H.P. Lovecraft/Nightmare Fuel: Difference between revisions

* Or [http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thethingonthedoorstep.htm "The Thing on the Doorstep"], or [http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/themusicoferichzann.htm "The Music Of Erich Zann"]. This guy was a master of horror. "The Music of Eric Zann" has some of the best examples of [[Nothing Is Scarier]] and [[Hell Is That Noise]] ever devised. Even better is that the latter is invoked ''without actually being able to hear it.''

* [http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thepictureinthehouse.htm "The Picture In the House]." Unusual for Lovecraft, as it does not involve [[Cosmic Horror]], or even the supernatural, and it actually has fairly effective dialogue. Also, the single scariest use of ''italics,'' ever.

** His description of the [[Incredibly Lame Pun|epileptic trees]] just feels so wrong and vivid.

{{quote| ''...And yet amidst that tense, godless calm the high bare boughs of all the trees in the yard were moving. They were twitching morbidly and spasmodically, clawing in convulsive and epileptic madness at the moonlit clouds; scratching impotently in the noxious air as if jerked by some alien and bodiless line of linkage with subterrene horrors writhing and struggling below the black roots.''}}

* You think his [[Cosmic Horror|standard]] stories are scary? Try reading some of his calm and lucid descriptions of his own ''real'' dreams. The man was the living embodiment of [[Nightmare Fuel]].

{{quote| ''Bigger'n a barn... all made o' squirmin' ropes... hull thing sort o' shaped like a hen's egg bigger'n anything with dozens o' legs like hogs-heads that haff shut up when they step... nothin' solid abaout it—all like jelly, an' made o' sep'rit wrigglin' ropes pushed clost together... [[Eyes Do Not Belong There|great bulgin' eyes all over it]]... ten or twenty maouths or trunks a-stickin' aout all along the sides, big as stove-pipes an all a-tossin' an openin' an' shuttin'... all grey, with kinder blue or purple rings... an' Gawd it Heaven—[[Nightmare Face|that haff face on top]]...''<br />

...<br />

* [http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thecallofcthulhu.htm "The Call of Cthulhu"], the penultimate of all things Lovecraft and the birthing place of the horrid thing itself.

** "The stars were right again, and what an age-old cult had failed to do by design, a band of innocent sailors had done by accident. {{spoiler|After vigintillions of years great Cthulhu was loose again, and ravening for delight."}} Aaaagh! [[Nightmare Retardant|Though]] {{spoiler|he gets taken out by being smacked in the head with a boat.}}

* "[http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thecaseofcharlesdexterward.htm The Case of Charles Dexter Ward]". Even if you see the twist {{spoiler|that Curwen had come back to life and killed Ward to assume his identity}} coming from a mile away, the storytelling is so good, and the writing so skin-crawlingly creepy, that ''it doesn't matter.'' Now that, my friends, is some damned effective horror.

* Similarly, we have ''Under the Pyramids'', listed here as "[http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/imprisonedwithpharaos.htm Imprisoned With Pharos]", a Lovecraft story that relates Harry Houdini's experience in Egypt. After being lowered into a pit near the Giza pyramids and the Sphinx, Houdini {{spoiler|follows a procession of beings that look similar to the Egyptian Gods, along with mummies and assorted undead. He then watches an elaborate ceremony that eventually reveals the Sphinx itself, which has 5 heads and tentacles. Except these are actually the toes and the claws of the creature; the narrator simply mistakes the being's single paw for the creature itself. The thing's true face, which is supposed to have been the Giza's Sphinx's original image is left completely to the reader's imagination}}.

 

== Inspired by Lovecraft ==

* Author Ramsey Campbell is a good Lovecraft successor. Specifically, ''The Darkest Part of the Woods'' invokes old English legends, Asian-style freakish body corruptions, [[Squick]] situations that are oddly tastefully handled, more [[Body Horror|Body Horrors]]...

* The cult favorite [[Thomas Ligotti]], who should probably have his own HONF page, has written essays on Lovecraft.