"Cool Air" is a short story by the American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft, written in March 1926 and published in the March 1928 issue of Tales of Magic and Mystery. The narrator offers a story to explain why a "draught of cool air" is the most detestable thing to him. His tale begins in the spring of 1923, when he was looking for housing in New York City. He finally settles in a converted brownstone on West Fourteenth Street. Investigating a chemical leak from the floor above, he discovers that the inhabitant directly overhead is a strange, old, and reclusive physician. One day the narrator suffers a heart attack, and remembering that a doctor lives overhead, he climbs the stairs and meets Dr. Muñoz for the first time.
Adaptations (1)
Cool Air was adapted into a 1999 film.
Cool Air1999 · film · 43 min · dir. Bryan Moore · IMDb ↗IMDb6.4Randolph Carter moves into a squalid boarding house in the summer of 1925 where he becomes friends with a mysterious doctor who revives him after a near-fatal heart attack. Soon after Carter discovers the awful truth about the doctor, and the fragile line that separates life and death. Featuring a stellar performance by Jack Donner as Dr. Muñoz, Cool Air remains a haunting reminder of the power of the human will.
