Sunday, December 04, 2016

Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.339: The Dunwich Horror Programme


Today's offering is the programme for a theatrical version of The Dunwich Horror that ran as part of the first London Horror Festival in 2011 (I believe I blogged a review of the show back in tne day - in any case, it was very good). I've bern a supporter of the London Horror Festival since its inception, usually attending between 7-10 shows each year. Not only has it been something of a highlight of the Hallowe'en season, but Lovecraft has been generally well-represented in the various theatrical offerings.

This year, however, I failed to attend any of the festival's offerings. This was, in part, due to being very busy during tne two weeks in October over which the festival usually runs; the truth of the matter, though, is that I was put off by the fact that the majority of this year's presentations were horror comedies. There was an intimation of this in 2015, when approximately half of the offerings wete comedic in nature.

I don't have an issue with horror comedy per se - indeed, The Monster Hunters (who debuted I at the 2011 festival) is one of my favourites of this hybrid genre. However, my experience of 2015's comedic offerings was lest than positive, such that many of the producers of that year's entries had no real love for horror, but rather saw it as something that could be played for a few cheap laughs. Or so it seemed to me. Regardless, I'll be giving the festival another chance next year, but here's hoping that there will be more in the way of 'serious' horror in 2017.

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