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Episode 482 - Enoch (Patreon)

Published:
2020-01-10 04:41:04
Imported:
2021-07

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Content

It's Blochtober in January! Tune in as we dig into a little story by Robert Bloch called Enoch!

Special thanks to our reader Levi Nunez. Check out Loot the Body!

Here's that Robert Bloch album Gravely we we mentioned.

Next up: IT! 

Comments

Anonymous

Chad, Chad, it's not the "Roaring 'Twenties." It's the "RAWRing 'Twenties." THE AGE OF FURRIES HAS BEGUN!

Anonymous

"It always starts the same way..." "HPPodcraft.com! [shriek]" I see what you did there.

Jeff C. Carter

I’m a fan of stories that start with insanity as a plausible cause for the character’s behavior, and the tension created by exploring what is real vs surreal. When the aberrant thing in question becomes more interesting than a delusion, however, I like the story to pick a lane and deliver the supernatural goods. Enoch the brain walker, with his secret trove of severed heads, is cooler than any split personality or psychotic break.

Anonymous

This is one that I missed, too. Thank you so much for introducing me to Enoch. I think this brings us back to the issue of responsibility for your actions once more. The DA wants Seth to be responsible for killing people and doesn't want insanity to muddy up a clear case of murder be wrong and murderers be punished but serious. But we know that it is muddy. We know that Enoch is making Seth do these things. That Seth really believes that even if Enoch is a figment of his imagination. So... Do we punish Seth as a straight-up murderer? Do we put him in treatment? Even more challenging: What do we do when Seth has been cured (either through treating his mental health issues or exorcism) and is now fully in command of his faculties? Perhaps he remembers all the killing he did and is haunted by it forever - or finds ways (Act of Killing) to justify it all. Worst of all, he honestly doesn't even remember killing anybody so has no true remorse but folks don't believe that he doesn't remember... Yeah, this story is a can of worms inside a can of worms.

Anonymous

I don't understand why Enoch didn't give Seth his prize. He kills for him and he should have his prize but we don't see it. That part made me doubt if the story world was the prize he got. He was afraid of getting caught and Enoch makes him live an escape fantasy. Maybe he wakes and he is in the swamp, again.

Anonymous

Boy that's one I had forgotten about. As always thanks for reminding me of delightful stories I had read ages ago. I really think you have to go with the supernatural Chad, especially when you get to the brainless, hole-in-the-head D.A. If you are going to keep tossing out "But maybe he took a spoon or something off the guy and killed him and and.." well you really start sounding like seasons 1 - 3 Scully spouting "scientific" explanations while the werewolf is standing behind her.

Anonymous
>>30963269

Why do you think responsibility issue is muddy? What punishment Seth should have is a hard question but I think he is responsible. DA didn't kill anybody. So not killing was an option.

Anonymous

Thanks for covering this one! What a great story of the could-be-magic-could-be-mundane kind!

Anonymous

I think I may have actually read this one long ago, and just forgot about it. Personally, I prefer the literal interpretation of events. Enoch is a neat little imp from beyond the stars, it's a bit laborious to come up with a mundane explanation of the DA's death, and also...saying it's mundane would render the whole tale problematic needlessly. There's already too damn many stories out there exclusively painting plural folk as inherently violent, dangerous, or dysfunctional. Like Psycho. We really don't need any more of that stereotype in the world. I'll stick with the brain-eating familiar.

Anonymous

I agree with shoggy. I personally am fed up with modern horror often ending with "oups, it was all in his head". It's such a cop out where there is opportunity for imaginative originality. As for this particular story I feel Chad is really reaching with the insanity push. Just because we didn't get a third party view in the end, there is even less evidence for this to be insanity. Maybe he never left his cell? True, and maybe he's just a brain in a vat and the universe doesn't exist? In my mind, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes a scary story is just a scary story and not a comment on the human condition. I think the real question is what Chad ISN'T telling us. Has big pharma gotten to him to push more antidepressants!? 😜

Anonymous
>>30973263

I like the movie "Upstream Color" which plays with the idea of something real that makes you look insane particularly well.

Anonymous

Team Shoggy as well. The idea this is an unreliable author is a bridge, two tunnels and a walking path (with a beautiful vista) too far. I don’t mind a story making me think but when I have to make up back story or third party story to somehow justify what at face value is a weird tale? Nah. Cigar is a cigar and this is a little brain eating dude.

Anonymous

Great show, as always. All I know is I'm completely bummed out that Seth eventually disclosed that Enoch didn't like its host to wear hats. Because up until that point I had been picturing Seth in a different awesome gigantic hat every day; Monday stovepipe Abe Lincoln hat, Tuesday a giant Napoleon hat, Wednesday a comically oversize foam cowboy hat, etc.

Anonymous
>>30981887

I don't know about you, but I'm going to start wearing gigantic hats, and I'll explain to my neighbors that it's so they don't have to worry about whether I have a tiny invisible demon living on my head.

Anonymous
>>30969457

Yes, I agree. And I think you guys are mistaken to say that it's not really a "weird tale." I think the structure of the story is that it begins in classic uncanny fashion, with deliberate ambiguity about whether the narrator can be believed or not. But the DA's death is the ironic turn: his arrogant skepticism about Seth's explanation is punished when it's revealed that Enoch is in fact real. That initial ambiguity is important for the effect of the story. HPL sometimes goes for this effect too, in stories like "Pickman's Model," though (as he himself admitted) he was never really good at pulling it off. HPL instead tended to end up with a different -- but still horrific -- effect, where the reader knows the narrator's comforting rationalizations can't be true. If you imagine how the story would be structured if it were written from the DA's perspective, I think it would look a lot more like many Lovecraft stories.

Anonymous

Now that you have gained the ascendancy of "Enoch", you MUST progress to the CLIMAX of "Cassius", by the author Whitehead. There is NO escaping this!

Anonymous

I'm reading Psycho right now. (The scene with him getting rid of the car in the swamp is there btw). I've always been a big fan of the movie but I will never have the experience of enjoying this story without spoilers. Even the 1st time I watched it the reveal was well known to me. I envy anyone who got to go into that one cold. What the book does well is getting into the internal thoughts of Norman Bates and, I have to admit, way more creepy and sad and unsettling than I expected.

Anonymous

This was a really great one. Am I crazy or has this been adapted for a film? Feels like I've seen something with similar beats. If not, then somebody should get on that. Or am I thinking of BOB from Twin Peaks? Enoch is kinda BOB-like. I've heard that the Black Lodge stuff is from Crowley's novel Moonchild, though that's from an unreliable source. Wouldn't be surprising if Lynch and/or Frost were up on their Robert Bloch. Maybe they even named their killer after Bloch?

Anonymous

Really enjoyed this episode. A good, creepy story which gave rise to some interesting talking points. However, I feel part of your discussion was based on a flawed assumption. It's a popular misconception that being commited to a mental institution is a 'softer' option than prison. In most legal systems, a successful plea of insanity will lead to the defendant being institutionalised for an indefinite period of time. Proving that you have been cured of your criminal insanity is no easy task and judges are likely to err on the side of caution rather than release a dangerous individual back into society. In most cases, this leads to a longer period of incarceration than a straight guilty verdict would have incurred. Unless you are facing a death sentence, a plea of insanity is rarely a wise legal defence.

Anonymous

Can I just say, it's a real missed opportunity that the band went with the spelling Loot rather than Lute when they named themselves Loot the Body

Anonymous
>>31021101

Not to forget that the mental illness rate among prisoners is outrageously high.

Anonymous
>>31014467

Hmm - well, there is the 1967 Amicus portmanteau film “Torture Garden”, scripted by Bloch himself with one section titled “Enoch” and allegedly based on this short story. I say ‘allegedly’ as, whilst I’ve not seen it, it seems to be adapted from it in the same way as some of the Corman Poes, which is to say rather liberally judging from the synopsis from Wikipedia: In Enoch, a greedy playboy (Michael Bryant) takes advantage of his dying uncle (Maurice Denham), and falls under the spell of a man-eating cat.

Anonymous
>>30964225

I want to know why the DA had a spoon on him. His last thoughts, “Damn... it... knew I... shoulda finished... bowl of gaspacho... before... going in...”

Anonymous

I definitely felt that the jailbreak was a 'dream sequence' akin to "Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce. Poor Seth is gonna fry but his illness gave him an escape and he'll live in that reality until the state stops his heart...or, as in Owl Creek Bridge, the noose cracks his neck.

Anonymous

Ha! The part of the story where Seth pushes the car into the quicksand totally reminded me of a scene from some movie I'd seen awhile ago, and then when listening to the episode, I realized that what I was thinking of was the scene from Psycho.

Anonymous

I really enjoyed this story. It was well written and a fun puzzle. When Bloch is very good he is very, very good and when he is bad, he's horrid. This was very, very good Bloch. As always I enjoyed the discussion. Question: Is it just me, or did Seth seem to become more clever but less sweet as the story went on? More in control? Given that I chose to think Enoch was real, I think that could have been part of the deal. On the other hand, Maybe Seth begins naive and is simply honest to himself about what he could expect from other people. As he gains experience and makes decisions for himself, he gains self assuredness. My personal preference, of course, is for Enoch to have put those brain harvesting skills to good use.

Anonymous

Got it - moral of the story - Eugenics.

Anonymous

Loved this episode! I find this story very similar to the 1988 film Brain Damage. In it, a small parasitic creature named Aylmer hides on its human host, a guy named Brian. The creature feeds on human brains and compels Brian to venture out at night in order for it to feed on various unsuspecting people. It secretes an addictive hallucinagen into Brian’s brain afterwards to “reward” him. Of course, it’s got many of the hallmarks of a typical late 80’s “schlock” movie, but it’s pretty interesting and entertaining. I think there’s a strong possibility that “Enoch” might have been the inspiration for this movie, but I’ve been unable to confirm whether or not this is the case.

Anonymous

This one really reminded me of Brain Damage, and Basket Case as well. I’m assuming Frank Henenlotter has definitely read this.

Anonymous

"There's a tramp walking down, the Aylesworthy Road..." Very close to being the "Aylesbury Pike" of Lovecraft.

Anonymous
>>31079648

Wow, I knew this reminded me of something and Brain Damage is exactly it.

Anonymous

that opening line from the reader reminds me of the classic concept album Operation Mindcrime by queensrych. Not sure of its relevance, but the biblical Enoch is 'translated' by god. it only happens a few times in the bible, some apocrypha, and Jewish holy texts. It may be the only instance recognized by the Roman catholic orthodoxy (I'm not 100% on that). Its, in some sense, different from being taken alive to heaven. It's almost 'weird' in our sense, as he doesn't die, but how does one physically enter heaven? also, the choice of the word 'translated' itself implies that one is converted or changed in some way, maybe into the closest analogue possible (ala linguistic translation). In Enoch's case, he's also elevated above many of the Angels (given some absurd number of eyes and wings, hundreds or thousands). ostensibly because he is so devout, loyal, and holy (it's all old testament stuff, when god was a bit more like Greek or Roman dieties). I'm not sure how relevant any of this is, but...

Anonymous

I can see some weak connection in that the Enoch of this story seems to at first be non-physical being of spirit (when he is initially given to the DA), then becomes physical (when he blows out the DAs head), a sort of reverse biblical 'translation'?