Sardonic Tales: “Dream House”

A few years ago, I did a thing where I picked a movie that would make a good double-feature with one of the stories in my then-newest collection, Painted Monsters. This year, for the Countdown to Halloween, I thought it might be fun to do the same thing, but with my now-newest collection, Guignol & Other Sardonic Tales.

As the name might imply, Guignol is not as beholden to movies as Painted Monsters was, but this is me, after all, so there are cinematic threads running all through the films. And even when there aren’t, there are plenty of opportunities for me to find movies that will make a good pairing. So, without further ado, here’s the first of the stories in Guignol & Other Sardonic Tales, and I’ll be doing another every day until Halloween.

“Dream House” begins at the 2014 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, and follows the unnamed narrator (who is me) in my efforts to track down some “lost” episodes of a fictional Southern Gothic soap opera. As such, the story is crammed to the absolute gills with nods to various movies and TV shows, from Curse of the Crimson Altar to Virgin Witch to The Lurking Fear to that “Pickman’s Model” episode of Night Gallery and way, way, way beyond.

Honestly, the best double-bill with “Dream House” would probably be an episode of any of the TV shows that it mentions, whether that’s Night Gallery or Renegade. Put an old TV show on in the background while you read, preferably in a hotel room, and you’ve got the “Dream House” magic going. But I didn’t say I was going to recommend ambiance, I said I was gonna pair movies, and the movie I’d pair with this story is probably John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness, another flick that gets referenced in the text, and has a similar logline to boot.