Episode 101 – The Evil Clergyman & The Horror in the Burying-Ground
Double-feature time! It’s The Evil Clergyman and The Horror in the Burying-Ground (the latter written with Hazel Heald).
Our show is brought to you this week by David Maurice Garrett – please pick up his book Tome of Horror: The Collected Dark Fiction, available in paperback or for the Kindle. You can learn more at the author’s blog, Visions of the Dark.
Special thanks to our excellent reader, Michael Ford!
And how about that musical guest Troy Sterling Nies?!
We’ll be back next week with another twofer: The Hoard of the Wizard Beast & The Slaying of the Monster!
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Well guys… I guess the only thing worth to say about the Evil Clergyman is that: with dreams like those, who needs to be awake.
The last thing anyone expects to see in a burying ground is a cheerful picnic.What a pretty obvious title! The last collaboration! Thanks Cthulhu!
I can’t add anything to that.
I guess I’m the only one who got a little bit of enjoyment from “The Evil (Looking) Clergyman.” When he first notices all these figures in the room, it kinda reminded me of that ‘Are You Afraid of the Dark’ episode with the shadow people who appear when you put the shades on.
I got the feeling that it could’ve been genuinely creepy if Lovecraft expanded and fine-tuned the story. Some of the elements (like the mystery box and inter-dimensional black-clad entities) bared vague similarities to “Hellraiser.”
…also, Chris, you’re very lucky to have a father-in-law with a sweet accent like that! 😛
Re: The Horror in the Burying Ground, this has got to be one of the lamest/most imbecilic stories for one of the best titles.
The Evil Clergyman, on the other hand, is a pretty cool dream (although it’s no “Thing in the Moonlight”). It would’ve been interesting to see Lovecraft flesh it out — it seems like it could’ve been a story about someone who leaves behind an artifact that has the power to turn other people into him? More crazy brain/soul transference at work…
“Who could forget the state that collie dog was found in” – oh god, he put lipstick on the dog, didn’t he?
Material aside, three cheers to Mr. Ford for his most excellent reading
The Horror in the Burying-Ground feels like a Kids in the Hall skit to me.
Despite the stories content, Michael Ford made them both excellent to to listen to. He should come back for something better.
I’ve been reading all Lovecraft’s stories more or less in the order he wrote them, and I got to The Evil Clergyman just a few days ago. It blows my mind that a story that bad comes so late in his corpus.
Went ahead and ordered the recommended book, guys. Should be here relatively soon. I trust your judgement on these things.
Yorkshire accented reader sounds like Brian Glover…..oh! the humanity!…not good sorry
I wonder if the dream of The Evil Clergyman could have had any of Lovecraft’s own (unconscious?) personal feelings about organized religion, Christianity, or Catholicism vs. Occultism/alternative/folk religions and traditions; the dream seems to entail conflict between the two, but in a way identifying oneself with them (in horror).
The Horror in the Burying-Ground had shades of The Serpent and the Rainbow there for a second. “Don’t bury me…I’m not dead!”