/hpl/ - H.P. Lovecraft & Weird Fiction

Most of his stuff is cosmic, but the first story that springs to mind is The Alchemist. The horror in that is strictly supernatural -and barely at that.

The Outsider is pretty good too, though it reads as more of a poem and says a lot about how Lovecraft saw himself.

Of course there's also Re-Animator, no aliens there. Strictly about a mad doctor bringing people back from the dead.

>>342

Yes, those are great examples – I think “Facts concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family” should be mentioned as well.

I've been trying to picture what Lovecraft's stories would be like if the element of cosmic entities was removed from them:

The Shadow over Innsmouth – Instead of hearing about the Esoteric Order of Dagon making a pact with the Deep Ones, Robert Olmstead visits the half-decayed seaport of Innsmouth to find a secretive (doomsday) cult that sacrifices humans and practices incest to keep the bloodline pure. Talking to Zadok Allen he is told about grotesque and morbid rituals, people disappearing and later turn up dead after disagreeing with the cult. After making a narrow escape, only to come back home and uncover the truth about his own ancestry, which causes him to have a nervous breakdown and commit suicide.

The Rats in the Walls – Basically the same as the original, only without the mention of any cosmic deity, which I think takes away from the story. In the end the protagonist goes insane from the revelation and from losing his son.

The Beast in the Cave – A cross between “Ted's Caving Story” & the films “The Descent” & “The Tunnel”. Takes place in a recently discovered, unexplored cave system. Only main difference would be that the beast had had transformed from a human in one generation, but devolved through many, many generations, and slowly adapted to the environment, using human echolocation to navigate in the pitch black, and becoming more or less blind.

Pickman's Model – A painter known for his highly skilled paintings of the macabre and grotesque. Causing an uproar in the – socialites. Turns out Pickman have kept humans and animals prisoner, tortured and brutalised and finally killed them, only to use their bodies and the crime scenes as reference.

While some of his racism was kind of retarded, most of it simply reflects the attitudes people have always had. He saw blacks as unproductive, prone to criminality, and prone to joining insane cults (see welfare culture, Detroit and other majority black cities, and the NOI which teaches that black people are from space and created whites in labs before forgetting how to do science).

The aspects of his racism which I find retarded include his portrayals of the various nationalities of white people. He was obviously of the opinion that Anglo Saxons were the highest breed of whites, yet every English descended white person who isn't already an insane cultist or evil magician goes insane by the end of story, or is struggling to deal with the implications of what he's learned. Whereas Irish and Italian people, while generally portrayed as superstitious, aren't likely to join cults, use evil magic, and will actively use violence against evil forces, or at least against cultists. Germans also seem to not go insane at the drop of a hat. And for some reason in HPL, there's a genetic defect in all English people that makes them prone to fainting spells upon smelling strange scents, seeing weird angles, hearing weird words, seeing monsters, or seeing an unpainted house.

HPL's characters are very often overblown portraits of whatever ethnicity they belong to, although I doubt he meant it that way.

>>314

It could be that because Whites, considered to be more intelligent and curious about the world as opposed to other races, would be more likely to uncover these ancient horrors, poking our noses where we shouldn't and just being nosy and curious. I think the opening of TCoC seems to correspond with this explanation:

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

- The Call of Cthulhu

It is also the artists - those of sensitive minds - who are most affected by Cthulhu awakening, experiencing weird dreams, so I think he HPL might have considered the superior intelligence of Whites to be a double edged sword.

low-budget short film with Shub-Niggurath.

Looks MST3K worthy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-rjNxhAJC8

>>308

Basically his work has influenced all modern sci-fi and horror, and a ton of modern fantasy. Way more than you'd think.

In A Song of Ice and Fire the Greyjoys Drowned God is clearly a reference to Cthulhu, with their symbol being a squid, and the whole "that which is dead may never die" creed and all. The fire god sounds pretty lovecraftian as well.

The nether realm in Torchlight 2 and the creatures within it look much like a Lovecraftian version of hell.

Without even mentioning the Mindflayers, when I gave Dungeons & Dragons Online a try a while back I was quite pleased to discover the first quest line has you going into someone's house to discover a secret shrine in their back built around a tunnel into the sewer line, and discover he's worshipping Deep Ones who you must then track down and fight.

Just the other day I was listening to an audio book of Felix & Gotrick while cleaning. The book was Slayer of the Storm God which I just assumed meant they'd be fighting something similar to Thor. Instead the story involved a gaggle of people turning into various sorts of sea creatures fighting them for an amulet, which when placed on someone's chest transforms them into their god, who is quite obviously Cthulhu, but with some shark bits mixed in.

I don't know if this counts, but my brother and I have been working on a comic book series using HPL's concepts, but set in a fucked up version of the modern world. We've been working on it for over a year now, though if he doesn't start producing more pencilled pages I'm going to have to take over drawing myself.

>>315

Go on…

I've been working on a comic book project myself, and it's been going really, really slow for me too, thanks to artists who disappears for weeks before responding. Basically I've been trying to get this eight-page sample completed since 2013 now…

Do not calle up That which you can not put downe

I have a couple of questions. I've seen several images of Nyarly resembling OP's picture, but I don't recall him ever being described that way in any of his avatars in the stories? Not being a dick, just wondering what the source for the "3 legs and one tentacle for a head" is.

I always like seeing people's interpretations of the Hounds of Tindalos and Hastur, particularly the Hounds since they aren't really described in Long's story, and their concept is interesting. Wanna astrally project backward through time? Well fuck you, these things are going to tear you apart eventually.

>>242

I love this game, but I really wish they didn't fall for the temptation to make Dagon an enemy to be defeated…

>>261

Damn…. I very recently finished bingewatching True Detective, and now I get the second image.

Imagine if the cult had been into Yog Sothothery instead

>>293

I think it's my favorite because HP Lovecraft builds up the tension as if it's this weird monster, when it turns oit it's just a man.