Cthulhu Mythos (and the works of H. P. Lovecraft)

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I always found Lovecraft simultaneously attractive and troublesome. A very dark not to be ignored vibe - dare I think DARK Enneagram 4w5? It would fit the feel. Compare parts of The Dark Side of the Moon for effect on me. I could never read much at a time - but infinitely preferable to things of the Clark 2001 type stuff.

Metallica wrote a couple of songs about the Cthulu Mythos that are pretty good

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt_ZE_ib9Wk[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIj60VJQ8Wo[/youtube]

There's also some from The Vision Bleak. For example :

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_2cADn7v-M[/youtube]
(from Carpathia, a concept-album inspired by The Call of Cthulhu)


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHuY2wXTd0o[/youtube]
Trailer for a (nearly fan-made) Call of Cthulhu silent movie.

I read HP Lovecraft in middle school and enjoyed it greatly. HP Lovecraft is a bit bleak in outlook and may ave contributed to my nihilism. As an author, he gained little success in hs lifetime. It was the 20s and the depression 30s and his subject matter was relegated to pulp magazines. Success came 20 years after his death. His style was a bit too verbose and archaic. It was still well-written. Stephen King was/is a huge HP Lovecraft fan. King, hwever, had a more marketable style and was writing in better days for horror writers.
Lovecraft may have been AS, but he was reclusive beyond most standards. He supposedly suffered Poor health when young and had an overprotective mother. Perhaps he had OCD as he had a huge problem with the smell of fish. He was also very conservative, despite his agnosticism and was somewhat racist. Racism was very common in his day.

Lovecraft's conservationism disappeared during the depths of the Depression, and he became a New Dealer, and even something of a socialist.
While a life long racist (which was not at all uncommon in those days), he did learn tolerance in later years, believing only blacks and Australian aborigines were racially inferior. Who knows, had he lived, he may have even kicked this absurd race hate.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Kraichgauer, I did not know that Lovecraft became a less conservative in the 30s. That is new. I tend Libertarian conservative. Then again, not every biographer is completely accurate.
I did know that Lovecraft was less racist towards Asians. in his later years, he said he had nothing against the Chinese. He seemed to lose his early dislike of Jews. He supposedly married a Jewish lady from Brooklyn. In his very early works like "the Street" he was anti-Jewish. Later, he admitted he changed his mind on the Jews and began to admire them. Dislike of blacks was just simply common in hs day. My great grand parents were from Lovecraft's generation and they simply disliked blacks and Catholics. Just a tradition.

Read L. Sprague De Camp's Lovecraft: A Biography to learn about Lovecraft's change toward liberalism.
And yes, he did in fact marry a Jewish lady named Sonia Greene. The marriage failed, but not because of Lovecraft's racism. Rather due to financial and social strains put on their marriage by the Great Depression.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I love the works of H.P. Lovecraft. I especially get a kick out of his frequent use of the word "betwixt"! It makes me smile every time I see it written in one of his stories. There are a few film adaptations of his work and some that have taken inspiration from his mythos that I like: Reanimator, Dagon, From Beyond, In the Mouth of Madness, and... Necronomicon wasn't too bad for a 90's cheapie horror flick. I think that filmmakers have yet to really do justice to his stories though.

Mikey1138, you are right. The movies don't really do justice. The Spanish-US film "Dagon" was good for atmosphere, but it changed the story. The idea of mixed human-aquatic hybrids worked with the "Horror Over Innsmouth" story. They added the disturbing/sort of hot hybrid priestess in for good effect.
"mouth of Madness" was great as a Lovecraft inspired story. It captured the whole madness and chaos from the abyss unravelling the reality of the world that Lovecraft mastered.
There was a 1970 "Dunwich Horror" that was okay. in the 60s there was "Charles Dexter Ward" inspired movie starring Vincent Price called "Haunted Palace". Great acting, but the story was changed.
No one has done a good solid Lovecraft movie.

I got to see Dagon at a theatrical screening with Stuart Gordon, the director, in attendance. That was pretty fun, and the man definitely has a love for HPL's stories. They recently remade the Dunwich Horror... I have a copy of it, but have not watched it yet. Like you said, the original was okay, so I can't imagine this remake being very good. I've not seen the Haunted Palace and will now definitely seek it out. Thanks for the lead

The movie Cthulhu is actually the best Lovecraftian movie I've seen so far. Like the Stuart Gordon version of Dagon, Cthulhu is basically a retelling of The Shadow Over Innsmouth, but with the location switched to the Pacific Northwest in the near future. Because of the gay subtext, the movie is being distributed by Here, which specializes in LGBT films, and so might be hard to find anywhere other than Amazon. In the movie Cthulhu, the menace remains largely unseen and hinted at, which Lovecraft himself often did when he was at his best - and thus is very effective as a horror movie. I heartily recommend this movie, and if you can find it, it's well worth the effort.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Mikey1138, the Haunted Palace is mainly good because of Vincent Price. Roger Corman produced it and billed as a Poe story but it s Lovecraft. It s from early 60s.
Kraichgauer, there's a gay themed Lovecraft movie? The Old Gent from Providence would be aghast!

Well, the movie's protagonist (a Marsh, no less) is a homosexual returning home for his mother's funeral, after leaving years before when his father, the had of the Esoteric Church of Dagon, didn't approve of his lifestyle. But the disapproval arises from the father's desire for his son to produce an "heir."
As for Lovecraft himself, he said in a letter that he was surprised to learn that homosexuality existed in the modern world at all - he had previously thought it was restricted to ancient Greece. His friend Robert Barlow, who Lovecraft had collaborated with on The Night Ocean, was a closet homosexual. Years later, after having acquired a degree of fame and money as an archeologist, Barlow had committed suicide after someone had tried blackmailing him after learning his secret. It's doubtful if Lovecraft ever knew about Barlow's homosexuality, as in those days, such things were tightly kept under wraps.
Another one of Lovecraft's literary friends, the poet Hart Crane, was more open about his homosexuality. Though I've never read anywhere about Lovecraft expressing any disapproval about Crane's lifestyle.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Kraichgauer, I was having a bit of fun by saying "the old gent...would be aghast!". I was more pointing out Lovecraft's attitude to sex in general. The Old Gent never really put much sexuality in his works, which is why the movies have to add it.
RH Barlow is a very good, though depressing author. the Night Ocean is a fine story. I was aware Barlow was secretly gay. I believe hs suicide took place in Mexico.

Don't worry, I got your meaning.
It is absolutely true, Lovecraft's fiction was virtually sexless, with the exception of the implied human/obscene Old One copulation in The Dunwich Horror, and the hinted at dark things done by the degenerate hill folk "who were not beautiful in their sin," in The Picture In The House. But Lovecraft hardly wrote in depth about such things. Though in the old pulp magazines, it was more common than not to have heroes and heroines who have nothing below the waist.
As for Lovecraft himself personally, he was reclusive and shy, and wrote with distaste about the "eroticism" of his day - though I have to wonder if this was more of his own distaste for the modern world that he held. He did marry, though; and his wife Sonia later after their divorce had pronounced him "an adequately excellent lover," proving he was not after all asexual, as some modern writers have tried to portray him.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Thanks Kraichgauer... I will seek out the movie Cthulhu as well. I cannot wait to see this and the Corman film. I do enjoy a good ol' Roger Corman film every now and again. I shall report back here with my thoughts on the films once I've seen them. I wish I had friends in the real world who were into these sorts of things, so I had someone to watch these types of flicks with... but alas, none are forthcoming so you's guys are the best I've got! And I really do appreciate the leads on these films I've not seen yet!