Horror Aficionados discussion

Happy Birthday!

In honor of one of the greatest author ever live born today on 1890, why not read one of his stories tonight.

If there is a story you want to read but do not have it. Try this website.

http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/...

Thanks, Barbie. I recently read "The Colour Out of Space" and was pleasantly surprised by how scary it was.

I love his short stories, they really pack a punch but some of his shorter ones seem to meander quite a bit.

Most of his really short ones were juvenile fragments based around dreaming and the premise of return to some mystical city half glimpsed at some early age. Obviously he returned to this in Dream Quest, Randolph Carter etc, but those were more polished, later works.

Nice thread, Barbie. HPL is one of true masters of the genre and I recently rediscovered him after a long absence. I've been to that website before, too. Good stuff.

Grace, I think so too. "Dream-Quest..." for instance is tedious beyond belief.

Yes, all his airy-fairy dream stories are practically unreadable. I only like Lovecraft when he is scaring the pants off me.

Hmmm, I especially like The Dreams in the Witch House, The Rats in the Walls, Pickman's Model, The Dunwich Horror, The Music of Erich Zann, and The Color Out of Space. In fact, The Color Out of Space might be his best IMO. The Call of Cthulhu is probably his most famous story, so check it out. And The Outsider is another famous story, that reads more like Poe than Lovecraft to me.

The Tomb and Other Tales has a lot of his shorter work in it.

has anyone seen the movie dagon? for a straight to dvd film i liked it a lot.
does anyone know of anymore h.p. inspired films? i'd love to see some more.

Here are a few from all over that met with varied success.

In the Mouth of Madness with Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jürgen Prochnow. (one of my favorites)

The Dunwich Horror (1970)

The Haunted Palace (1963) - Roger Corman film based on The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

The Resurrected (1992) - Also based on The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and very faithful to the story.

Re-Animator (1985)

Bleeders (also known as Hemoglobin) - A horror movie released in 1997, based on H. P. Lovecraft's story "The Lurking Fear".

The Call of Cthulhu (2005) - A silent movie adaptation of the H. P. Lovecraft short story of the same name, produced by Sean Branney and Andrew Leman and distributed by the HP Lovecraft Historical Society. It is the first film adaptation of the famous Lovecraft story, and uses Mythoscope, a blend of vintage and modern filming techniques intended to produce the look of a 1920s-era film.

Cthulhu (2000) - An Australian low budget horror film made in 1996-1997 and released in 2000, by producer-director Damian Heffernan. It was mostly based on the two Lovecraft stories: "The Thing on the Doorstep" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth".

Cthulhu - A 2007 American horror movie, directed by Dan Gildark and co-written by Grant Cogswell and Daniel Gildark. The film is loosely based on the short story "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" (1936) by H. P. Lovecraft.

Cool Air - A 1999 black-and-white horror film directed by and starring Bryan Moore, and co-starring Jack Donner, with cinematography by Michael Bratkowski. It is based on the short story "Cool Air" by H. P. Lovecraft.

From Beyond - A horror film directed by Stuart Gordon and released in 1986. From Beyond was Gordon's second H. P. Lovecraft adaptation, based on the short story of the same name.

The Hound (1997) - A short horror film directed by Anthony Penta, faithfully adapted from H. P. Lovecraft's story of the same name.


There is also a science fiction / horror film that I consider to be based on the Cthulhu Mythos. It is 'Event Horizon' and another favorite.

I'm pathetic. The only one of these I've seen is Re-animator.

The Tomb (2007) is also supposed to be based on HP Lovecraft as well.

I can't recommend The Call of Cthulhu highly enough. It's made with skill and charm, and everyone involved clearly "got" Lovecraft. Don't miss watching the special features on the DVD!

Re-Animator and From Beyond are both good silly fun.

There's also the anthology movie "Necronomicon," which includes three segments based on different Lovecraft stories and a framing device featuring HPL himself as a character It's not great, but not terrible either. And there's a really obscure '80s movie called The Unnamable, which is ever so tenuously inspired by the Lovecraft story of the same name.

Cathy wrote: "I can't recommend The Call of Cthulhu highly enough. It's made with skill and charm, and everyone involved clearly "got" Lovecraft. Don't miss watching the special features on the DVD!

Re-Anima..."

They did a top notch job on Call of Cthulhu, I too would recommend it to others. visit the HPLS website to get some great .pdf insanity certificates and what not. They are used for live RPG, but still novelty to use. I've got an insanity certificate for the day I was married, with the certificate number as my son's birthday. Good Stuff.

Of those mentioned that I've seen, I can heartily recommend THE RESURRECTED, RE-ANIMATOR (faithful to the source material, but the addition of humor really helps) and DAGON (underrated, it's essentially "Shadows Over Innsmouth" moved to Spain, and in its final moments it suceeds in capturing a quality of Lovecraft's work I've never seen anywhere else, the awe and beauty of the fantastic and inhuman. Plus the movie really sells its pulpy, underground cavern ending and Macarena Gómez as the princess looks exquisitely otherworldly at times).

I'd also recommend THE CALL OF CTHULHU silent film without having seen it yet, because it looks so damn cool.

BLEEDERS is an interesting set-up that becomes a somewhat clunky monster movie. The recent old west film THE BURROWERS is a bit like "The Lurking Fear" as well, and the excellent "THE DESCENT" had very Lovecraftian cave dwellers that touched on his recurrent concept of degenerate humanity and "ghouls".

FROM BEYOND (the short story doesn't give a lot to work with) succeeds on some levels while failing on others - the additional of sexual material seems superfluous but the expansion into acid-like hallucinations is a nice addition.

Not much of a fan of IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS or EVENT HORIZON, sorry to say (although both have singularly excellent scenes).

Rod Serling's NIGHT GALLERY anthology tv show adapted "Cool Air" and "Pickman's Models", both to very good effect (the addition of romantic angles actually helps) and the recent MASTERS OF HORROR anthology show did "Dreams in the Witch House", although reactions to that seem to revolve around feelings about the realization of Brown Jenkin (I thought it was a solid "okay").

THE DUNWICH HORROR (1970) is fun if you're in a forgiving mood (the definitive film version has yet to be made); THE HAUNTED PALACE, DIE, MONSTER, DIE! and THE CURSE (the latter two based on "The Colour Out Of Space") less so. The anthology film NECRONOMICON even less, less so. I don't remember much about THE UNNAMEABLE, either.

Nobody has really succeeded in capturing the essence of Lovecraft in the Mythos sense of "man reduced to the scale of protozoa relative to indifferent, uncaring forces", in any work I've seen (although that silent CALL OF CTHULHU might do it). It's a difficult feeling to catch. REANIMATOR and RESURRECTED did a good job getting the lurid pulpiness and I've already mentioned the effective grace notes I find in DAGON. Guillermo Del Toro is scheduled to do an adaptation of AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS, although how that would play out is anyone's guess (a straight adaptation might make an oddly unbalanced movie, I fear, half John Carpenter's THE THING in 1920's setting/half disconnected history lesson. And the final point of the story - "they were men!" - kind of unweildily and possibly downright silly, might need to be ignored).

I thought "Dreams in the Witch House" was one of the best of the Masters of Horror installments. In fact, one of the few good ones.

Yes, it was one of the few good ones (the second season was slightly better than the first, but both were mostly terrible. I thought the Poe episode was the best), I just thought the "strange geometry" aspect could have been better exploited/envisioned. Extra points for a really taboo death, though!

"The Black Cat" was really well done but very difficult to watch. I had to look out for the disclaimer at the end, and try to find an interview with Stuart Gordon to assure myself that the action in it was fake. It was very convincing.

lesley wrote: "has anyone seen the movie dagon? for a straight to dvd film i liked it a lot.
does anyone know of anymore h.p. inspired films? i'd love to see some more."

After seeing Bret's reply, this one may be pointless, but if you go to Lovecraft's page on IMDB:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0522454/

You'll find a list of most all the movies directly based on his writing.

[EDIT:] Just for the record, Dagon is at the top of my list of HPL inspired movies. Its so much fum IMO.

Charles: Never pointless. I left out several films because of space. I talk too much as it is.
(although you haven't seen that yet. I've been gone for quite a while)

I have Dagon on my list too, BTW.

Just finished watching Cthulhu, the 2007 release. Here is the web site for the film;
http://www.cthulhu-themovie.com/video...

While it isn't a bad film and has some good points to it, I wasn't very impressed. Seems like they left too much to the viewers imagination. And the ending just plain pissed me off!
I won't give anything away though.

Now I'm off to see what other HPL influenced film I can find.

Lovecraft is easily one of favourite authors. I personally can't get enough of the Cthulhu Mythos. I think one of his best short stories is "The Outsider". It gave me such clear visions while reading it and I loved it so much I even pretended it was a movie in my mind and wrote some horror synth music for it (not all to well though...lol).

I just picked up and Cthulhu's Reign and it was pretty interesting. I recommend it for sure. There's some crap but there's also some gold too.

I just bought a Cthulhu anthology with all new stories that looks good. Huh! Well whatta ya know? I just got Cthulhu's Reign as well. Edited by Darrell Schweitzer.

I'll be curious to see which stories you like and which you don't.

Ha, cool.

Stories I liked:
Walker in the Cemetary
Her Acres of Pastoral Playground
Spherical Trigonometry
The New Pauline Corpus
This is How the World Ends
Such Bright and Risen madness in our Names
The Seals of New R'lyeh

Stories I didn't like:
Sanctuary
What Brings the Void
The Shallows
The Holocaust of Ecstasy
Vastation
Nothing Personal
Remnants

I LOVED Dreams In The Witch House: both movie and story. They both had me creeped out, and I think that began my obsession with maving my walls completely covered. I've posters everywhere.

if you like lovecraft, i think a good modern equivalent is thomas ligotti. a great writer!

I agree wholeheartedly - Thomas Ligotti is the man!

Brett wrote: "I just bought a Cthulhu anthology with all new stories that looks good. Huh! Well whatta ya know? I just got Cthulhu's Reign as well. Edited by Darrell Schweitzer."

I just bought several Ligotti issues of Weird Tales from Darrell Schweitzer on eBay. LOL. How apropos! :)

The only other Lovecraft movie I can add any pro/con to is Castle Freak. Rented that little mouse pellet from a local video store several years ago. Lord, it was rank. Not a fan. I think it even had Combs from Re-Animator. It was...un-savable. lol.

I wrote a little bit about Ligotti here:

http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/4...

Which was the 3rd part of a larger essay

that's a great write-up on Ligotti, Shawn. I'm still pretty new to his work. I'd heard of him for years, but just recently decided to plunk down for The Nightmare Factory, having sampled it in the much shorter stand-alone release of Teatro Grotesco.

Just bought my first Aickman book about a month ago. Looking forward to digging in soon.

Hi all, I'm interested in getting acquainted with some of Lovecraft's work. Where do you suggest I start?

While its not his best story, i'd recommend Dagon. It's short and has many of the motifs he would later use in his longer, more influential works. After that, theres the big ones: Call of Cthulhu, Shadow Over Innsmouth, Colour Out of Space...

Is there no specific order to the books, or recommended order?

Lovecraft mostly wrote short stories and novellas, w/ The Case of Charles Dexter Ward being his only novel-length work.

There're tons of different ways to purchase his work. The Arkham editions, Del Rey editions, Penguin Editions, a multitude of mass-markets that often duplicate each other.

The Del Reys are probably the most cost-effective, but their texts aren't authoritative. The Penguins are better, where trade paperbacks are concerned - their texts are considered definitive.

I'm not familiar w/ the Penguin editions in terms of full contents or the order they could best be read in, but w/ the Del Reys, if you wanted to read somewhat in chronological order, sorted by composition, The Road to Madness and The Dream Cycle both feature Lovecraft's Poe-influenced and Dunsany influenced work, respectively. Follow those two w/ Del Rey's Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre to complete the picture.

BUT, the best way to read L in book-form is through Barnes and Nobles. Their collection, part of their Classic Writers series, is in hardback, collects most everything in each of the Del Rey editions in one volume, and features authoritative texts published in chronological order.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/HP-L...

There's no "accepted" order (there's even some debate as to whether Lovecraft saw his work as a unified whole or just liked to use the same names over again - and thus if the "Cthulhu Mythos" was a frame applied retroactively by August Derleth) but you could probably do no wrong reading The Dunwich Horror & Call Of Cthulhu and a collection of short pieces (I'd also recommend The Case of Charles Dexter Ward).

Muchas gracias amigos :)

I love The Craft! Pickman's model is just about the only story that ever really really scared me, I don't know why, but it was just creepy.

Piter wrote: "I love The Craft! Pickman's model is just about the only story that ever really really scared me, I don't know why, but it was just creepy."

Pickman is a great story! It's also short so you can see if Lovecraft's style agrees with you.

yes, i've read the entire "Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre."

absolutely loved it. I've recomended it to other people and they didn't like it because Lovecraft can be difficult to read at times, but I just can't get enough.

I've also read parts of "The Transition of H.P. Lovecraft" by Del Rey Publishing, but I don't know if the texts are actually his own words or if they have been edited by other people.

The only real H.P. Lovecraft desciples that I really enjoy are Ramsey Campbell and Rob Bloch.

Piter wrote: "The only real H.P. Lovecraft desciples that I really enjoy are Ramsey Campbell and Rob Bloch. "

Don't enjoy Brian Lumley? I think he does a decent job.

William Browning Spencer

Jerrod wrote: Don't enjoy Brian Lumley? I think he does a decent job."

I've heard of him, but I've never had the chance to read his work.

Where's the Love for the Craft?

Jerrod wrote: "Piter wrote: "The only real H.P. Lovecraft desciples that I really enjoy are Ramsey Campbell and Rob Bloch. "

Don't enjoy Brian Lumley? I think he does a decent job."

Brian Lumley writes some great books. The first couple of the Necroscope series were awesome.

King Dinösaur wrote: "Yay! I'm not the only person in the world who knows William Browning Spencer!!"


Resume With Monsters was the only book I've ever gotten up early to read before work. Brilliant, creepy, funny.

To fix a glitch in getting individual posts

'At the Mountains of Madness,' is the best of the best. However, if you are into the poetical, sci-fi aspect of his writing, you need to check out Clark Ashton Smith.

My favorites by Lovecraft (if I haven't already mentioned them) are Call of Cthulhu and The Tomb. At the Mountains of Madness is pretty darn good too!

I liked The Rats in the Walls, The Picture in the House, The Outsider, Pickman's Model was omg good, The Dunwhich Horror-a little overrated but still great, The Call of Cthulhu was amazing, Dagon freaked me out, Herbert West Re-Animator was pulpy, but sort of my taste, and At the Mountains of Madness was the best.

I have yet to read The Rats in the Wall. I keep hearing how great it is.