Why Saul Bass inspired credit sequences of course. Enjoy!

And we’re back! This time on High and Low (Brow) James and I are joined by a live studio audience named Kevin who was invited because he offered us pizza and bread sticks. Delicious bread sticks. Buttery foodstuffs aside, this episode’s theme is HP Lovecraft, an author both of us enjoy, but who’s works have struggled to gain mainstream acceptance and have had even worse results in finding capable, or even enjoyable, versions brought to the silver screen.

For this episode we watch The Curse of the Crimson Altar, a 1968 film starring Christopher Lee, Boris Karloff and Barbara Steele, an impressive pedigree to be sure, but will the film live up to the expectations that such a monstrous (pun intended) cast brings? The second film we watch is the 1992 film The Resurrected, directed by Dan O’Bannon and starring Prince Humperdinck, Ross’ lesbian ex-wife Carol, Mike Damone and some guy from Lost. Sure the bar is set low, but can it be cleared? And out of these two films will we finally stumble across a good adaptation of Lovecraft’s work?

Rounding out the show we have our selection process for the next episode, and once again we provide a twist on it to help keep things fresh and exciting. If you have any recommendations for films we could watch for the podcast, or want to suggest a potential theme for us to use, feel free to email us and tell us your ideas. If you enjoy the show make sure to subscribe through iTunes or our RSS feed so you can catch every new episode. Also, please friend James on Facebook. Because it will frighten and confuse him.

One more thing, if you enjoy the show feel free to donate to it through PayPal in either a single installment or as a recurring donor. We’d love to upgrade some of our equipment and anything you donate will go directly towards us getting some decent mics and perhaps even pop screens that aren’t made out of cotton balls.

As always, thanks for listening!

Opening Music – Mother Made Me Do It by Mark Mallman
Closing Music – Okey Dokey by The Incredible Bongo Band

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 High and Low (Brow) - Episode 7 - HP Lovecraft [55:36m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (237)

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While most people know the Hugo Awards as a literary award for the top science fiction and fantasy works of the past year they also hand out awards for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form & Short Form. The Long Form award typically is for the best film with occasional audio books garnering recognition as well, while the short form is typically dominated by television shows. Like most awards, the Hugo’s are voted upon by the members of Worldcon, which is dominated by science fiction and fantasy authors and creators. In conjunction with the Nebula Awards, the Hugo represents the highest honor for science fiction and fantasy creators.

This year marked a landmark group of possible winners for the Long Form category. Nominees included Wall-E, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Hellboy 2 and METAtropolis (an audio book). One of the more interesting aspects of the Hugo Award voting system is that they not only publish the voting results (you paying attention Oscars) but they also employ run off voting making for some interesting results. As for the actual winners, you might be surprised to learn that Wall-E beat out The Dark Knight to win the 2009 Hugo Award.

Even more exciting was the winner of the Short Form Award, that being the online mini series Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog, which beat out episodes of Doctor Who, Battlestar Gallactica and Lost to take the award. That’s one heck of a feat for a web series to knock off the three biggest science fiction television shows currently going.

For those of us who dig the minutia, the voting results are after the break.

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