Fiver-In the same way that D&D halflings are Tolkien’s Hobbitts, The Koa-Toua ARE Lovecraft’s Deep Ones. I suspect that The Mind Flayers {Illithid) are also taken from the Cthulhu Mythos. Besides their resemblance to Cthulhu, they: are a race of unimaginable evil dwelling in caves of endless night, drive men mad without even trying, and worship strange and unfathomable gods.
Again, Lovecraft's writing moves slowly. But he excelled at atmosphere. If you DM, his writing is great training for making even the most mundane thing menacing.
RE OP-So far it's been suggested that Zadok's tale include a series of visual flashbacks or that the history of Obed be used as the first half of the film and the present day as the second. Even here, we begin to stray slightly from the original. Throw in a bunch of corporate VP's and market research, and it becomes clear why a faithful adaptation hasn't been made.
Slight Hijack- I found Mouth Of Madness to be true to the spirit of Lovecraft, although it was not actually based on one of his works. Any one else have a film that they feel this way about?
ALIEN clearly owed a debt to Lovecraft, although it was not an adaptation.
In a weird way I felt that SEVEN was Lovecraftian. I can’t really argue the point logically; it just seemed to convey a sense of the universe’s indifference to humanity that was in line with the author’s work.
GHOSTBUSTERS, of course, suggests THE DUNWICH HORROR.
Fiver: My introduction to Lovecraft, and a good “starter set,” was a paperback compilation from Del-Ray (I think) called “The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre.” I still see it regularly in the horror section of most book stores. It’s a good introductory volume, as it contains a smattering of his early, Poe-inspired work, a single example of his Dunsanian fantasies, and most of his mature, “Cthulhu mythos” stuff. It contains every story that Cal mentions, except for “Charles Dexter Ward” and “At the Mountains of Madness,” both of which are quite long.
His writing style does take some getting used to, and it’s not for everybody. I’ve also found that it’s easy to misinterpet Lovecraft. This may be why so few good movies have been made from his work (to drag this back to the topic). It’s tempting to focus on the monsters, and that’s what most movies do. But the monsters are really only symbols, and in and of themselves kinda silly. Lovecraft’s real point, the immense vastness of the unfeeling cosmos contrasted with the puny insignificance of human life, is much harder to convey on film.
I have a sneaking fondness for The Haunted Palace as well. Maybe it’s just because, the first time I saw it, I had a wonderful, “Oh my God, this is Lovecraft!” moment.
There actually is an adaptation of The Shadow over Innsmouth being made. It goes the by the title of Dagon, but isn’t really based on the H.P. Lovecraft short story of said name. So long as there are Deep Ones, i’ll be happy.
I have to admit that I liked these two films (I never saw Bride of Re-Animator), but that’s because I’m a fan of Bad Cinema. And these two are definitely Bad Cinema, and not Good Lovecraft. They’re characterized by over-the-top gore and weird, not atmosphere, and they don’t feel at all like Lovecraft works. If he’s doing Dagon, then it won’t feel like LOvecraft, either. But there’ll be plenty of foam-rubber (and maybe CGI) uglies.
But there Herbert West serial, as written by Lovecraft, was over-the-top. Lovecraft didn’t take it seriously (he considered it hackwork) and let his hair down a bit. The first REANIMATOR film captures that element.
Not that it’s a faithful adaptation, but it is, at least in some sense, true to the spirit of the source material.
The question of the status of his copyrights are very convoluted. To make a long story short, it appears that Lovecraft never renewed his copyrights, and thus his work entered the public domain abnormally early. However, since the usual 75 years (or however long it is nowadays) hasn’t run out yet, his publisher claims they still hold the copyright.
