Doctor Dugald Eldritch

Thanks, yet again, for the birthday wishes. The oft-maligned 'Dougie' scenes from Twin Peaks S3 are going to be ones I treasure for years.

I was only thinking the other day that you hadn't posted much recently. Glad to see you're still kicking around.

Now I'm off to pass out in an alcoholic stupor.

Thank you for the friend request.

Thank you, as ever, for your courtesy and warmth. I'm not ashamed to say your knowledge of the weird far outstrips my own.

I hadn't seen that footage of Aickman before. Another delightful piece to that puzzle of a man.

Okay, looks like that's sorted. Thanks.

Hello, Hell-Ghost.

Thank you for the greeting. I hope you're well. I rarely check in here, so have only just seen the spam message. I can't, however, see a delete button! But I can report it, I suppose. Perhaps I should run it through Google Translate first, though -- it might be an important communication from Thailand.

Thank you for the wishes/gift. The secrets behind this island of mine bring me hope during these troubling times. There has to be more to this place than mouldering chip shops and ill-lit supermarkets, as much as these places fascinate me and pervade my stories. I love the ugliness of where I live and attempt to express this in my fiction. I think everything has been said when it comes to ruminations on the supernatural, so I can only aspire with my weird fiction to translate my individual life experience in to an Aickman/de la Mare-esque dream world with a sub level of Poe/Lovecraft dark romantic oblivion underlying it.

The rats episode of Beasts terrified me. I had a physical reaction to it and couldn't sleep afterwards. It is a crime that the colour version of Year of the Sex Olympics is lost, as it was so ahead of its time. The original Quatermass and the Pit serial is incomparably brilliant and for my reckoning far superior in pacing to the Hammer film, as enjoyable as it is.

It's taken from a scene in Georges Franju's Judex, an oneiric tribute to the serial films of the silent era which I actually prefer to the better known Eyes Without A Face.

Silent Hill 2 is an incredibly powerful tale. Its story contains the same feeling of haunting dark romantic beauty I find in Poe's Ligeia or Aickman's The Stains. Listening to that song brought back so many complex emotions I experienced through my avatar James Sutherland whilst wandering that fogged labyrinth of horrors.

I revisit the first three games often, particularly for their ambient soundtracks. The second game is the only one with a meaty story, but the feeling of oneric dread in each of them is most effective. The second instalment is a weird tale of the first rank and a solid argument for why video games can be art, not just shallow entertainment as most aspire to be.

Thanks for the encouragement. I am undertaking a 'best of Blackwood' reread to lift my spirits, starting with his Incredible Adventures tales.

...or read the interview that is, depending on whether you read it in issue #32 or watched in on YouTube...