H.P. Lovecraft: Difference between revisions

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** Faithfully adapted in 2008 as a black-and-white movie called ''[http://www.die-farbe.com/ Die Farbe]'' (''The Colour'') by ''Sphärentor Produktion'', a group of independent German film makers. The only colour in this black-and-white movie is the alien colour. The movie is 85 minutes long, with some cut scenes in the extras, filmed in both German and English language, and has been shown at various film festivals in Europe and USA and at German roleplaying conventions from 2010 to 2012. The setting was moved from New England, USA, to forested southern Germany, with several layers if narration and three time frames of events. The framing story is set in the 1970s, with an American narrator who is looking for his father, a former G.I. who as a young man served in Germany during WWII and now returned there and disappeared. When the son tries to reconstruct what drove the father back to this region of Germany, he stumbles over historical events that the locals wish to keep buried. The father's narrative (as told by a German ex-soldier who met the father) is set in 1945, when the Americans investigated an abandoned farmstead, which itself becomes the framing story for yet another narrative: The German ex-soldier, returned from the front to his home village to find his own family gone, tries to warn the American soldiers not to approach the abandoned farm and its well and the wasteland of its devastated farmlands, because of the "curse". He recalls the events set during the 1920s, of the meteorite from space that brought the colour to Earth. This narrative comprises the main story and is identical with the events in Lovecraft's story.

* ''The Shadow out of Time'' -- One of his best-regarded stories. Strange creature from the deep past [[Grand Theft Me|swaps bodies]] with a modern-day scholar, followed by the latter's subsequent investigations into the years he can't remember.

** This one was the primary inspiration for the video game ''[[Dark Corners of the Earth]]'', which takes place in Innsmouth.

** Also loosely adapted into ''[[Dagon]]'', only set on the coast of modern-day Spain.

* ''The Music of Erich Zann'' -- A student, seeking cheap accommodation, takes a room underneath a strange, mute cellist who plays unnatural music late into the night. He considered this one of his best stories, as he managed to avoid his usual tactic of explaining everything (read: [[Nothing Is Scarier|the tiniest explanation of anything is not even alluded to]]).

** Fans often assume he's trying to appease Azathoth, though, since The Demon Sultan is known to enjoy spooky music.

** Well, aren't they? "''You'' threw the stick, you can get it yourself!"

* Apart from these, the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society and other fan groups have produced ''[[Shoggoth On the Roof|A Shoggoth on the Roof]]'', a musical based on the Cthulhu mythos (the initial score was that of ''Fiddler on the Roof'', but it was modified after lawsuits). Considering Lovecraft's aforementioned anti-Semitic leanings, this is actually rather hilarious.

For a mostly-complete list of film adaptations, see [[Lovecraft On Film]]. For the comic book about Lovecraft, see ''[[Lovecraft (Comic Book)|Lovecraft]]''.

 

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=== Tropes used throughout Lovecraft stories include: ===

''And with strange aeons even death may die.'' }}

* [[Author Avatar]]: Abdul Alhazred, Wilbur Whateley, Edward Derby, and Randolph Carter particularly, although most of his protagonists were somewhat autobiographical.

* [[Back From the Dead]]

* [[Badass Bookworm]]: The three professors in ''[[The Dunwich Horror (Literature)|The Dunwich Horror]]''.

* [[Based On a Dream]]: Not only were many of Lovecraft's stories based on dreams he had, but the characters within his works often created art or writing based on ''their'' dreams.

* [[Black and Grey Morality]]: There are three races Lovecraft describes who don't want to outright consume or obliterate humanity (by desire or nature): the Mi-Go, the Elder Things, and the Yithians. However:

** The Elder Things created humanity itself as the result of a genetic experiment and view humans as little more than playthings to examine and dissect.

** And the Yithians - who seem the nicest - only care about gathering and preserving knowledge in addition to saving their own lives. They fled their own dying world by [[Body Snatcher|stealing the bodies]] of intelligent beings of Earth's distant past, [[Freaky Friday Flip|swapping minds with]] and dooming those beings to die in their place. They also think nothing of swapping minds with other beings througout history to learn about different ages while the displaced victims live for years in alien bodies, only to return to the old lives which invariably have been ruined by the Yithians' actions. The Yithians also plan to jump to new bodies of intelligent insects to escape death, dooming those insects to die in the Yithians' old bodies. Their one saving grace is their committment to fighting the race of [half-polypous creatures that invaded Earth, who would happily consume humanity and anything else alive - and even then the Yithians only fight to save their own necks.

*** Actually this counts for an entirely different reason, Lovecraft didnt actually care that much about miscegenation at this point in his life but he inadvertently was correct because he did not research this, the primary belief among biologists who believed evolution thought Humanity originated in Asia at the time.

** There's really nothing inherently horrifying or sanity-shattering about non-Euclidean geometry, although it ''can'' be mind-bending. This was known even in Lovecraft's time. Architect and painter [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Fayette_Bragdon Claude Bragdon], a contemporary of Lovecraft, saw non-Euclidean geometry as a reflection of the intrinsic mathematical harmony of the universe and an important component in design.

** There is also the trio of Miskatonic professors, who went and kicked the Dunwhich Horror's ass and sent him crying to his dad. ''Literally''.

* [[Downer Ending]]: at the end of the great majority of his stories the protagonist dies, becomes insane or loses. Or a combination of the three.

* [[Fish People]]: The Deep Ones.

* [[Go Mad From the Revelation]]: [[Trope Namer]].

* [[He Also Did]]: Most of his fans would be surprised to learn Lovecraft tossed off a few light comedic pieces, including parodies of [[Horatio Alger Jr|Horatio Alger-type stories]] and heavy-handed anti-drinking screeds.

* [[Hell Is That Noise]]: Used [[In Universe]] in many stories.

* [[Hollywood New England]]: Lovecraft was a Yankee Patrician to the core. He famously proclaimed "I am Providence."

* [[Human Sacrifice]]

* [[I'm a Humanitarian]]

* [[Infant Immortality]]: Notably averted: While children are a rarity in Lovecraft's fiction, chapter three of "Herbert West--Reanimator" mentions a missing child who {{spoiler|is strongly suggested to have been eaten by West's latest zombie creation}}. Even worse is the fate of the {{spoiler|unnamed kidnapped child}} in The Dreams in the Witch House, whom the protagonist Gilman fights off the titular witch to protect. {{spoiler|The child is killed by Brown Jenkins who bites through the infant's wrist even whilst Gilman kills Keziah.}}

* [[Mind Rape]]

* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]

* [[Nothing Is Scarier]]: Lovecraft may well be one of the [[Trope Maker|trope makers]]; "The Music of Erich Zann" is perhaps his best example.

* [[Not of This Earth]]

* [[Surprisingly Sudden Death]]: Pretty much anytime Cthulhu shows up. Most notably in ''The Call of Cthulhu'' when the sailors stumble upon the non-Euclidean structure in the sea. One of them climbs on and prods it for a bit; a tentacle reaches out, grabs him, and devours him. The rest soon follow and only two sailors survive, one of whom goes batshit insane from looking at Cthulhu. A boat injuring Cthulhu proves enough of an inconvenience to [[Sealed Evil in A Can|stuff him back in the can]], averting the end of days.

* [[Take That]]: New York. Lovecraft ''hated'' New York and made it apparent. If you want to know what he thought of New York, read ''He''.

** The Cthulhu plush toy is [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] and parodied in the animated short [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP-33XI4frs "Cutethulhu."]

*** Some people, in an attempt to make Cthulhu scary again (or perhaps more truthfully, make him [[Sliding Scale of Comedy and Horror|both]] [[Black Comedy|funny]] ''and'' scary), say that the more Cthulhu plushies you own, the less painful your death will be if He Awakens during your lifetime.

* [[Wretched Hive]]: New York City is presented like this in ''The Horror of Red Hook'' and ''He'', mainly because of all the [[Unfortunate Implications|immigration]].

* [[Zombie Apocalypse]]: In ''Reanimator'', they're close to Romero zombies, right down to the spine being the weak point, akin to regular zombies having the head as the weak point. Notable because it was published decades before Romero became famous, as a ''Frankenstein'' parody.

 

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