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* "[http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/pickmansmodel.htm Pickman's Model]" takes the cake. Not only is it an excellent discussion on the process of ''creating'' horror, the final line is skin-crawlingly creepy. The worst part comes from thinking about other pieces of art that could have been painted in a similar fashion, [[wikipedia:Saturn Devouring His Son|this]] being a good example.
{{quote| ''"That nauseous wizard had waked the fires of hell in pigment, and his brush had been a nightmare-spawning wand."''}}
* Try reading [http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thestatementofrandolph.htm "The Statement of Randolph Carter."] Up to the last line: {{spoiler|''[[Wham! Line|YOU FOOL, WARREN IS DEAD!]]''}}
* Or [http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thefestival.htm "The Festival."]
* Or "[http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thewhispererindarkness.htm The Whisperer In Darkness]" - ''never'' look at those "lonely woods" the same way again.
** The last freakin' sentence.
{{quote| "For the things in the chair, perfect to the last, subtle detail of microscopic resemblance - or identity - {{spoiler|were the face and hands of Henry Wentworth Akeley.}}"}}
* 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.
* ''[[The Colour Out of Space]]''. It's a story about a goddamned ''color'' that will give you nightmares. [http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thecolouroutofspace.htm Lovecraft was Just That Good]. Imagine something so abstract that you can never comprehend it slowly eating you and the entire landscape around you alive over the course of months, and being even unable to flee. And considering that the dam project mentioned in the story was real, one has to wonder how many contemporary readers got really uncomfortable about drinking tap water.
** 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]].
* ''[[The Dunwich Horror]]''. [http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thedunwichhorror.htm See it here]. One of the worst things about this one is that, for once, Lovecraft didn't [[Take Our Word for It|skimp on the descriptions]]. The titular Horror was only visible for a second, but... well, how about we just let the witness explain.
{{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 />
''Oh, oh, my Gawd, that haff face—that haff face on top of it... that face with the red eyes an' {{spoiler|crinkly albino hair, an' no chin, like the Whateleys}}... It was a octopus, centipede, spider kind o' thing, but they was {{spoiler|a haff-shaped man's face on top of it, an' it looked like Wizard Whateley's}}, only it was yards an' yards acrost...'' }}
** {{spoiler|Wilbur Whateley's}} true, undisguised form was also pretty [[Body Horror|dreadful]]:
{{quote| ''"The back was piebald with yellow and black, and dimly suggested the squamous coloring of certain snakes. Below the waist, though, it was worst; for here all human resemblance left off and sheer phantasy began. The skin was thickly covered with coarse black fur, and from the abdomen [[Squick|a score of long greenish-grey tentacles with red sucking mouths protruded limply.]] ...On each of the hips, deep set in a kind of pinkish, ciliated orbit, was what seemed to be [[Eyes Do Not Belong There|a rudimentary eye]]; while in lieu of a tail there depended a kind of trunk or feeler with purple annular markings, and with many evidences of being an undeveloped mouth or throat. The limbs, save for their black fur, roughly resembled the hind legs of prehistoric earth's giant saurians; and terminated in ridgy-veined pads that were neither hooves nor claws.'' }}
* "[http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/coolair.htm Cool Air]". The next time someone asks you to crank up the AC for them, you're ''definitely'' going to think twice...
* [http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/dreamswitchhouse.htm "Dreams In The Witch House."] Perhaps one of his most scary stories, mostly because of the confusion and puzzlement felt by the protagonist. You may be afraid of raccoon tracks for about a month afterward because of Brown Jenkin. [[Captain Obvious|Raccoon tracks look like little human hands.]]
* "[http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/dagon.htm Dagon]". Everything about this story emanates horror, from Lovecraft's vivid description of the vast wasteland the protagonist is lost in, to the way that the reader and the narrator both share the same obsession with climbing the mountain. Neither know what this will achieve, but both begin to think, on the sole basis of paranoia, that it is their only hope. Then there's the final passage, which is simply terrifying.
{{quote| "Often I ask myself if it could not all have been a pure phantasm -- a mere freak of fever as I lay sun-stricken and raving in the open boat after my escape from the German man-of-war. This I ask myself, but ever does there come before me a hideously vivid vision in reply. I cannot think of the deep sea without shuddering at the nameless things that may at this very moment be crawling and floundering on its slimy bed, worshipping their ancient stone idols and carving their own detestable likenesses on submarine obelisks of water-soaked granite. I dream of a day when they may rise above the billows to drag down in their reeking talons the remnants of puny, war-exhausted mankind -- of a day when the land shall sink, and the dark ocean floor shall ascend amidst universal pandemonium."<br />
"The end is near. I hear a noise at the door, as of some immense slippery body lumbering against it. It shall not find me. God, that hand! The window! The window!" }}
* [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.
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* "Children of Cthulhu": An anthology of short stories in the Lovecraft manner...the very first one was essentially based on the old adage "The Devil's in the details!"
* A story from the ''[http://cthulhurotica.com/ Cthulhurotica]'' anthology called "Flash Frame" by [http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/?page_id=17 Silvia Moreno-Garcia] was pretty [[Fan Disservice|goddamn disturbing]]. It's basically a modern-day retelling of ''[[The King in Yellow]]'' with a good dose of ''[[The Ring]]'' thrown in. A reporter for a Mexico City tabloid is on the hunt for a sensational story when he hears about some kind of cult meeting at a local porno theater. So he decides to spy on them. Strangely, all they seem to do is view a few minutes of some faux-Roman [[Brown Note|exploitation flick]] that seems a bit... [[Uncanny Valley|off]]. After a few sessions, the reporter starts having nightmares about a [[The Blank|grotesque]] [[Humanoid Abomination|seductress]]. And then he realizes his tape recorder has picked up the hidden audio track...
{{quote| {{spoiler|The sound was yellow. A bright, noxious yellow.}}<br />
{{spoiler|Festering yellow. The sound of withered teeth scraping against flesh. Of pustules bursting open. Diseased. Hungry.}}<br />
{{spoiler|The voice, yellow, speaking to the audience. Telling it things. Asking for things. Yellow limbs and yellow lips, and the yellow maw, the voice that should never have spoken at all.}}<br />
{{spoiler|The things it asked for.}}<br />
{{spoiler|Insatiable. Yellow.}} }}
 
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