Greetings, all. Ambush Bug here with another AICN HORROR: ZOMBIES & SHARKS column. So my fellow reviewer for AICN COMICS BottleImp is a fan of all things Lovecraft. He got his hands on a new anthology called BLACK WINGS OF CTHULHU: TWENTY-ONE TALES OF LOVECRAFTIAN HORROR and asked if he could review it for AICN HORROR. I thought it was a bully idea and even suggested we do a whole column on Lovecraft. I’m nowhere near the expert Imp is, so I invited him to share a couple of his favorite Lovecraft films and tagged a few of my own on as well. The result is the article you’re reading now. I know this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Lovecraftian cinema, but maybe we’ll cover more in an upcoming AICN HORROR: Love Lovecraft column. Until then, enjoy the tentacley goodness…
(Click title to go directly to the feature)
BLACK WINGS OF CTHULHU: TWENTY-ONE TALES OF LOVECRAFTIAN HORROR Anthology Novel
IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1994)
DAGON (2001)
THE CALL OF CTHULHU (2005)
HEADSPACE (2005)
WHISPERER IN THE DARKNESS (2011)
And finally…Leonardo Manna & Michele Boitticelli’s A LOVECRAFT DREAM

BLACK WINGS OF CTHULHU: TWENTY-ONE TALES OF LOVECRAFTIAN HORROR Anthology Novel
Editor: S.T. JoshiPublisher: Titan Books
Reviewer: BottleImp
When you think about it, there’s no greater honor that can be bestowed upon an artist than his name being turned into an adjective. It means that this person has created something so new, so unique, that all the words in the English language that have ever been written are not enough to describe what this artist has wrought. The most perfect description of the artist’s work can only be a naming of the artist himself…and so we readers of weird fiction now have the word “Lovecraftian” firmly entrenched in our lexicon. The strange thing about this particular term, however, is that Lovecraftian can mean very different things depending on the mindset of those who use it. There are some who look at the surface trappings of an H.P. Lovecraft story and see no further; for these unfortunates, Lovecraftian means an ancient tome of unspeakable evil (usually the Necronomicon, but not always necessarily so), a scholar who delves too far into said text to remain sane, a giant frog (or bat, or octopus, or…) who can be summoned by a string of incomprehensible gibberish (and likewise banished by variations on the same)…and tentacles, tentacles, tentacles. During Lovecraft’s brief life and the decades that followed his death, this type of shallow emulation of the man’s work dominated the bulk of so-called Lovecraftian fiction. There were, of course, exceptions to the rule, penned by Bloch, Kuttner, Howard and a handful of other skilled authors, but the majority of the work was comprised of HPL pastiches that followed the same “book, scholar, seafood monster” formula.
That all began to change as time moved on, and the bright and shiny optimism of the 1950s gave way to a darker, more cynical mood of those living under the threat of nuclear war. The cynical counterculture who discovered J.R.R. Tolkein’s “Lord of the Rings” and embraced it for Tolkein’s clear delineation of Good and Evil was mirrored by the darker undercurrent who read Lovecraft’s descriptions of Elder Gods from the vast, unknowable gulfs of space and time, who read of Man’s impotence in the face of terrors his mind could not comprehend, and these readers responded to HPL’s bleak worldview with a vengeance. Lovecraftian fiction moved away from the simplistic pastiche and expanded in scope and style. The new disciples of Lovecraft’s so-called Cthulhu Mythos relegated the tentacles back to their rightful place as window-dressing and focused on those essential themes of cosmic horror that make HPL’s work the iconic, powerful force that it was and remains today. And we readers who eat up Lovecraftian fiction have been blessed with numerous novels and anthologies that represent the best of this school of writing, most recently S.T. Joshi’s Lovecraftian anthology BLACK WINGS OF CTHULHU. This is the good stuff, people.
The stories within encompass a wide range of storytelling styles, but all share that key element of expressing the sense of cosmic horror that HPL created. The real joy in reading such a collection is seeing how each author approaches this theme. There are some who don’t stray too far from Lovecraft in their own work—Donald R. Burleson’s “Desert Dreams” comes closest to skirting pastiche territory in writing style, but there are enough original ideas in the story to thankfully keep from falling into that trap—while in some stories, the Old Gent himself makes a cameo appearance. Three authors used Lovecraft’s seminal “Pickman’s Model” as the jumping off point for their own tales, though all three vary greatly in execution. “Pickman’s Other Model (1929)”, by Caitlin R. Kiernan, puts a twist on the story by giving the reader a more intimate glimpse of Pickman’s ghoulish subject matter. Brian Stableford’s “The Truth About Pickman” honors the Lovecraftian trope of degenerate family histories while putting a pseudo-scientific spin on the interbreeding of Pickman’s ghouls, while W.H. Pugmire takes a different tack with the surreal and dreamlike gothic-tinged horror of “Inhabitants of Wraithwood.”
HPL pops up as a ghost—or is he?—in Jonathan Thomas’ “Tempting Providence.” Like Lovecraft himself, Thomas’ protagonist laments the loss of the Providence of his youth to the cold hand of modernity, but his real problem is much graver in this homage to Lovecraft’s “The Haunter of the Dark.” HPL as a specter makes another appearance in Sam Gafford’s sadly poignant “Passing Spirits.” The narrator of this tale sees not only Lovecraft but many of his characters as well as he slowly succumbs to cancer, musing that all the horrible monstrosities of the Mythos are a more comforting menace than the cold, hard reality of his disease. Jason Van Hollander expands upon the notion of casting Lovecraft as a player in his own fiction by admitting HPL’s mother into the cast of characters in “Susie,” suggesting that Lovecraft’s Old Gods were something of a family affair. My favorite use of the writer as character in this anthology, however, comes from Ramsey Campbell’s “The Correspondence of Cameron Thaddeus Nash,” cheekily billed as “Annotated by Ramsey Campbell.” Campbell purports to have discovered a lengthy series of letters from Nash to Lovecraft, and presents this one-sided correspondence to the reader. Nash starts off as a slavering fan and admirer of Lovecraft’s work, especially his dream writings, and sends his own prose to HPL for critique and possible publication. Things between the two go sour after Nash’s work is mysteriously lost in the mail, and the tone of the letters turn from adoring to nasty. It’s the story of the obsessive stalker, and Campbell masterfully shifts the mood from Nash’s early, slightly pathetic adoration to the sheer silliness of Nash's later, petulant criticisms of the author he once idolized. But this uncomfortable humor drops away at the end, and Campbell leaves the reader with an uneasy sense of dread that lingers in the mind after the last words are read.
But Lovecraftian fiction need not have a guest spot from the man himself to be effective—in fact, some of the best stories in this anthology carry not one mention of the man, his Mythos, or any of the familiar New England locales. Mollie L. Burleson’s “The Dome” brings the idea of cosmic horror from the oceans to the middle of the New Mexican desert; likewise William Browning Spencer’s “Usurped”—though both stories expertly juxtapose their arid settings with Lovecraft’s fascination with the ocean and its mysterious depths. Urban environments provide the backdrop for other tales; Michael Shea adds another story to his catalogue of Urban Lovecraft with the excellent and evocative “Copping Squid,” while Laird Barron’s “The Broadsword” takes Lovecraft’s ideas of the Old Ones usurping humanity from the farmlands of Massachusetts to an apartment building in Pennsylvania. Likewise Philip Haldeman’s “Tunnels,” which also features the residents of an apartment building defending themselves from an ancient, unfathomable evil. Other stories touch on Mythos tropes, but manage to do so without invoking them by name—it becomes a treat for the reader to find those tasty Lovecraftian tidbits sprinkled here and there, like being a member of a secret organization whose signs and symbols are given to only a select few. “Denker’s Book,” by David J. Schow, is a post-apocalyptic tale told by a narrator (who, in best Poe and Lovecraft tradition, can no longer be called strictly sane) who describes a device created to open up a dimensional warp—a device powered by an unnamed, blasphemous book that those of us in the HPL club know can only be the Mad Arab’s infamous tome. Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. delivers a stylistic 180° from the usual Lovecraftian fiction with the rapid-pace, almost stream-of-consciousness crime fiction prose of “Engravings.” Pulver’s protagonist may not recognize his client Mr. Phoenix for who he truly is, but we know what Egyptian décor, midnight-black skin and the sight of Phoenix’s cats licking his hands all adds up to, don’t we? Darrel Schweitzer’s “Howling in the Dark” perfectly encapsulates both Lovecraft’s Mythos deities and his eerie Dream Cycle writing, again without ever name-dropping.
That’s not to say that one needs to incorporate Mythos details in order to write Lovecraftian fiction (or, for that matter, needs to have intimate familiarity with the Mythos in order to enjoy this type of work). Some of the best stories in this volume capture the tone of Lovecraft’s work without any of the familiar trappings. Nicholas Royle spins a moody story of madness in “Rotterdam,” while Michael Cisco’s “Violence, Child of Trust” presents a variation of HPL’s obsession with the ability of true horror to become a part of a family’s lineage. For those looking for a less cerebral story with a little more in-your-face horror, Norman Partridge’s “Lesser Demons” gives the reader a tale that would feel right at home in any collection of creature feature, post-apocalyptic wasteland, or zombie horror genre fiction. Sure, there’s a mysterious book of arcane knowledge—but just look at those ghoulish kids digging up the cemetery for a little snack!
While wading through this array of horrors, it’s easy to get a little overdosed on gloom and doom. Thankfully there are those writers who add a bit of light to the pervading sense of darkness, who realize that just ‘cause eldritch entities are looking to devour humanity, that’s no reason to be so damned serious all the time. The lighter side of Lovecraft comes courtesy of Adam Niswander’s “An Eldrich Matter,” wherein the transformation into one of the half-breed Deep Ones comes as more of a nuisance than true horror. And Michael Marshall Smith provides a wry look at one of the strangest (and potentially horrific) mid-life crises ever in “Substitution.”
It’s a good time to be a Lovecraft fan when there are anthologies such as BLACK WINGS that prove that HPL’s work provides ample inspiration for generations of writers of weird fiction. S.T. Joshi has assembled a remarkable collection of varied and unique voices that will be a delight for any reader who responds to their shared themes of cosmic horror. The best news? A second volume of BLACK WINGS OF CTHULHU is coming in 2013. It seems as if Lovecraft’s legacy will endure as long as the vast reaches of space and time remain unfathomable and enthralling.
When released from his bottle, the Imp transforms into Stephen Andrade, an artist/illustrator/pirate monkey painter from New England. He's currently hard at work interpreting fellow @$$Hole Optimous Douche's brainwaves and transforming them into pretty pictures on AVERAGE JOE, an original graphic novel to be published by Com.x. You can see some of his artwork here.

IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1994)
Directed by John CarpenterWritten by Michael De Luca
Starring Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jürgen Prochnow, Charlton Heston, David Warner, John Glover, Bernie Casey, Frances Bay
Reviewed by BottleImp
If I had to pick my favorite Lovecraft adaptation, it would be a close tie between Stuart Gordon’s DAGON and the wonderful silent film THE CALL OF CTHULU made by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. But my all-time favorite Lovecraft movie that isn’t adapted from Lovecraft’s work has to be John Carpenter’s IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS. Very few films tap into that weird sense of the blurring of fantasy and reality created by reading Lovecraft’s work, but here Carpenter does so with a marvelous sense of atmosphere, wit and dark humor.



Carpenter puts all his expertise to great use, creating a movie that manages to be atmospheric while still providing the requisite jump-scares, a movie that makes you think while at the same time winking at the audience with sly humor. Best of all, IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS takes the experience of reading H.P. Lovecraft and brings it to the screen in a way that no strict Lovecraft adaptation has ever managed to do. For those horror fans out there who have somehow missed this film (which wouldn’t be altogether surprising, since it bombed at the box office before becoming a sort of a cult hit on video and DVD), I highly recommend watching this underappreciated John Carpenter gem that pays tribute to one of the fathers of the modern horror story.

DAGON (2001)
Directed by Stuart GordonWritten by H.P. Lovecraft (short stories), Dennis Paoli (screenplay)
Starring Ezra Godden, Francisco Rabal, Raquel Meroño, Macarena Gómez, Brendan Price, Birgit Bofarull, Ferran Lahoz, Joan Minguell, Alfredo Villa
Reviewed by Ambush Bug
No stranger to Lovecraftian adaptations, Stuart Gordon’s most recent foray into the territory ruled by Cthulhu was DAGON, a flawed but effective little offering from a time when straight to video didn’t translate to piece of shit. Much like RE-ANIMATOR, FROM BEYOND, and CASTLE FREAK, I caught DAGON on video many moons ago. And while DAGON wasn’t as popular as Gordon’s other films, it still has a lot of redeeming qualities while continuing the tone set in Gordon’s previous works.

Unlike many Lovecraft adaptations, Gordon seemed to add a big to gallows humor and sly wit to his adaptations. This was most evident in RE-ANIMATOR which had both laugh out loud moments and moments that made your hair stand on end. With DAGON, the humor is somewhat uneven and I don’t know if it works as effectively, but it does open up the story to be more relatable than other Lovecraft adaptations I’ve seen.

What works, though, is the setting and atmosphere. Constantly raining and gloomy, the streets of the harbor town are as scaly as the monsters themselves. Most likely filmed in Europe, Gordon takes full advantage of the surroundings making the harbor town a monster in itself with hidden traps and uneven streets and buildings.

While the movie lacks the powerful performances of Gordon’s RE-ANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND, the strength of the effects and the atmosphere, coupled with Gordon’s tight and tense directing of some key scenes makes DAGON well worth seeking out.

CALL OF CTHULHU (2005)
Directed by Andrew LemanWritten by H.P. Lovecraft (short story), Sean Branney (adapted for the screen by)
Starring Matt Foyer, John Bolen, Ralph Lucas, Chad Fifer, John Klemantaski, Jason Owens, D. Grigsby Poland, David Mersault, Barry Lynch, Daryl Ball, John Joly, Jason Peterson
Find out more about this film here!
Reviewed by Ambush Bug
After reviewing THE WHISPERER IN THE DARKNESS a few weeks ago,
I figured I’d take a look at another Lovecraft gem put to celluloid. Though this film has been out a couple of years, it still is one fans of unknown terrors might have missed when it was first released. Like WHISPERER, THE CALL OF CTHULHU is a throwback film made as if it were a silent era film. Also like that film, THE CALL OF CTHULHU shows a deep-seated respect for Lovecraft’s work, something filmmakers wanting to put their own personal stamp on the mythos seem to forget.

The film itself jumps all over the place, from a backwoods ritual site to a prison to an insane asylum to a boat lost at sea. But as I recall, so does the original story, which is more of a collection of recounts by witnesses. Through these multiple stories, though, there is one constant thread—there is a dark god named Cthulhu and he wants to enter our world.

While capturing the thrills of the Saturday afternoon serial with modern effects and performances, THE CALL OF CTHULHU is another adaptation of Lovecraft’s works that fans of the author can be most proud of. If you long for old timey scares, it would behoove you to make THE CALL OF CTHULHU part of your collection.

HEADSPACE (2005)
Directed by Andrew van den HoutenWritten by Steve Klausner, Troy McCombs, William M. Miller
Starring Christopher Denham, Erick Kastel, Olivia Hussey, William Atherton, Sean Young, Mark Margolis, Larry Fessenden, Dee Wallace Stone, Udo Kier
Reviewed by BottleImp
Remember a few years ago when Blockbuster Video started to implode and close its stores? As location after location began to sell off inventory in preparation for closure, I managed to pick up a lot of DVDs on the cheap. Most of them were movies that I had seen, but on a couple of occasions I took a chance on something new—what the hell, it was only a couple of bucks. One such movie I bought based on its impressive lineup of actors, cited horror film festival awards, and a blurb from director Stuart Gordon emblazoned on the DVD case. This movie was the Lovecraftian psychological thriller HEADSPACE.



Ultimately, the question is never answered as to whether these otherworldly monsters are really there or just part of Alex’s madness, and that’s what keeps this film from being effective. It’s fine if a movie leaves its audience with questions at the end, but in this case it feels more like the makers of HEADSPACE didn’t have a clear idea themselves about the answers to those questions. Nevertheless, HEADSPACE does provide a moody atmosphere that can be hard to find in today’s horror genre, and manages to evoke a touch of the Lovecraftian tone, if only for a few moments. I’m glad that I got this movie for the cost of a rental; I wouldn’t recommend paying full price for the DVD (a new, shorter director’s cut is coming this June—maybe that’ll take care of that slow second act?), but HEADSPACE is definitely worth a watch for Lovecraft fans.

THE WHISPERER IN THE DARKNESS (2011)
Directed by Sean BranneyWritten by H.P. Lovecraft (story), Andrew Leman & Sean Branney (screenplay)Starring Matt Foyer, Barry Lynch, Daniel Kaemon, Matt Lagan, Joe Sofranko, Stephen Blackheart, David Pavao, & Autumn Wendel
Find out more about this film here!
Reviewed by Ambush Bug

It’s a simpler time, when men wore fedoras and suits everywhere and life was monochromatic. The film’s narrator Albert Wilmarth (played by Matt Foyer) is a scholar interested in having a philosophical debate about the existence of uncategorized beings not recognized by science. After receiving a summons from a townsperson in Vermont, he journeys to the man’s home only to encounter the very otherworldly beings he told himself didn’t exist.

Branney also incorporates modern CGI and practical effects to make this film experience seem as real as those old time movies were to you when you watched them as a child. The makers of this film’s love of Lovecraft is seen in every frame, and where most Lovecraftian films veer toward the more sensible or less bogged down by mythology, THE WHISPERER IN THE DARKNESS embraces the world of Lovecraft with all of its cryptic phrases and names.

It’s about damn time they got Lovecraft right.
And finally…here’s a haunting little short focusing on the writer himself, HP Lovecraft drawn by Leonardo Manna and directed by Michele Boitticelli. Though simplistic, it is a pretty effective little short. Enjoy, A LOVECRAFT DREAM!
See ya next week, folks!




Interested in illustrated films, fringe cinema, and other oddities?
Check out Halo-8 and challenge everything!
Find more AICN HORROR including an archive of previous columns
on AICN HORROR’s Facebook page!