Tag Archives: Great God Pan

October 31, 2015 · 6:59 pm

MONSTER RALLY

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM BALLADEER’S BLOG! Here’s a look at some of the neglected monsters I’ve covered over the years. These horrific figures deserve as much love as the better known characters like Dracula, Frankenstein, the Crying Woman and many others.

Squaw Hollow SensationSETHOS

First Appearance: The Squaw Hollow Sensation (1879)

Cryptid Category: Aztec mummy

Lore: Around the year 800 AD an Aztec scholar named Sethos drank the Draught of the Everlasting Covenant and went into a state of suspended animation. In 1879 mining operations uncovered the tomb where he was hidden away.

A scientist of the era mastered the technique of reviving Sethos and successfully restored him to full life. Sethos’ body was hideously mummified but intact except for a gaping hole in his skull in the middle of his forehead from the experiment to revive him. Continue reading →

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October 16, 2013 · 12:10 pm

THE GREAT GOD PAN (1890) : HALLOWEEN READING

The Great God Pan

The Great God Pan

Balladeer’s Blog’s month-long celebration of Halloween continues! Nearly a century before Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen trilogy and decades before H.P. Lovecraft’s Dunwich Horror and From Beyond there was Arthur Machen’s story The Great God Pan. Originally published in 1890 and then expanded in 1894 this gothic horror tale was so far ahead of its time that it scandalized readers and reviewers of the era. Even though it came along earlier than Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula Machen’s great work dealt with such a brand of horror and with such adult themes that movies – silent and then early talkies – wouldn’t dare adapting it for the screen. 

Thus denied the cinematic exposure that made names like Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde household words The Great God Pan fell into undeserved obscurity, much like The King in Yellow by Robert W Chambers, a work reviewed previously here at Balladeer’s Blog.

Like so many of the best horror stories Machen’s tale begins with a mad scientist, in this case Dr Raymond, who invites his friend Mr Clarke to witness him perform an Continue reading →

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October 25, 2012 · 1:00 am

HALLOWEEN READING: THE GREAT GOD PAN (1890)

The Great God Pan

The Great God Pan

Nearly a century before Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen trilogy and decades before H.P. Lovecraft’s Dunwich Horror and From Beyond there was Arthur Machen’s story The Great God Pan. Originally published in 1890 and then expanded by an anonymous author in 1894 this gothic horror tale was so far ahead of its time that it scandalized readers and reviewers of the era. Even though it came along earlier than Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula Machen’s great work dealt with such a brand of horror and with such adult themes that movies – silent and then early talkies – wouldn’t dare adapting it for the screen. 

Thus denied the cinematic exposure that made names like Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde household words The Great God Pan fell into undeserved obscurity, much like The King in Yellow by Robert W Chambers, a work reviewed previously here at Balladeer’s Blog.

Like so many of the best horror stories Machen’s tale begins with a mad scientist, in this case Dr Raymond, who invites his friend Mr Clarke to witness him perform an operation that represents the culmination of ten years of work in what Dr Raymond calls Continue reading →

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