Beci’s Reviews > Romanzi e racconti - Volume uno > Status Update

*DEAF DUMB AND BLIND*
This was a really good one. Unfortunately it didn't creep me out as it should due to noises in the house, but if I was alone at night this would be really creepy.
The build up is not boring or redundant and is progressive as the story settles in. The style is way more smooth than many other stories of his ( both cthulhu mythos or not ). The theme and the story are really original and outstanding

*THE LOVED DEAD*
This is a story about a necrophile, and it's one of the best I've read in this book. It really depicts well the horror of the darkness of the mind, of how social isolation can corrupt the soul of a person. The protagonist does horrible murders without being discovered for many years, but when he comes back from WWI he starts exceeding in his horrible deeds, until he is discovered by the police.

*THE GHOST-EATER*
This was pretty good, and it's a revision. I liked the atmosphere and the narration, which was less heavy and smoother than the last stories I read.

*THE RATS IN THE WALLS*
Didn't really like this one. Lovecraft's places descriptions are pretty tedious, he makes a lot of preambles introducing a lot of history and didn't make me feel in any way if not a bit boring. This was probably part of cthulhu mythos, in which the horror is a bit repetitive after a while. I prefer his esoteric stories which are much more suggestive than this

*THE HORROR AT MARTIN'S BEACH*
A person is swimming in the sea and screams. Some lifeguards try to rescue him with a life buoy and pull the rope, but something pulls them back to the sea at a monstrous strength. Many people at the beach try to help the lifeguards, but they are still pulled in the sea. At a given point, people pulling discover that they can't let go of the rope.

Short story but an impactful one.

*THE LURKING FEAR*
An episodic tale of a man going to a mountain village and encountering some lurking horrors that appears only during storms and lightning. These horrors kill and devour people alone during storms. The protagonist searches for these horrors trying to know what they are.
Strangely, he gets to know the origin of the horrors and destroy their primary nest.
Overall a good and interesting story.

*HERBER WEST: REANIMATOR*
This was pretty bad. It's clear that neither Lovecraft liked this one (it was a commission), since he had little freedom. It's basically a rip-off of Frankenstein. The only interesting thing is the ending, in which there is gore that isn't relaly common in Lovecraft stories.

*THE MUSIC OF ERICH ZANN*
The protagonist listens a wonderful melody from an inmate of his in a mysterious road. At a certain point he discovers the supernatural origin of the music, flews away and never finds the road again.

+ Really evocative and original, i missed the eldritch music in Lovecraft's works

*THE OUTSIDER*
The narrator lives in a dark castle, never saw the light nor other people. One night he exits the castle, but the "castle" is actually a crypt underground, and he exited from his "plato's cavern", seeing the real world. He enters a real castle, where a ball is held, and people scream at his sight.

Good atmosphere, but the plot twist was pretty obvious