History Main / LovecraftCountry

Lovecraft Country is a dark, twisted version of [[{{Arcadia}} rural New England]] as used as a setting for horror fiction. Named for the author Creator/HPLovecraft (a native of UsefulNotes/RhodeIsland, [[{{Irony}} where there were no places named after him until 2013]] ) who wrote a number of tales set in a New England milieu, usually small isolated towns that look [[NothingExcitingEverHappensHere seedy and boring]] at first but [[TownWithADarkSecret are actually dark and foreboding on the inside]], populated by hostile and [[SmallTownTyrant corrupt (in several ways) hicks]] that often are not quite human, twisted by the influence of ancient horrors and [[EldritchAbomination extradimensional aliens]] (and generations of inbreeding).

* If you extend Lovecraft Country to include UsefulNotes/NewJersey, Gotham City of ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'' fame certainly counts. In fact, Arkham Asylum, the CardboardPrison all of Batman's villains end up in, is named after one of Lovecraft's towns.

* ''Series/{{Riverdale}}'', which is set in Rockland County, NY. Fitting considering it's a darker take on the [[ComicBook/ArchieComics Archie series]], borrowing heavily from ''ComicBook/AfterlifeWithArchie'' (See Comic Books).
** Then came along ''Series/ChillingAdventuresOfSabrina'', an adaptation of the eponymous comic book, which presented us with Greendale, the neighbor-town of Riverdale, and its numerous witches, demons, ghosts and assorted monsters.

** ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' is set entirely in what was once Massachusetts and Boston, now known as the Commonwealth. The wasteland can really project this vibe on particularly foggy or rainy mornings, be it in the forests or by the coast. The closest the game actually gets to anything Lovecraftian is at Dunwich Borers. Now a raider holdout of a mine/quarry, at the very bottom [[spoiler: Dunwich Borers LLC was trying to dig up a colossal statue (a reference to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shunned_House "The Shunned House"]]) and had a marble altar to their gods there.]]

* In ''VideoGame/KaiserreichLegacyOfTheWeltkrieg'', an AlternateHistory mod for ''VideoGame/HeartsOfIron'', when [[DividedStatesOfAmerica the US falls into civil war]] one of the factions you can take control of is New England, carved out by Canada (and including [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkState upstate New York]]) to serve as a buffer against the [[DirtyCommunists Syndicalists]] and the [[RightWingMilitiaFanatic American Union]]. New England itself isn't this, but an in-game event reveals that, in this universe, Lovecraft has attained the fame and respect in life that he [[VindicatedByHistory only got after he died]] in real life, likely due to the more unstable nature of American society and the world in the prior twenty years making his dark, nihilistic vision resonate more with people. You can select either him or Creator/RobertFrost as the nation's poet laureate, with it being noted that Frost is the favored choice of the nation's cultural elites but Lovecraft is the populist choice.

* {{Invoked|Trope}} by the city of Salem, Massachusetts, whose tourist marketing paints it as a real-life HalloweenTown.

* "Lovecraft Country" in a broad sense can refer to any generic rural New England setting (i.e. Stephen King's stories set in backwoods Maine), but if you want to get technical, the fictional locations in Lovecraft's stories which spawned this name are all concentrated in ''northeastern'' Massachusetts. Yes, this overlaps with Salem, near the coast, but some of the other famous fictional locations like Dunwich were located a bit more north-central: deeper into the interior in the backwoods, not near the more densely settled and populous coasts (closest to Fitchburg and Greenfield).

* Athol, Massachusetts is known to have been one of the rural Central/Western Mass towns that Lovecraft based the town of Dunwich off of. While not known to be especially prone to spooky phenomena, it ''does'' get very foggy and is in a heavily wooded area. The "degenerate, decaying town" part is also very much true with Athol, as it is notoriously economically depressed, heavily isolated (even with an exit from Route 2, Worcester, Boston, and Springfield are over an hour away, leaving Greenfield, Gardner, Fitchburg, and Leominster as the closest economic centers, ''none'' of which are known for their prosperity or abundance of good jobs), and has rates of domestic violence, teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol addiction, and child abuse that are well above average for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

* Salem-born Creator/MikeFlanagan loves this trope, which is most prominent in some of his television series work, such as ''Series/TheHauntingOfHillHouse'' (a terrifying [[EldritchLocation haunted house]] in Massachusetts drives its occupants to death and madness) or ''Series/MidnightMass'' (taking place on the isolated island of Crockett Island, and exploring themes of religious fanaticism, the nature of sin and [[spoiler: vampirism]]).

-> '''NOTE''': For the novel, see ''Literature/LovecraftCountry''. For the TV adaptation of said novel, see [[Series/LovecraftCountry here]].

Milder versions of this can be found in other types of horror. The setting trend was then continued by Creator/StephenKing, a more contemporary famous American horror writer, although he sets his stories in UsefulNotes/{{Maine}} as opposed to UsefulNotes/{{Massachusetts}} and Rhode Island. In fact, you could divide it into southern New England being Lovecraft territory and northern New England as King country. If you don't want as many New England accents, upstate UsefulNotes/{{New York|State}} or the [[UsefulNotes/NewJersey Pine Barrens]] (home of TheJerseyDevil) will do, although it probably won't be quite as Eldritch. New Jersey variants are particularly likely to be lighthearted or played for laughs, because, hey, {{Joisey}}. As for why this area seems to attract so much horror fiction (aside from Lovecraft and King [[WriteWhatYouKnow writing what they knew]] and other writers [[FollowTheLeader following the leader]])... if you ever go to New England in autumn or winter, you'll find it quite scenic during the day (the fall foliage is a major tourist magnet, as are the region's abundant ski resorts), but the sun sets early and it gets dark, cold, and spooky fast. Not so coincidentally, upstate New York is the birthplace of the Spiritualist movement. The [[WitchHunt Salem Witch Trials]] probably also have a role to play (cf. SalemIsWitchCountry). Expect a NewEnglandPuritan to show up, drawing on the region's history as a hotbed of religious fundamentalism.

Lovecraft Country is a dark, twisted version of [[{{Arcadia}} rural New England]] as used as a setting for horror fiction. Named for the author Creator/HPLovecraft -- a native of UsefulNotes/RhodeIsland, [[{{Irony}} where there were no places named after him until 2013]] -- who wrote a number of tales set in a New England milieu, usually small isolated towns that look [[NothingExcitingEverHappensHere boring and mediocre]] at first but [[TownWithADarkSecret are actually dark and foreboding on the inside]], populated by hostile and [[SmallTownTyrant corrupt (in several ways) hicks]] that often are not quite human, twisted by the influence of ancient horrors and [[EldritchAbomination extradimensional aliens]] (and generations of inbreeding).

** King's Maine notably has a trio of recurring cursed fictional towns in Maine: Derry, most famous for being the domain of the EldritchAbomination Pennywise (the titular It from Literature/It ) ; Salem's Lot (most famous for becoming a vampire-infected town in Literature/SalemsLot, though additional short stories such as Literature/JerusalemsLot adds more traditional Lovecraftian horror to the town's past) and Castle Rock, THE most dangerous place of Maine, hosting threats ranging from rabid and maybe possessed dogs (Literature/Cujo ) to a [[DealWithTheDevil deal-making demon]] (Literature/NeedfulThings), passing by perverse serial killers (Literature/TheDeadZone), evil witches (Literature/SkeletonCrew)and some sort of sentient ever-growing house (Literature/NightmaresAndDreamscapes).

* If you extend Lovecraft Country to include UsefulNotes/NewJersey, Gotham City of ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' fame certainly counts. In fact, Arkham Asylum, the CardboardPrison all of Batman's villains end up in, is named after one of Lovecraft's towns.
** There's a short arc in ''[[ComicBook/RobinSeries Robin]]'' where Tim leaves Gotham to track a gun smuggler and winds up in what is an unquestionably Lovecraftian tale involving a couple of tiny backwoods towns with dark secrets relating to a temporarily HumanoidAbomination.

* Dudleytown, Connecticut, is a ghost town (overgrown ruins, never formally incorporated) in the northwest of the state which is supposedly haunted. Many residents committed suicide, died under strange circumstances, or were "driven to madness" Lovecraft-style. Visitors to the site have reported chills, floating orbs of light at night, and other paranormal phenomena. The former settlement is now on private land, people entering the area without permission are arrested for trespassing, and police aggressively enforce towing on roads that provide access to the area.
** The land is owned by the Dark Entry Forest Association.

* ''Franchise/SilentHill'' is apparently supposed to be located in New England. Even stranger, the movie adaption takes place in West Virginia. The screenplay adaptation was inspired in part by the real life ghost town of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania Centralia, Pennsylvania]]. Once a coal mining town, it was abandoned when an underground coal vein caught on fire and could not be put out, resulting in amongst other things a constant haze of smoke that ''did'' put out a Silent Hill vibe. Centralia started burning in the early 60s and is still on fire (underground) today.
** The canon of the games, meanwhile, eventually established that it was in Maine - fitting, considering the amount of influence Stephen King's works had on the series.

* ''Videogame/CityOfHeroes'' has Croatoa, a suburb of the titular Rhode Island metropolis which is slowly being pulled into the spirit world.
** It gets bonus points for the name being a reference to one of the bigger mysteries in American history - [[UsefulNotes/TheLostColonyOfRoanoke the disappearance of an entire colony in North Carolina]].

*** The ''Far Harbor'' DLC takes you even further up north to Mount Desert Island, Maine where the mysterious Fog has resulted in even more dangerous creatures such as the Gulpers (giant and gluttonous mutant salamanders) and Fog Crawlers (giant mutant shrimp) as well as the presence of the Children of Atom cult who worship it as a holy symbol of Atom.

* ''Videogame/AloneInTheDarkTheNewNightmare'', is set on Shadow Island, Massachusetts. Complete with shadow monsters, ancient mysteries, large manor house and isolation.

* ''Videogame/CallOfCthulhuDarkCornersOfTheEarth'', the adaption of ''Literature/TheShadowOverInnsmouth''. Most of the action is set in or around Innsmouth, the only exceptions being the Prologue (in Boston) and a few intermission cutscenes (in Arkham).

* In ''Videogame/ShadowHearts: From the New World'', the gang takes a trip to Boston's Arkham University for information on the enemy they are fighting. Naturally, some of the staff there are summoning up {{Eldritch Abomination}}s for you to do battle with -- and one of the professors has [[Creator/HPLovecraft a very familiar name]].

* ''The Fisherman'' by John Langan takes place in upstate New York and concerns two recent widowers who go on a fishing trip. They learn that the creek they plan on fishing in is the center of some local urban legends and mysterious events.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'', Luz finds a door to the Demon Realm not far from her home in Connecticut.

For analogous settings outside of New England, see CampbellCountry, SouthernGothic, SinisterSouthwest, WeirdWest, and {{Uberwald}}. Compare and contrast HollywoodNewEngland. Can be considered a dark counterpart to the far less ominous PastoralScienceFiction tripe.

For analogous settings outside of New England, see CampbellCountry, SouthernGothic, SinisterSouthwest, WeirdWest, and {{Uberwald}}. Compare and contrast HollywoodNewEngland. Can be considered the dark counterpart to the far less ominous PastoralScienceFiction tripe.

For analogous settings outside of New England, see CampbellCountry, SouthernGothic, SinisterSouthwest, WeirdWest, and {{Uberwald}}. Compare and contrast HollywoodNewEngland.