Skulls in the Stars

Here’s an interesting tidbit for Robert E. Howard fans: an animated film version of the Conan story Red Nails is in production.  I stumbled across the web site for it a few weeks ago, and it looks like it is aiming to be a truly faithful adaptation of the original story.  To get really excited about it, just look at the cast, and in particular who’s been chosen for the voice of Conan.  (This actor would probably be a great choice to play Conan in a live-action movie, except that he probably couldn’t muster up the full mane of black hair any more.)

The only problem?  The film has been in production for quite a long time and it’s unclear if production has been halted or not.  The movie blog, which was supposed to be updated every two weeks, hasn’t been updated since June.  Here’s hoping it gets released — it would be nice to see a proper depiction of the barbarian, which doesn’t depict him as a steroid-addled buffoon or part of a ‘Conan and friends’ ensemble.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937) is one of the most influential horror authors people have never heard of. He was a direct inspiration to most of the leading horror voices of this generation, including Stephen King and Ramsey Campbell.

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There are a number of classic works of weird fantasy and horror which have been lost from the mainstream but are well worth a look. One of these is William Hope Hodgson’s The Night Land.

Hodgson (1877-191 was a colorful character who turned to weird fiction late in life after, among other things, working as a sailor. He wrote numerous short stories about the sea and its horrors. The story The Voice in the Night, for instance, concerns a couple shipwrecked on an island whose only occupant is a corrupting fungus. This tale was much later adapted into the Japanese horror movie Matango, more commonly known as The Attack of the Mushroom People. I remember seeing this film numerous times on Sunday morning ‘Creature Features’.

The Night Land is one of Hodgson’s handful of novels, and is worth a mention not just because of its haunting imagery but also because its premise is relevant to an overarching theme of the weird fiction of the early 1900’s.

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