Best HP Lovecraft Inspired Movies.

[TedShatner10]

Which are the best movies inspired by the works and themes of Howard Phillips Lovecraft?

My personal favourite movies that come across as Lovecraftian are The Thing (1982), Ghostbusters (1984), and In the Mouth of Madness (1994). The two movies made by John Carpenter are more serious and straight faced horror movies that are obviously inspired by Lovecraft - The Thing is based on a novel by another author (Who Goes There) but the creature itself is like a Shoggoth.

And while Ghostbusters is more of a fantasy comedy and mainly deals with ghosts, it mocks HP Lovecraft in a similar manner that Shaun of the Dead rips the piss out of Romeo zombie flims: Gozer the Gozerian would not look out of place in the Cthulhu Mythos and it was summond by 1920s cultists who built a eldritch temple disguised as a skyscraper (that warped into a interdimensional portal). Like Shaun of the Dead, GB is tongue in cheek, but none the less there is still a genuine sense of danger and extreme cosmic power with Gozer the Gozerian that doesn't come across quite as well with the Ogdru Jahad in Hellboy.

 

[Too Much Fun]

I didn't much care for "The Thing". I love the creature effects, but didn't find the characters or story interesting. The easy choice for me is "Re-Animator", which I believe is based directly on Lovecraft's writing. I think it's the only exposure I've had to his writing and if the rest of his work is anything like it, I think I definitely need to check out more of it.

I love the blend of the macabre and humour in that movie, with people performing extremely grotesque acts and feeling totally justified and remorseless about them not out of sadism, but genuine belief that what they're doing is right for science. Herbert West's intense, deadpan commitment to his research as performed by Jeffrey Combs is just brilliant.

 

[Mike Farley]

Howard the Duck.

Seriously though, In The Mouth of Madness is probably the best non-Lovecraft Lovecraft film. "Do you read Sutter Kane?"

 

[Gaith]

Never read HPL, but I'll have to go with The Mist (black-and-white version - the only version) regardless. From what I've read, bleak endings are key to Lovecraftian tone, and it doesn't get much bleaker than that one's.