Lovecraftian Horror

You're right about the Dracula angle, there is definitely an invasion literature thing going on in The Shadow over Innsmouth as well, with a foreign threat coming from Micronesia instead of, you know, Hungary.

Interesting detail, the island in the story is called Pohnpei, also knows as Ascension island.

Have any of Lovecraft's writings or the Cthulhu mythos ever gone the Psychological Horror route?

EG: Actually using forms of mental illness as part of a way to convey the horror?Specifically loneliness and suicidal despair.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Feb 25th 2023 at 2:47:22 AM

Well, his approach often does turn the weak-minded into mindless cultists.

I'm looking for something like Shadow out of time, which mixes in the lovecraft horrors like the great race, with mundane psychological issues that the narrator has but turns out it was because of getting his mind swapped.

But perhaps more specifically, a Lovecraft story that also has themes of isolation and maybe suicide.

...Hope I'm not scaring anyone, I swear just curious if Lovecraft or the other Mythos writers tackled something like that.

A lot of Lovecraft protagonists have psychological issues but the games are really an exaggeration of the "go crazy" one. Indeed, a big theme is the fact that some are institutionalized for the obvious issue of trying to tell the truth.

• "The Outsider" is a particularly horrifying short story as the protagonist has never had any human contact whatsoever. It's left him a broken and shattered mess of a person.
• "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family" is about a man who finds out something terrible about his family and it leads to his suicide.
• "The Horror at Red Hook" results in the protagonist becoming feeble wreck of himself and terrified of doors. It's also very very racist.
• "Rats in the Walls" ends with the protagonist suffering a complete breakdown and ends in his suicide.
• "Dagon" ends in madness and suicide.
• "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" is a subversion but sounds like what you'd want. The protagonist figures out that Charles DIDNT go crazy because of his encounter with his witch ancestor, he was murdered and replaced.
• "The Mountains of Madness" Danforth sees what's implied to be one of the Great Old Ones or a God of some kind that drives him completely insane. Even though he survives to tell the tale.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 24th 2023 at 3:52:34 AM

The Outsider starts out fairly normal though very lonely. It is only after seeing himself in a mirror for the first time that he breaks.

Fascinating, I’ll give it a read. Thanks all.

Not sure if this goes to this particular forum, but I couldn't find any other under the Lovecraft label. There appears to be a movie project in the works by a studio of indie animators to create a movie based on At the Mountains of Madness titled Naked Peak - Climb the Mountains of Madness focused on a mix of the Cthluhu Mythos and Mountain climbing. It is something based off of a TTRPG scenario written by Madara Usi and was originally titled Mountains of Madness -Summit of Deities-. The animators themselves are a crowdfunded group who managed to reach their stretch goal two years ago and have now released a pilot and hope to continue the whole thing to make a full feature length film. While we don't know the full story as of yet, things are looking promising, though it is still up in the air just how Lovecraftian it will end up being.

Here is the pilot for anyone curious:

There is also a livestream that includes some additional info for those who can understand it. Jump to 18:06 if you want to see some of the Lovecraft stuff.

Edited by matteste on Mar 9th 2023 at 9:44:32 PM

"In the Vault" is a rare Lovecraft story where the seemingly supernatural elements are just this side of debatable, and you can doubt them if you really want to. It's kind of a psychological study of the human limits of coarseness, disrespect, and lack of imagination, come terrifyingly home to roost. In spirit, it's more of an extra-gory Tales from the Crypt story than an ordinary Lovecraft work—good gruesome fun!

Interesting, gonna read that one next.

Sounds like something I've been looking for.

that looks awesome!

There is in fact an episode of Tales from the Crypt that I'm fairly certain was inspired by "In the Vault". Namely, "Fitting Punishment".

Though in that episode, the supernatural elements are a lot less debatable.

Edited by M84 on Mar 10th 2023 at 2:26:49 AM

I just released the third volume of my Cthulhu Armageddon series, The Tree of Azathoth if anyone is interested.

So a bunch of weird shit happened, and I’ve been volunteered to read some stories of my choice to kids for Halloween.

Question, anyone got recommendations for Lovecraft stories?

I’m thinking of Call of Cthulhu.

"Colour out of Space". "Cats of Ulthar". "Cool Air".

Do not even think of reading "The Rats in the Walls", "The Street" or "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family" (ie the three most obviously or overtly racist Lovecraft works I can think of off the top of my head)

Edit: On those grounds despite being one of his most famous works, you might want to skip "The Call of Cthulhu" on similar grounds. It's not as up front and central as above or with a big, obvious red flag of a word used repeatedly, but its hard to avoid in certain sections.

Edited by KnightofLsama on Oct 25th 2023 at 1:44:57 AM

Yep, some of Lovecraft's works are a bit more obvious with the bigotry than others.

Yeah I had second thoughts about Call of Cthulhu. I did want to see their reaction to Cthulhu being defeated by a steam boat but giving it more thought, it's probably a bad idea with the descriptions.

I'm thinking of Colour out of space, the mystery element is good enough to keep kids interested.

Pickman's Models and..The Moon-Bog would be my recommendations

Alright, so I picked Colour out of space and Pickman's model. The latter was published in October and I think it'll be good to stir their imaginations for this one.

Wish me luck. Can't wait to see how they react.

!

Hey. I hope this is the right thread for this. I'm someone who enjoys making audiobooks of public domain works in my freetime. I'm well aware of Lovecraft's... ahem... issues... but I'm not familiar with his works. I barely just recorded What the Moon Brings a few days ago, and that's the extent of my exposure.

Are there any works that I just shouldn't touch with a 39 1/2-inch pole for my channel's sake? Or should I be okay as long as I give a disclaimer?

You might want to put disclaimers on most of his stories, because there is plenty of casual bigotry "of its time", as well as some hysteric vitriol, that even in the 1920's would have raised eyebrows. The Horror at Red Hook is notable for being essentially a ranting manifesto against the evils of the New York melting pot, as he hated living there during his brief time as married. It also stands out among Cthulhu Mythos stories, because the foreign cultists are identified as members of a very real ethnic minority, the Yazidi, who is still actively persecuted and misunderstood. That alone would be reason to avoid it, even though it has the building blocks for a noir-ish detective story. Medusa's Coils has a mundane twist about a character's ethnic background, played for greater horror than them being part of an evil serpent-cult. Even Herbert West interrupts its narration for a long paragraph or two, when the narrator reacts in horror how the body of a dead African-American boxer reminds him of everything that scares him about Darkest Africa.

Edited by Mara999 on Apr 14th 2024 at 10:40:58 PM

Yikes. Yeah, I had a feeling I'd need to put some disclaimers. I think as I read each story, I'll be able to judge for myself what not to cover. I remember having to bleep out The Legend of Sleepy Hollow a few times, but if it's something overly excessive, I'll just move on.

Edited by AmateurStorytime on Apr 14th 2024 at 12:52:37 PM

Just looked up Medusa's Coil. Fortunately that one was published in 1939, so it's too new for me to cover anyway.

Lovecraft's stories are an acquired taste, partly due to the content, with how he intertwined his views on race and class with the cosmic horror, so it is difficult to separate these. But also due to presentation, as he uses very antiquated language and his stories are mostly atmosphere, with seldom any action. But you can see why he is so influential, since he wrote many stories that function as prototypes for later fiction. At the Mountains Of Madness alone has influenced a ridiculous amount of sci-fi-horror where remote places are explored.

Edited by Mara999 on Apr 14th 2024 at 11:49:07 AM