Red Sox Take Two Of Three From Angels. Sunday Afternoon Horror Movie.

Red Sox Take Two Of Three From Angels

The Red Sox managed to rebound from Saturday's hideous bullpen explosion to beat the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, California, United States, North America, Western Hemisphere, Third Stone From The Sun, etc.

The final score was 6-3 behind the solid pitching of starter Wade Miller, Mike Meyers (who got his second win of the weekend), Mike Timlin and Keith Foulke who enjoyed a 1-2-3 ninth for what was probably his easiest save of the season. The Sox got huge RBIs late from David Ortiz and John Olerud. The team will now head to St. Louis and Chicago to play the Cardinals and Cubs. We will most likely see David Ortiz and first base (despite Kevin Millar's HUGE weekend at the plate after two nearly silent months...), since the NL does not use the designated hitter. We will also be treated to the spectacle of seeing the Red Sox pitchers hit, which I must say, even as a fan of the NL style of ball, is not a thing I look forward to viewing.


Sunday Afternoon SCI-FI Movie, Courtesy Of H.P. Lovecraft

After the game I turned on the Sci-Fi channel to see a film titled "Dagon". There are only a handful of movies that have been adapted from Lovecraft's stories, most of them terrible (perhaps the best rendering was a film called "The Resurrected" that starred Chris Sarandon in the adaptation of the short novel "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward").

The action centered around two couples on a boat ride that goes horribly wrong as a storm rises from nowhere. One couple decides to take the small life raft and go for help. When the couple lands they find an eerie priest with webbed fingers and pallid, clammy skin. He takes the woman with him to get the police while the man goes on a fishing boat with a couple of characters who say nothing, but look a lot like the priest in that they also have webbed fingers, etc.

Right away I knew that the story that SHOULD have been credited was Lovecraft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth". The tale was first published in 1942 in Weird Tales, and it is one of several Lovecraft classics. This one dealt directly with an entire community corrupted by one man, Captain Obed Marsh, who sailed around the world and came back home to Innsmouth (an ancient Massachusetts seaport) with more than just a little treasure. He learned how to communicate with the Deep Ones, the ocean-dwelling elements of what would become known as the "Cthulu Mythos". As a result, the town prospered as long as there were plenty of sacrifices to the sea god Dagon. In time, some of Dagon's minions began hooking up with the citizens of Innsmouth, with the result that a good portion of the population became part fish.

Anyway, aside from modernizing the characters, and adding a smattering of Spanish and Portuguese into the mix, the story as told by this film was actually fairly passable, which came as a pleasant surprise. The sense of isolation that is a staple of Lovecraft's stories was effectively conveyed through the actions of the hapless couple as they struggle to escape the sinster denizens of this nightmare town.

If you haven't seen the movie or read the story I won't spoil either one for you. But if you like your horror with a healthy dose of other-worldly helplessness, I think you'll like both the movie, and the original story, as well as Lovecraft's other stories.