The Horror at Red Hook

"The Horror at Red Hook" is a lively dramatization of one of HPL's most controversial works. A Brooklyn police detective learns the dark secrets of the city's most dangerous neighborhood, where mysterious immigrants conspire with a crazed old occultist to satisfy their ancient god in nightmare caverns below the urban squalor.

“The Horror at Red Hook” is a fascinating lens through which to look at Lovecraft himself during one of the most interesting chapters of his life. In the spring of 1924, Lovecraft suddenly moved to New York and married Sonia Haft Greene, a Jewish milliner and businesswoman with whom he’d been exchanging correspondence for some time. Lovecraft’s move to New York was perhaps the greatest upheaval of his entire life. Lovecraft was profoundly uncomfortable with the many "foreigners" who surrounded him in Brooklyn, but in many ways it was HPL himself who was the immigrant — leaving behind his home “country” of Providence, and living in a community where he felt like an outsider. “The Horror at Red Hook” was written in August of 1925. By that time, HPL was living alone in a dismal flat and had suffered a burglary. After less than a year and a half of marriage, his wife had moved to Cincinnati to pursue business opportunities. He was a stranger in a strange land, isolated and miserable, and perhaps he used this story to vent his unhappiness with his wife, his neighbors, and the chaos around him.

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Props

To enhance your listening pleasure and take you deeper into the story, as always we include bonus prop documents. The CD version of the episode comes with:

  • A page from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle with news of Red Hook kidnappings and neighborhood map
  • A page from Detective Malone's personnel file, with notes from his psychiatrist
  • An article from "The Channel" with an article by Robert Suydam about his research into the Yezidi
  • The identity certificate of one of Malone's immigrant informers
  • Track Listing

    1. Opening 3:50
    2. The Patient 5:16
    3. The Rookie 6:29
    4. The Informants 14:55
    5. The Scholar 10:38
    6. The Doctor 8:01
    7. The Bridegroom 15:21
    8. Closing 1:21
    Total Runtime 66:00

    Cast and Crew

    Leslie Baldwin...Augusta Corlear
    Sean Branney...Detective Malone, Capt. Falmouth
    Kacey Camp...Myrna, Old Woman
    Dan Conroy...Erskine Blackwell
    Mike Dalager...Loathsome Immigrant, Bourgos' Brother, Asif, High Priest
    Lucas Dixon...Agent Sutter, First Mate Pimm
    Matt Foyer...Second Mate Morgan
    Andrew Leman...Maurice Van Brunt, Cop, Dr. Colson
    Jacob Andrew Lyle...Jimmy the Snitch, Vile Foreigner, Horrible Child
    Barry Lynch...Sarge McKenna, Robert Suydam
    John A. McKenna...John, Capt. O'Hara, Wild Bill Lovett
    Kevin Stidham...Dr. Peterson, Officer Perkins
    Josh Thoemke...Announcer
    Time Winters...Dr. Lieber
    Tamara Hembree, Ruth Horne, Tristan Jusola-Sanders, Umberto Lenzi, Tobias Nilsson, James Vincent, Tom Woodger...Foreigners, Cultists

    Based on the story by H. P. Lovecraft
    Radio adaptation by Sean Branney and Andrew Leman
    Original music by Troy Sterling Nies
    "Bub-L-Pep Jingle" written by Andrew Leman
    arranged and performed by Harald Lindell and Kathleen Demarest
    Audio engineering by Daniel McMains
    Engineering assistance by Adam Pardee
    Cover and disc illustrations by Darrell Tutchton
    Bonus props by Andrew Leman and Sean Branney
    Original interior illustration courtesy of Jon Arfstrom
    Produced by Sean Branney and Andrew Leman

    Script, Liner Notes & More

    We are pleased to offer replica reprints of a number of classic issues of Weird Tales magazine, including the issue from January of 1927 which contains the original publication of "The Horror at Red Hook."

    Weird Tales

    For your enjoyment, we present free PDF downloads of the final recording script and liner notes of The Horror at Red Hook. Note: this script is only for use for reading along with Dark Adventure Radio Theatre; no performance of the script may be made without written consent of the HPLHS.

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    Episode 9
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    Episode 10
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    Dagon: War of Worlds
    Episode 12
    Dagon: War of Worlds
    Liner Notes
    Liner Notes
    The Horror at Red Hook