H.P. Lovecraft is may very well be the Father of Original Horror in my opinion. So for this Halloween season do yourself a favor and grab this book if you want a modern day twist on some of the most iconic monsters and creatures ever created! An anthology unlike any you have read before!
There is way to writing Lovecraft that has a style, an emotion, a feel all its own and together these elements create visuals of such other worldliness that Strangehouse in its own right as bizarro and horror writers , capture in every book they put out. It is no wonder that these guys chose to take on Lovecraft as an anthology, and what these stories deliver is an absolute visually disturbing yet beautiful, gut wrenchingly poetic vomit thrown all over the place in the form of words in between the pages of Strange Vs. Lovecraft. Join your friends, Cthulu, Shub Niggurath, Yog-Sothoth, and many other Lovecraft creatures as they rape their way through anything and everything. H.P. Lovecraft may have given these creatures their existence, but the Strangehouse authors give them a whole new original twist.
Lovecraft writing has a very distinct voice. Some of these stories were amazing in that the tone kept true to how I read Lovecraft in that the descriptions are vital and a lot of these authors did a fabulous job of developing the eloquent flow of Lovecraft while adding their own vulgarity and much more graphic tentacle rape. These authors do not skip a beat in giving you something that oozes with disgust EAT SHIT AND DIE is pretty much just that. It’s disgusting. Not really my favored flavor of writing but it did its job and the title is true to its name. The book opens up with a very short tale THE QUICKENING OF URSULA SPHINX I found to be a bit boring and slow but it has a certain elegance of its own due to the style Mr. Pugmire is writing in. The book ends very appropriately with Jesse Wheeler’s CHUMLORD OF WESTMOUTH HARBOR. This story is a great closing to the Strange Vs. Lovecraft anthology because it screams true Strangehouse bizarro and it really wraps up the amazing feel of the book. Here are a few stories that stood out:
OALUS WORMIUS was my absolute favorite. If you need an example of Lovecraftian bizarro I would say ask Rich Bottles Jr. Bottles kept that Lovecraftian wording and tone while keeping with modern times. The story has a dark turn for our narrator as he descends in to madness upon obtaining the Necronomican. I would love nothing more than to read an entire collection of Bizarro Lovecraft stories from this author.
THE CURSE OF THE BLACK GOAT was a really surprising read from Kyle Noble. I loved the baseball angle used in the story. The seriousness that the characters have for the sport is intense and almost satirical in nature and given I come from a baseball city myself I liked the extremes to which the characters loved their team . It’s very well written and I like that the version of the Necronomican that the main character obtains is the children’s version..who knew?
NEVER NAME HE WHO IS NOT TO BE NAMED was very entertaining. I loved the love affair between the crazy ass Julie and her demon boyfriend Yeogurath (that’s right Yeogurath has the hots for a human chick).
GHOST LOAD was a fucking trip and a half! I laughed all the way through except for the two scenes that made me whisper to the book, “jesus Christ calm the fuck…ah jesus..really??” This along with Rich Bottle’s story really stood out.
MCHUMANS Cthulu is the last entity on earth I would ever want to take on in an attempt save the human race from the creature’s destruction and slavery. I have a full review of this oozey gooey tale.
NYOGTHA OF THE NORTHERN LINE opens up in a way like SAW. , If Jigsaw was a Lovecraftian monster. This was really well written and the “little old lady” is pretty kickass….
VICIOUS JELLY made me very nostalgic! One of the first stories I ever read by H.P. Lovecraft was in The Transition of H. P. Lovecraft: The Road to Madness and it was Herbert West: Re-Animator (also one of my favorite movies ) so the very fact that Herbert West is our main character in this story kept a smile on my face.
