While most colleges say they encourage innovation and try to foster an environment where freethinkers can doggedly pursue knowledge, it’s really just lip service to get the student body to fork over exorbitant fees. Granted, these colleges probably prepare you for the real world or whatever, maybe a soul crushing but decently paying job in an office checking software code, while the real collegiate "freethinkers" end up moving to Austin to pursue a career as an alternative barista assuming they don’t go insane and try to set fire to their own brains. Genius and insanity are two sides of the same coin, and ya gotta gamble if you wanna win. Even then, the "winners" have to get yelled at by the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons because his fair trade caramel latte is the worst fair trade caramel latte of all time.
However, Miskatonik University don’t give a fuck. When they say they encourage the dogged pursuit of knowledge, they mean it. If that entails going balls out batshit and offing a couple of TAs with a pick axe, or maybe tapping into the 9th dimension and getting ripped in half by a half octopus monster with an unpronounceable name, so be it. When you’re making an omelette that casts light upon the darker edges of the universe of human understanding, you’re going to break a couple of eggs. That’s just the way it goes.
Anyways, the lovely Barbara Crampton, in sciency mode since she’s wearing glasses and has her hair up in a bundle, is assigned a brand new nutball freshly escorted into the funny farm after telling a wild story about an experiment where a monster bit off a dude’s head. She can’t quite understand this sudden turn of madness, considering “his record at Miskatonik University was brilliant”. In most colleges, that means you work hard and pay attention, but at Miskatonik, it means you’re a dangerous fruitcake (in a good way).
Said decapatee is Greek playboy mad scientist Dr. Pretorius, who lets Jeffrey Combs do the sciency dirty work while he lounges around and pets his chest hair and indulges in some superfreak S&M shit. Combs finally manages to stimulate the pineal gland with a giant tuning fork to activate the sixth sense, which allows the stimulated to be able to see into an alternate dimension filled with creatures that surrounds us at all times but we’re too pinealy unstimulated to notice. It also allows interaction between the humans and the creatures, which explains the “head bitten off” thing. The stimulation of the gland also causes serious erotic overdrive, which later results in Barbara Crampton letting down her science hair and getting her own S&M superfreak on when she investigates Combs’ scientific claims. Granted, this unleashes the beasties again, but that’s a break even proposition as far as I’m concerned.
If I’ve learned anything from science fiction, it’s that scientific pursuit driven by crotch based ego is going to end in a catastrophic fall from grace. However, here it’s practically a plus. Pretorius has a hedonistic pursuit for the erotic high, and while his mind is getting its rocks off in an alternate dimension, his body is back in reality being gooey and sometimes turning into a worm monster thing. Ultimately, the mind is the pleasure center of the body, so you could say that Pretorius cut out the middle man by leaving his body behind and spreading his pleasure center across the dangerous exoticsm of interdimensional superfreakdom. Either that or the guy is fucking crazy. Frankly, it’s hard to tell with these Lovecraftian things.
So, head eating monsters and worm creatures that fly around and people being turned into brain sucking freakazoids might seem like a bad thing at first glance, but leave it to our good friend Howard Phillips to think outside of the box. Those that live in the box don’t realize that the box is a figment of their limited imagination, and therefore label those that think outside of the box as lunatics. I’ve said it many times; if you’re gonna doggedly believe in something giant and invisible, don’t pick something as lame and boring as a giant box. Maybe go for a giant heavy metal dragon that shoots lasers out of its eyes. Granted, everyone will laugh at you, but I’d rather be laughed at for my insanity than respected for being boring.
