I do believe most of us at least can agree that H. P. Lovecraft was one of the most influential, if not the most influential, writers of the twentienth century. His writings have influenced other writers like Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith among his other contemporaries and modern writers. As well his influence has reach into various forms of media.
Movies: It has been interesting the many different takes on Lovecraft's writings in the movies. Few movies that have tried to adapt Lovecraft's stories have been very good. HERBERT WEST: RE-ANIMATOR has interestingly been one of the most entertaining although based on a story Lovecraft himself personally hated (he wrote it according to a preset outline to be published as a series by another publisher) and would rather have not been remembered for it. Of course there was THE RESSURECTED which I found to be an interesting adaption of THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD even if the climax was a little weak.
Aside from the Good, we have a plethora of movies that fall into the Bad (DIE, MONSTER, DIE) and the downright Ugly (THE DUNWICH HORROR, CTHULHU MANSION).
Games: 25 years ago, Chaosium published the CALL OF CTHULHU Role-playing Game and certainly introduced a new base of fans to Lovecraft as well giving an interesting game to the old base of fans. Unfortunately Chaosium became full of themselves and began to treat any of their own work as canonical as any of Lovecraft's. This basically made their game not much different than a movie adaptation as a player not that familiar with Lovecraft would have difficulty distinguishing what was and was not Lovecraft. Although, despite this, it is still an interesting game.
Many computer games also incorporated elements of Lovecraft into their stories: ALONE IN THE DARK; Chaosium's own SHADOW OF THE COMET; as well many interactive fiction games.
Although I personally love any Lovecraft story, my personal favorite is THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE.
Does anyone have any favorite Lovecraft stories; favorite movie; least favorite movie; gaming experience; or television and radio shows that show the influence of Lovecraft.
Howard Phillips Lovecraft: born August 20, 1890 in Providence, RI; died March 15, 1937 (in body only).
Quite. I have to figure out what to do as my senior thesis for my Philosophy of Literature class, and I've narrowed it down to deciding between Lovecraft or 70's grindhouse and exploitation movies.
I never really liked Mr. Lovecraft's writing to be honest, but boy were his monsters great!
Even though I am a huge fan of Lovecraft, I am actually rooting for you to do the Grindhouse thesis. It should be a way cool subject.
Well now I do respect your opinion [blasphemer...( : ]. Lovecraft's writing was analytical, introspective, and well layered. Although for some this brought about the response, "Could you get to the point?". For me, I find his writing to be a journey within the story itself. Lovecraft's style of the obsessive storyteller certainly influenced many writers, as well his characters preoccupation with documenting events lent an air of authenticity to the horror. Lovecraft was a slow writer who found his composition to be of utmost importance, in contrast to Robert E. Howard who loved to tell a story and embellish it as well, but without too much concern about the composition. Each of their styles worked well for them. Howard had one edge over Lovecraft in that he could imitate another writer's style (although he had his own style); Lovecraft's interest was in doing the best he could at all times, which shows in his work, even if it took him a while. Consequently, Howard wrote a larger volume of work than Lovecraft in a much shorter lifetime (Howard committed suicide at the age of 30). Lovecraft had a great respect for young Howard, even though Howard's grammar and composition would at times irritate him. Both are favorites of mine and come from a great age of pulp fiction writing. Many of the greatest science fiction, fantasy, adventure, and horror writers came from this era. Another interesting thing is that a lot of these writers corresponded with each other and even shared ideas. This may well have influenced each of them as writers and improved their craft.
I received a Night Gallery DVD set for Christmas. One episode had Carl Reiner as a obnoxious college professor giving a lecture on "mythical gods." All of them are Lovecraft's monsters. Two students in the class are named Lovecraft and Delerth.
Go for the Caine/Hackman theory
I enjoy the entire Weird Tales crew. Lovecraft, Howard, Smith and so on. They all influenced one another for better or for worse, and, while Lovecraft may be the most recognizeably influential in terms of modern horror cinema and storytelling, let's not forget that he was in turn influenced by his fellow writers. All of them have written great work. They've written miserable work (read Lovecraft's "Arthur Jermyn" if you don't believe me). Lovecraft at his best is among my favorite 20th-century literature. My personal favorite Lovecraft story would probably be The Lurking Fear. Scared the hell out of me. So did The Thing in the Moonlight, which was a remarkably interesting piece of work, though fragmentary.
Movies based on Lovecraft (and Howard, for that matter - look at Conan, then read some of the stories and see how completely they missed the mark - thanks for that screenplay, Oliver Stone) fare less well. I can't remember any that are really good. "Re-animator" was fun, but it wasn't the story. The middle 45 minutes of "Dagon" are a pretty much dead-on adaptation of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth." It's the beginning and the end you have to look past.
By far the best piece of Lovecraftian media I've seen is "Eternal Darkness," one of the few reasons to own a Nintendo Gamecube. The first game in some years by Silicon Knights, the crew behind the story of Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain on PSX, "Eternal Darkness" covers just about every aspect of Lovecraft's fiction. Dream worlds, ancient evil, spooky New England houses, dark family legacies and so on. The game's storyline covers several centuries, and you play as about twelve or so characters in different settings, from a Dutch settler in 1800's Rhode Island to a firefighter in the Middle East during the Gulf War, and everything connects perfectly in the end. Highly recommended, and happens to be about the cheapest game on the system for some reason at $12 or so.
I like "The Statement of Randolph Carter" for it's staccato punch. Obviously, I like "The Cats of Ulthar" as well. ;)
I remember standing in line at the theatre to see "Re-Animator" when it first came out. I was so excited; I had been anticipating the release. The girl I took saw a friend her boyfriend, so we hung out with them. Neither of the young ladies had ever heard of Lovecraft. So, the other dude and I were trying to compare Stephen King (whom they both dug) to Lovecraft. It was an interesting conversation.
One thing I've noticed in several Lovecraft stories, though. He builds and builds and builds the expectation of 'terror' to such a height that there are cases that the climax just fails to live up to the level created for it. Take for example "At the Mountains of Madness." I like the story, but I have to be honest: he ran out of adjectives after about five pages and just rehashed things like "unspeakable" far too many times. By the end, I find myself so distracted by the notion that there is nothing he could write that would do THIS level of suspense building justice, and just feel, well, kind of let down.
Enter "The Statement of Randolph Carter:" The story is over DURING the building, and I think his type of rising action is very well suited to this sort of almost unexpected climax.
As for movies, it's been a while since I've seen 'From Beyond,' but I recall it being pretty good. Here's a link to one review:
http://www.b-independent.com/reviews/frombeyond.htm
Has anyone mentioned Haunted Palace with Vincent Price as Charles Dexter Ward. Corman attatched the Poe name and title to it at the insistence of AIP's marketing.
>Many computer games also incorporated elements of Lovecraft into their
>stories: ALONE IN THE DARK; Chaosium's own SHADOW OF THE COMET; as
>well many interactive fiction games.
Not the least of which is The Lurking Horror by Infocom. Also, another Lovecraft inspired IF game is Theater, which is freely downloadable from the IF Archive (http://www.ifarchive.org/) in the Games/Zcode directory. You'll also need an interpreter such as Frotz (which will also run all the old Infocom games, provided you have the data files).
>I received a Night Gallery DVD set for Christmas. One episode had Carl Reiner
>as a obnoxious college professor giving a lecture on "mythical gods." All of
>them are Lovecraft's monsters. Two students in the class are named Lovecraft
>and Delerth.
There's another episode, Pickman's Model. An artist paints horrible creatures that everyone assumes come from his imagination. Actually, he just paints what he knows...
While we're on the topic of Lovecraft's scope of influence, anyone else read Brian Lumley's "Hero of Dreams" series? Damn good stuff, like most of Lumley's work. Really, I think the only Lumley-authored things I thought were a bit lacking were Demogorgon, and to a lesser extent, House of Doors.
John L: I know Night Gallery did several Lovecraft stories. What was funny about this one was how it was a sort of homage to Lovecraft and his friends.
I quite liked the finale of Dagon (the movie). Up to then, the movie has moments of great silliness (except, of course the meeting with Uxia), but the whole sacrifice scene and the ending have a kind of Lovecraftian madness to it. It reminded me vaguely of 'The Festival'.
As for Lovecraft himself, his style takes a bit geting used to, but once you are there, it is gripping.
I discobered Lovecraft some years ago. My sister gave to me a compilation of his work for my birthday and loved it. Soon after, I started noticing how influential his work had been in other shapes of fiction, like movies or literature. Even Stephen King has a great Lovecraft-kian short story, De Vermis Mysteries.
I can agree that his climaxes are often weak, but is one of those cases of "it's not the goal, it's the journey". Lovecraft describes like nobody else the voyage from reality to absolute horror and madness like nobody else can. His detailed, deliberately archaic and slow - burning style is perfect for such stories. If you can, read his essays on writting fiction, they are very ilustrating on why did he chose that approach over others.
Probably my favourite Lovecraft is "The Mount", a not very known short novel about some archeologists that decides to investigate the regular appearences of a ghost in an isolate mount. Very original story, and top-notch writing.
Over the years, I've read quite a bit of Lovecraft and August Derleth. I do agree that some of his climaxes are a complete let down, but it's just as Neville said, it's the journey. I recently read an article about Lovecraft on forteantimes.com that really gave quite a bit of insight into him.
It seems that the man didn't believe in anything occult, which is quite astounding considering his body of work. It's amazing that he conjured up such creatures and yet didn't believe in anything occult.
His work has obviously influenced much of the horror genre over the years. Hellboy was extremely Lovecraftian, and ID Software's "Quake" is heavily based on Lovecraft lore. If I'm not mistaken, the final boss of that game was the Shrub-n***arath(sp?).
Although August Derleth is no Lovecraft, I have found myself getting just as entertained by some of his works as I have Lovecraft. He seemed to understand Lovecraft's works as well as anyone and made some great additions to the lore.
Lovecraft's agnosticism certainly appears to have been a factor in the essense of his writing. Many writers who believed in the occult often used the fantastical within their stories. While this works within fantasy stories, it has a tendency to become the unbelieveable, and thus, the unfrightening within horror stories. With Lovecraft's tendency toward rationalization within his characters offset by their ever edging closer to the brink of insanity gave a feeling of actuality to his stories. Even when it was the fantastical, there was a feeling that something was happening, real or imagined. Of course Lovecraft's talent as a writer contributed, as his services were used to revise other writers work to make them more publishable. Even those revisions are often considered to be part of the body of his work.
My favorite has to be The Hound. I love the way he described the personality and motives of the graverobbers. I think that was the story that showed me just how capable he was at painting a picture using words.
>Lovecraft's agnosticism certainly appears to have been a factor in the essense of his writing.
hm... i had the occasion to make son searches about the man and his pieces and i often found out that Lovecraft was said to really belive in his own mythology.
lots of people are actually leading cults on it (based on so-said ancestral writings and manuscripts) and i dont really think he was so...agnostic.thats another point of view maybe
peace
Agnosticism is not another term for atheism. Agnosticism does not deny a belief in the supernatural or spirituality, rather that such cannot be proven. An agnostic is often a skeptic who might actually like to believe but cannot bring themselves to that point without evidence.
Agnosticism, as it's name implies, is the opposite, or anti, of gnosis. Gnosticism implies knowledge but makes the presumption that the source of that knowledge is god; hence, the existence of god can be proven through that knowledge, provided that proof in this context has different meanings. Agnosticism does not presume the source, and as such, the knowledge must be proven. Atheism denies the source, and as such, the knowledge can never be proven as it has no basis in fact.
Lovecraft had a belief in the supernatural and probably in an omnipresence but was not a believer in either; there is a distinct difference. This came across in his stories as something which felt believable because he did not use definable sources, such as demons from hell, which would require a belief in such for a reader to feel it was real.
With regard to a belief in early advanced civilizations (Ancient Astronauts, Chariots of the Gods, etc), Lovecraft had written about such beliefs in his letters to others. Although he did not believe in his own mythos, he did not deny that it had it's root in his own beliefs.
Please be aware that my summary of isms of belief is an over-simplification of complex topics.
I actually enjoyed both the film and the story of The Dunwich Horror, and like the stories The Rats in The Walls, The Colour Out of Space, Dreams in the Witchhouse, and Rackham's(?) Model -- doing from memory here --
Now that special effects have advanced to some degree, I do think that a serious horror film adaptation of Lovecraft's work in a big budget way can't be too far off.
I mean, look at Lemony Snickett -- Dat be Lovecraft Lite
peter johnson/denny crane
Even with big budgets and great special effects they will still run into a lot of the problems that have happened before: re-writing his stories to the point where they have little if any resemblance to the original; and trying to fit it to a cliched horror movie. Several of Lovecraft's works were narrated second hand, especially CALL OF CTHULHU, trying to do them from a first hand perspective becomes a difficult task. I think that what happens to the wife in THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE loses some of it's impact if they try to show it rather than use the narrator's perspective (could be wrong). I did rather like the PRIME SUSPECT movies and especially the way they had of making a murder feel that much more horrible by not showing the actual murder, but rather preluding the murder and then having the forensics person go through and describe the events as they transpired. What the viewer could imagine was more horrible than what they could have probably put on the screen and each viewer has a different perspective of what is disturbing to them and can project that into the scene for an individual experience; not too different from reading. If Lovecrafts monsters are defined on screen, that is the only interpretation and fails if it is not found to be frightening. Aside from that though, I think it would be interesting to see Ridley Scott do a take on Lovecraft. Any directors you feel could do a good job?
>Rackham's(?) Model
Pickman's Model
> Aside from that though, I think it would be interesting to see
> Ridley Scott do a take on Lovecraft. Any directors you feel
> could do a good job?
I second the Ridley Scott motion, that would rock mightily. That aside, I think Stuart Gordon and John Carpenter have both done excellent jobs, although Carpenter's "In the Mouth of Madness" was inspired by Lovecraft but not based on any particular one of his stories. David Fincher could do some interesting things with a Lovecraft story. The extended version of Alien 3 had some vague Lovecrafty undertones to it.
I agree that it would be interesting to see John Carpenter do a Lovecraft story. He has proven that he can make an effective thriller without having to throw cheap scares at the audience. His work on THE THING also shows how well (in my opinion) that he can work with the heavy use of effects and not get lost in those effects. I could imagine other directors trying to do THE THING and focusing too much attention on the effects that the story becomes lost in them. Carpenter never allowed that to happen.
JohnL wrote:
> >Rackham's(?) Model
>
> Pickman's Model
I too was curious about that. Was beginning to draw up Orson Scott Card/Lovecraft comparisons.
As for a good director to helm a Lovecraft flick.....I believe as Bro R said that Fincher would be a great person to do so. Fincher has proven that he has a unique imagination when it comes to film and knows what he's doing. I can't imagine someone doing any better than him.
The only problem that I see with a "big budget" version of Lovecraft's work is that the creatures wouldn't be scary. When you read Lovecraft, you create the creatures yourself. You make them into what would scare you.
Now think about what Hollywood would do. Something tells me that a 90ft CGI version of the following, just wouldn't work:
http://www.toyvault.com/cthulhu/plush_cthulhu.html
I definitely agree that one of Lovecraft's skills was getting his readers' imagination going, creating a hazy image of the unfathomable horrors awaiting those unfortunate enough to be the main characters of his stories. Making that into a movie takes a good bit of restraint and finesse.
One of the better Lovecraft-type films I have seen was given to me by Dr. Freex. That would be "The Resurrected." The movie has atmosphere, hints at dark things, and then does a not too bad job of delivering when forced to show something. The last point is important, because it is obvious the film makers were on a budget.
I think that the remake of "House on Haunted Hill" could have used some careful fostering of the audience's imagination. The killer Rorschach Test did not do it for me.
Andrew,
I just did an IMDB on The Resurrected, and it certainly looks worth checking out. A film directed by Dan O'Bannon based on Lovecraft? I'm there!
Skaboi wrote:
> I just did an IMDB on The Resurrected, and it certainly looks
> worth checking out. A film directed by Dan O'Bannon based on
> Lovecraft? I'm there!
You will not be sorry. I let it sit on my shelf for some time before watching the film and then kept wondering why I always make the wrong decision. (Putting off seeing it - I was glad that I watched it.)
And, along the lines of "loose Lovecraft based" movies - I have had this terrible urge to watch "Cast a Deadly Spell" again. No chance of that until I get back, but this reminds me of having an itch under a cast.
Both "The Resurrected" and "Cast a Deadly Spell" deserve DVD releases and soon.
I'ts funny that some of you mention "The Thing" as proof than Carpenter can do Lovecraft. Some of the reviews I've read mention that one of Carpenter's inspiration for the film could have come from "At the mountains of madness". If you remember the story well, the narrator and other people found at the beginning an arctic camp destroyed by resurrected creatures. Little is told of what could have happened, but the situation is quite similar as the one described by both "thing" films, even if they're based on a different novel.
Other Carpenter films have evident Lovecraftian undertones, like "Prince of Darkness".
I've heard rumors that Guillermo del Toro may be making a movie of "At the Mountains of Madness" somewhere down the line, as that and Hellboy have been his pet projects for years. Any truth to this, or do we have to wait and see what happens?
I discovered Lovecraft after reading Les Danials Living In Fear . I found a Lovecraft collection at the library and woudl read it while listening to Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Dio. Other kids did things like play sports and bail hay, but I feel my persuits were more valuable.