A Night At An Inn

A Night At An Inn by Lord Dunsany is exactly the kind of horror potboiler that I was looking for this month. Like Eric Samuelsen's Inversion that inspired me, it is unapologetic about its horror roots and does not hide behind a mask of pomo cynicism.

But unlike Inversion, A Night At An Inn is nothing more than that scare. Adventurers have stolen a gem from an idol, and are now hunted by worshipers trying to get it back. Worshipers .... and SOMETHING MORE! (Cue the violent violins!)

Dunsany was a smash hit on Broadway in the early 20th century, and A Night At An Inn was hailed as "one of the best one-act plays ever written". A staged Twilight Zone, it speaks of a time before television and movies when the theatre was the way we told stories - stories that did not need to be deep or profound ... they just needed to entertain. It's a blast from another theater.

I think I miss that theatre.