People’s Guide to the Cthulhu Mythos: Horror Stories, Weird Fiction, and Film Reviews

Story

Author

Synopsis

Foreword

Joseph Lewis French

An introduction to the anthology and its selection of classic tales of horror and suspense.

The Horla, Part 1

Guy de Maupassant

A French gentleman experiences increasingly disturbing sensations and unexplained occurrences in his home. He begins to suspect that an invisible being is watching him and exerting control over his life.

The Horla, Part 2

Guy de Maupassant

The narrator's obsession with the unseen entity intensifies as he searches for proof of its existence. His attempts to escape its influence lead him toward increasingly desperate and destructive decisions.

A Terrible Night

William Clark Russell

A voyage at sea becomes a terrifying experience when violent weather and extraordinary natural phenomena threaten the passengers and crew.

The Torture by Hope

Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam

A prisoner condemned by the Spanish Inquisition discovers what appears to be an opportunity to escape. His desperate pursuit of freedom reveals a particularly cruel form of psychological torture.

What Was It?

Fitz-James O'Brien

A man sleeping in a supposedly haunted boardinghouse is attacked by an invisible creature. After capturing the mysterious assailant, he and his companions attempt to understand what they have discovered.

The Mark of the Beast

Rudyard Kipling

An Englishman in colonial India desecrates a religious shrine and suffers an apparently supernatural curse. His companions struggle to reverse his horrifying transformation.

The Temple of Isis

Richard Marsh

An encounter with a mysterious woman leads into a frightening world of ancient Egyptian religion, secret rituals, and supernatural danger. An excerpt from The Beetle.

The Pit and the Pendulum

Edgar Allan Poe

A prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition awakens in a dungeon where elaborate instruments of torture threaten his life. He must overcome terror and exhaustion to survive.

The Vampire

Bram Stoker

In an excerpt from Dracula, the dying Renfield reveals his connection to Count Dracula and the vampire's terrifying influence, exposing the danger facing Mina Harker.

The Avengers, Part I

Arthur Conan Doyle

A man and a young girl, stranded in the American wilderness, are rescued by members of a religious community. Their survival comes at the price of accepting a new life under strict religious authority.

The Avengers, Parts II & III

Arthur Conan Doyle

Years later, the young woman's love for an outsider comes into conflict with the demands of her community. Religious pressure, threats, and forced marriage threaten to destroy her future.

The Avengers, Parts IV & V

Arthur Conan Doyle

The consequences of persecution and betrayal culminate in tragedy. A survivor undertakes a relentless campaign of vengeance against those responsible.

Season 23 Movies & Stories

1. Sinners (2025) 

Story: “The Music of Erich Zann,” H. P. Lovecraft

Music becomes a weapon, a barrier, and an opening into something beyond the human world.

2. Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Story: “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” Nathaniel Hawthorne

A scientist transforms his daughter into something beautiful, deadly, and isolated from ordinary human intimacy. The created woman is treated simultaneously as experiment, daughter, monster, and possible lover.

Complete YouTube reading

3. Ready or Not (2019) 

Story: “The Most Dangerous Game,” Richard Connell

Wealthy predators turn the hunting of a human being into sport and tradition. 

Complete YouTube reading

4. Blade II (2002) 

Story: “The Room in the Tower,” E. F. Benson

A recurring nightmare leads to a room occupied by a ravenous female vampire.

5. Obsession (2026)

Story: “The Birth-Mark,” Nathaniel Hawthorne

Love curdles into the conviction that another person must be altered and perfected.

6. RoboCop (1987) 

Story: “The Man That Was Used Up,” Edgar Allan Poe

A celebrated military hero is gradually revealed to be an assemblage of manufactured replacement parts. Prosthetic reconstruction, militarism, masculine propaganda, and brutal satire.

Complete YouTube reading

7. Johnny Mnemonic (1995) 

Story: “A Logic Named Joe,” Murray Leinster

Information technology becomes dangerously helpful, invasive, and impossible to contain.

8. Strange Days (1995) 

Story: “The Crystal Egg,” H. G. Wells

A mysterious device allows its owner to watch another world—and may allow that world to watch him. The voyeurism, addictive looking, and technologically mediated experience.

Complete YouTube reading

9. Brainstorm (1983) 

Story: “The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham,” H. G. Wells

A wealthy old scientist finds a way to transfer his consciousness into a young man’s body. It turns recorded experience and technological immortality into an intimate identity nightmare.

Complete YouTube reading

10. Burst City (1982)

Story: “The Machine Stops,” E. M. Forster

A society has surrendered its bodies, relationships, and environment to an enormous technological system.

11. Neo Tokyo (1987) 

Story: “The City of the Singing Flame,” Clark Ashton Smith

A traveller discovers a magnificent alternate city whose alien music and architecture exert an increasingly irresistible pull.

12. Total Recall (1990)

Story: “The Defenders,” Philip K. Dick

Humanity’s understanding of its war and surrounding reality has been deliberately manufactured.

Complete YouTube reading

13. Sorry to Bother You (2018)

Story: “The Business Man,” Edgar Allan Poe

A self-satisfied entrepreneur explains his increasingly violent career as though criminal ingenuity were merely sound business practice.

Complete YouTube reading

14. Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

Story: “The Flowering of the Strange Orchid,” H. G. Wells

A mild collector brings home an exotic plant that proves predatory. Carnivorous botany, human loneliness, and the inability to recognize danger until it is wrapped around your throat.

Complete YouTube reading

15. Slither (2006)

Story: “The Derelict,” William Hope Hodgson

An explorer returns from an ancient ruin carrying something that has taken root inside his body.

16. Swiss Army Man (2016) 

Story: “The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost,” H. G. Wells

A lonely, ineffectual dead man cannot remember how to leave the living world, and an overconfident living man attempts to help him. 

Complete YouTube reading

17. Happy Death Day (2017) 

Story: “The Clock That Went Backward,” Edward Page Mitchell

A clock literally carries its characters backwards through time.

Complete YouTube reading

18. The Gorge (2025) 

Story: “The People of the Pit,” A. Merritt

An isolated traveller discovers an abyss containing an ancient, inhuman civilization and something that calls irresistibly from below.

19. The Fourth Kind (2009)

Story: “The Hanging Stranger,” Philip K. Dick

An ordinary man notices an impossible event that everyone else accepts, then discovers that his community may no longer be human. 

Complete YouTube reading

20. Dark City (1998)

Story: “The Street That Wasn’t There,” Clifford D. Simak and Carl Jacobi

Familiar pieces of a city begin disappearing as reality is quietly revised around its inhabitants.

21. Stir of Echoes (1999) 

Story: “The Beckoning Fair One,” Oliver Onions

A man living alone becomes increasingly dominated by an unseen female presence whose influence may be supernatural, psychological, or both. 

Complete YouTube reading

Chapter

Author

Description

The Wood of the Dead

Algernon Blackwood

A traveler encounters a mysterious old man who invites him into a lonely wood said to receive those who are about to die. A quiet, dreamlike ghost story about death, compassion, and the thin boundary between the living and the dead.

The Night-Doings at "Deadman's"

Ambrose Bierce

On a freezing night in an abandoned mining camp, a lonely man welcomes a strange visitor and begins recounting the unsettling history of Deadman's Gulch. Bierce mixes ghost-story dread with his characteristic grim humor and irony. 

Shadow – A Parable

Edgar Allan Poe

Seven men hide from a terrible plague, drinking beside the body of a dead companion, when an impossible shadow appears among them. A brief, intensely atmospheric meditation on mortality and the inevitability of death. 

Kerfol

Edith Wharton

A visitor to an old estate in Brittany encounters a silent pack of mysterious dogs and discovers the tragic history of the house. Wharton's gothic tale combines an abusive marriage, murder, and supernatural revenge. 

In the Dark

Ronal Kayser

Alone in his chemical plant, Asa Gregg records a confession concerning a murder he thought he had successfully concealed. Something inside the factory, however, appears determined to undo both the crime and the laws of nature. Originally published in Weird Tales in 1936.

The Last Revel in Printz Hall

Charles M. Skinner

A young fiddler accepts a job as caretaker of the lonely and reputedly haunted Printz Hall near Chester, Pennsylvania. His night in the abandoned mansion becomes considerably stranger once the music begins.

Edward Randolph's Portrait

Charles M. Skinner

An ominous portrait hangs in Boston's old Province House and is said to reveal its dreadful face before disasters. The figure is Edward Randolph, remembered by colonial legend as a betrayer of Massachusetts' liberties. 

The Headless Skeleton of Swamptown

Charles M. Skinner

Strange lights, witches, apparitions, and a headless figure haunt the folklore surrounding Swamptown, Rhode Island. Skinner collects several grisly local legends centered on a particularly unsettling human skull. 

Were-Wolves of Detroit

Charles M. Skinner

Old Detroit legends tell of witches, forbidden bargains, and men transformed into loups-garous. One tale follows a rejected suitor who turns to witchcraft in an attempt to carry away the woman he desires. 

Chapter

Author

Description

The Wood of the Dead

Algernon Blackwood

A traveler encounters a mysterious old man who invites him into a lonely wood said to receive those who are about to die. A quiet, dreamlike ghost story about death, compassion, and the thin boundary between the living and the dead.

The Night-Doings at "Deadman's"

Ambrose Bierce

On a freezing night in an abandoned mining camp, a lonely man welcomes a strange visitor and begins recounting the unsettling history of Deadman's Gulch. Bierce mixes ghost-story dread with his characteristic grim humor and irony. 

Shadow – A Parable

Edgar Allan Poe

Seven men hide from a terrible plague, drinking beside the body of a dead companion, when an impossible shadow appears among them. A brief, intensely atmospheric meditation on mortality and the inevitability of death. 

Kerfol

Edith Wharton

A visitor to an old estate in Brittany encounters a silent pack of mysterious dogs and discovers the tragic history of the house. Wharton's gothic tale combines an abusive marriage, murder, and supernatural revenge. 

In the Dark

Ronal Kayser

Alone in his chemical plant, Asa Gregg records a confession concerning a murder he thought he had successfully concealed. Something inside the factory, however, appears determined to undo both the crime and the laws of nature. Originally published in Weird Tales in 1936.

The Last Revel in Printz Hall

Charles M. Skinner

A young fiddler accepts a job as caretaker of the lonely and reputedly haunted Printz Hall near Chester, Pennsylvania. His night in the abandoned mansion becomes considerably stranger once the music begins.

Edward Randolph's Portrait

Charles M. Skinner

An ominous portrait hangs in Boston's old Province House and is said to reveal its dreadful face before disasters. The figure is Edward Randolph, remembered by colonial legend as a betrayer of Massachusetts' liberties. 

The Headless Skeleton of Swamptown

Charles M. Skinner

Strange lights, witches, apparitions, and a headless figure haunt the folklore surrounding Swamptown, Rhode Island. Skinner collects several grisly local legends centered on a particularly unsettling human skull. 

Were-Wolves of Detroit

Charles M. Skinner

Old Detroit legends tell of witches, forbidden bargains, and men transformed into loups-garous. One tale follows a rejected suitor who turns to witchcraft in an attempt to carry away the woman he desires. 

Chapter

Author

Description

The Wood of the Dead

Algernon Blackwood

A traveler encounters a mysterious old man who invites him into a lonely wood said to receive those who are about to die. A quiet, dreamlike ghost story about death, compassion, and the thin boundary between the living and the dead.

The Night-Doings at "Deadman's"

Ambrose Bierce

On a freezing night in an abandoned mining camp, a lonely man welcomes a strange visitor and begins recounting the unsettling history of Deadman's Gulch. Bierce mixes ghost-story dread with his characteristic grim humor and irony. 

Shadow – A Parable

Edgar Allan Poe

Seven men hide from a terrible plague, drinking beside the body of a dead companion, when an impossible shadow appears among them. A brief, intensely atmospheric meditation on mortality and the inevitability of death. 

Kerfol

Edith Wharton

A visitor to an old estate in Brittany encounters a silent pack of mysterious dogs and discovers the tragic history of the house. Wharton's gothic tale combines an abusive marriage, murder, and supernatural revenge. 

In the Dark

Ronal Kayser

Alone in his chemical plant, Asa Gregg records a confession concerning a murder he thought he had successfully concealed. Something inside the factory, however, appears determined to undo both the crime and the laws of nature. Originally published in Weird Tales in 1936.

The Last Revel in Printz Hall

Charles M. Skinner

A young fiddler accepts a job as caretaker of the lonely and reputedly haunted Printz Hall near Chester, Pennsylvania. His night in the abandoned mansion becomes considerably stranger once the music begins.

Edward Randolph's Portrait

Charles M. Skinner

An ominous portrait hangs in Boston's old Province House and is said to reveal its dreadful face before disasters. The figure is Edward Randolph, remembered by colonial legend as a betrayer of Massachusetts' liberties. 

The Headless Skeleton of Swamptown

Charles M. Skinner

Strange lights, witches, apparitions, and a headless figure haunt the folklore surrounding Swamptown, Rhode Island. Skinner collects several grisly local legends centered on a particularly unsettling human skull. 

Were-Wolves of Detroit

Charles M. Skinner

Old Detroit legends tell of witches, forbidden bargains, and men transformed into loups-garous. One tale follows a rejected suitor who turns to witchcraft in an attempt to carry away the woman he desires. 

Chapter

Author

Description

The Wood of the Dead

Algernon Blackwood

A traveler encounters a mysterious old man who invites him into a lonely wood said to receive those who are about to die. A quiet, dreamlike ghost story about death, compassion, and the thin boundary between the living and the dead.

The Night-Doings at "Deadman's"

Ambrose Bierce

On a freezing night in an abandoned mining camp, a lonely man welcomes a strange visitor and begins recounting the unsettling history of Deadman's Gulch. Bierce mixes ghost-story dread with his characteristic grim humor and irony. 

Shadow – A Parable

Edgar Allan Poe

Seven men hide from a terrible plague, drinking beside the body of a dead companion, when an impossible shadow appears among them. A brief, intensely atmospheric meditation on mortality and the inevitability of death. 

Kerfol

Edith Wharton

A visitor to an old estate in Brittany encounters a silent pack of mysterious dogs and discovers the tragic history of the house. Wharton's gothic tale combines an abusive marriage, murder, and supernatural revenge. 

In the Dark

Ronal Kayser

Alone in his chemical plant, Asa Gregg records a confession concerning a murder he thought he had successfully concealed. Something inside the factory, however, appears determined to undo both the crime and the laws of nature. Originally published in Weird Tales in 1936.

The Last Revel in Printz Hall

Charles M. Skinner

A young fiddler accepts a job as caretaker of the lonely and reputedly haunted Printz Hall near Chester, Pennsylvania. His night in the abandoned mansion becomes considerably stranger once the music begins.

Edward Randolph's Portrait

Charles M. Skinner

An ominous portrait hangs in Boston's old Province House and is said to reveal its dreadful face before disasters. The figure is Edward Randolph, remembered by colonial legend as a betrayer of Massachusetts' liberties. 

The Headless Skeleton of Swamptown

Charles M. Skinner

Strange lights, witches, apparitions, and a headless figure haunt the folklore surrounding Swamptown, Rhode Island. Skinner collects several grisly local legends centered on a particularly unsettling human skull. 

Were-Wolves of Detroit

Charles M. Skinner

Old Detroit legends tell of witches, forbidden bargains, and men transformed into loups-garous. One tale follows a rejected suitor who turns to witchcraft in an attempt to carry away the woman he desires. 

Chapter

Author

Description

The Wood of the Dead

Algernon Blackwood

A traveler encounters a mysterious old man who invites him into a lonely wood said to receive those who are about to die. A quiet, dreamlike ghost story about death, compassion, and the thin boundary between the living and the dead.

The Night-Doings at "Deadman's"

Ambrose Bierce

On a freezing night in an abandoned mining camp, a lonely man welcomes a strange visitor and begins recounting the unsettling history of Deadman's Gulch. Bierce mixes ghost-story dread with his characteristic grim humor and irony. 

Shadow – A Parable

Edgar Allan Poe

Seven men hide from a terrible plague, drinking beside the body of a dead companion, when an impossible shadow appears among them. A brief, intensely atmospheric meditation on mortality and the inevitability of death. 

Kerfol

Edith Wharton

A visitor to an old estate in Brittany encounters a silent pack of mysterious dogs and discovers the tragic history of the house. Wharton's gothic tale combines an abusive marriage, murder, and supernatural revenge. 

In the Dark

Ronal Kayser

Alone in his chemical plant, Asa Gregg records a confession concerning a murder he thought he had successfully concealed. Something inside the factory, however, appears determined to undo both the crime and the laws of nature. Originally published in Weird Tales in 1936.

The Last Revel in Printz Hall

Charles M. Skinner

A young fiddler accepts a job as caretaker of the lonely and reputedly haunted Printz Hall near Chester, Pennsylvania. His night in the abandoned mansion becomes considerably stranger once the music begins.

Edward Randolph's Portrait

Charles M. Skinner

An ominous portrait hangs in Boston's old Province House and is said to reveal its dreadful face before disasters. The figure is Edward Randolph, remembered by colonial legend as a betrayer of Massachusetts' liberties. 

The Headless Skeleton of Swamptown

Charles M. Skinner

Strange lights, witches, apparitions, and a headless figure haunt the folklore surrounding Swamptown, Rhode Island. Skinner collects several grisly local legends centered on a particularly unsettling human skull. 

Were-Wolves of Detroit

Charles M. Skinner

Old Detroit legends tell of witches, forbidden bargains, and men transformed into loups-garous. One tale follows a rejected suitor who turns to witchcraft in an attempt to carry away the woman he desires. 

Chapter

Author

Description

The Wood of the Dead

Algernon Blackwood

A traveler encounters a mysterious old man who invites him into a lonely wood said to receive those who are about to die. A quiet, dreamlike ghost story about death, compassion, and the thin boundary between the living and the dead.

The Night-Doings at "Deadman's"

Ambrose Bierce

On a freezing night in an abandoned mining camp, a lonely man welcomes a strange visitor and begins recounting the unsettling history of Deadman's Gulch. Bierce mixes ghost-story dread with his characteristic grim humor and irony. 

Shadow – A Parable

Edgar Allan Poe

Seven men hide from a terrible plague, drinking beside the body of a dead companion, when an impossible shadow appears among them. A brief, intensely atmospheric meditation on mortality and the inevitability of death. 

Kerfol

Edith Wharton

A visitor to an old estate in Brittany encounters a silent pack of mysterious dogs and discovers the tragic history of the house. Wharton's gothic tale combines an abusive marriage, murder, and supernatural revenge. 

In the Dark

Ronal Kayser

Alone in his chemical plant, Asa Gregg records a confession concerning a murder he thought he had successfully concealed. Something inside the factory, however, appears determined to undo both the crime and the laws of nature. Originally published in Weird Tales in 1936.

The Last Revel in Printz Hall

Charles M. Skinner

A young fiddler accepts a job as caretaker of the lonely and reputedly haunted Printz Hall near Chester, Pennsylvania. His night in the abandoned mansion becomes considerably stranger once the music begins.

Edward Randolph's Portrait

Charles M. Skinner

An ominous portrait hangs in Boston's old Province House and is said to reveal its dreadful face before disasters. The figure is Edward Randolph, remembered by colonial legend as a betrayer of Massachusetts' liberties. 

The Headless Skeleton of Swamptown

Charles M. Skinner

Strange lights, witches, apparitions, and a headless figure haunt the folklore surrounding Swamptown, Rhode Island. Skinner collects several grisly local legends centered on a particularly unsettling human skull. 

Were-Wolves of Detroit

Charles M. Skinner

Old Detroit legends tell of witches, forbidden bargains, and men transformed into loups-garous. One tale follows a rejected suitor who turns to witchcraft in an attempt to carry away the woman he desires. 

Chapter

Author

Description

The Wood of the Dead

Algernon Blackwood

A traveler encounters a mysterious old man who invites him into a lonely wood said to receive those who are about to die. A quiet, dreamlike ghost story about death, compassion, and the thin boundary between the living and the dead.

The Night-Doings at "Deadman's"

Ambrose Bierce

On a freezing night in an abandoned mining camp, a lonely man welcomes a strange visitor and begins recounting the unsettling history of Deadman's Gulch. Bierce mixes ghost-story dread with his characteristic grim humor and irony. 

Shadow – A Parable

Edgar Allan Poe

Seven men hide from a terrible plague, drinking beside the body of a dead companion, when an impossible shadow appears among them. A brief, intensely atmospheric meditation on mortality and the inevitability of death. 

Kerfol

Edith Wharton

A visitor to an old estate in Brittany encounters a silent pack of mysterious dogs and discovers the tragic history of the house. Wharton's gothic tale combines an abusive marriage, murder, and supernatural revenge. 

In the Dark

Ronal Kayser

Alone in his chemical plant, Asa Gregg records a confession concerning a murder he thought he had successfully concealed. Something inside the factory, however, appears determined to undo both the crime and the laws of nature. Originally published in Weird Tales in 1936.

The Last Revel in Printz Hall

Charles M. Skinner

A young fiddler accepts a job as caretaker of the lonely and reputedly haunted Printz Hall near Chester, Pennsylvania. His night in the abandoned mansion becomes considerably stranger once the music begins.

Edward Randolph's Portrait

Charles M. Skinner

An ominous portrait hangs in Boston's old Province House and is said to reveal its dreadful face before disasters. The figure is Edward Randolph, remembered by colonial legend as a betrayer of Massachusetts' liberties. 

The Headless Skeleton of Swamptown

Charles M. Skinner

Strange lights, witches, apparitions, and a headless figure haunt the folklore surrounding Swamptown, Rhode Island. Skinner collects several grisly local legends centered on a particularly unsettling human skull. 

Were-Wolves of Detroit

Charles M. Skinner

Old Detroit legends tell of witches, forbidden bargains, and men transformed into loups-garous. One tale follows a rejected suitor who turns to witchcraft in an attempt to carry away the woman he desires.