Max Ernst's "Temptation of Saint Anthony"

Since I finally came across a better copy of this painting, I thought I'd re-post it with added thoughts. As you can guess, I love this painting--its effect, however, I've never been able to explain. There's something cartoonish about the image--particularly Saint Anthony--and the monsters seem horrific: pawing, tearing, torturing and crawling over the Saint with their vorpal tendrils. Yet there is something oddly robotic, unnatural about the setting--the landscape fashioned with phobia: spider webs, monstrous edifices, stark eroticism seeming to assault Anthony. Even the pool seems polluted with disgust and revulsion. I love those ominous clouds, creeping and crawling, seeming to engulf the sky with an eerie-ness. This painting evokes the deepest inner horrors, like a Lovecraft story--I can't help but feel there is a connection between the Surrealists and the Weird Pulp writers. An inkling, right or wrong?