Christian Matzke writes to inform me that his short film, Dunwich, based on two HP Lovecraft stories, The Dunwich Horror and The Terrible Old Man, is in production, and that he and co-director Sarah Tarling used my Dunwich Horror adaptation as inspiration. I’m very pleased to hear this, of course, and look forward to seeing how their prequel to the events in Lovecraft’s story turn out. The film’s website has more information.
What’s the best Lovecraft film adaptation done so far in your opinion?
61 films. I didn’t know there were so many
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0522454/
I broached this when I wrote the Lovecraft essay for the forthcoming Carlton horror cinema book (more about that later). Best adaptation is probably the recent low-budget Call of Cthulhu, a pastiche silent film. My personal favourites are two films that are more “Lovecraftian” than anything direct, Alien and John Carpenter’s The Thing. The story The Thing was based on was vaguely inspired by Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness.
Here’s the screenplay
http://leonscripts.tripod.com/scripts/THING51.htm
I’ve actually read the original story but it was so long ago that I can’t remember what my reaction to it was now.
http://www.rosettabooks.com/pages/title_10.html
Bob Shaw sent up the title as
Who Goes Here?
:-)
Whoops that was the original version of the Thing not the John Carpenter one. Anyway same story. Worse special effects.