge tale even without the killing of the young woman. Being constantly referred to as stupid is enough - I fear - for many of us to condone stakery.

Joshua Weiss

Does anyone have a line on an electronic version of this story? I try to read before I listen, but I can't find anything that will arrive before the end of the month.

Mark Saunders

Loved this story! The ending genuinely surprised me. Maybe it’s because I’m so used to Bloch’s earlier supernatural works, but I kept expecting the real vampire Count to come back and get his revenge on the Nazis, so that the real ending was a total shock and I loved it. Also, really excited to hear that you guys are finally tackling some Vonnegut. Aside from Lovecraft he is probably my favourite author. If you ever decide to do more of his stories, I would suggest either “The Euphio Question” or “Report on the Barnhouse Effect,” both of which are definitely strange stories.

Steve

We saw Reanimator at a Grand Guignol resurrection in London a few years ago. Watching a man be chased round the stage by an undead cat was hilarious.

Eldritch Golem (JPM)

Always a fan of a weird war story! Part of the fun (for me anyway) of this subgenre is seeing where fiction ends and reality begins, because as it turns out war - for all it's mundane horrors and tragedies - can also get pretty weird. Especially within the realm of psychology warfare, or PSYOP, which is essentially what Bloch is describing here. The premise of having an actor dress up as a vampire to scare superstitious townspeople may sound absurd but it's actually not all that far off from the real strategies our own military has employed on numerous occasions. As historian Robert J. Kodosky writes in his 2007 history of US PSYOP: “American psychological operations [has] unleash spectral foxes in Japan, vampires in the Philippines, forest demons in Vietnam and supernatural tanks in the Middle East.” (xiii) If you want to know more about those look up Operation Fantasia, Operation Wandering Soul, and Gen. Edward G. Lansdale's "Aswang Armies." But to get back to Bloch, the Nazis also employed psychological warfare but they didn't use vampires, they used werewolves as werewolves were seen as positive figures from German folklore while vampires were associated with Slavs and Jews (i.e. the antisemitic myth of the blood libel). In his book Hitler's Monsters (Yale Uni. Press, 2017) historian Eric Kurlander describes how Hitler and Himmler formed a special unit of soldiers called Werwolf (one 'e') that was to engage in guerrilla warfare and terrorist actions behind enemy lines. Hitler envisioned this unit as a group of modern day berserkers; men who would go completely feral when facing their enemy. To aid in the illusion that they were real werewolves Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels created a pirate radio station called "Radio Werwolf” which would broadcast wolf howls throughout towns where the Werwolves were about to strike and then play werewolf-themed music with lyrics that could have come straight out of a Rob Zombie or Pitch Black Manor song.

Jim Cannon

Speaking of Andrew reading stuff, every Halloween I listen to y'all's recording of "The Call of Cthulhu." This year I listened to a lot of shows leading up to the blessed day, starting with _At the Mountains of Madness_ and why just yesterday I listened to both episodes of "The Thing on the Doorstep," wherein which Chris mentions its now 2012. After crumbling to dust, I realized I have been doing my little Halloween ritual for 11 years now. Not a momentous anniversary, but hey, thanks guys!

Eric - Speaker in Digressions

- I had low expectations after that "name of the game was death" thing, so I'm glad that the cheesiness turned out to be focalized through a cheesy character! - The BBC Sounds "Lovecraft Investigations" people have just released their adaptation of "Haunter of the Dark." We've only just started it, but I've enjoyed the other three series they've done (Charles Dexter Ward, Whisperer, Innsmouth).

Rafe Ball

I guess this was a case of ‘fake around and find out’!

Adequately Excellent Entertainment

Please do an extra credits about La Grand Guignol I want some kind of “What if…” style of comic book that’s “Scooby Doo, but World War 2.” I would say that this is a strange story, mostly because I expected for most of the story for the real vampire to show up and eat him. So when we get to the end of the story and the townsfolk stake his ass, it was actually very satisfying. And I was glad there was no real vampire. Part of it is just generally my distaste for vampires on the whole, but normally I would be upset that this Nazi spy wouldn’t be questioned. But this particular Nazi spy really needed to have a piece of wood driven through his chest, so I was very pleased. It was also particularly amusing to me how I was prompted to say out loud “Haha stupid Na*i!“ …and as I said it, I could hear Chris saying basically the same thing. That was funny.

Ben Gilbert

I recently watched Five Nights at Freddie’s. I can’t help but think they were inspired by your Ghosts From the Future podcast from 2015.

David Halstead

Funny that you mentioned a Kurt Vonnegut story called "To Be or Not to Be" in this episode, as there's a 1942 movie of that name involving a troupe of Polish actors working as spies against the Nazis during WWII. It's a screwball comedy starring Carole Lombard and Jack Benny. It's one of my favorite films.

Christopher R Adams

Strange on how this Halloween episode is your exact 666th regular show episode. Congrats, I hope to hear 666 more.

Pete Williams

Super late on this one but this is fun: Dave Vanian of the Damned caused a brief vampire scare in Wales. They were recording the black album in a studio in Monmouth. Late one evening he decided to take a break and went for a walk in the local graveyard, dressed in his usual Dracula clothes of the time. On his way back, as he was coming out of the graveyard, he was caught in the lights of a mini driving along the lane. It made the local papers the next day and as "woman sees ghost of a vampire". He kept quiet about for 38 years.

Red Wizard Matt

Am I crazy, or did you guys mention a discord channel in this episode? I'm not super savy, but I looked up witchhouse, witch house, and witchhouse media and came up empty. Are you going by the new name? Strange Studies only brought up Marvel Studios. Which, as cool as that is, was not helpful.