“The Children of Spider County” (S1E21)

In our final study of classic Outer Limits (for now), we’re going back to February 17^th, 1964 (the day after the Beatles’ second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, just to place it in time), in another episode that roots itself very firmly in its era. I mean, most of the episodes I’ve written about do that to some extent, but having the opening narration begin with “In light of today’s growing anxieties…” reminds you of the Cold War mood that permeates so much of this series, even an episode that doesn’t address it specifically. To further establish that atmosphere, we have it opening in Washington, with an intelligence agency meeting discussing a mysterious matter under the veil of the series’ trademark shadowy intensity, once again provided by “Zanti Misfits” director Leonard Horn. All these things could be considered Outer Limits cliches even at this point in the series, but when viewed on their own, they feel like stylistic trademarks and idiosyncrasies, and this episode goes on to show that there can still be some decent story variety even while using these consistent tics.

Dagon (2001)

If we’re talking about Lovecraft adaptations, we’re eventually going to circle back to Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna, who were the first ones to really make effective cinematic use of ol’ Howard’s stories in Re-Animator and From Beyond, capturing the eldritch universe while infusing it with horror-comedy sensibilities and carnal undertones—they get the original work, and they also make it their own, what a novel concept! The two of them would periodically venture back into Lovecraftian territory in the nineties, and at the turn of the millennium produced an adaption of one the major works in the Cthulhu Mythos, 1931 novella The Shadow Over Innsmouth (while borrowing the name from the related short story “Dagon.”) As a story of unspeakable Elder Gods and the mutating effect they have on humans that come into contact with them, it contains many of the recurring motifs of the Mythos (including some of the Really Questionable ones that we’ll get into), and like the previous adaptations directed by Gordon and written by frequent collaborator Dennis Paoli, those themes are filtered their own parallel preoccupations.

The Dunwich Horror (1970)

Although well-known in horror circles since their original publication, it took a long time for anyone to even take a crack at putting H.P. Lovecraft’s distinctly bizarre terrors on screen, and when they did, it was often subsumed by the aesthetics of more established horror—Roger Corman’s adaptation of “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”, The Haunted Palace, even slapped Edgar Allan Poe’s oh-so-marketable name on the poster! Daniel Haller started out as the art director on Corman’s Poe series for AIP, and then went on to direct previous site subject Die, Monster, Die!, an adaptation of Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space” that hues closely to the Gothic haunted house sensibilities of the Poe films. A few years later, Haller returned for another whack at a Lovecraft adaptation, one based on his 1928 novella “The Dunwich Horror”, and this time there may have been a more concerted effort to capture the particular supernatural atmosphere of a Lovecraft story, not simply plastering his ideas on top of typical witchcraft shenanigans and pagan robes—this is one of the first times the word “Necronomicon” was spoken in a movie (the actual first time was in…The Haunted Palace.) Even so, there’s a feeling in Haller’s Dunwich Horror of being something trapped between several competing styles—Lovecraft, some fleeting remnants of Corman’s Poe films, and a streak of late sixties psychedelia—producing a shambling, patchwork abomination not unlike the ones you find in The Dunwich Horror.

Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace – “Skipper the Eyechild”

Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, which aired six episodes on the UK’s Channel 4 in early 2004,came out of the same British alternative comedy scene that fostered previous subject The Mighty Boosh, and both not only share many of the same actors, but a similar outlook that combines wry dialogue and a love of the utterly ridiculous. Matthew Holness’ Garth Marenghi, “author, dreamweaver, visionary, plus actor”, is the image of a pompous hack whose astronomical self-importance never allows him to notice his own clear lack of talent, and the show itself becomes a parade of cliches and ineptitude taken to the extreme. But the brilliance of Darkplace is not that it’s full of things that are blatantly wrong, but that all those things are wrong and yet the mastermind behind them still thinks he is somehow making great art—what Holness is parodying is not simply wilfully mediocre storytellers, who are content just churning out trash without a care (although Marenghi also admits to being “one of the few writers who has written more books than they’ve read”), but the kind of superstar writers who let any amount of success get to their heads.

As a prolific author of horror novels in the eighties, the first possible inspiration for Marenghi people mention is Stephen King at his most popular (and most cocaine-fuelled), but he seems just as much inspired by local UK purveyors of over-the-top schlock like James Herbert, author of The Rats (I would think the quality of Merenghi’s writing is based more on the latter than the former.) Even though Darkplace was short-lived and little-viewed when it originally aired, it has gained a cult following in the years since, and Holness has used that to not only periodically revisit the characters from the series, but to move into directing legitimate horror movies with his 2018 film Possum, and will soon publish a short story collection written in-character as Marenghi.

Lamb (2021)

It was last year’s film festival circuit that really delivered the most interesting subject matter for this series, and I always like finding stuff outside traditional genres and styles. Reading some of the brief reviews of the Icelandic film Lamb, directed and co-written by Valdimar Jóhannson (the other writer is frequent Bjork collaborator Sjón) really made me wonder what kind of tone to expect here—after my viewing, I’m not really sure why it’s classified as a “horror” movie in some circles, because it’s a pretty straight drama, a melancholy fairy tale with a fantastical elevator pitch. But, at least to me, the type of weird that one would expect hearing that elevator pitch (“what if a couple adopted a lamb with a human body as their own child”) is not the weird that the movie is trying to deliver. It is a story based in folk tale or dream logic, but that’s often tempered by down-to-earth performances and a deliberate pacing that never stoops to predictability, but also rarely attempts to shock. Once the fantasy of the movie settles in, you can really focus on the emotional lives of the characters, with all the joys and anxieties that come from being given an unusual, and probably accidental, gift from the universe.