Lovecraft Country: Difference between revisions

[[File:FoggyTrees_5957Merriman Cove Fog (38303819606).jpg|framethumb|350px|"Welcome to Scenic Dunwich!"]]

* Forget the current [[Word of God]] that it's in New Jersey, or the usual assumption that it's "New York at night": [[Batman|Gotham City]] is clearly smack in the middle of [[Lovecraft Country]]. In fact, Arkham Asylum, the [[Cardboard Prison]] all of Batman's villains end up in, is named after one of Lovecraft's towns.

* Although not strictly Lovecraftian, the film ''[[Sleepy Hollow (Film)|Sleepy Hollow]]'', being a loose adaptation of an 1819 horror story by Washington Irving, features a milieu that has much in common with [[Lovecraft Country]]. The film includes supernatural horrors, witchcraft and the cinematographic technique of using a blue camera filter to make everything seem bleaker in an isolated small town in early 19th century New York. This version's Ichabod Crane is a classic Lovecraftian protagonist in both origin and behavior.

* The horror film ''[[The Blair Witch Project]]'' is set in the woods of Maryland -- aMaryland—a bit south for [[Lovecraft Country]], but it worked.

* ''[[Yellow Brick Road (film)|Yellow Brick Road]]'' is a horror film set primarily in a vast New Hampshire woodland where the population of an entire town committed suicide.

* The stories of [[H.P. Lovecraft]] more or less created this setting, including the fictitious Massachusetts towns of Arkham, Dunwich and Innsmouth. Lovecraft's stories, together with writings by other authors set in the same universe, are collectively known as the ''[[Cthulhu Mythos]]'', after one of the [[Eldritch Abomination|nightmarish deities]] that occur in the setting.

** "The Picture in the House" is probably the first in his [[Lovecraft Country]] series of books, and the first to mention both Arkham and the Miskatonic River. It begins by introducing readers to [[Lovecraft Country]]:

{{quote| "Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places. For them are [[Ancient Tomb|the catacombs of Ptolemais, and the carven mausolea of the nightmare countries.]] They climb to the moonlit towers of [[Haunted Castle|ruined Rhine castles]], and falter down black [[Cobweb Jungle|cobwebbed]] steps [[Ruins for Ruins Sake|beneath the scattered stones]] of forgotten cities in Asia. [[The Lost Woods|The haunted wood]] and the [[At the Mountains of Madness|desolate mountain]] are their shrines, and they linger around the sinister monoliths on [[Deserted Island|uninhabited islands.]] [[Averted Trope|But the true epicure of the terrible]], to whom a new thrill of unutterable ghastliness is the chief end and justification of existence, esteem most of all the ancient, lonely farmhouses of backwoods New England; for there the dark elements of strength, solitude, grotesqueness, and ignorance combine to form the perfection of the hideous."}}

* The overwhelming majority of [[Stephen King]]'s stories are set in [[Lovecraft Country]], though mostly in Maine, whereas Lovecraft set most of his stories in his own Rhode Island or in nearby Massachusetts. This is because [[Write What You Know|King is a Maine native]]. Not only is Maine Lovecraft Country according to [[Stephen King]], he [[Word of God|specifically pinpoints]] the source of all related supernatural weirdness in places such as the fictional town of Derry, Maine and -- erand—er -- [[The Dark Tower|himself]].

* John Perreault, in his song "The Ballad of Louis Wagner," tells the tale of the tortured soul of Louis Wagner, who in 1873 murdered two women on Smuttynose Island, part of the Isles of Shoals, off the coast of New Hampshire. Quite some creepy verses, and a suitably creepy locale, worthy of [[Lovecraft Country]] (especially on a dark and stormy night).

** The ''[[Mage: The Awakening]]'' [[Sourcebook]] "Boston Unveiled" portrays rural Massachusetts as filled to the brim with insane mages, mutant cannibals, twisted spirit exiles living in the ghosts of frontier houses and [[Eldritch Abomination|horrors from an alternate history so abhorrant that it was aborted into an anti-reality]] (which many of the cannibals happen to worship).

* And, well, ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]]''.

* In ''[[Shadow Hearts]]: From the New World'', the gang takes a trip to Boston's Arkham University for information on the enemy they are fighting. Naturally, some of the staff there are summoning up [[Cosmic Horror|Cosmic Horrors]]s for you to do battle with -- andwith—and one of the professors has [[H.P. Lovecraft|a very familiar name]].

* Online game company Skotos bought the rights to the name "Lovecraft Country" from Chaosium (makers of the [[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]] tabletop RPG). As of this writing, the banner ad for "Lovecraft Country Online" shows two squid-like monstrosities levitating through the night sky, with the caption "Pretend that nothing is wrong."

* ''[[Shadowgirls]]'', set in Innsmouth and literally billed as "H.P. Lovecraft [[X Meets Y|meets]] the [[Gilmore Girls]]" by its creators

* ''[[Silent Hill: Promise]]'' which inherits the setting from ''[[Silent Hill]]'' proper.

* ''[[Ow, My Sanity]]'', of course -- itcourse—it's set in Arkham right by the Miskatonic University, and while many of the side characters seem perfectly normal, there's still a preponderance of the 'Innsmouth Look', amongst other things.

{{quote| '''Marlene:''' Oh, and H.P. Lovecraft lived here! A lot of his stories take place in this very neighborhood. Providence is actually supposed to be one of the most haunted cities in America.<br />

'''MarleneGeorgie:''' YesIt's pretty, it isthough.<br />

'''Georgie:''' So basically you live in a charming, old-timey black hole of death.<br />