The Lovecraftian Film Festival of Your Own Strikes Back

I said a few weeks ago that I would come back to this, and here I am. This segment will mostly focus on Lovecraft-inspired films.

The Color Out of Space: Nicolas Cage gets lots of crap for existing but I like this one. It modernizes the story considerably but doesn't diminish the cosmic weirdness inherent in this story. There's also brief nod to Algernon Blackwood that Lovecraft would have appreciated.

Ghostbusters: This is probably my favorite movie of all time, so when I first started getting into Lovecraft and noticed that there were secret cults in his stories worshiping world-destroying monstrosities, the connection I saw to Ghostbusters was unmistakable. Of course, it's a comedic take on cosmic horror, but it's there. In the Real Ghostbusters cartoon, we also have the episode "The Collect Call of Cathulhu" where they take on Cthuhlu and his vile cult. The icing on the cake is the movie novelization that mentions that one of the books a young Egon Spengler tried to find in his local library was the Necronomicon. So much fun.

Event Horizon: This is a harrowing tale of a crew traveling through space to find a derelict craft and enter a dimension that could be Hell. Not for the faint of heart, this makes the presence of evil palpable and creeps into your skin.

Prometheus and Alien films: this movie gets it's share of hate but I love it. I got the Lovecraftian feel from this movie as well as that of Clark Ashton Smith. Reading the novelizations related to the timeline for Ridley Scott's Alien films provides some context and a much larger scope. While not complete or wholly cohesive, there is an intriguing vision of cosmic menace. To me, what really hurt the Alien franchise were Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection. Just read the Dark Horse sequels to Aliens for, what I think, is a better, more thematically coherent resolution.

Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser 2: Much like Lovecraft's over-curious bookworms, anyone who dares to open Lemarchand's Box expose themselves to malicious, incomprehensible cosmic forces. Of course, the emphasis on sex and graphic violence goes beyond Lovecraft's purview. The protagonist's journey through the cyclopean labyrinth in Hell only enhances the Lovecraftian echoes.

Hellboy: Guillermo del Toro' original adaptation of Mike Mignola's graphic novels makes references to the Cthuhlu Mythos right from the start. With a massive, tentacled entity waiting to consume the Earth, it's connection to Lovecraft is obvious. Mignola's and del Toro's shared love of weird fiction make this a wonderful collaboration. The latest Hellboy starring David Harbour is generally hated, but I liked it quite a bit and it actually stayed truer to the franchise.

There's still possibilities of an adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness by del Toro out there. While I don't have any doubt that he's committed to the idea, there seem to be too many issues with studio politics to make a live action version. With the success of his version of Pinocchio, he seems open to doing a stop motion version which sounds fascinating.

One of these days, I'll be glad to do a review of the short film adaptations of Lovecraft's work but I need to refresh my memory on those. I'll get back to you on that sometime.

Written by Nicholas Montelongo