"With Akeley's permission I lighted a small oil lamp, turned it low, and set it on a distant bookcase beside the ghostly bust of Milton; but afterward I was sorry I had done so, for it made my host's strained, immobile face and listless hands look damnably abnormal and corpse-like... at last it developed that his trip to Yuggoth and beyond - and my own possible participation in it - was to be the next day's topic...subsequently he spoke very gently of how human beings might accomplish - and several times had accomplished - the seemingly impossible flight across the interstellar void. It seemed that complete human bodies did not indeed make the trip, but that the prodigious surgical, biological, chemical and mechanical skill of the Outer Ones had found a way to convey human brains without their concomitant physical structure. There was a harmless way to extract a brain, and a way to keep the organic residue alive during its absence. The bare, compact cerebral matter was then immersed in an occasionally replenished fluid within an ether-tight cylinder of metal... " From "The Whisperer in Darkness"

Get any group of horror aficianados together, ask them to name the single most influential writer in the genre, and you'll invariably get a debate going, an argument that'll boil down to two names: Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. Although Lovecraft first began publishing nearly a century after Poe, both are American, East-Coast fantasists who were known primarily for their work in the short-story form (Lovecraft obviously never achieved Poe's level as a poet). Lovecraft's chief contribution to the genre was the creation of the Cthulhu Mythos, an intricate series of tales concerning "the Old Ones", demonic other-dimensional entities who may be called forth to this realm by using the Necronomicon, a sorcerous tome written by "the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred". Lovecraft, who, like Poe, died relatively young (age 46, in 1937), was largely a recluse whose friendships, with such authors as August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, and Robert Bloch, were often conducted by correspondence (and his books of letters make for fascinating reading by themselves). His most well-known works include the novel "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward", the novella "At the Mountains of Madness", and short stories "The Dunwich Horror", "The Lurking Fear", "Pickman's Model" (depicted at right, by Hannes Bok), and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth". His non-Cthulhu story "The Outsider" is standard reading in many high-school textbooks (at least it was in mine!), and other non-supernatural stories such as "The Picture in the House" superbly capture the flavor and dialect of backwoods New England.

The Lovecraftian Art of Pete Von Sholly!
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"Halloween in Providence"	"He is Born"	"HPL"
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Well, Lovecraft's been to the movies almost as often as Poe, although with the single possible exception of Stuart Gordon's RE-ANIMATOR (based on the story "Herbert West - Re-Animator"), the adaptations have been lackluster, even ludicrous. Recently low-budget producers have tried screen versions of "Dagon" (the film version of which actually borrowed more elements from "The Shadow Over Innsmouth"), "The Lurking Fear" and "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" (released as THE RESURRECTED), while H. P. LOVECRAFT'S NECRONOMICON was originally set to try three tales, "The Whisperer in Darkness", "The Rats in the Walls" and "Cool Air" (the three segments finally filmed bear little resemblance to the original stories - big surprise). Curiously enough, the latter was done as a segment of Rod Serling's series "NIGHT GALLERY", as was at least one other Lovecraft story, "Pickman's Model". Now, where's that oft-mentioned film of "At the Mountains of Madness"?

Ia: Shub-Niggurath! sings the praises of Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft in the Movies is THE place for all things both cinematic and Lovecraftian!
Reader's Guide to the Cthulhu Mythos is a great place to check out Lovecraft's most famous creation.
And check out Lovecraft discussion groups at alt.horror.cthulhu and alt.necronomicon.

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