My first introduction to Lovecraftian style horror - that I was aware of was different - was Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness. Even now, all these years later, I have a big soft spot for that film. It’s one of those awesome “almost” movies. As in, it’s almost great. That nearness to being really good in some ways harms it, because you’re aware of how close it is, so the gulf seems wider than a movie that’s further away.
For a male adolescent, the European release cut of this film, circa 1972 or so, was the bomb. Greatest film ever made, for a few weeks anyway.
Hahahaha. Yeah, I bet. I’m sure plenty of dudes wound up watching this dreck in '70 just for the chance to see Sandra Dee nude.
We really need a gif of Dean Stockwell holding his hands to the side of his head in that funky way and saying “yog sothoth”.
That’s a cool piece of trivia I just learned!
Sandy Peterson had a cool career. He went from TTRPGs to id, then worked for Sid Meier, then to Ensemble for Age of Empires, and now back to TTRPGs and board games.
Sounds like:
Here’s the Old Ones:
The Chaosium Call of Cthulhu RPG books managed to do some better representations, I’d say.
Is being racist in a time when everyone was way more racist make it less bad? My friend group right now is having a similar debate about going to see Pantera. Except, Phil Anselmo can’t really say being a Nazi was common at the time. Where do you draw the line on separating the artist from the art? It’s hard.
My first exposure to Lovecraft was through Conan killing wizards and demons. Then a few movies like Reanimator (10/10) and Lovecraft adjacent stuff like that one John Carpenter movie with Sam Neill.
I always wanted to read his books and this thread is giving me motivation to finally do it. I have a few flights coming up soon so maybe this will be my plane reading!
Ha, I never made that connection, @fox.ferro! That’s hilarious and perfect, given the context. I just watched Color Out of Space over the weekend, and little did I know G-Spot was going to find his way into the canon alongside “Nwordman”!
It was not – @Nightgaunt found it a few posts after yours – but how the heck did I miss that?
And, yes @Nightgaunt, Barlow’s Guide to Extraterrestrials! Oh man, did that silly thing tease my imagination and possibly ruin certain works of literature for me! :) That is the exact page that for years jammed itself between me and the stuff Lovecraft actually wrote. So weird seeing it again! And the Overlord on the cover, not to mention whatever a Pnume is. I remember that guy!
Y’all are so awesome.
“Alexandrian, or Wiccan?”
Tom are you getting into an Eldritch horror mode right now? Between this and the movie thread you just made I’m sensing a theme…
If so, that’s fun and exciting! I’m going down a Cyberpunk rabbit hole right now after playing the game. I’m trying to consume all that old material that Mike Pondsmith said inspired him when creating Night City. Working on Bubblegum Crisis right now (but that’s for another thread)
I remember that book very distinctly. I never owned it, but I do recall thumbing through it at a Waldenbooks or something like that many years ago. I also remember finding it very off-putting, in the same kind of way Tom describes. None of the creatures inside looked like living, breathing things - more like schematics, and not things that would take your breath away to encounter.
I remember also not being very familiar with a lot of the creatures themselves, but I had read Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time books, and none of the creatures from those stories looked like I imagined in that book. Which also annoyed me.
This is certainly a valid question, @Wallapuctus, but can we table it for now, or at least carry it to a thread where it might be less of a derail? I had hoped to establish that I’m comfortable with people opting not to read Lovecraft, and rather than challenge that, I’d like to hear their reasons and honor their decisions rather than challenge them.
Which is not to say your question isn’t pertinent or interesting! Just that I’d like to table it for now if that’s okay.
Reading Lovecraft is like reading the Bible: if you just jump in at any ol’ place, you’re liable to just make yourself hate it. Be sure to solicit opinions you trust regarding where to start!
(Not that you asked, but I’d recommend Dreams in the Witch House for you. It has a really cool subtext – possibly unintentional – about the tension between science and magic. Given your interest in the scientific responses to UFO sightings, I wonder if you might especially appreciate that element of the story.)
Very kind of you to ask, but this is actually my wheelhouse and always has been! Cosmic horror is my jam, especially as I get older and lose patience with genres I don’t like as much.
That said, I was playing a ton of Eldritch and then Arkham Horror a few months ago, and I just went through a big Auztralia phase (Martin Wallace boardgame). I’m doing more abstract and historical boardgames currently, but something putatively Lovecraftian tends to be on one of my tables here pretty often!
I am fairly certain that I was in my late 20’s if not early 30’s before I had read any Lovecraft. One of the first stories was The Doom That Came to Sarnath. That one I really liked. My first reading of The Call of Cthulhu left me a bit underwhelmed. I’ve since come to enjoy the story more.
I just listened to At the Mountains of Madness over the last two days and I feel like I am going to have to listen to it a couple of times or read it to appreciate it more.
I had forgotten how much exposition is in the story. The narrator builds everything up to a fever pitch, and then spends about forty pages describing murals that detail the sociology, economy, government, culture, population distribution, and leading exports of various alien races, cabals, and cults. I adore Lovecraft, but hoo boy, he sounds like he learned to write by reading encyclopedias!
He doesn’t seem like he was one for brevity. I am liking the audio book that I picked up because the two guys reading it are really into it so there’s an energy to each of the stories that some of the other Lovecraft audio books lack.
In my 50’s and have never read any. Well, at least until today - due to this thread bought The Collection on the Kindle. I am only familiar with the author’s name, his genre and the Call of Cthulhu RPG (which my daughter’s friend is getting her into). Hoping I can remain naïve about the baggage which precipitated this thread at least enough to enjoy the writings.
Now, will have to take Tom’s advice and research where to start.
It’s been a few years since I read it, but isn’t the framing story two traumatized guys flying back to civilization after surviving all those horrors? That would be the world’s worst road trip. Presumably your grip on sanity and the steering yoke would be tenuous, but what else are you going to do to kill time but go over all the weirdness and “sociology, economy, government, culture, population distribution, and leading exports” of native Antarcticans and tourists. It was a good thing for the narrative that neither character told the other to just shut up, that they didn’t want to think about it.
I’m reminded of the good old website Rinkworks Book-A-Minute, which long ago offered this critique of Lovecraft:
Narrator
I will tell you about something horrific I witnessed.
(Narrator discusses MUNDANE experiences which supposedly lead up to something HORRIFIC.)
Narrator
We’re almost at the horrific bit.
(Narrator talks about more stuff that might be SPOOKY if he’d only GET ON WITH IT.)
Narrator
We’re very close now.
(Narrator draws it out MORE.)
Narrator
This time I swear we’re just about at the horrific thing almost.
(Narrator FINALLY gets to the HORRIFIC thing which is HUGE and POWERFUL and EVIL and LAME.)THE END
My recommendation is The Colour Out of Space.