Houdini & Lovecraft: The Ghost Writer
A rousing horror/sci-fi adventure that unites two of the most influential figures of the early twentieth century: the great magician Harry Houdini and the renowned horror writer H.P. Lovecraft.
It’s 1924, an era of emerging technology, but also of spiritualism and magic. Harry Houdini, the great conjurer and mystifier, well known as a psychic debunker, is hired by the obnoxiously wealthy Caswell Bullock to put together a team to investigate a purportedly haunted mansion Bullock owns in the hill country of western Massachusetts. Meanwhile, horror writer H.P. Lovecraft is down on his luck and struggling to pay the hospital bills for treatment of his wife, Sonia, who is seriously ill.
Houdini drafts the reluctant Lovecraft to join his team as his “Ghost Writer,” to chronicle the magician's adventures in the paranormal. There is little love between the two vastly different men who come to have entirely opposing views of the happenings in the strange mansion. But their investigation triggers events that cause the team to become trapped in the mansion, and its members soon find themselves under attack by deadly invisible forces. Houdini, the professional skeptic, and Lovecraft, the believer, become a 1920's version of Scully and Mulder, and their contrasting natures and styles form the personal backdrop to an adventure that could cost the lives of their team as well as their own. Lovecraft's research ultimately uncovers the truth of the place, and it's no mere ghost story. But can Lovecraft, the believer, convince the skeptical Houdini of the real danger before they are all destroyed?
Ron Wilkerson
Ron Wilkerson has written and produced multiple episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager, Stargate SG-1 and VH1's Strange Frequency. He was nominated for an Emmy as a part of the writing team on the seventh season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. He made a cameo appearance in the Stargate SG-1 fifth season episode "Wormhole X-Treme!" in which he played a studio executive.
Originally from upstate New York, he worked as head of marketing in music companies MXR, Roland and Alesis, and ran a successful Beverly Hills advertising agency before turning to screenwriting. He occasionally teaches classes in screenwriting at UCLA Extension where he was awarded "Screenwriting Instructor of the Year."