We’re back and and we’re geeking out.

Main Topic: Nightmare Alley

With all the talk about mediums in recent episodes, we thought it might be helpful to examine one from media. Guillermo del Toro’s 2021 adaptation of William Lindsay Gresham’s novel Nightmare Alley may not lean into the Spiritualist elements of the source, but it still presents a gripping story of a predator who uses the techniques of stage mediumship. Moreover, the film’s setting in the worlds of carnival sideshows and mentalist acts are rich inspiration for games of Call of Cthulhu.

As well as discussing the film itself, we talk a little about del Toro’s career, focusing on some highlights.

Links

Things we mention in this episode include:

• Spiritualism
• Séances
• Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham
• Nightmare Alley (1947)
• Tyrone Power
• Hays Code
• “Who Goes There?” by John W Campbell Jr
• The Thing (1982)
• The Thing From Another World (1951)
• Nightmare Alley: A Vision in Darkness and Light

• Geek show
• Freaks (1932)
• Mentalism
• Hanged Man tarot card
• In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
• “Bleak Prospect” from Nameless Horrors
• Theosophy

• Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
• Hellboy (2004)
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)
• “At the Mountains of Madness” by HP Lovecraft
• The Shape of Water (2017)
• The Devil’s Backbone (2001)
• Cronos (1992)
• Crimson Peak (2015)
• Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities
• “Pickman’s Model” by HP Lovecraft
• “The Dreams in the Witch House” by HP Lovecraft

News

Paul at Gen Con 2023

Paul will be at Gen Con in August. He’ll be signing at the Chaosium stand on Thursday at 1:30 PM. On Thursday evening, he will be running what he has dubbed “Full Fathom Five-Point-Five” with You Too Can Cthulhu, riffing on his Miskatonic Repository scenario “Full Fathom Five”. And if you’re not sick of him by then, you can see him on the panel about Horror on the Tabletop on 12 PM on Friday.

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