Lovecraft's best films: list, rating, description and reviews

Howard Phillips Lovecraft is an outstanding master of the horror of the twentieth century, who invented something truly innovative and frightening. The works of one of the founders of the new trend in the genre of horror literature of the twentieth century, and to this day inspire filmmakers to shoot bloodshot films. Lovecraft is extremely difficult to film, it's only venerable filmmakers who take on the screen the chthonic, unknowable horror of the author's literary works . The starry hour of the writer came after his sudden death, in 1939 his opuses began to be published in book form. Howard Lovecraft, whose films are still being photographed, came up with a unique and unique mythology that exists now independently, along with the theogonies of Egypt, Mesopotamia or Sumer.

Based on works

According to the writer's works, more than 85 films and about two dozen video games were created. Games and films by Howard Lovecraft mostly appeared in the last two decades. For the sake of justice it is worth noting that an impressive number of them are not screen versions, in many horror only names or names invented by a writer are used. For example, in the project Lucio Fulci - the Italian horror film "City of the Living Dead" - the place in which unfolding frightening events is called Dunwich, and all the well-known book with magical incantations in the movie Sam Raimi under the inspiring title "Evil Dead" is called "Necronomicon". Film, shot on individual works, is much smaller, but it's quite well-known films. Lovecraft has dared to screen such eminent horrormakers as Stuart Gordon, Guillermo del Toro, Dan O'Bannon and others. To place in one publication all the film productions of the writer's works is not possible, so it's worth to limit oneself to the most famous films.

List of adaptations

Listing films on Lovecraft, a list of which consists of thirty films, it is worth mentioning the most famous:

• "In the Mouth of Madness" (IMDb critics rating: 7.20).
• "Return of the reanimator" (IMDb: 5.90).
• "Resurrected" (IMDb: 6.40).
• "Hemoglobin" (IMDb: 3.80).
• "Dagon" (IMDb: 6.30).
• "Dunwich Horror" (IMDb: 5.40).
• "Call of Cthulhu" (IMDb: 7.40).
• "From the outside" (IMDb: 6.80).
• "The Book of the Dead" (IMDb: 5.70).
• "Cthulhu" (IMDb: 4.70).
• "The bride of the reanimator" (IMDb: 6.20).
• "Unspeakable horror 2" (IMDb: 5.20).
• "Unchanged" (IMDb: 4.90).
• "The Curse" (IMDb: 4.90).
• "Resanator" (IMDb: 7.30),
• "Hidden Horror" (IMDb: 4.70).
• "Horror in Danvich" (IMDb: 3.80).
• "Die, monster, die!" (IMDb: 5.60).
• "The freak in the castle" (IMDb: 5.90).
• "Color from the darkness" (IMDb: 4.70).

Mystical Horror

The first among the film screenings of the author's works is the horror film "The Enchanted Castle" (rating IMDb: 6.80) directed by Roger Corman. The plot is based on the Gothic novel The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, written by a writer in 1927.

The narrative acquaints the viewer with the main character - a black magician, a sorcerer, who was destroyed by the inhabitants of Arkham in the 18th century, who tries to return from the world of the dead, reincarnating himself in his descendant, overtly entrenched in the occult sciences. The director of the film, Roger Corman, taking down the horror, resolutely relies on the work of the literary genius mentioned, the film expresses the author's fantasy of the writer with the appearance of the cult of horrific deities, the magical Necronomicon, the mention of Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu. In addition, Corman's films featured cult performers Vincent Price and Lon Chaney Jr., while additional monologues were written by the then young and unknown Francis Ford Coppola.

Lovecraft's films were directed by the world's leading filmmakers: Dan O'Bannon, who presented the legendary "The Return of the Living Dead" to fans of the horror, also presented his original version of the adaptation of the novel "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" - the film "Resurrected" (IMDb: 6.40) in 1992, . According to the evaluators, unlike Korman's offspring, his interpretation was not a mystical-gothic horror, the film turned out to be a real bloody thrash with agonizing skeletons and bloodthirsty zombies.

Stories about the stillborn twin

The novel "The Horror of Dunwich" was staged three times in the history of the world film industry: in 1970, 2006 and 2009, In 2006, the festival's short film was released, in 1970 and 2009 - full-length films. Lovecraft, this time, tried to film Daniel Heller and Lee Scott.

In the 1970 version, director Daniel Haller, who had previously screened the Lovecraft novel "Shining Outside" (picture "Die, Monster, Die!"), Closely followed the source, carefully transferring the narrative atmosphere in the horror "Dunwich Horror" (IMDb: 5.40) . As the main actor, Dean Stockwell was invited, known to the audience on the films "Quantum Leap" and "Langoliers". However, critics took the movie ambiguously, accusing the creators of the loss of plot intrigue and sluggish course of action. Even for that time period, the scenery was too poor, and the animation inserts, destroying the mystical mood, are ridiculous.

Author's version of Scott

The telefilm created by Lee Scott, who recently directed more than a dozen low-budget horror films, differs a lot by copying the literary source, and therefore has the IMDb rating: 3.70. The action is intentionally modernized, instead of the stillborn twin brother of the protagonist, the evoked demon appears, but on the whole the plot's base survived: a gloomy mansion, a strange family, sensitive to its secret, a monster demanding unceasing human sacrifices. According to the movie community, Scott's work is similar to the typical (in the plot plan) horror film, Lovecraft's author's individuality in him is much smaller than the traditional for the horror of time-tested passages.

The most loyal adherent

The most loyal admirer of Lovecraft's work was the filmmaker Stuart Gordon, who created five films based on the writer's works. The most widely known were three: the film "Reanimator" (IMDb: 7.30), based on the novel "Herbert West, the reanimator", on the novel "Outside of Being", the horror film "From the Outside" (IMDb: 6.80), according to the story "Shadow over Insmuth" "Dagon" (IMDb: 6.30).

"Resanator" is the debut of the director, who previously worked in the theater. The film was initially positioned as a pilot issue for the television series. According to the expert evaluation of cinematographers censors, from the literary source, the director took the basis - the personality of the central character, a mad genius who decided at any cost to overcome death. The plot unfolds in modern Chicago. The thrash concentration in the Gordon project exceeded all permissible norms so much (the base filling of the tape was a bloody dissection) that the producers decided not to provide the result to the censored rating committee. But the tape in the blink of an eye was elevated to the status of "horror classics" and received three sequels: "The bride of the reanimator", "The return of the reanimator" and "Resurrection" (the rating of the pictures is presented above).

Gordon's second project

Not all films on the works of Lovecraft on the degree of madness correspond to the literary sources. However, the horror "Izvne", according to the leading critics, is an exception. The plot action of the picture is famously twisted around the machine, which opened the portal to other dimensions. But the scientists, scientists who made an unprecedented discovery, did not expect what the consequences of their bold experiment could be. Monsters, immediately appearing in our world, chewed the head of the main scientist-inventor and drove the minds of the rest of the unfortunate. This is one of the movies, which show the leading topic in the writer's work - a clash with the unknown.

The third work

The third film by Stuart Gordon, entitled "Dagon" by world film critics, is referred to as one of the most successful attempts to translate Lovecraft's texts onto a large screen. The initiative of the narrative, in principle, is traditional: a couple of the main characters of Barbara and Paul, by the will of fate, are on a remote island inhabited by strange Aborigines. As it turned out, all the local population worships the sea god Dagon. Barbara, like others, is facing an unenviable fate: she is soon going to be used as an incubator to increase the population. Heroes, of course, try to save themselves in every possible way, and they practically succeed. There will not be a happy ending in history. This is the main difference with the Lovecraft novel.

Gordon still twice drew inspiration from the writer's works. According to the story of Izgoy in 1985, he shot a violent film "The Monster in the Castle" saturated with violence, in 2005, for the television series "Masters of Horror", he shot an episode in the novel "Dreams in a Witch House."

Besides thrash

Based on the opus "Hidden Horror" the horror of Peter Svatek under the significant name "Hemoglobin" (1997) is considered one of the best adaptations of the present day. The narrative acquaints the beholder with the protagonist, a descendant of a genus that is almost degenerate as a result of mutations. The young man suffers from a genetic disease, and his demise is quite close, so he comes to the island, to an old family mansion, to learn more about his ancestors. The picture literally follows exactly the original source; Except for the mystical background, the tragically dramatic aspect of the narrative is clearly expressed. This can not boast of all the screen versions of Lovecraft's films. The movie produced great actors - Roy Dupuis and Rutger Hauer.

There is another variation on the same literary opus - the film directed by Courtney Joyner "Hidden Horror". An interesting fact is that the main role in the film was played by Jeffrey Combs, who had previously starred in all three "Reanimators" and "Outside." In this film, the dramatic component is not in sight, the movie is an energetic and tightly shot insurgent with an abandoned cemetery and carnivorous zombies trying to break free.