The Lovecraft Connexion

Howard Phillips Lovecraft, a figure widely celebrated in the world of dark fiction, is considered among the chief architects when it comes to the stage on which modern horror is set, and over the past hundred years his name has become one of the most important associated with the genre.

Although he passed away in relative obscurity, leaving behind a small body of work for a handful of friends and fans to posthumously print, publish and promulgate, H.P. Lovecraft now carries the honor of being arguably the most influential practitioner of the weird tale to date.

Examples of various artists praising him and/or taking a cue or two from his oeuvre are many, all unavoidably acknowledging the particular strand of a Lovecraft brand that has become inextricably interwoven into not only what the horror genre has become, but fantasy and science fiction as well.

Something about the influence seldom surveyed is the length of a recurring thread found running with those most affected by the New England writer's literature; an indelible mark of impressions that would require a thorough and in-depth study into the connections between them to properly reveal the extent of inspirational reach.

This will not be one of those in-depth explorations into the subject, rather just a brief overview on a select cast of characters, ordered to help illustrate the wide-ranging impact Lovecraft's writing has made on the whole.

H.P. Lovecraft & Frank Belknap Long, Jun.

Here is as good a place as any to start - with longtime friend and confidant of Lovecraft's, Frank Belknap Long. The two writers shared a very similar passion for fine art and classicism, and were on close enough terms for Frank to have his own suggestions make it into the official Cthulu mythos; for instance, the inclusion of John Dee in the history of the Necronomicon.

One of H.P.L's most important biographers, the majority of quotes used by guides for Lovecraft walking tours in both New York City and Providence R.I. are taken from Long's memoirs.

Frank Belknap Long connects to a more popular dot of interest, John Wood Campbell, the illustrious author of Who Goes There? It was under Campbell's editorship that Long frequently contributed to the pulp magazine Astounding Science Fiction.

John W. Campbell, Jun.

Who Goes There?, as well as the film adaptations (The Thing from Another World, John Carpenter's The THING) share enough similarities with H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness", that even casual readers of both novellas take notice of an obvious influence. Distinguished Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro insists Who Goes There is "a great ripoff of At the Mountains of Madness."

Guillermo del Toro's own personal life-size Lovecraft statue he uses to hold his mail.

Interesting how some of the artwork for the movie tie-in editions of Campbell's novella depict Lovecraftian-looking creatures.

In addition to a link between Lovecraft and Campbell by way of Frank Belknap Long, the two alien horror writers were both published in Amazing Stories around the same time. A more notable writer to be later found in that publication is prominent sci-fi author, Arthur C. Clarke. 

An obvious admirer of H.P. Lovecraft's Yog-Sothothery, Clarke held Lovecraft to be "one of the twentieth century's most original writers", and considered him among the ranks of Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, and Jules Verne; most certainly when it came to worthiness of parody.

Lovecraft and Clarke clearly shared similar interests in regards to the subjects of science and fiction, and both had a markedly strong approval of Olaf Stapleton's work.

Seeing how impressed Clarke was with Lovecraft, it is not hard to conceive him as the enthusiast to introduce his works to Stanley Kubrick.

There's always more than an adequate supply of film snobs to readily agree on Kubrick as some great master of the craft. Not so many are the instances of Kubrick himself giving other artists such a title, so all the more weight is given to the term "great master" when Kubrick applied it in reference to Lovecraft.

Whether or not he was already familiar with the essays of H.P. Lovecraft before working with Clarke on 2001: A Space Odyssey, it's possible either way for there to have been discussions during the film's pre-production about applying the main lesson from the Lovecraft art school of thought, "never explain anything"; something 2001: ASO is known for, not to mention all subsequent Kubrick pictures.

It seems the greatness of Lovecraft is one of the things Stanley Kubrick could agree on with Stephen King.

“Lovecraft opened the way for me, as he had done for others before me." - Stephen King

Since the outset of his writing career, it's been evident without his confession how much Stephen King has been influenced by H.P. Lovecraft, his cosmic horror-imbued imagination carrying more than a little of the Lovecraftian element into many of his stories. A particular appreciation for Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space" is found multiple times with his book Tommyknockers and the short story "Weeds", plus the vignette in the Creepshow movie based on it, which features King himself as that segment's titular character, Jordy Verrill.

King in "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill"

Green King, Yellow King

There are some King fans who will try to say they fail to notice any strong similarity between his and Lovecraft's writing, while acknowledging the more apparent influence of Robert Bloch, often unaware of just how instrumental Lovecraft was in Bloch's own writing career.

“Lovecraft was my university.”- Robert Bloch

Bloch established a correspondence with H.P. Lovecraft in the early 1930s at the tender age of sixteen-years-old, by asking the weird tale practitioner in a letter where he might find more of his stories.

To his surprise and delight, Lovecraft not only wrote back, but gave a detailed listing of his magazine stories and offered to send him some tear sheets to borrow and read.“The notion that a full-fledged adult literary celebrity would make such an offer to a half-fledged teenage non-entity was as astounding to me as it was commonplace to Lovecraft,” Bloch wrote.

The two began a correspondence and the writer introduced Bloch to the “Lovecraft Circle,” a group of pulp writers who developed friendships through frequent letters. Lovecraft encouraged Bloch to try his hand at writing and after a couple failed attempts, Bloch sold his first story—“The Secret Of The Tomb”—to Weird Tales in 1934.


Christmas card to Bloch frrom "Grandpa Cthulu"

Although the two writers never met, their friendship grew so much that Bloch paid tribute to Lovecraft by featuring him as a character in a Weird Tales story he titled “The Shambler From The Stars.” In it, a character representing Bloch visits a stand-in for Lovecraft at his home in Providence. The two puzzle over an ancient evil and eventually, Lovecraft’s character is devoured by a creature “bloated and obscene; a headless, faceless, eyeless bulk with the ravenous maw and titanic talons of a star-born monster.”

Lovecraft was delighted and retaliated with a sequel, “The Haunter Of The Dark,” in which a “Robert Blake” returns to Providence only to meet his own gruesome demise. In case there was any doubt that Blake was Bloch, Lovecraft listed his actual Milwaukee address at the time—620 E. Knapp Street—in the story. 

One of several crayon drawings Bloch made for H.P. Lovecraft

A good deal of credit can be given to Lovecraft for getting Robert Bloch started on his way to being known as the author of the book Hitchcock based his best known film on. It's funny to think how without Lovecraft there might never have been Psycho, and without Psycho there might never have been John Carpenter films, at least the way we know them, especially not Halloween.

Another franchise that would be difficult to recognize without the Lovecraft principle is Evil Dead, the movies serving to boost the popularity of the Necronomicon more than any actual Lovecraft story-based film. Perhaps it was this kind of connection that inspired Stephen King to endorse the first film and see to it personally that Evil Dead II got made.

“He (Stephen King) is responsible for two of the Evil Dead movies, not just one.”- Bruce Campbell

Along with Lovecraft's Necronomicon and Stephen King's aid, Evil Dead owes a small amount of its success to the inspiration provided by a low budget supernatural horror flick called Equinox, a film in which a small group of young adults journey to a cabin in the woods and discover an ancient book that puts them in a struggle against dark forces.

It was seen by members of the crew of Evil Dead before production
"I had seen Equinox at least twice in drive-ins before making Evil Dead. I don't recall having discussed it with [Evil Dead director] Sam Raimi, but the similarities are remarkable. I think they come from the low-budget nature of both films. That is, a few characters, an isolated, inexpensive location, and ambitious special effects. All in all, Equinox did inspire me to continue my goal of making movies. 'If they can do it..." 
-Tom Sullivan, special effects and makeup artist for the Evil Dead movies

The positive result of Equinox was made most possible thanks to producer Jack Harris

Jack Harris is best known for hitting it big in 1958 with his classic independent film, The Blob. In the feature commentary for the cult favorite, Harris says got the idea for The Blob after watching The Thing from Another World.

two pictures about a creeping cosmic menace that is hampered by the cold

 

 In addition to The Blob and Equinox, Jack Harris also produced John Carpenter's first feature film, Dark Star. 

By fleshing out Equinox from its original short form into a feature-length film, Harris is responsible for setting in motion the prolific career of Dennis Muren, the nine-time Oscar-winning visual-effects artist for blockbusters like Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and The Abyss.

Dennis Muren, one of the leading members of the original Industrial Light and Magic team

It was with the profits from Star Wars that ILM founder George Lucas was able to invest in personal computer technology, producing popular home games like Maniac Mansion.

The critically-acclaimed and highly influential self-published product from Lucasfilm Games

It was while working on Maniac Mansion, its programmer Ron Gilbert coined the now popular video gaming term "cutscene", and the SCUMM game engine he was developing was originally conceived by Chip Morningstar, one of the software system designers behind popularizing the term “avatar” as a human being's representative in a virtual world.

When talking inspiration for Maniac Mansion, Gilbert highlights "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill", as well as H.P. Lovecraft's Re-Animator.

Another major influence for Maniac Mansion can easily be seen with Little Shop of Horrors, a story itself that was probably influenced by "The Reluctant Orchid", the 1956 sci-fi short by Arthur C. Clarke.

Little Shop of Horrors, much like the careers of James Cameron and Joe Dante, enabled by movie mogul Roger Corman.

Roger Corman, as reviewers Andrew Migliore and John Strysik put it in their guide to Lovecraft cinema, was "the first American feature-film director to stake out some cinematic high ground for the cosmos-crushing adaptations of [H. P. Lovecraft] to follow."

"This [Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe's The Haunted Palace starring Vincent Price] was the first of many movie adaptations of the works of pulp icon Howard Phillips Lovecraft ...although director Roger Corman shot it under the title of Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, distributor AIP retitled it Edgar Allan Poe's The Haunted Palace..." - Joe Dante

Two years later American International Pictures put out another Lovecraft adaptation without Corman, featuring one of Karloff's last acting roles, called Die , Monster, Die! Using a few of the components from "The Colour Out of Space", this would be the first retelling of Lovecraft's most film-adapted story.

various shades of Colour Out of Space

Generally agreed on as his finest work, and the writer's personal favourite of his stories, it was also the first Lovecraft story to be read by a young Dan O'Bannon.

"H.P. Lovecraft scared the crap out of me when I was twelve. I read "The Colour Out of Space". It made a definite impression on me." - Dan O'Bannon

Dan O'Bannon, best known as the screenwriter responsible for Alien, was endlessly fascinated by H.P. Lovecraft's profound sense of imagination, and grew to have a great knowledge and admiration for him, referring to Lovecraft as ""the greatest horror writer who ever lived."

Dan said Alien was "strongly influenced, tone-wise, by Lovecraft" and "one of the things it proved is that you can't adapt Lovecraft effectively without an extremely strong visual style ... What you need is a cinematic equivalent of Lovecraft's prose."

Dan O'Bannon came up with the chestbursting sequence and the emblematic name for the film, but perhaps the most important contribution he made to Alien was his insistence on having the creature and alien elements designed by fellow Lovecraft aficionado, Hans Ruedi Giger.

H.R. Giger

“Giger’s visionary paintings and sculptures stunned me with their originality, and aroused in me deep, disturbing thoughts, deep feelings of terror. They started an idea turning over in my head — this guy should design a Monster Movie! Nobody had ever seen anything like this on screen.... (It) was on my mind, and when we sat down to do Alien I ended up visualizing the thing as I was writing it — I found myself visualizing it as a Giger painting.” -Dan O'Bannon

some Necronoms from Giger's Necronomicon

"As far as I can remember, the first time I heard of the Cthulu myth and the Necronomicon was when the Zurich writer Robert B. Fischer published a journal called Cthulu News. I illustrated the stories for the second issue. These drawings are all reproduced in Giger's Biomechanics. I slowly began to develop an interest in the originator of the myth and subsequently came across an early SF writer who lived in Providence, New England (USA). Through his father, a member of the Egyptian lodge of freemasons, he possessed an extensive esoteric library. It may be assumed that he owned fragments of the Necronomicon, which means >>names<< or >>masks of the dead<<, since it appears in almost all his horror stories as a book of magic which would bring dreadful misfortune to mankind should it fall into the wrong hands. It includes the legend of the great gods with almost unnpronouncable names, such as Cthulu and Yog-Sothoth, who slumber in the depths of the earth and oceans and who will arise at a certain time - when the stars are right - to seize dominion. Thus it is written in the NECRONOMICON written by the mad Abdul Alhazred. A book full of magic spells and pictures of the terrifying monster gods who will threaten us. These monsters are described by H.P. Lovecraft in stories such as The Call of Cthulu and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. The best biography of Lovecraft was written by L. Sprague de Camp.
In the days of Elizabeth I., court astrologer John Dee and his mediumistically-inclined assistant Edward Kelly went to Prague, in order to attempt to change lead into gold at the court of King Rudolph. During this period, Kelly received details of the original Necronomicon in runes and texts in Enochian (the language of the angels) from the Angel of the West Window. No illustrations of the monstrous gods have been found. Fragments of this NECRONOMICON (Al Azif) survive today, some of them in the British Museum of London.
Gustav Meyronk wrote a gripping story on John Dee and Edward Kelly, based partly on fact, in one of his best books, Der Engel vom westlichen Fenster.
While I was looking for a title for my gloomy pictures, Sergius Golowin, my spiritual father and the well-known Swiss researcher of myths, drew my attention to Lovecraft, and -since the original book is only preserved in fragments- suggested the name Giger's Necronomicon. This title sewed not a little confusion, since Lovecraft followers thought they had at last found their Necronomicon.
Thirteen years have since passed and many Necronomicons have appeared showing fragments of magical rituals; none contain pictures of extra-terrestrial monsters, however. My books thus gradually became known among insiders and, without my knowing, I was made a member of a lodge as Frater Alien." - H.R. Giger

The above quote is taken from HR Giger ARh+, and demonstrates something artists and writers like Giger and O'Bannon used to do before the advent of internet, where they would deliberately mislead the unwary into believing in the existence of an authentic Necronomicon by seriously discussing it as though it were a real book.
Perhaps it was a game or just a joke, simply to get book sellers to receive requests for the fictional tome. Even best-selling authors like Michael Crichton joined in on the fun.

Michael Crichton lists the Necronomicon among actual books in the bibliography for his 1976 book, Eaters of the Dead.

English writer, philosopher and novelist Colin Wilson wrote the introduction for one of the pseudepigraphs that helped further perpetuate the idea of a bona fide Necronomicon.

from Wilson's wiki:

"In The Strength to Dream (1961) Wilson attacked H. P. Lovecraft as "sick" and as "a bad writer" who had "rejected reality"—but he grudgingly praised Lovecraft's story "The Shadow Out of Time" as capable science fiction. August Derleth, incensed by Wilson's treatment of Lovecraft in The Strength to Dream, then dared Wilson to write what became The Mind Parasites—to expound his philosophical ideas in the guise of fiction. In the preface to The Mind Parasites, Wilson concedes that Lovecraft, "far more than Hemingway or Faulkner, or even Kafka, is a symbol of the outsider-artist in the 20th century" and asks: "what would have happened if Lovecraft had possessed a private income—enough, say, to allow him to spend his winters in Italy and his summers in Greece or Switzerland?" answering that in his [Wilson's] opinion "[h]e would undoubtedly have produced less, but what he did produce would have been highly polished, without the pulp magazine cliches that disfigure so much of his work. And he would have given free rein to his love of curious and remote erudition, so that his work would have been, in some respect, closer to that of Anatole France or the contemporary Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges."

The Space Vampires, a Lovecraftian tale by Wilson, was turned into a feature film using a screenplay cowritten by Dan O'Bannon, around the same time Alien was being sequelized by James Cameron.

The successful career of James Cameron was launched by Roger Corman through a series of promotions, after Corman recognized the talent for production design during the filming of his Star Wars ripoff, Battle Beyond the Stars. Cameron was then made an art director for Corman's next picture, Galaxy of Terror, a clear ripoff of Alien.

Cameron’s work at Corman’s studio was instrumental in his early career, as it was while working there that he met Corman's ace assistant, Gale Anne Hurd, who went on to produce The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, and Terminator 2.

Hurd helped Cameron rip off two episodes of The Outer Limits written by Harlan Ellison, who has his own connection to Lovecraft's material through a Stephen King short he adapted for the 1980's The Twilight Zone TV show.

Gale and Jim with the Queen

Now for the important question: who is the bigger Lovecraft fan?

Cameron has been a champion for Evil Dead 2 since the film's initial release, and it was his signing on as a producer for Guillermo del Toro's At the Mountains of Madness that brought the picture closest to being filmed.

After marrying Brian De Palma, Hurd produced not one, but two movies that borrow from the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

Paul Schrader directed the sequel, which stars Dennis Hopper in the role of private detective H. Philip Lovecraft. music by Angelo Badalamenti

the first one features David Warner

In the span of four consecutive years, starting with Cast a Deadly Spell, Warner appeared in four movies loosely based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. That might be some kind of record.

The last of these Lovecraftian movies Warner featured in was In the Mouth of Madness, directed by John Carpenter

"I have been an enormous fan of Lovecraft since I was a kid. His vision of darkness, of evil, of cosmic horror, of elder beings from beyond is unparalleled." - John Carpenter

Carpenter originally intended for Metallica's "Enter Sandman" to play over the opening credits of In the Mouth of Madness

One of the most successful American heavy metal bands of all time, Metallica have several songs in their repetoire that salute the works of H.P. Lovecraft - most notably the "Call of Ktulu" and "The Thing That Should Not Be"- but they are not the first band to incorporate the horror writer's work into the sound of metal. That honor belongs to Black Sabbath.

"Beyond the Wall of Sleep", an early work of Lovecraft's, is where Black Sabbath got the title and idea for "Behind the Wall of Sleep", track #3 from what is considered to be the very first heavy metal album.

Not only did he supply bands like Steely Dan and Soft Machine with their names, William S Burroughs may have contributed to modern music most by originating the term "heavy metal".

William Burroughs was mentored and inspired by R.H. Barlow, a good friend and correspondent of H.P. Lovecraft's. It's likely due to Barlow's influence that a quote from Burroughs can be found on the back of the '77 Simon edition Necronomicon.

It was under Barlow's tutelage that Burroughs learned much about the Mayan Codices that would end up playing a large part in his later works.

How fitting would it have been then for Carpenter as a Lovecraft fan to have the signature tune of a Lovecraft-inspired heavy metal band play for the opening of a Lovecraftian movie.

John Carpenter attended the same film school as Robert Zemeckis, who was talking some years back about bringing a Charles Fort movie to the big screen. It would be an adaptation of a comic, that features as one of its characters a young H.P. Lovecraft.

The Arkham Sanitarium, first mentioned in "The Thing on the Doorstep", is now synonymous with the psychiatric hospital in the Batman universe. Arkham Asylum first appeared in the comics in 1974 and has since gone on to become a fixed part of the movies, shows, games, etc.

In the realm of comics, no other artist has put out as many Lovecraftian comic books as Alan Moore, the ceremonial magician regarded as the best comic writer in the English language.

 

Alan Moore likely developed his appreciation for all things Lovecraft through his respect for the works of Kenneth Grant, who Moore said "has done more to shape contemporary western thinking with regard to Magic" than any other individual.

For more on Kenneth Grant and his Lovecraft angle, check out this article entitled "The Starry Wisdom"

I see Lovecraft, Crowley, Moore, and Burroughs. Looks like the gang is all here.
I also see Robert Howard.

 Robert E. Howard never said it outright, but one can safely include Conan the Barbarian as part of "the Mythos".

Though no one has claimed the Conan stories as part of the CthulhuMythos, that group of stories by HPL and his friends centered on Cthulhu andhis kin, it does by proxy exist next to them. One of the King Kull stories, “The Shadow Kingdom” (Weird Tales, August1929) is a Mythos tale.  Kull lived inthe age before Conan, thus, they exist in the same world, though at differenttimes.  But this isn’t enough to placethe Hyborian Age into the frame-work of the Mythos.  Howard did write at least six undisputedCthulhu Mythos stories, “The Worms of the Earth” and “The Black Stone” being two of the best. 

 In his revised tale,“Phoenix on the Sword” (Weird Tales, December 1932) Conan, while lost in dream,sees a strange unearthly place. “He shuddered to see the vast shadowy outlinesof the Nameless Old Ones, and he knew somehow that mortal feet had not traversed the corridor for centuries.” The similarity to the Great Old Ones, the Old Ones or Ancient Old Ones,of Lovecraft stories such as “At the Mountains of Madness”(1931) and “TheDreams in the Witch-House”(1932), which Howard may have seen in rough form, is obvious.  


 lastly, there's the two Bobs: Shea & R.A.W.