Blog-o-ween: H.P. Lovecraft

It seems strange to say it, but one of the most influential artists on 21st century horror is an early 20th century pulp fiction Anglophile who styled himself after 19th century writers and who wished he'd lived in 18th century, pre-Revolution America. H.P. Lovecraft and his ideas about "cosmic horror" are ubiquitous across all media: movies, music, comic books, board games, video games, role-playing games, etc.

It also seems strange that so many people should find something of worth in the works of a man who is very problematic from a 21st century point-of-view. Name a race, a gender, a sexual orientation, a national origin, attach the suffix “-phobe” to the end, and you’d have a pretty accurate description of the man.

Yet, there’s something about Lovecraft's work, his description of the creatures from “outside” our world, and our petty human understanding of them that inexplicably draws people to them. Black, white, gay, straight, men, women, and every point on the spectrum these terms try to define – everyone, it seems, finds something in Lovecraft that they can use in their own work and in their own way. For instance, HBO’s Lovecraft Country, Victor LaValle’s novel The Ballad of Black Tom, and Chris Spivey’s Harlem Unbound (an excellent sourcebook for the RPG Call of Cthulhu), are all works by black artists about the black experience that use Lovecraft’s world, but not his worldview.

Perhaps one of the ways in which people find a way into Lovecraft’s work is via his overarching sense of “cosmic horror.” The opening paragraph of Lovecraft’s short story, “The Call of Cthulhu,” serves as a good definition of what that terms meant for him:

"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 deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

While today we half expect to find Lovecraft and the Lovecraftian in our horror films, TV, and other media, such was not always the case. During his lifetime, Lovecraft was not much read, respected, or remunerated. Seen as merely a pulp writer, Lovecraft's work was considerd to be beneath any serious examination by literary critics of the day. It wasn't until after his death in 1937 from stomach cancer that the Lovecraft renaissance began. August Derleth and Donald Wandrei started Arkham House, a publishing company, to preserve Lovecraft's works and keep them in print. Other writers who had exchanged letters with Lovecraft (and Lovecraft was nothing if not a prolific letter writer) and become friends with him, carried on and expanded upon his literary worldview. This "Lovecraft Circle," as they were known, included August Derleth, Clark Aston Smith, and Robert Bloch.

So, where does that leave us? Because Lovecraft was not well known during his life, we don't have much to choose from in terms of old time radio. However, what we do have is top quality.

In 1945, the radio program Suspense aired a version of the classic story "The Dunwich Horror" starring the one and only Ronald Colman as Professor Henry Armitage. It is utterly wonderful and horrifying. Its use of on-the-spot “live” radio reporting into the story – even going so far as to allow a moment or two of “dead air” to heighten the suspense and terror – is a nod to Lovecraft’s mixing of perspectives, voices, and media into his stories.

If you are interested in seeing what Wilbur Whateley may have looked like, then I urge you to visit the YouTube channel of SFX artist Chris Walas (Gremlins, Enemy Mine, Scanners). It will forever change the way you perceive papier-mâché.

Next, we have an episode of the 1960s KPFA (Berkeley)/KPFK (Los Angeles) radio show, The Black Mass. We've already touched upon this show earlier for Blog-o-ween. In fact, we highlighted their adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft story "The Outsider." (You can read about that and listen to it here.)

The Black Mass was also responsible for another excellent Lovecraft adaptation. In 1964, they aired "The Rats in the Walls." In this story, an American named Delapore, the last descendant of the De la Poer family, moves to his ancestral estate of Exham Priory in England following the death of his only son during World War I. While he restores the estate, he begins to hear the scurrying of rats in the walls. As he searches for explanations for the sounds, he soon discovers the truth about his family and himself. Truth that may be...hard to swallow...heh-heh-heh!

I would be remiss in my duties as host (and all-around swell guy) if I failed to mention the work of The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Formed in 1986 in Boulder, Colorado, by theater people who enjoyed playing the the role-playing game Call of Cthulhu, HPLHS moved the game from their kitchen table to the world at large, essentially turning it into a live action role play, or LARP for short. To make the game seem more real, they created props for their LARPs.

Soon, the HPLHS began creating a fanzine and short films based on Lovecraft's work. They created The Call of Cthulhu in 2005, a silent film rendition of the Lovecraft story. They also produce many "old time radio" adaptations via their Dark Adventure Radio Theatre. You can find these episodes here.