A Lovecraft Thread.

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I'd also like to discourage everyone from reading any lovecraftian stuff by Henry Kuttner. Iirc his stories are original in the sense that they were not unfinished ideas by HPL, but they suck. At least "The Book if Iod" does, if I recall the title right.

Yeah, saw it, and he called the movie "Dagon" (atleast that is what it was named over here).

I actually thoroughly enjoyed it! It has the right atmosphere thoughout, and an ending that isn't a cop-out. And it doesnt pander to the teen slasher flick genre.

But bear in mind that Im a b-movie fanatic, so if you prefer the easily digestable likes of Scream over the average straight-to-video then you probably won't agree with me :wink:

I enjoyed Dagon (be such to get non-tv version), it played like a PnP adventure, with the hero trying different things, trying to survive and get infomation.

You guys wait until I lose power for four days to start a thread on Lovecraft. Asshats.

Anyways, the link Astro gave is the best HPL source on the net. Period.

Dagon was actually decent although they changed alot around.

I will add more to this thread later once I've caught everything up.

Dagon does not suck in any way, shape, or form. the ending, especially, rocked.

I should have tried to get a part as an extra, maybe as one of the inbred mutants. But alas, my chance at cinematic inmortality is lost.

Oh well, breed with the Deep Ones and perhaps you will get Cthulhoid immortality
(its all true you know... :wink: )

Yes, the ending was very Lovecraft. When I first fired the movie up, I was leery and expected a sugar coated Lovecraft story. Imagine my surprise, especially the end. Very nicely done. It is definitely going in my library right next to From Beyond and Unnamable. And, yes, I did like Unnamable merely for the fact of all the Lovecraft references throughout it. That and the fact it was a fairly decent monster movie of it's own merits.

Of all the HPL movies I've seen, From Beyond, Resurrected, The Dunwich Horror, and Dagon hold true to his style the best. The ending for From Beyond is truly classic as you can see the insanity in her eyes. Very well done. The Dunwich Horror was true to the original story to an extent. They added some things that kind of ruined it, but it was still a nice nod to HPL.

Re-Animator was a good movie, but it just wasn't true to the original story overall. They changed things around ALOT.

Oh but I loved in anyways, too. And its all in the right spirit. Liked Bride of Reanimator too, but the recent Beyond Reanimator was not anywhere near the same standard. (Some people may maintain that this is a LOW standard - but thats half the point :wink: )

Can't say that I agree with you about The Unnameable - execrable in every way IMO. But From Beyond was excellent!

Haven't seen The Dunwich Horror - is this an old Hammer-esque period movie, or something more recent?

Eh. It was good campy college horror akin to Evil Dead. Not as good as Evil Dead, per say, but still a decent b-horror movie with tons of Lovecraftian references strewn within. Besides, I liked the effects on the monster. She rocked.

Eh. More like riding the waves of the Hammer-esque films. Came out in 1970. Like I said, it's a good movie, but does have it's problems. Namely cheesy effects on the monster and the addition of plot elements not in the original. You can read more about it here.

The monster was the whole problem with that movie. You can't just parade the Unnamable Horror around in front of the camera for fifteen minutes. The whole magic of Lovecraft is that you're rarely shown more than a glimpse of the monster, if that...

whoa, I hadn't thought about From Beyond in *years*. That's the one that end with "It...ATE THEM" right? I absolutely loved that movie. And I just found out it's by Stuart Gordon as well. Gotta Get It.

Speaking of inferior posthumous collaborators, L. Sprague de Camp did the business on Robert E. Howard's Conan, trying to make a saga of the episodic tales (read here for more on that and including some on the Lovecraft/Derelth connection.)

de Camp also wrote a biography of Lovecraft which is very informative. It has been a long time since I read it and I loaned it away long ago, but you can find it on Amazon. Some of de Camp's old-fashioned bias is quite evident, but it's a pretty good work. He may have been more successful with non-fiction than with ficiton.

The upshot is that HPL was very eccentric and somewhat racist but not quite the freak that people make him out to be.

You guys MUST read Thomas Ligotti. He's really the natural continuation of the literary field that Poe and Lovecraft started. Horror with a surreal bent. So suspenseful and frightening that oftentimes one is grateful that the real horror is kept offstage. "The Nightmare Factory" is his definitive collection. Favorite works include Tsalal, the Red Tower, and the Frolic. There are many others, but I can't think of them at the moment.

Yeah, I've read Ligotti - The Nightmare Factory, and another one too, can't recall its name.

Very surreal stuff there. Even the super-short shorts are good, almost like poetry for psychotics in their tight control of nuance/atmos.

Way more surreal and weird than Poe or Lovecraft, in fact I'm not certain that fans of Lovecraft will definitely "get into" all of Ligotti's stuff (except the ones that more oviously follow the "cosmic horror" feel), but I thought it was great myself. Can be difficult at times though.

There was one long story (novella?) that seemed to be about the "secret lives of mannikins" (or something) that I rather enjoyed. Can't remember the name now...

Nowhere as good as Evil Dead, shouldnt be mentioned in the same sentence. Not as suspenseful, not as much splatter (in fact, kinda low on gore ), not as psychotic. And not a cult movie - because it does not deserve to be.
The "low gore" aspect would be okay if I thought this had the right atmosphere for a Lovecraft-onspired movie, but it doesnt - therefore if it can't be scary then its gotta be gory - and it aint. Cheap in all aspects. And an insult to Lovecraft.

Its only saving grace was a few b00bies. And the monster was VERY non-Lovecraft.

Had a look - the tagline is amusing : "A few years ago in Dunwich a half-witted girl bore illegitimate twins. One of them was almost human!"

And the summary is equally amusing: "H.P. Lovecraft meets Hollywood: Wilbur Whateley wants to help the Old Ones break through by consulting the Necronomicon, and Armitage must stop him. Attractive females are added to fill out the plot."

Oh well, still want to see it. Will hunt it down!

HAHAHA!!! I can't stop laughing, damn you!!

Definitely one of the best, if not the best, translations of HPL's work to the silver screen. As I said before, when the heroine jumps out the window at the end and fucks her leg up you can SEE the insanity in her eyes. That look is still fresh in my memory even though it's been awhile since I've watched the thing. I should pull it out and watch it again. Actually, I'd love to be able to get it on DVD. Should look into that.

Also, to all the Unnamable naysayers out there, I never said it was a great translation of HPL's stuff or that it was even Lovecraftian to begin with. Also, I never said it was better than Evil Dead, which is my fave horror movie to this day. Hell, the first minute of that movie scared the fuck out of me as a teenager. That sound the entity makes will forever haunt my dreams and I love it for that alone. Another scene that has always stuck with me is the part where Linda and Shelly are playing at being psychic with the cards and Cheryl (the infamous tree scene chick) starts calling them off correctly one after the other while staring out the window and then.... well, you know what happens next. And if you don't, then you need to get you a copy of this classic. Now.

I just looked at Unnamable for what it was: a campy monster movie. And in that respect, it works. And, there was gore in it aplenty, Shagnak. The most memorable scene is when the monster bashes that kid's head into the floor over and over and over again. It's not my favorite monster movie (Pumpkinhead has that honor), but it was a fun little romp for it's time and the Lovecraft references spread throughout were nice.

Oh why oh why did you have to resurrect the memory of Pumpkinhead?

Is that bad?

I mean, I really liked the first movie. Very well thought out backstory for the creature and everything. I thought it was nicely done. Maybe I went a bit overboard saying it was my fave monster movie, but it's definitely up there.

Now, mention the sequel or the PC game to me and I'll shoot you. Those make me cry.

Is that bad?

I mean, I really liked the first movie. Very well thought out backstory for the creature and everything. I thought it was nicely done. Maybe I went a bit overboard saying it was my fave monster movie, but it's definitely up there.

Now, mention the sequel or the PC game to me and I'll shoot you. Those make me cry.

Oh, yes, I realise that. Evil Dead is one of my all-time favs and I just took umbrage at any comparison at all

I dunno, I don't remember it being very gory at all. Maybe its a comparative thing - for me if a horror movie does nothing else for me, then it better at least have some extreme splatter (in the vain of Evil Dead, Day of the Dead, Braindead, etc etc) so that I can at least say "Oh well, at least it has some blood and guts". I don'' t remember it being gory in the scale of the movies I was into at the time at all. I'm willing to admit that my memory of the movie is not great though - I only watched it once and it was a long time ago.

Rather inexplicably, I liked the first Pumpkinhead too. Then again some people might put Pumpkinhead and Unnamable in the same box, so it just goes to show that "one man's trash is another man's treasure".

Hehe...sure do. Man that movie had some memorable scenes!
What did you think of the sequels? I liked both, for very different reasons, though I thought Armies should have had way more blood and guts. Hmmm.....I'm starting to realise that I may have blood and guts obsession issues... :twisted:

Let's just say I love them in the order they were released. Let's also just say that Evil Dead 2 is by far the best Horror/Comedy movie ever made, IMO. I was rolling on the floor throughout most of the movie and it's really the movie of the trilogy that put Bruce Campbell on the map. The kitchen scene and the deer head scene are classic comedy gold.

Sorry to ressurrect a dead thread, but just found some news that may interest Lovecraft/horror movie afficianados here. (Well, news to me anyway).

Theyre putting together a restored (i.e. missing scenes and gore being put back in) version of From Beyond!!

Rejoice! Hallelujah!
Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn! ::gurgle gurgle::

( etc etc )

Oh, almost forgot, here is the url with quotes from the man hisself:
http://www.horrorchannel.com/dread/modu ... le&sid=671