For the Love of Lovecraft

FrankTalby (Frank Talby) 2009-06-15 00:41:22 UTC #1

With the recent discussion over the movie genre thread I figured there would be adequate interest for a Lovecraft thread. Let's discuss anything and everything HP Lovecraft.

what was your first taste of HPL?
Do you like the movies based on his work?
Do you worship Cthulhu?

My first taste of Lovecraft was the novella At the Mountains of Madness. I loved how bizarre and creepy it read. My favorite stories are The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, Call of Cthulhu, and The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

I_I_Idiot (I...I...Idiot) 2009-06-15 01:28:29 UTC #2

Haunted Palace is one of my all time favorite movies. Misrepresented as a Poe work, it is all about Charles Dexter Ward. Rats In The Wall is a great & creepy read. Dreams In The Witch house was a good installment to the Masters Of Horror series.

FrankTalby (Frank Talby) 2009-06-15 02:10:33 UTC #3

I love Haunted Palace - it's a good telling of my favorite story.

funny you mentioned Dreams in the Witch-House as I am watching it now.

I_I_Idiot (I...I...Idiot) 2009-06-15 02:22:48 UTC #4

(insert spooky music here) :o

alk0 (alk0) 2009-06-15 10:58:38 UTC #5

I've read lots of his stories when i was younger. My first taste of his writing was "The Call of Cthulhu" - a great one. Other stories i remeber liking were: "The Music of Erich Zann", "The Hound", "The Lurking Fear", "The Rats in the Walls", "Pickman's Model", "The Colour out of Space", "The Dunwich Horror", "The Whisperer in Darkness", "At the Mountains of Madness", "The Shadow over Innsmouth", "The Dreams in the Witch House", "The Thing on the Doorstep", "The Shadow Out of Time". I'm yet to read any of his stories set in the so called Dream Cycle. Are they any good?
Btw. Anyone ever played the RPG game "The Call of Cthulhu"? I did when i was in my teens. I still got all the handbooks

Bill_san_Antonio (Bill san Antonio) 2009-06-15 13:01:41 UTC #6

I played it few times also as a teenager, it was pretty cool. My brother has the boardgame Arkham Horror now which is very good too.

mrchallenge (Col. Douglas Mortimer) 2009-06-15 14:10:00 UTC #7

I've read just about all of Lovecraft's stories, but I haven't gotten into the August Derleth stuff yet.

Alot of movies have HP reverences but none of them seem to be direct adaptations, which is what I'm really looking for.

The call of cthulhu video game was pretty cool I thought.

Btw, does anybody here like Guy De Maupassant? French horror writer, terrific too.

alk0 (alk0) 2009-06-15 14:27:38 UTC #8

I have a book containing the stories Derleth wrote using Lovecraft's notes and unifinished stories. I wasn't crazy about that one, some stuff Derleth added was simply silly and his idea of cosmic horror wasn't as interesting as HPL's

Dillinger (Dillinger) 2009-06-15 14:29:34 UTC #9

I really like Lovecraft as well. My first encounter with him was about ten years ago, when I came across a book called "Cthullu Geistergeschichten" (Cthullu ghost-stories), a collection of stories by the German Lovecraft-publisher Suhrkamp. It contained as far as I remember "The music of Erich Zann", "Pickman's model", "The Dunwich Horror", "The Call of Cthullu", "Rats in the walls" and "The Haunter of the Dark".

When I read The Haunter I was driving in a train. Suddenly I realized an awful smell. I asked myself if Lovecraft was really able to make me smell the rotten vaults. As I got off the train I saw a passenger who had taken of his boots...

My favourite Lovecraft movie is "The Mouth of Madness". It's not really a Lovecraft film, but the fan can spot maly allusions and connections to Lovecrafts works.

AceHigh (AceHigh) 2009-06-15 14:53:45 UTC #10

I've read some of de Mauppasant's horror stories. He was a master of the macabre.

sartana1968 (sartana1968) 2011-05-08 21:44:10 UTC #11

i loved horror movies based on lovecraft more than king
my favorites was:
1. re animator
2. from beyond
3. the house by the cemetery
4. city of the living dead
5. unnamable
6. necronomicon book of the dead

sartana1 (sartana1) 2011-05-08 21:50:45 UTC #12

Have you seen Haunted Palace with Vincent Price? No gore so its nothing like Re-animator! But still a very good movie.

sartana1968 (sartana1968) 2011-05-08 22:16:46 UTC #13

no, must be very old movie

kit_saginaw (kit saginaw) 2011-05-09 09:37:35 UTC #14

I love everything by Lovecraft. The bulk of his work still awaits being 'properly' brought-into cinematic form. By that, I mean incorporating the spiritual atmosphere from which they were created... not 'modernized', politically-corrected, or overwrought with puter-graphyx. Probably my fave HPL-film was 1967's The Shuttered Room, with screenplay-adaptation by Derelith. -Starring Gig Young, Oliver Reed, Carol Lynley, and Queen Elizabe--, I mean Flora Robson.

'Call Of Cthulhu: Dark Corners Of The Earth' was a great game as-well. I was in-touch with its creators for a sequel in '08, but they were still in the artwork-stage.

FrankTalby (Frank Talby) 2011-05-10 02:44:48 UTC #15

Actually it is the first feature length movie to be based on a work by HPL (that being The Case of Charles Dexter Ward - one of my favorite stories). and being old does not equate bad or dated imo.

sartana1 (sartana1) 2011-05-10 03:32:21 UTC #16

being old does not equate bad or dated imo<

Not in this case. Haunted Palace is a great gothic horror! One of my all time top 50.

mrchallenge (Col. Douglas Mortimer) 2011-05-10 14:13:51 UTC #17

Has anyone read Lovecrafts early tales? Some of them are quite good, and alot of them are more fantasy than horror, similar to his colleague Robert E. Howard.

kit_saginaw (kit saginaw) 2011-05-11 04:28:28 UTC #18

Yeah... read em all. Some, only once. A genius... I'm glad 'hollywood' hasn't commercialized his legacy. Howard's either.

Bill_san_Antonio (Bill san Antonio) 2011-05-11 07:38:35 UTC #19

But the trailer of forthcoming Conan the Barbarian looks like shit.

mrchallenge (Col. Douglas Mortimer) 2011-05-11 13:54:08 UTC #20

Yeah they got that dude from Stargate playing him.