Pickman's Model


I'm not a Lovecraft fan - I've read some of his stories in anthologies here and there, but nothing systematic. I thought that this episode might be a good introduction to his work, but I understand it's rather different from the original story.

I was wondering about some of the paintings that the young lady takes with her after Pickman's disappearance. One of them shows a boy standing next to a lovely lady, with a horrible monster in the background. As it was earlier stated that the monsters stole the locals' womenfolk for the purposes of procreation, I was wondering if this is Pickman and his mother? And since he's part-monster himself, that monster in the background could be his father. This is a family portrait, in other words. The monster in the basement could be related to him, or even the same one in the picture.

Flat, drab passion meanders across the screen!

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From what I remember in the original story, the men go to Pickman's studio and find a painting of Pickman as a baby with some of the creatures at the end. Like you, I'm guessing that the picture of him with the woman and monster is a reference to that scene. However, I like the episode's ending more.



Annoying the world since 1960!

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I'm not a Lovecraft fan - I've read some of his stories in anthologies here and there, but nothing systematic. I thought that this episode might be a good introduction to his work, but I understand it's rather different from the original story.

Unfortunately, nobody has really succeeded in adapting H.P. Lovecraft to the screen, not without real modification. And it's not as if there were any real obstacle to doing so, as with Ray Bradbury's prose poetry. No, there always seems to be some objection to the man's worldview and works - puritanical, very nearly sexless, with next to no representatives of the female sex; borderline racist; unsympathetic, neurotic narrators - everyone who adapts him seeks to remedy these flaws. And up until recently, what he has described has been beyond the reach of filmic special effects. It can probably be carried off now, but there is still this unwillingness to render his stories as he wrote them.

http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/

§« https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhG6uc7fN0o »§

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Thanks for the links! I'll definitely check out the Lovecraft works online. What is the weird music in the YouTube link? It's very uncanny.

Flat, drab passion meanders across the screen!

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What is the weird music in the YouTube link? It's very uncanny.

Oh, the link in my signature? It's an album of library tracks from Capitol Production Music. This one was composed by William Loose, famously heard in television and film from the late 1970s-80s, such as In Search of... (1976), Creepshow (1982), and Tales from the Darkside (1983). 

§« https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhG6uc7fN0o »§

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