By Roy Mathur, on 2025-07-19, at 01:30:08 to 02:32:20 BST, for Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show
Thus begins another stack. I have made more second hand book acquisitions recently, for about the cost of driving to the library and paying for parking several times. These are At the Mountains of Madness (1931), The Call of Cthulhu and Other Stories (1928), as well as reacquisitions of A Bear Called Paddington (1958), The Wombles Book (1968--70), and The Wind in the Willows (1908).
There was some difficulty locating the illustrated editions by specific artists I remember enjoying as a child, but I got there eventually. Those were, for Paddington: Ivor Wood on TV in '76, but Peggy Fortnum in the books, Wombles: Ivor Wood on TV in '73, whose design Barry Leith followed in the books, and Willows: John Burningham.
I've recently started Howard Phillips Lovecraft's novella about an Antarctic expedition uncovering terrifying non-human civilisation from prehistory. Although they say The Thing from Another World and Carpenter's remake, The Thing, were adaptations John W. Campbell's Who Goes There?, it is hard to see how Mountains could not have been a precursor.
I like Howard's imagination, but, as well as having to ignore Lovecraft's inexcusable xenophobia, I find his style of prose verbose, convoluted, archaic, and rambling. The consensus is that he was doing so deliberately, following the style of past writers he admired like Edgar Allan Poe. I don't agree. The following is the first paragraph of Mountains from 1931.
I am forced into speech because men of science have refused to follow my advice without knowing why. It is altogether against my will that I tell my reasons for opposing this contemplated invasion of the Antarctic - with its vast fossil hunt and its wholesale boring and melting of the ancient ice caps. And I am the more reluctant because my warning may be in vain.
Compare it to this much earlier, though modern and flowing, extract from The Fall of the House of Usher by his hero Poe in 1839.
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.
Finally, compare it to the beautifully concise first paragraph of Edward Morgan Forster's SF short story, The Machine Stops. It is a little more contemporary, from 1909, but still predates Mountains.
Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a bee. It is lighted neither by window nor by lamp, yet it is filled with a soft radiance. There are no apertures for ventilation, yet the air is fresh. There are no musical instruments, and yet, at the moment that my meditation opens, this room is throbbing with melodious sounds. An armchair is in the centre, by its side a reading-desk — that is all the furniture. And in the armchair there sits a swaddled lump of flesh — a woman, about five feet high, with a face as white as a fungus. It is to her that the little room belongs.
This isn't a hatchet job on Lovecraft, but know what you're getting into. It's quite the wade through a heavy textual swamp, but you'll be rewarded with bizarre grand vistas when you arrive.
2021 body horror in which childhood crash leaves violent and murderous woman with a huge metal plate in her head and a car fetish.
Parallels Crash and lead actress is credible, but I hated the character she plays, so I stopped after twenty minutes.
2002 and it's 2004 sequel is a live action reboot and with a CGI'd Scooby. In the former, our heroes jet off to a tropical island to battle a demented soul-stealing... Scrappy-Doo! (Nice touch casting the fan hated interloper as a villain). In the latter, the team appear victimised by former villains they caught and Velma gets a boyfriend. It's a slog.
Despite the charming human cast playing the "meddling kids"; Shaggy Rogers (Matthew Lillard), Velma Dinkley (Linda Cardellini), Daphne Blake (Sarah Michelle Gellar), and Fred Jones (Freddie Prinze Jr.), the reboot is an anaemic imitation of the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (1969--70).
If you want to relive classic Scooby action, as well as the original series, I recommend Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost (1999). It features excellent eco goth girl band The Hex Girls, made up of Thorn (Jennifer Hale), Luna (Kimberly Brooks), and Dusk (Jane Wiedlin; also rythm guitarist in New Wave band, The Go Go's with Belinda Carlisle).
2025 Wes Anderson film about business magnate---a delightful Benecio Del Toro---dodging multiple assassination attempts, rebuilding a relationship with his estranged nun daughter, and wheeler dealering the titular. Hilariously violent, colourful, non-stop story that may be the total fabrication of an imaginative bistro owner.
Oddly paced 2025 teen Summer camp slasher that snails along, then cranks up the silly towards the end. Imagine Stranger Things, Friday the 13th, The World's End, and The Stepford Wives.
Tom Ripley---sorry---Oliver Quick (Barry Keorgh) goes through Oxford friend's landed gentry family like a dose of salts. The 2023 film is Keorgh's best performance so far, but the ending should have been left ambiguous.
1972 Tigon eco-folk-sci-fi-horror spin-off film of partially lost BBC TV series (rebooted in 1999's Winter Angel C4 film), streamed by me on Watch Free UK (AMC). With Shades of HP Lovecraft's Shadow Over Innesmouth and The Wickerman it stars a raging Ian Bannen (Quatermass and the Pit's hysterical guinea pig, "Leaping, leaping!") sent by Doomwatch to Balfe, where the island population has sickened from toxic waste.
I liked the lavish production budget spent on a large and expensive cast, on-location filming in Cornwall, great lab set dressing, and sentimental (to me) scuba equipment; old school thick rubber mask and fins, and a chunky Photo Marine II camera housing.
After a long day walking in London, I rewatched an old favourite, the budget Brit horror flick, Howl (2015), in which stranded train passengers are besieged by werewolves. Owwwooo!
I enjoyed the schlock of a horizontal take on the Jaws attack, the comedy of fed up passengers laying into a giant werewolf, Mr Toxic Masculinity shamed into action by looks from women, and the change of career ending.
2024 Blumhouse dreamlike sci-fi short by Casey Affleck, using Meta's AI powered Movie Gen. The title is stolen from Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner). It is about the reality-bending dreams of an android child, in which fantastical sights, such as flying dogs, are seen on a night time walk through the suburbs.
Impressive enough to disappointment me when I found out this was not a trailer for an upcoming film.
2025 rich teen beach mystery series based on book, with unnecessary expositionary VO and about people I have nothing in common with and care little for, so I'm out after the first episode.
I watched this 2022 Apple TV+ 8 episode miniseries thriller on ITVX. Starring Kunal Nayyar and Uma Thurman, it is about a disparate ordinary group of British strangers accused of kidnapping a rich boy in New York.
An interesting premise let down by terrible accents, dodgy acting, and an flat ending.
The final 2025 season 3 of the lethal It's a Knockout/Battle Royale-style game show for an audience of rich psychopaths has concluded. It was compelling, cruel, violent, and tragic. It reconfirmed my lack of faith in humanity, so I'm glad it's over.
(It took me at least until season 2 to realise the protagonist is Sol from The Acolyte).