251: Gothic Horror (long cut)

This is the longer, unedited cut for patreon backers only.

https://blasphemoustomes.com/2023/01/03/gothic-horror/

We’re back and we’re skulking around the old ruined abbey. Sure, the place is lousy with ghosts, but they’re not really that important. We’re far more concerned with the weather. If reading Gothic horror has taught us anything, it’s that storms are caused by our own inner turmoil. Or is that the other way around? Maybe we could figure it out if all these bloody ghosts would just shut up. Why won’t the past just stay dead?

Gothic Horror

This episode is our attempt to understand what exactly Gothic horror is. We’ve often mentioned how Lovecraft’s early work was rooted in the Gothic, but we’ve never really explained what that means. Gothic horror is one of those genres that you know when you see it, but actually defining it can be tricky.

Happily, Matt has a degree in English, and part of his studies involved the history of Gothic literature. We imposed upon him to dig out some of his dusty old texts and explain what elements go into Gothic horror and how the genre stands apart from other forms of horror literature.

News

Illusion Horror Con Seminars

Matt and Scott recently attended the Illusion Horror Con, taking part in seminars discussing horror GMing techniques, how to take inspiration from horror media, and the cosmology of the Kult RPG. All of these are now available for your streaming pleasure.

Paul’s Substack

Paul has started his own substack (blog/newsletter) over at paulfricker.com, talking about the various projects he has on the go.

The Blasphemous Tome issue 10

This week, the final Blasphemous Tomes will be posted to everyone who backed us at the $5 level before the end of 2022. The postal service is very slow at present, not only with Christmas and New Year, but there are also postal strikes in the UK, so we beg your patience. 

For latest details on getting all issues of the tome:
Blasphemous Tome Fanzines Update for $3+ backers (Dec 2022)
or
Blasphemous Tome Fanzines Update for $1 backers (Dec 2022)

Rivers of London Launch at Dragonmeet

Paul attended Dragonmeet last month to promote the new Rivers of London RPG. He took part in a seminar on the topic, alongside Lynne Hardy and Ben Aaronovitch. While this was apparently recorded, it has yet to appear on YouTube. We shall update the show notes should this change.

The PDF of Rivers of London is out now, with printed copies due in the spring.

Links

Things we mention in this episode include:

• Visigoths and Ostrogoths
• Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects by Giorgio Vasari
• Gothic Revival architecture
• Flying Buttress
• Ogival Arch
• Romanesque architecture
• The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
• Film noir
• Romanticism
• The Enlightenment
• Vathek by William Beckford
• The Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe
• The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
• The Female Gothic
• The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis
• Is Horror Dangerous?
• A Life of Matthew G Lewis by Louis F Peck
• Marquis de Sade
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s review of The Monk
• Macbeth by William Shakespeare
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• The Vampyre by John William Polidori
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
• “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe
• Urban Gothic
• The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
• Dracula by Bram Stoker
• The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
• Gothic: An Illustrated History by Roger Luckhurst
• Folk horror
• Cosmic horror
• The Sublime
• Beyond the Mountains of Madness by HP Lovecraft
• Melodrama
• Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
• Gothic romance in post-war cinema
• Scooby-Doo
• Crimson Peak (2015)
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• Ghost Story by Peter Straub
• I Spit on Your Grave (1978)
• Metonymy
• Hammer Horror
• Southern Gothic
• Disappointments rooms
• The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice
• World of Darkness
• Vampire: the Masquerade
• We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
• The Beetle by Richard Marsh
• Sax Rohmer
• Pulp Cthulhu
• Mandela Effect
• Varney the Vampire
• The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by HP Lovecraft
• “The Outsider” by HP Lovecraft
• The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by HP Lovecraft
• Lord Dunsany
• “The Call of Cthulhu” by HP Lovecraft
• Bluebeard’s Bride
• Cthulhu by Gaslight
• Sacraments of Evil
• “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe
• The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
• “Hop-Frog” by Edgar Allan Poe
• Mill of the Stone Women (1960)
• October Horror Movie Challenge reviews
• House of Wax (1953)