Being a great fan of H.P. Lovecraft, I’ve seen a lot of movies based on his works. Most are “based” in the loosest sense. And almost without fail, each is absolutely terrible.
Lovecraft is credited with inspiring generations of horror writers and filmmakers. He has a huge cult following, yet most movies of his works are made by enthusiastic amateurs. As far I know, there has never been a major film of any of his works. (I’ve heard that The Blob was inspired by “The Colour Out of Space.”)
I admit that I haven’t seen every Lovecraft movie out there. Has there been any good ones?
By far the best Lovecraft movie I’ve seen is The Call of Cthulhu, As one of the many rave reviews on IMDB puts it, “the black and white silent format so well matches the dark and antique ambiance of H.P. Lovecraft stories.”
One would really believe in watching it that it was made in the 1920s, it’s done with such care and professionalism. It’s the only Lovecraft film I’ve seen that conveyed anything of the unease and horror felt in reading the books.
I agree with aldi-- that one was good and in the right spirit. 'Dreams of Cthulhu: The Rough Magik Initiative" which I found on Netflix was also pretty good-- seems to be part of a series of closer adaptations than things like From Beyond and such (another of the series, “Cool Air”, I didn’t enjoy as much but it was ok, too)-- in any case part of a series spanning 20 years or so called the H.P. Lovecraft Collection.
THE HAUNTED PALACE (1963) with Lon Chaney Jr and Vincent Price, directed by Roger Corman, remembers very fondly. It’s a Lovecraft plot, although the title is taken from a Poe poem.
I’d completely forgotten The Haunted Palace, I haven’t seen it in years. It must be one of the earliest Lovecraft movies, definitely worth checking out.
I’ve been wanting to see Nyarlathotep for a while, it looks interesting from the reviews.
Dagon is quite good, as also Cthulhu, 2007 (not to be confused with The Call of Cthulhu which I linked earlier).
If you check this IMDB list you’ll see there have been 96 Lovecraft adaptations, far more than I would have thought (although many of them are shorts). The list also confirms that The Haunted Palace was indeed the first of them.
Dagon is actually quite good. The name is a misnomer; the story is almost pure Shadow Over Innsmouth. I assume they changed the name because they moved the story from coastal New England to Spain. This was probably because there are no coastal areas left in New England that are rural and mysterious.
Despite that, it is a pretty faithful adaptation, which conveys the creepy paranoia of the original quite well.
In The Mouth Of Madness mentioned above is a John Carpenter original creation, but it is pretty faithful to the spirit of HPL. And it has much better production values than most of the films directly based on his works.
While Re-Animator is a very, very good film and a great viewing experience, I wouldn’t call it a good Lovecraft adaptation in any way. It barely has anything to do with the story other than the title character and some key scenes thrown in for effect. Coupled with the fact that the story itself is in many ways not a typical Lovecraft story (IIRC, he sort of hated it himself and felt bad about having to write it to make a living) it probably doesn’t rate as a good Lovecraftian experience.
About In the Mouth of Madness, am I the only one who feels it’s more of a tribute to Stephen King than Lovecraft?