The Dunwich Horror

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The Dunwich Horror is my fave Halloween story, and one of my favorite stories period.  I first read it in those books we used to order in grade school, by Scholastic or Dell or some other entity.  I loved it then and now.  The tale of the Whately family up to no good whatsoever in the boondocks outside of the village of Dunwich, roadsigns since removed, is extremely gripping and very well written.  It is Lovecraft's masterpiece, and one of the few pulp stories to survive with all it's power untouched by 21st century movie conditioned taste.  It is curious that it has never been filmed the way it was written.  With CGI it can now be done right, and can now be done in such a way as to unleash the impact of Lovecraft's story and prose.  It is H. P.'s best, although I expect an argument from a certain Lovecraft überfan that I dast not name.  (www.deviantart.com/chaosfive-5…).

  In 1979 Heavy Metal magazine put out an all Lovecraft issue that completely missed the mark except for Alberto Breccia's and and Alberto Buscaglia's adaption of The Dunwich Horror.  This is one of the finest things they ever published. 
The posted picture depicts the aftermath of Wilbur Whately, fifteen years old and over nine feet tall, attempting one night to steal an intact copy of the Necronomicon from Miskatonic University, the guard dog rips him apart after his revolver misfires. Wilbur has been denied access to the book by a wide awake professor, he has warned all collections that have a copy of it not to let Wilbur see it. Wilbur has an imperfect copy but he needs a certain incantation found on page 751 of the Complete Edition.  For all his enormous size Wilbur's body is mostly aqueous with no true skeleton, he is deathly afraid of dogs, for the most valid of reasons.  This scene is only the prelude to The Horror.

The Dunwich Horror was first published in Weird Tales, April 1929. Ladles and Jellyspoons, allow me to introduce you to -

raggedclaws.com/2010/09/22/loo…

'Today learned the Aklo for the Sabaoth (it ran), which did not like, it being answerable from the hill and not from the air. That upstairs more ahead of me than I had thought it would be, and is not like to have much earth brain. Shot Elam Hutchins's collie Jack when he went to bite me, and Elam says he would kill me if he dast. I guess he won't. Grandfather kept me saying the Dho formula last night, and I think I saw the inner city at the 2 magnetic poles. I shall go to those poles when the earth is cleared off, if I can't break through with the Dho-Hna formula when I commit it. They from the air told me at Sabbat that it will be years before I can clear off the earth, and I guess grandfather will be dead then, so I shall have to learn all the angles of the planes and all the formulas between the Yr and the Nhhngr. They from outside will help, but they cannot take body without human blood. That upstairs looks it will have the right cast. I can see it a little when I make the Voorish sign or blow the powder of Ibn Ghazi at it, and it is near like them at May Eve on the Hill. The other face may wear off some. I wonder how I shall look when the earth is cleared and there are no earth beings on it. He that came with the Aklo Sabaoth said I may be transfigured there being much of outside to work on'.

From Wilbur Whately's diary, written when he was 3 and a half years old and six feet tall.

Incredible picture above by Alberto Breccia.

 

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