A Holiday Guide to a Cinematic Shadow Pantheon (Part 1)

If you're looking for an alternative X-mas experience, to offset the perennial screenings of such classic films as A Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life, then I recommend cuddling up with a cup of Irish Hot Cocoa and watching some of the unjustifiably obscure X-mas themed films recommended by our knowledgeable staff here at the barbed-wired, high security Cryptoscatology.com compound.  We have chosen to call this series "A Holiday Guide to a Cinematic Shadow Pantheon."  In this inaugural installment we recommend a pair of peculiar Yuletide tales....



The Curse of the Cat People (1944).  This was the first film directed by Robert Wise, who would later direct such cryptoscatological classics as The Body Snatcher (1945), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), and The Haunting (1963).  This is ostensibly a sequel to Jacques Tourneur's groundbreaking horror film, Cat People (1942); however, no knowledge of the previous film is required to appreciate the sublime strangeness of this metaphysical paean to the dream worlds of childhood. 

Not only is this one of the most unorthodox B-films produced by Val Lewton for RKO in the 1940s, it's also one of the most offbeat sequels ever filmed by a major Hollywood studio.  Its evocation of both the wonder and alienation of childhood is reminiscent of the haunting tales Ray Bradbury began to write at around this same time (see, for example, the tales in Bradbury's1947 collection, Dark Carnival).  Since Bradbury often cited Lewton's films as an influence, this is almost certainly not a coincidence.  In fact, Lewton's films had a tremendous impact on several major writers of dark fantasy, Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson, and Harlan Ellison included.  Though many film scholars do not hold The Curse of the Cat People in the same high regard as some of Lewton's other masterpieces (e.g., the aforementioned Cat People as well as I Walked with a Zombie and Isle of the Dead), nonetheless a faithful coterie of Lewton aficionados maintain that this particular offering is among the most personal and profound of his darkly fantastic oeuvre.


Quentin Lawrence's Cash on Demand (1962), produced by Hammer Films in England, is a Yuletide suspense story about a Scrooge-like bank manager named Harry Fordyce (Peter Cushing) who, on Christmas Eve, is terrorized for precisely 84 minutes by a master thief and conman named Colonel Gore Hepburn (André Morell).  A noirish, mirror-world alternative to Dickens' most famous saccharine morality tale, A Christmas Carol, Lawrence's Cash on Demand will add a much-needed dose of anxiety to your stocking this merry X-mas season. 

It's interesting to note that Lawrence also directed the cryptoscatological classic, The Crawling Eye (1958), a UFO disclosure film in which a United Nations troubleshooter named Alan Brooks (Forrest Tucker) goes head-to-head (head-to-eye?) with a giant, telepathic, tentacled eyeball from another planet.  In his 1997 book, Hollywood Vs. the Aliens:  The Motion Picture Industry's Participation in UFO Disinformation, Bruce Rux insists that The Crawling Eye featured "accurate UFOlogical elements, most notably in the recurrent abduction/implant remote alien control and sabotage motif" (236).  Filmmakers who are drawn into this esoteric field, whether by chance or by choice, tend to end up making more than one film that could be considered cryptoscatological in nature, and Quentin Lawrence (like Robert Wise) is no exception

Stay tuned for Part 2 of "A Holiday Guide to a Cinematic Shadow Pantheon" in which our crypotoscatology.com staff will recommend a special New Year's Eve cinematic experience....

Mind Control & the Boston Bomber

According to Boston Globe journalists Sally Jacobs, David Filipov and Patricia Wen, Boston Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev believed he was a victim of mind control.  The original 12-15-13 Boston Globe article, entitled "The Fall of the House of Tsarnaev," can be read HERE.  A brief excerpt follows:

"[Don] Larking and Tamerlan, who met when Tamerlan visited his mother at work, took an immediate liking to one another and shared their views on conspiracy theory and American politics. Larking loaned his young friend copies of a newspaper he reads, 'The Sovereign, newspaper of the Resistance!’, which suggests that US military explosives were used in the World Trade Center attack. But Larking found that Tamerlan had strong political views of his own. He did not, for example, approve of President Obama’s use of drones in foreign conflicts or what he considered the US government’s expansive foreign policy.

"'He felt the US should not get involved in other people’s affairs and should stick to its own business,' said Larking. 'He did not like the country’s involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq at all.'

"As their relationship grew closer, Tamerlan confided in Larking his troubling secret about the voice inside his head. Tamerlan told him that he had been hearing the voice for some time, and that he had a theory of what might be afflicting him.

"'He believed in majestic mind control, which is a way of breaking down a person and creating an alternative personality with which they must coexist,' explained Larking. 'You can give a signal, a phrase or a gesture, and bring out the alternate personality and make them do things. Tamerlan thought someone might have done that to him.'

"The person inside him, as Tamerlan described it to Larking, 'was someone who wanted to control him to make him do something.'"

Paul Joseph Watson's illuminating analysis of the Globe's reportage can be found HERE.

Nature Magazine Confirms the Theories of Stanislaw Szukalski?

Earlier this year, in a post entitled "BEHOLD!!! THE PROTONG," I wrote extensively about Stanislaw Szukalski's unique theories regarding humanity's connection to what he calls "the Yetinsyny."  According to Richard Chang of the Orange County Register, "[Szukalski] believed that the human race had bred with a competitive race of Yeti (Abominable Snowmen or Bigfoot, for the uninitiated), and the result was a hybrid that polluted the purity of homo sapiens.  Szukalski argued further that the hybrids [i.e., the Yetinsyny] were responsible for many of people's problems throughout history." 

In that very same Orange County Register article (from the 2-7-13 edition), Chang describes Szukalski's theories as "pseudoscientific."  Apparently, no less an authority than Nature Magazine now disagrees with Mr. Chang's opinion.  According to Nature, the highly respected international weekly journal of science, recent genome analysis might very well prove that Szukalski's "pseudoscientific" theories contain far more than just a kernel of truth.

Click HERE to read Ewen Calloway's 11-19-13 Nature article entitled "Mystery Humans Spiced Up Ancients' Sex Lives."

Let's fade out on one of my favorite Szukalski drawings (from p. 73 of Szukalski's book, Behold!!! the Protong)....



"The howling chest-beating gorilla in the Yetinsyn is perpetually pressed towards its biological preordainment.  It works overtime pounding on the pulpit of subversion, calling all the misfits of the world to unite against the hated Human.  The phrases ring hours after their delivery, 'We must fight against the Tyrants, the Capitalists, the Educated and well... why not against the Good-looking who are loved by beautiful women, too!  Long live da Peep-hole!  Long live the Revolution!'"
--Stanislaw Szukalski, BEHOLD!!! THE PROTONG, p. 72

Colin Wilson R.I.P. (1931-2013)

According to Loren Coleman, Colin Wilson passed away on December 5th.  You can read Coleman's full obituary by clicking HERE. 

Rest in peace, Mr. Wilson, and thanks especially for giving us The Mind Parasites (1967) and "The Return of the Lloigor" (1969).  If I had to single out only a handful of favorite H.P. Lovecraft pastiches, these two works by Wilson would certainly sit near the top of the list alongside Fritz Leiber's Our Lady of Darkness (1977) and Robert Bloch's Strange Eons (1978).  "The Return of the Lloigor" can be found in August Derleth's Arkham House anthology entitled Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, and is well worth seeking out.... 

                         

Happy Thanksgiving, La Carcagne

Not many people are aware that the American holiday called Thanksgiving is often marked by the mysterious appearance of an elusive cryptozoological beast known only as "La Carcagne."  For at least the past fifty years, usually near the end of November, this gigantic winged creature has been sighted in the skies above North America (particularly where Canada borders the United States).  Dozens of witnesses over the years have insisted that this legendary monster is "as big as a battleship."  In French Canadian folklore, its appearance is believed to be a harbinger of imminent death.  The first authentic photograph of this enigmatic being was taken by an American named Fred F. Sears in June of 1957.  Since this photograph had been seldom seen outside rare archives stored within hermetically sealed vaults located thousands of feet beneath Langley, Virginia, I have decided to reproduce the photograph here for your illumination:



We here at cryptoscatology.com wish "La Carcagne" a very happy Thanksgiving, indeed....

In Memoriam: Lee Harvey Oswald R.I.P. (1939-1963)

“If Oswald was working for the FBI, it could explain many things […].  It […] might explain a well-documented instance of the FBI destroying evidence after the assassination.  In August 1975, the Dallas Times Herald reported it had recently learned that two weeks before the JFK assassination, Oswald had delivered a note to the Dallas FBI office and that the note had been destroyed after the assassination.  This story prompted an investigation by the Justice Department and eventually became the center of hearings before a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee.

“It is now certain that two to three weeks prior to the assassination, Oswald came to the Dallas FBI office and asked a receptionist to see Agent [James] Hosty.  When told Hosty was not in, Oswald left a note.  The receptionist, Nancy Fenner, noted that Oswald asked for ‘S.A. [Special Agent] Hosty… [in] exactly those words.’  It’s surprising that Oswald would be so familiar with Bureau jargon.  Years later Fenner recalled the note said something like:  ‘Let this be a warning.  I will blow up the FBI and the Dallas Police Department if you don’t stop bothering my wife—Lee Harvey Oswald.’

“Hosty, who said he was told not to mention the note at the time of the assassination, said the note was not violent in tone and that it said something like:  ‘If you have anything you want to learn about me, come talk to me directly.  If you don’t cease bothering my wife, I will take appropriate action and report this to the proper authorities.’

“Hosty also said the note was folded and expressed doubts that Fenner had read it properly.

“He said that within hours of the assassination, he was called into the office of the special-agent-in-charge, J. Gordon Shanklin.  Hosty said Shanklin was visibly ‘agitated and upset’ and wanted to know about the Oswald note.

“After Oswald had been killed, Shanklin again called in Hosty.  Hosty said Shanklin produced the Oswald note from his desk drawer and said, ‘Oswald’s dead now.  There can be no trial.  Here, get rid of this.’  As Hosty tore up the note, Shanklin cried:  ‘No!  Get it out of here.  I don’t even want it in this office.  Get rid of it!’  Hosty said he took the pieces of note to a nearby restroom and ‘flushed it down the drain.’

“Before the House subcommittee, Shanklin denied any knowledge of the Oswald note.  But assistant FBI director William Sullivan said Shanklin had discussed an ‘internal problem’ concerning a message from Oswald with him and that the presence of the note was common knowledge at FBI headquarters.

“Another Dallas agent, Kenneth Howe, also testified he showed Shanklin the Oswald note the weekend of the assassination.  Existence of the note also was talked about among some members of the Dallas Police Department.

“Mrs. Ruth Paine even mentioned that Oswald had dropped off a note to the FBI in her testimony to the Warren Commission in 1964.  She told the Commission:  ‘[Oswald] told me he had stopped at the downtown office of the FBI and tried to see the agents and left a note…’

“Why then did the Bureau only acknowledge the existence of the note after media reports in 1975?  The House Select Committee on Assassinations said the incident concerning the note was a ‘serious impeachment of Shanklin’s and Hosty’s credibility,’ and that with the note’s destruction, ‘it was not possible to establish with confidence what its contents were.’

“It seems unbelievable, however, that the FBI would knowingly destroy evidence, especially if it would have proven Oswald prone to violence.  Some researchers say a more plausible explanation is that Oswald, as an FBI informant, tried to warn the Bureau about the coming assassination [emphasis added—RG].  This could explain the receptionist’s insistence that the note contained threatening words.  It also could explain why the FBI was so concerned and fearful of the note that it was ordered destroyed.”

--JIM MARRS, CROSSFIRE:  THE PLOT THAT KILLED KENNEDY (1989), pp. 233-34

            The last words of Lee Harvey Oswald, as compiled by the late and lamented JFK assassination researcher Mae Brussell, can be seen by clicking HERE.  They’re well worth reading. 

"The Walk" Now Available in THE MAILER REVIEW Vol. 7, No. 1.

My new short story, "The Walk," has just been published in the latest edition of The Mailer Review (Vol. 7, No. 1, Fall 2013).  Instructions on how to purchase a copy can be found at the website of The Mailer Review by clicking HERE. 

Since The Mailer Review is a literary journal that has absolutely nothing to do with the shadowy world of conspiracy theories, it's quite synchronistic--from a cryptoscatological perspective, at least--that this particular issue should contain an article by none other than Dick Russell, author of the 1992 book The Man Who Knew Too Much (generally considered to be one of the best and most credible books about the JFK assassination).  Russell's contribution to this issue, "Norman Mailer and the Dynamite Club," is a first-person account of Mailer's fascination with "the mysteries" (Mailer's term, not mine), which apparently included not just the JFK assassination but related government conspiracies as well.  "The Dynamite Club" was a series of informal gatherings that Mailer organized to help further his research into the national security state while working on Harlot's Ghost, his epic 1991 novel about the history of the CIA told from the point of view of a secret agent based loosely on the life and career of James Jesus Angleton, chief of the CIA's counterintelligence staff for over twenty years (from 1954 to 1975).

According to Russell, meetings of the Dynamite Club were attended by such luminaries as Bernard Fensterwald (attorney for James Earl Ray), Jim Hougan (author of Secret Agenda:  Watergate, Deep Throat, and the CIA), Edward Jay Epstein (author of Legend:  The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald), Kevin Coogan (author of Dreamer of the Day:  Franics Parker Yockey and the Postwar International), Don DeLillo (author of Libra, a novel that focuses on the life of Lee Harvey Oswald), James Grady (author of the espionage novel The Six Days of the Condor), Robert Gettlin (co-author of Silent Coup:  The Removal of a President) and Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy.  Dick Russell offers the reader the opportunity to be a fly on the wall of these alcohol-laden meetings.

The cover of the latest issue, drawn by Jules Feiffer, can be seen below....