Behind the Couch

Written and directed by Mathieu Turi, The Deep Dark may not be a direct adaptation of the work of HP Lovecraft, but it is certainly a love letter to him, and its narrative unfurls within a world in which the Cthulhu mythos exists (with nods to the Necronomicon, Cthulhu, the Great Old Ones and the ‘mad Arab’ Abdul Alhazred). Set in Northern France in the 1950s, it tells of a group of miners who are tasked with escorting a professor deep underground so he can collect data for his research. It soon becomes evident, however, that the professor has an ulterior motive, and the discovery of an ancient crypt unleashes a primordial evil... Many of Lovecraft's stories tell of the existential horror experienced by his characters whose discovery of forbidden knowledge reveals unspeakable, incomprehensible truths about human existence, throwing everything we thought we knew into question. Inter-dimensional doorways are conjured and all manner of unknowable cosmic horrors lumber/crawl/slither t...

After my recent viewing of Evil Dead (2013), I found myself thinking about the subtle (and not so subtle) Lovecraftian elements, particularly the creepy arcane tome found in the cellar of the cabin. A prominent feature of the earlier Evil Dead films too, the Necronomicon is an ancient (fictional) grimoire containing summoning spells, incantations, the laws of the dead and various accounts of an unknowable pantheon of cosmic deities known as the Great Old Ones. The Necronomicon was created by HP Lovecraft and appeared in many of his stories. According to Lovecraft scholar ST Joshi, the author was likely inspired to create a fictional grimoire that could drive its reader insane and unleash incomprehensible cosmic horrors from the beyond, by a collection of short stories by Robert Chambers, The King in Yellow (1895). In his essay Supernatural Horror in Literature (1927), Lovecraft describes this collection as: “a series of vaguely connected short stories having as a background a m...

Fede Álvarez's remake of Evil Dead (1981) throws out the splat-stick humour of Sam Raimi’s original shocker and ups the ferocity to nearly unbearable levels to create a dark, surprisingly bleak and frequently horrifying film. The basic plot – a group of friends fall prey to demonic forces while staying at an isolated cabin the woods – remains largely the same, but Álvarez introduces a compelling element involving addiction and grief to really flesh things out. The screenplay – co-written by Álvarez and Rodo Sayagues – is an exercise in stripped back storytelling with minimalist plot. There is a welcome emphasis on the use of practical effects instead of CGI, which results in some truly startling make-up and gore, further enhanced by a raw physicality from the actors who all throw themselves into proceedings with grim aplomb. While the violence is certainly outlandish, it is grounded in a gritty realism quite far removed from Raimi’s original, which makes it all the more un...

"There was something of stolid resignation about them all, as if they walked half in another world between lines of nameless guards to a certain and familiar doom." HP Lovecraft, Color Out of Space. Adapted from a short story by HP Lovecraft,  Color Out of Space  is written by director Richard Stanley and author Scarlett Amaris. It marks the return of the cult director, whose last directorial feature was Dust Devil in 1992, though in the interim he has also directed documentaries, short films and written/doctored screenplays, including creepy doppelganger chiller, The Abandoned (2006). There have been many filmic adaptions of Lovecraft’s work throughout the years, most notably from director Stuart Gordon , who proved quite deft in treading the line between the sort of pulpy exploitation and hallucinatory cosmic horror Lovecraft is renowned for. Lovecraft’s work has often been described as ‘unfilmable’ as his narratives tend to focus on conjuring atmosphere, and descr...

1973 Dir. Richard Blackburn Set in 1920s rural America and filmed on an ultra-low budget, this deliciously weird and wonderful adult fairy tale tells of a young girl’s sexual awakening in the rustic abode of a female vampire. When 13-year-old church singer Lila (Cheryl Smith) receives a letter from the titular antagonist (Lesley Gilb) informing the girl her gangster father is close to death and longs to see her one last time, Lila runs away from her puritanical guardian, Reverend Mueller (Blackburn). On her journey she encounters various incarnations of aggressive male sexuality, from the sleazy ticket seller at the bus station and the lecherous man whose car she stows away in, to the coven of undead abominations lurking in the woods around Lemora’s home. Their advances serve to highlight Lila’s perceived vulnerability and objectify her burgeoning sexuality as she wanders somnambulantly through increasingly nightmarish landscapes. When she arrives at the home of Lemora, Lila init...

Widely known for his graphic novel adaptations of classic literature, including collaborations on the acclaimed Sherlock Holmes series with Ian Edginton, INJ Culbard has also been making a name for himself with his adaptions of the work of HP Lovecraft. Having tackled At the Mountains of Madness, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward , and The Shadow Out of Time for SelfMadeHero, Culbard has now turned his attention to Lovecraft’s Dream Cycle, with a strikingly beautiful adaptation of The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath . I had the absolute pleasure of talking to Ian recently about his Lovecraft adaptations, describing the indescribable, the far-reaching impact of Lovecraft's unique brand of cosmic horror, and his forthcoming adaptation of Robert Chambers’ The King in Yellow (!). Head over to Exquisite Terror to read our conversation .

He locked away the Necronomicon with a shudder of disgust, but the room still reeked with an unholy and unidentifiable stench. 'As a foulness shall ye know them,' he quoted. Yes - the odour was the same as that which had sickened him at the Whateley farmhouse less than three years before. He thought of Wilbur, goatish and ominous, once again, and laughed mockingly at the village rumours of his parentage.  'Inbreeding?' Armitage muttered half-aloud to himself. 'Great God, what simpletons! Show them Arthur Machen's Great God Pan and they'll think it a common Dunwich scandal! But what thing - what cursed shapeless influence on or off this three-dimensional earth - was Wilbur Whateley's father? Born on Candlemas - nine months after May Eve of 1912, when the talk about the queer earth noises reached clear to Arkham - what walked on the mountains that May night? What Roodmas horror fastened itself on the world in half-human flesh and blood?'  Despite...

2005 Dir. Andrew Leman "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." H.P. Lovecraft First published in Weird Tales in 1922, Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu concerns Francis Wayland Thurston, a young man who is attempting to piece together the circumstances of his great-uncle's death. While looking through the dead man’s possessions he finds a weird manuscript pertaining to an ancient and alien slumbering deity, and the despicable ...

Guest post by Christine Hadden One of the biggest issues that H.P. Lovecraft fans have is the lack of acceptable translation to film of his work. Many films teeter on the edge of the dark precipice of his brilliant stories, but fail to capture the weird yet exceptional storytelling and sinister themes the author is so famous for. The Resurrected (1992), aka Shatterbrain , while certainly not a celebrated film, is one of the most faithful adaptations of a Lovecraft story. Based on The Case of Charles Dexter Ward , this low-budget, direct-to-video release has the distinction of being directed by the late, great Dan O'Bannon ( Alien, Return of the Living Dead ) and though apparently it got edited without O'Bannon, it still remains a relatively close conversion from story to film. Charles Dexter Ward (Chris Sarandon, reason enough to see the film) has alienated his new wife by occupying his time first in the family's carriage house, and then an old family estate well r...

1985 Dir. Stuart Gordon When the eccentric Herbert West (a manic Jeffrey Combs) arrives at Miskatonic University, Arkham, he and a fellow medical student become embroiled in strange experiments to reanimate dead tissue. With horrific consequences. Based on H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West – Reanimator , Stuart Gordon’s film is perhaps one of the most successful adaptations of the author’s work, and it triggered a resurgence of cinematic interest in the work of Lovecraft throughout the 80s and 90s. The film is an outrageous blend of splattery special effects, pseudo-sci-fi concepts, comic violence, pitch black humour and vivid horror. At times it boasts a similar madcap tone to Sam Raimi’s earlier splat-stick classic, Evil Dead , as Dr West’s increasingly desperate and ludicrous attempts to reanimate corpses reach feverish intensity. The idea to make Re-Animator stemmed from Gordon’s belief that there were not enough Frankensteinian stories. He believed pop-culture had...

Guest post by Aaron Duenas It should be said that I'm not an expert on H.P. Lovecraft by any means, but, like every horror buff, I know of, enjoy, and appreciate his work for being so far ahead of its time, and essentially paving the way for many horror authors whose works have affected pop culture, literature, and cinema. I went into this film, and I'm approaching this review, mainly as a fan of director Albert Pyun, who recently retired due to health problems. He's a filmmaker who's primarily worked in the straight-to-video market. Some of his more notable films include Cyborg (a favorite of mine), The Sword and the Sorcerer , and Vicious Lips . So when I found out that Pyun directed a Lovecraft adaptation, to say that I was curious would be an understatement. Cool Air , which was apparently produced back in 2006 but sat on the shelf for seven years before being released in 2013, is based on Lovecraft's short story of the same name. There have been other a...

1963 Dir. Roger Corman While it takes its name from a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, The Haunted Palace is actually an adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s The Case of Charles Dexter Ward . It’s still regarded as one of the titles in Corman’s Poe cycle, not only because of its title, but because of its shared aesthetic, a gloomily literate script, unyieldingly grim atmosphere, preoccupation with death and mourning, and a household plagued by its dark secrets. There is also the presence of Vincent Price, a stalwart of Corman’s Poe adaptations. While the director had actually been keen to move away from Poe adaptations, he was persuaded not to buck the trend by producers, as their Poe films had been immensely successful. A compromise was reached - the film would be an adaptation of Lovecraft, but would take its title from a poem by Poe. It successfully entwines the themes and sensibilities of both writers and emerges as one of the best horror films made by Corman at this time. Lovecraft’s sto...

2001 Dir. Stuart Gordon Despite its title, Gordon’s film is not an adaptation of Lovecraft’s short story of the same name. While it certainly borrows elements and themes from it, Dagon is an adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth , Lovecraft’s 1936 novella which tells of a Miskatonic University student’s fateful visit to the titular dilapidated coastal town to study the architecture and weird folklore. While there, he encounters hostility from the bizarre locals who are revealed to be amphibious mutants; the result of an ancient pact between the towns forefathers and a race of sea dwelling creatures known as the Deep Ones… Gordon had planned to direct an adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth back in the 80s, but funding constantly evaded him. When his friend and collaborator Brian Yuzna founded the Spanish production company Fantastic Factory in the early 2000s, Gordon was finally able to realise his project. Dagon is a no nonsense, old-fashioned horror flick that hits the...