Howard Philips Lovecraft, notwithstanding criticisms of him having possibly been a terrible human being, is enjoying a considerable level of celebrity these days -- certainly a great deal more than he could ever have imagined receiving while he was alive. Whether or not he was a xenophobic misogynist or a raging racist; whether or not we condemn him for these things; and how much we attribute this behaviour to time and place -- his contribution to the weird fiction genre cannot be denied or understated.
And so, it would make sense that the celebrated horror author should have an impressive catalog of entertainment media based on his work. It would make sense, but it's not the case: there is no seminal Lovecraft movie or video game, and it’s puzzling, and it’s a shame. The thinking used to go like this: his major works tended to depict an academic in over his head, beckoning ancient aliens through some evil threshold at the behest of brainwashed cultists. The aliens would trample us as we would an insect underfoot, were it not for archaic safeguards erected by questionable powers to protect against the inevitable awakening of these elder gods, these Great Old Ones.
The Old Ones are consistently described as indescribable, and Lovecraft's genius was how he conjured mind-blasting terrors fashioned by our own mind’s eye; his genius was to only provide the lightest of dark gestures while our lot was the filling in of broken lines, the connecting of dots. How then, to show what can’t be shown? Surely now, with our current advancements in special-effects, exposition of the unspeakable should no longer be a barrier?
More Reviews by Marc Golding [+]
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