What are the best HP Lovecraft movies to get started with?

[FullBusinessSuit]

I'm seeing a lot of stuff online where people are just crapping on them. I'm looking for something that doesn't look ridiculous and isn't bastardized from the source material.

[BTGBullseye]

On 5/17/2021 at 6:17 PM, FullBusinessSuit said:

doesn't look ridiculous and isn't bastardized from the source material.

Good luck.

[rairii]

On 5/17/2021 at 6:17 PM, FullBusinessSuit said:

I'm seeing a lot of stuff online where people are just crapping on them. I'm looking for something that doesn't look ridiculous and isn't bastardized from the source material.

No use hunting for unicorns. Lovecraft's work isn't made for a visual medium, actually, trying to adapt his work to a visual medium kinda misses the point.

[StrixLiterata]

There are a lot of movies that aren't based on HPL's works but have similar themes. I highly recommend Annihilation and Stalker

[FullBusinessSuit]

Ok, which books are good then?

[StrixLiterata]

Roadside Picknick is a good modern take.

If you're willing to count a looong series of Reddit posts as a book, I'd also recommend Mother Horse Eyes: it's somehow both authentic to HPL's spirit despite being completely original.

Finally, if you're a fan of how The Call of Cthulu was all told through correspondence and have the appetite to tackle a really big book, House of Leaves is all about impossible geometry fucking with people's minds.

[Eshanas]

Let's just face it: Lovecraft wasn't a good writer. He was shat on in his own time, and his writings now are seen as very verbose, repetitive, and do what they won't say to do. It's more of the themes, elements, characters, and general plotlines in his works that hook people now adays than his own works.

 

Mountains of Madness was a fucking slog to get through....

 

In either case, Color out of Space (2019) is the 'best' and most accurate or in-spirit accurate so far. Followed, far behind, by The Dunwich Horror, 1970. And both take liberties with his work, and The Dunwich Horror is just a pile of garbage.

 

Everything else just takes a name from the Mythos and runs with it, or is influenced by his works.

 

 

[Shaddy]

I think that's pretty subjective. If his themes, elements, characters and general plotlines were good...then by quite a number of respects, his writing was good. I guess you're saying his prose was bad? I agree, in that case. It's not fun to read, even if cosmic monstrosities are cool.

 

But also, a lot of the themes were just thinly-veiled "person of other ethnicity causes me great existential terror" (which I'm guessing is why OP wants to get into it), so I'd wait a second before calling it good across the board

[Im_CIA]

On 6/4/2021 at 1:37 PM, StrixLiterata said:

Roadside Picknick is a good modern take.

If you're willing to count a looong series of Reddit posts as a book, I'd also recommend 

 

On 5/24/2021 at 9:45 AM, StrixLiterata said:

There are a lot of movies that aren't based on HPL's works but have similar themes. I highly recommend Annihilation and Stalker

If we are going by Tarkovsy's version, Annihilation is a poor man's Stalker. It's a rare case where an adaptation surpasses the original (Roadside Picnic)

[StrixLiterata]

On 6/11/2021 at 2:32 AM, Im_CIA said:

If we are going by Tarkovsy's version, Annihilation is a poor man's Stalker. It's a rare case where an adaptation surpasses the original (Roadside Picnic)

Annihilation tackles themes that Stalker doesn't, and it is more visually impressive, as well as having, in my opinion, more enjoyable pacing. Not that it's better than Stalker, but it's not just more of the same.

[StrixLiterata]

On 6/11/2021 at 2:11 AM, Eshanas said:

Let's just face it: Lovecraft wasn't a good writer. He was shat on in his own time, and his writings now are seen as very verbose, repetitive, and do what they won't say to do. It's more of the themes, elements, characters, and general plotlines in his works that hook people now adays than his own works.

 

Mountains of Madness was a fucking slog to get through....

 

In either case, Color out of Space (2019) is the 'best' and most accurate or in-spirit accurate so far. Followed, far behind, by The Dunwich Horror, 1970. And both take liberties with his work, and The Dunwich Horror is just a pile of garbage.

 

Everything else just takes a name from the Mythos and runs with it, or is influenced by his works.

 

On 6/11/2021 at 2:32 AM, Shaddy said:

I think that's pretty subjective. If his themes, elements, characters and general plotlines were good...then by quite a number of respects, his writing was good. I guess you're saying his prose was bad? I agree, in that case. It's not fun to read, even if cosmic monstrosities are cool.

 

But also, a lot of the themes were just thinly-veiled "person of other ethnicity causes me great existential terror" (which I'm guessing is why OP wants to get into it), so I'd wait a second before calling it good across the board

HPL's writng is a textbook example of outsider art: he didn't have any fundamentals, but still managed to write something significant and sometimes insightful because his outlook on life was so divorced from everyone else's. I'd be lying if I described his writing as accessible or easily enjoyable, but I'd still recommend it to most horror fans (with a warning for the racism) because of his originality. That also means there is a lot of room to improve on what he did, which many writers, movie directors, and even videogame directors have done with success.

[Im_CIA]

3 hours ago, StrixLiterata said:

Annihilation tackles themes that Stalker doesn't, and it is more visually impressive, as well as having, in my opinion, more enjoyable pacing. Not that it's better than Stalker, but it's not just more of the same.

I did enjoy the book but I've never seen the movie (Annihilation). 

 

What I love about Stalker is that everything in and around the zone can be taken at face value, or explained rationally. So the story can be viewed as a schizo urban explorer seeing patterns in a smoke stack, a supernatural adventure, or something in between.

 

Annihilation is more linear, as in the supernatural elements are beyond any reasonable doubt. 

[Shaddy]

8 hours ago, StrixLiterata said:

I'd be lying if I described his writing as accessible or easily enjoyable, but I'd still recommend it to most horror fans (with a warning for the racism) because of his originality. That also means there is a lot of room to improve on what he did, which many writers, movie directors, and even videogame directors have done with success.

Yeah, I can agree with that. A good Lovecraft-inspired work is generally greater than the sum of its parts.

[Eshanas]

Coming back to this thread, The Void is a good film. It's not tied to lovecraft in any way but it's just a good film in the same sort of spirit.

[StrixLiterata]

 

On 6/27/2021 at 7:44 PM, Eshanas said:

Coming back to this thread, The Void is a good film. It's not tied to lovecraft in any way but it's just a good film in the same sort of spirit.

Does it have anything to do with Ice Pick Lodge's The Void?

[Eshanas]

On 7/2/2021 at 11:26 AM, StrixLiterata said:

 

Does it have anything to do with Ice Pick Lodge's The Void?

No.