Few things have been as influential to modern storytelling as the works ofH.P. Lovecraft.The Call of Cthulualone has spawned thousands of expansions and derivative stories, almost always with a focus on the great monster that features in the story. John Carpenter’sIn the Mouth of Madnessis a direct tribute to the type ofcosmic horror storythat Lovecraft pioneered, while the upcoming animated Batman film,The Doom the Came to Gotham, is heavily inspired by the same.
However, film in general and horror films in particular have a habit of making the cosmic horror story into something far more reliant on its monsters than anything else. It can be argued that there hasn’t really been a major film that brings out the same kind of anxiety and dread that Lovecraft’s works did, with most filmmakers leaving the most terrifying elements of the genre in the box while they play with the big, obvious monsters. Let’s dive into what Lovecraft’s fiction could bring to modern storytelling, and explore why Hollywood could really use more Lovecraft.
Why is Lovecraft’s Horror Different?
Horror films generally rely on a very specific box of tricks to scare their audience, ranging from jump scares to body horror. Typically, the main threat of a horror movie is something that affects the characters on a very visible and very personal level. Whether you’re watching a slasher film, or a supernatural horror film, it’s a good bet that the characters will come face to face with whatever has been tormenting them at some point.
Lovecraft’s brand of horror, though, plays on a much deeper and more primal kind of fear. Monsters and mad deities in Lovecraft’s works ultimately don’t care about humanity as a while, much less individual members of the species. In these works, characters are faced with the unmistakable and undeniable truth that they are so small and insignificant that their sanity deteriorates into nothingness. Whatever they have discovered or witnessed often doesn’t really do anything beyond simply existing. This distinguishes true Lovecraftian horror from the typical monster movies that we have today.
Cthulu and creatures like it are not the threat for Lovecraft’s protagonists; in cosmic horror, there doesn’t really even need to be an active threat. No matter how closely a movie monster resembles the beings in Lovecraft’s work, cosmic horror is fundamentally different from the typical monster movie. Revealing the secrets of the cosmos, and thus how infinitesimally small and meaningless the human experience is in the face of the cosmos, will set most characters on a path to creating the more personal stakes all on their own.
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What Could Lovecraft’s Stories Do for Modern Audiences?
Today’s audiences are living in a very different world than the one that existed when Lovecraft was writing. However, there are some problematic things that movies do that Lovecraft’s stories are in a great position to deal with. While society has changed over time, the fear of the unknown and of insignificance are still relevant. Enough filmmakers agree thatIMDbhas even ranked the best Lovecraft-inspired films with a whopping 32 titles.
The popular depiction of mental health is, perhaps, the most surprising thing that Lovecraft’s stories are positioned to approach. Across the history of film, actual symptoms of mental disorders have been used as shorthand for conveying madness or instability, and this had led to the stigmatization of people who suffer from these disorders. The madness described in Lovecraft’s works is not something that can be depicted in this way, as it manifests in unique ways that can only be prompted by cosmic revelations of an unimaginable scale. Affected characters do not display typical mental health symptoms, but rather suffer from a momentary awareness that they are not equipped to comprehend.
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This ties into the second thing that modern audiences could easily appreciate, which is the source of the actual threat. As mentioned, the monsters in Lovecraftian horror are not usually the thing that threatens the characters. The characters themselves react in their own ways to whatever cosmic truth is revealed, monster or otherwise, and their actions then drive the plot. The threat comes from the revelation of the thing, but not necessarily the thing itself, and that is a concept that can be quite relevant to a modern audience. This isn’t a loud, ripping and tearing type of horror, but a quiet and unsettling one, and that is something that few films are currently exploring.
Is Now the Right Time for Lovecraft’s Stories?
It may seem like an odd time for nuanced and layered horror stories, with the current cinematic landscape filled with high energy thrill rides and very few extremely cerebral stories being told, but that backdrop is precisely why now is the perfect time to introduce new, but faithful takes on the genre that Lovecraft popularized. The cosmic horror filmGloriouscurrently holds an 86% fresh rating onRotten Tomatoes, signifying that critics are, at the very least, willing to give the genre a chance.
The formulaic and safe approach to filmmaking has become so prevalent that some of the greatest minds to ever step behind a camera have expressed concern about the future of cinema. Lovecraft’s brand of storytelling is excellent at terrifying and thrilling audiences in a completely different way, and theinherent risks to such adaptationscould reinvigorate the industry for more layered stories if done well, possibly paving the way for more films with the kind of layered and thoughtful themes across more genres.
To add to this, stories such asThe Shadow Over Innsmouth,andAt the Mountains of Madnesscould be a great option for audiences that have become burnt out on the endless stream of franchised movies and are looking for something fresh and new. These stories are also primed for creating the kind of shared universe that the industry is currently fascinated with, easily referencing one another without interfering with the main story and becoming episodic, satisfying the sort of viewer that wants a standalone story with a conclusion while also paying respect to the viewers who enjoy interconnected storytelling.
