Episode 37 - H.P. Lovecraft

Welcome to Haunted Ozark Theater … H-O-T … your “hot” horror podcast! The legacy and influence of Howard Phillips Lovecraft looms large over modern horror. We take a look at the godfather of the weird tale and the many adaptations of his work from 1963's The Haunted Place to 2023's Suitable Flesh.

Title Song: Hellfire by Alexander Nakarada (CreatorChords) https://creatorchords.com Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Graphics by Jacob Hedges

© Haunted Ozark Theater 2026

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Welcome to Haunted Ozark Theater H O T. Your Hot Horror Podcast. Sitting here with Cody. We're going to talk about the influence of H.P. Lovecraft, Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Author of The Weird Tale, as he's known. And he was active in the mostly in the 1920s and didn't get much recognition in life, but is a huge influence in death on modern day horror. And we're going to jump into that here pretty quick. But first, this day in horror history, it's the birthday of one Tom Holland. Tom Holland. And I'm not talking about Spider-Man. In the horror community, Tom Holland is a totally different person. And I want to see if I can surprise you with some things about Tom Holland that maybe you didn't know. Shoot. Okay. First, we're going to start with the obvious ones. Okay. Tom Holland directed Fright Night and Child's Play. Right. Okay. Did you know that Tom Holland wrote Psycho 2? I didn't. And that's very underrated. I love Psycho 2. Psycho 2 is really good. It is. And people sleep on it. And the reason why I'm drawing a blank on his name, Norman Bates's actor. Anthony Perkins. Thank you. Anthony Perkins, the reason why he agreed to come back for the sequel is because he read Tom Holland's script and said it was so good that he couldn't pass it up. Because for years he had kind of disavowed the movie, right? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

He really distanced himself from it.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Here's the final thing that I think is going to surprise you. Um, prior to Tom Holland breaking in as a writer and director, he actually was an actor. And he acted on 50 episodes of a soap opera called A Flame in the Wind from 1965 to 1966. Wow. Awesome. So happy birthday to Tom Holland. I love Friday Night. Oh, yeah. Friday night is one of those classic 80s vampires movies. Gotta watch it once a year. Oh yeah, definitely. There's some great um, there's a whole lot of great 80s vampires movies. Oh, yeah. And but Friday night is is probably top three of all the all the uh 80s vampire stuff, I would say. Would you agree? Absolutely. Yeah, easy. Friday night's great, and child's play. We don't need to say nothing about child's play. Yeah. So uh what have you been re-watching, buddy?

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Anything summer-related horror. Last night I got done watching um Fear Street 76. Okay, but that's not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about these little their YouTube movies. It's these young kids who made them. I think I showed you part one or two. Part three comes out hopefully this October, but they're called Slash a Lantern. Yeah. And it's just they're about 15 minutes apiece. They're good. Kids have done everything, their own money. It's just a little fan favorite thing. It's a throwback to Halloween. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

But man, it is so cool. It's very clever, and in spite of you know that they didn't have a lot of money to work with, the production value on it seems very high.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Yeah. And uh I found out um re-watching these that they went back and they've whoever edits or designs it, they made it like a VH form and they put them together, like if you were watching it on TV back in the 70s. Okay. And it's it's pretty cool. It's got like the grainy, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

And I can't wait for for part three. That's awesome. Yeah, I'm I'm excited about part three as well. That's good. That's very cool. What about you? Well, my wife has been working quite a bit, so I've been busy watching. Uh, and I am happy to report to you that I watched Charlie's Farm. Oh yes! What do you think? I loved it. It was um a pure slasher, yeah, and it was super brutal, and it was super bleak. It was one of those ones that just everybody dies. Once the killing starts, it's ghost. And yeah, very hopeless at the end. What do you think about Bill Mosley's part as the dad? He's pretty messed up, yeah. He's pretty messed up. A little bit of an Otis, a little bit in there, it's he's very Bill Mosley. Yeah, it's very Bill Mosley for sure. But I loved it. I thought I'm and and when I was done with it, I was like, yeah, this is this is a Cody movie. Yeah, absolutely. But no, I thought it was great. I thought it was really good. Um I I did think, why are there so many Americans living in Australia? There's like a lot of read, yeah. But there's a lot of American actors in it who aren't visiting, they they live there, yeah. Um, so that was kind of funny. Uh I watched, I rewatched The Wind, okay, which we talked about on our Folk Hore episode. Yep. I hadn't seen that in a few years, and uh really good, solid Folkor. Um I think when I talked to you and the audience about it, I gave a little bit of a synopsis, and my synopsis was slightly wrong. I I thought that her whole family died, and that's what left her on the prairie by herself. But actually, everyone but her husband died, and her husband went on a he went on like a two or three day trip to town. Um so he didn't die, he didn't leave the seeming to get goods or something. But but while he's gone and she's alone, that's that's when she kind of loses her mind. Yeah, um then I watched 31. 31? 31 is really good. It is. I haven't watched that in a minute. I will say that I hadn't watched it in a minute either, and I will say that um this might be his most complete film. Wow. It's got it's you know, just got a solid beginning, solid middle, solid end. It's very well constructed, right? And it's super entertaining, man. It's so fun.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

That's the thing about that movie. I remember when I first watched it, I think I overhyped it because I was just like, this one's gonna, I kept reading all this stuff, it's gonna, and I overhyped it. Not saying I didn't like it at the time, but it it, I don't know. Um, it's a great movie, but I've learned to love it the more I did watch it. Yeah, and you're you're pretty spot on there. It may be as full most complete, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Yeah, yeah, I think so. Re-revisit it and see what you think. Um, next, my young daughter, when I was working at Spirit last year, she bought a t-shirt from Spirit, and it's those you've seen them, I know you have. They're kind of like cartoony, and it'll say something like the babysitter, but it's it's got like a picture of Lori and like Fred or a Michael on it. Yeah. Um or like one that says like let's start a cult. Yes, exactly. Exactly. That's so she bought the the Halloween one, the Michael and and Lori one. And so she's been wearing it, and I said to her the other day, um, have you actually seen Halloween? And she's like, No. And I said, Well, you can't wear that shirt until we watch it. Obviously, I was kidding, but I did uh make her sit down and watch it, and man, what a classic! I mean, there's nothing more I need to say about it. I will say that now she's 11 and she's part of this, you know, TikTok generation. Um she found it a little slow. It is, and but but when we were young, those that kind of pacing builds tension and builds. Yeah, that's slower and make you know very Texas chain so much. But for her, she's she's found it a little more. She liked it.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

These kids' attention span.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

And that's exactly what I'm getting at is I think it's a generational thing where they don't have the attention span to appreciate something like that. Now, she it's she she said it's not that she didn't like it, she just thought it was slow. Um but uh I might show her the David Gordon Green trilogy. It's more tense, yeah, because it's more geared for this.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Exactly. That's what I was thinking. I would the way I broke my daughter, not my six-year-old, my 17. I think she watched Hong Limit when she was 15, a couple years ago. I found it on YouTube, though, but someone has found the original first airing on CVS when it came out. And it's with the commercials and it blocks out the newbies, so it's perfect for that, you know, in between eight, where you don't want to watch a nude scene with your kid, but show them the greatness that is Halloween. And she she was the same way, she was like, once this movie gonna pick up at once Michael gets going, it you know, they're on the edge of the seat, and she she really liked it.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Yeah, I hear you. All right, two more, and these are new ones. 2026 releases that I'm trying to keep up with. I watched Ready or Not Two. Okay, yeah. And it was it was um good. I would say if you liked one, you'll like two.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

More of the same.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Didn't reinvent anything.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Didn't reinvent anything. Um maybe maybe this ending is a bit of a surprise in a good way. Um but yeah, just kind of more of the same. Added more, you know, ensemble actors to this to the sequel, so it's got kind of a bigger, more well-known cast. Um, but again, not you know, I'm not saying it wasn't good, but yeah, like you said, it didn't reinvent the wheel. It just kind of gave you more of if you liked one, you're gonna like two. It gave you more of what what what part one brought to the table. What was the other one? The other one is Faces of Death. Oh, I've been wanting to watch it. I was pleasantly surprised. Pretty good. It was. I was pleasantly surprised. I'm gonna give you a quick little recap here without spoilers. So I was not sure what to expect from this movie, uh, but I went into it, you know, just with an open mind, and I was I was impressed. Honestly, I was very pleasantly surprised just by overall, just overall, yeah. The concept is great, the acting is great, the kills are great. Um it's scary. At moments, yeah. At moments, it has some good scary moments. It's um basically the the killer who's played by Dacri Montgomery from Sherman Thanks and Paddle Rangers. He's the killer. Um, he's obsessed with the original movie Faces of Death. So it totally pays on uh homage to the original. You even see scenes from the original, and then he tries to recreate them in a modern day setting. Does he like spruce them up or just shot by shot killing? Um he pretty much tries to just recreate them. Okay, yeah, but but he so he works for like a cell phone store, and he's like the manager of the cell phone store, and so he uses his tools at the cell phone store to find his victims. He'll be they have like a kind of a TikTok app in the movie, it's very central to the movie. I think it's called Kino, but it's it's very obviously TikTok. Who sits at the cell phone store and scrolls through TikTok, finds someone who he thinks should be a victim, then he uses his connections at the cell phone store to look them up and find clever, find their their you know, home address or whatever, and goes and kidnaps them and then reenacts. Reenacts the faces of death scenes. Meanwhile, there's a girl who works for the TikTok company, and her job is to um review the videos as the videos are being uploaded by the users. She reviews them, and if they're bad, she flags them and they don't get posted. And so he's as he's filming his killings, he's posting them to this app. So she comes across them as the review lady, and she thinks these might be real. She brings them to her boss's attention, and her boss is like, nah, they're not real, just post them. Oh but she has a bad feeling about it in the back of her mind, so she takes it upon herself to try to investigate and bring this guy to justice. So that's the plot of the story. That's the plot, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

The the deaths are gruesome. Oh, yeah, yeah. He does show what you know, How Mom.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

No, no, it was horror fans are gonna love it. And if you are familiar with the original faces of death, you're gonna love it. And even if you're not, if you just You don't have to know the original too. If you're just a horror fan, or even just a casual kind of a horror fan, like I think I think everybody really who watches this will enjoy it. Cool. I was very pleasantly surprised. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Yeah, I was gonna have to check that up then.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Yeah. All right, HP Lovecraft. Let me tell you a little bit about HP Lovecraft, and let me tell you why I'm the expert. Not that I'm the expert, but um, when I went back to college in 2016 to get my degree, uh, my senior year, quote unquote, I had to come up with a thesis. And I went to a Christian college, and being the horror guy that I am, I wanted to bring my horror into my senior thesis at a Christian college. So I actually wrote a 25-page paper contrasting the Christian worldview with HP Love's craft, HP Lovecraft's worldview of cosmic indifference. Wow, okay. So I actually wrote a 25-page paper on that cosmic indifference versus the Christian worldview.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

So you definitely don't you've done your own work.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

I've done my homework on this guy, and um he's fascinating to me just because he put out all this work in the 1920s. It all went largely ignored in his lifetime. No, not at all. Um but then guys like Stephen King, you know, read his work and were highly influenced, you know, by his writings. And um there's just countless horror movies that were made from his adaptions or inspired by his his books or his stories. We're gonna talk about that. Um, but also he was a very weird eccentric.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Um well, his father died when he was very young, and he was raised by his grandparents, from what I've read. And he would read a lot of books and he was by himself a lot. Yes, and I'm sure this really shaped his mind and how he perceived the world he was living up. He grew up in Providence, yeah. And you know that in that I'm sure where he was at really influenced his writing fan like Stephen King, but I he did have a an odd life.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

But also the Providence thing, he was a New Englander through and through. He was an elitist, and he basically believed if you didn't you had to have money, you had to be white, and you had to be a New Englander, period. To be anything, to be important of value. So, like um, as he if he met you and you were white but poor, from the south, he yeah, he wrote you off. If you were white and you weren't from New England, he wrote you off. And if you weren't white, he definitely wrote you off. But the thing that's interesting is as he grew up, all those things were stripped from him. His family fortune went away, he was forced to move out of New England.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Um, his beliefs were maybe he was forced to see the real world, and that's not how it really is. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

But that never did change his worldview of cosmic indifference, and just for the audience, what that means is he believed that the universe is so big that our little speck of a self on a little speck of a planet called Earth is totally insignificant, right? And also the universe is so big that it's so completely unknowable what's really out there that the horrors that you can only imagine that are out there somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

It's like it's that uh drive humanity insane. If humanity is small, the universe is ancient, it's very indifferent. Forbidden knowledge can destroy the line, and some things are better left unknown. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Yeah, so that's HP Lovecraft in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

You really he it did, he captured these incredible themes, didn't he? The ancient dogs, impossible creatures, yeah, you know, madness, isolation, strange cults, yeah, and humanity facing something far beyond its comprehension. That's what these stories are. And they are, have you read um well? I've read them all now. Oh, okay. So we'll get into that, man.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Yeah. I have I I read them all when I was doing my senior thesis. I had read some of them prior to that, but I read all of them when I was doing that that project. It took me months to write that paper.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

And it's that I read that his grandfather's the one who introduced him to classic classic core in mythology and gothic literature, which that you know definitely shaped his imagination.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

And his grandfather even would make up bedtime stories. Right. And they were creepy.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

And here I found that uh Lovecraft was considered a child prodigy. He taught himself astronomy as a young boy and wrote amateur astrology articles. Yeah. He created his own little newspaper in scientific writings as a child.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

He suffered from poor health and spent long periods isolated at home reading. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

And I think he was mentally kind of like Howard Hughes. I think he probably had something that much of the in this day and age it would be common and easily treatable. Yeah, a couple of pills. Yeah. Yeah, back then it it really drew a number on you. Yeah. But uh, yeah, he was he was autistic, maybe, or the word or maybe just impressed, or maybe you know, could have got some some vitamin D. Maybe he wouldn't have been frightened me, so it's uh but yeah, he he he was uh he was very like you say eccentric.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

He did create for the Cosmic Or, though he is the godfather of Cosmic Core, correct?

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Absolutely, yeah. I don't know if it's wholly an invention of his, but he definitely pushed the envelope and I think thrust it into the public awareness.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

And I wrote this down because I was kind of trying to get this into words, and I at the time and the stuff he was seeing, it was I got a monster is dangerous because it can kill you, and love crafting more. The universe is so vast and alien that understanding it may destroy your mind.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Right?

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Yeah, so like the cults that he talks about in his books or in his stories, uh, you know, they were kind of only tangentially aware of these monsters that may be out there on the fringes of the universe. And so they would worship and put themselves on quests to find out all that they could. And when they got the knowledge, it almost always drove them insane.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Right. That's what I picked up. Now I wrote down some of these um gods that he created. Yeah, and I'm gonna butcher the name so you can help me out. I know you know them a hell of a lot better than me, Paul. The Caluthum. Cthulhu. Cthulhu, an ancient being sleeping beneath the ocean.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Next, the Neolithopat. Yeah, that one is really hard to pronounce. It's a mysterious shape-shifting messenger. Yeah. I don't and then I've got a Yog Saholoth. Yeah. Uh being connected to time and dimensions. Yeah. And the last one I study was the Azothoff. Azototh. Azototh. A chaotic force of. Sometimes called the blind idiot god.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Yep, and Azetoth is kind of like the top of the food chain. Yes, sir. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Do you have a favorite out of those when you were reading? Did you um I like Azatoth just because he's, you know, like a god like Cthulhu is terrifying, but Cthulhu is terrified of Azetoth.

unknown 22:24

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

That's not something, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Yeah, right, exactly. So let's talk about Cthulhu real quick. I want that's a good place to start. So The Call of Cthulhu is probably his most famous story, but it has not yet been adapted into a full-on film because of I think it's the scope of it is so massive that it would be really hard to maybe a miniseries sub Lino. And I think eventually we will definitely get a a uh an adaption of it, but it has influenced countless things. I mean, there's there's Cthulhu references in a lot of his stories, in a lot of the movies that have been made, there's Cthulhu references, a lot of music, especially heavy metal, has Cthulhu uh references in the lyrics and stuff. So that's kind of his most famous work. Um and then he actually, HP Lovecraft actually invented the idea of the Necronomicon. Yeah, I looked that up. That's crazy, isn't it? Yeah, so by inspiration, the entire Evil Dead franchise is Lovecraftian.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

So he had this idea. I think the the guy's name is Abdul in in his stories. Arab Abdul Al-Lashavid? Al-Hazarid. Al-V okay. Yeah. I'm sorry. Um he is the guy who supposedly wrote the Necronomicon, and then the Necronomicon is this tone in the Lovecraft universe and a lot of movies, you know.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

In researching that, I found that a lot of people really thought that book was real. And oh, yeah, people really are. I think they're still looking for link.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

When I was in high school and I had my little click of horror loving geeks, Gothic pains. We used to go to the library at school and try to find the Necronovica in the library. Because we we really thought it was we heard it was real, like just just like you said, you know, in in we had heard through the you know, grapevine that this is a real book, you know. And so we tried to find it. Well, obviously, we never found it. But yeah, the Evil Dead franchise takes that idea and just runs with it. Yeah, he's he's the the father of the Necronotophon.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

That book contains forbidden knowledge about ancient gods and cosmic forces, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

So let's talk about the trio of director Stuart Gordon, actor Jeffrey Coombs, and actress Barbara Crampton. Okay, they love them some love craft. Oh, yeah. Let's start with 1986's From Beyond. If you haven't seen it, it's awesome. And it's um that trio right there, Stuart Gordon wrote it and well adapted it and directed it. Um, it wasn't his first adaption, but I picked this one because to start with, because it might be his least known well, I don't know, maybe his lesser known for sure. But um From Beyond is good. It's it's um they use there he develops a machine that uses like vibration and sound waves to access this other dimension, and then he pulls these kind of uh monsters from beyond, from the beyond. Uh, and it's a great little 80s, 1986 film.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

And you know who steals from that? Tony Steven the Mist. Because the military's experimenting they're opening up the dimensions, and that's how the creatures come through. And the mist is very lovecrafty, and if you really look at it, it really, really is.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

That's a great, great call right there, yeah. And uh obviously the mist came before the movie From Beyond, but From Beyond the story came 60 years before the mist. So, yeah, good good pull. Um, next is one that came out in '95, Castle Freak. Never seen it. Castle Freak is great. It's based on um let's see. I think the story is called The Outsider. Let me look at my notes here real quick. Um, yeah, so there's a story of a a From Beyond is based on the HP Lovecraft story from Beyond. But Castle Freak is based on a Lovecraft story called The Outsider. Okay. Castle Freak, 1995, again, directed by Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Coombs and Barbara Crampton. Um it's I believe I haven't seen it in a minute, but I believe Barbara Crampton inherits a castle in Italy. And her and Coombs go to the castle to, you know, check out her brand new inheritance. And there's a castle freak living in the castle, or an outsider, if you're using HP Lovecraft's language. And um, so yeah, they're they're kind of they're in this castle and they're being kind of haunted and hunted. I've never even heard of it. Oh, it's great. Really? Oh, you gotta check it out. Okay, was this a direct to video back then? It may have been. Okay, it may have been. Um, but 100% check it out. Castle free. That sounds interesting. The pro the producer, I think it was it might have been Brian Usener who was the producer, and he actually owned this castle. Oh, and what did you say it takes?

SPEAKER_00 28:08

Italy.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

He actually owned the castle, and he was like, use my castle. Go see, go you guys, go live in my castle. Have a real castle of film. Why not? Yeah, makes it even better. I will check that out. It's good. Awesome. It's good. It's it's um it's a 90s movie, so it's got a very 90s um aesthetic, but in like but in uh tone and feel, it's a very 80s kind of feeling. Awesome. And it's it's good. It's got some good the the freak, the castle freak has some great makeup. Can you definitely tell it's inspired? Oh, yeah, 100%. 100%. Yeah, it's it's good stuff. Um of course the big one, can't the big Stuart Gordon, Jeffrey Coombs part of Luthampton movie is reanimator. Yeah. I mean based on and I love reanimatoring. Based on uh HP Lowcraft's story, Herbert West, reanimator. And um Reanimator, the film goes comedy.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

It is so I've never read the story. I'm guessing it's not the story's not comedy, no, not at all.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

But Stuart Gordon got his hands on it and said, let's let's kind of make this funny, you know.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Oh, it's I love reanimator.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

It is a hoot, man. It is, it's a riot.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

Uh we need to do a full episode just about that.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

I'm totally down for that. That's one of my favorites. I remember seeing this, I didn't see it when it very first came out, but I saw it in the late 80s. I was probably 10. And it's so outrageous. And it's got a lot of I'll just say, things that appeal to the sensibility of a little boy.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

Boy, it really That's really well put.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Uh I just love it.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

I mean, that's why we still love it. Yeah, little boys.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Oh, yeah, we're perpetually 10-year-olds, yeah. I mean, what are you gonna say? Um, yeah, it's it's fantastic. It's a really, really good uh just goofy horror movie.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

It is, and that I his name always escaped me, but he plays the best, creepiest people. He's also in uh The Frighteners. Oh, okay. You know the Doctor. Are you talking about Jeffrey Coons? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

So yeah, he he's the bad guy in the Frightener. Yeah, he man, he's great in it. Frighteners is fantastic. We don't talk about that enough either. That's a great one, too. Yeah, we should we could do a whole episode on isn't he great in that? We could do a whole episode on Peter Jackson's early horror stuff. We should. Yeah, yeah, that's a great idea. So yeah, those were the uh the big ones that were directed by Stuart Gordon and starring the duo of Jeffrey Coombs and Barbara Crampton. I'm gonna come back to Barbara Crampton though, here a little bit. She did a very recent HP Lovecraft uh adaption that I'm not sure a lot of people have seen, or if they have seen it, they might not realize it's an HP Lovecraft game. You want me to give you some?

SPEAKER_00 31:07

I've got I've got a list here, dude. If you want to go, I've got it.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

I mean, yeah, I we probably have a lot of the same stuff, but if you want to do one, do one.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

I wanted to talk about, and I didn't even know this movie was created until you told me to check it out, and I watched it, blew my mind, and it's like as soon as 10 minutes I could tell it was HP Lovecraft, and that's color out of space. Yeah. Yeah. You absolutely love that movie, man. Nicolas Cage is great. Everybody, the acting, the story.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

It's classically unhinged performance by Nicolas Cage. It is.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

Um super cosmic horror. It's something completely outside of the human understanding in this movie. Yes. You know, the alien force changes the plants, the animals, the people. Reality itself is changing in this movie. It is so fantastically done. I was blown away by this movie, and no one knew about it. I mean, you told me, and I would tell friends, and what are you talking about? And so it was an awesome find that you told me that, and I'd I mean blown away. And we even get some body horror at the towards the end of it. And I know that's up your alley, which I like it in this. Yeah. I did, I loved it in it.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

I I think that if it's not a body horror movie, but it has moments of body horror, I think that that is more acceptable to non-body horror fanist.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

But um, yeah, just it it nails everything that Lovecraft.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

I was gonna say, this is probably Lovecraft's purest concepts. It says that this story. Yeah, correct. And the universe contains things humans were never meant to encounter. Right. That's the the premise of this story.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

And when humans encounter it, the movie shows you exactly what happens, what's at stake. Yeah, and who knows?

SPEAKER_00 32:59

The universe is huge, man. Yeah, who knows? It's it that's a great one. And um if you guys have not watched it, I think I watched it free on Prime. I can't remember. Do yourself a favor, watch it.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

It's really good. It it's so good, man. It's really good. It's just a great horror movie, first and foremost, but it's a fantastic adaption of Lovecraft's story, which is also called The Color Out of Space.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Um, I'll go ahead. No, you go ahead. I wanted to, I'm sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to ask, would he enjoy that movie? If he could watch it today, would he go, well done? I would think so.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

It's such a faithful adaptation. It is. I would think so. Okay. Um, did you know that Color Out of Space was adapted in 1965? You told me that. Well, when you told me a couple months ago, but yeah, it was called Die Monster Die. Die Monster Die. And uh it's a it's not hammer, but it's hammer uh-ish. It's hammer era, yeah. And it's British. Okay. Um have you seen it? Uh if I've seen it, I saw it a long time ago. I haven't seen it recently. Uh tell me which Stephen King story was heavily inspired by Color Out of Space. If you had to think about it, yes. Oh, Tommy Knockers. Yes, sir. Yeah, Tommy Knockers. Tommy Knockers borrows heavily from Color Out of Space. Love Tommy Knockers. And have you seen this movie that came out maybe 10 years ago with Natalie Portman called Nihilation is on my list. Yes, sir. So Color Out of Space is a big one. Big one. Good, good pull there. Good pull. Um, let's see. On next on my list, um, how about, since we're talking about old hammer horror era movies, how about a movie called The Haunted Place? Have not seen it. 1963 Vincent Price, Lon Cheney Jr., directed by Roger Corman. Dang! You gotta check this out. This is all-star, and it's uh inspired by the HP Lovecraft story, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Okay. Um, it was also adapted to a 1992 movie directed by Dan O'Bannon called The Resurrected. Okay, so both of those inspired by the case of Charles Dexter Ward by HP Lovecraft. But The Haunted Place, so good. Vincent Price launching How can you go wrong? Roger Corman directly. And what year, sis? 63.

SPEAKER_00 35:34

I'm gonna have to check that out. Yes, good. I'm writing that one down. Good stuff, good stuff. Castle freaking that one I need to check out.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

Yep. Okay. I'm telling y'all, don't sleep on HP Lovecraft. And like I said, you've probably seen stuff already and not even realized it.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

What what else you got? Give me one. Tell me what you think about. I guess I I'm I'm hoping you've seen it, if not you got to. In the mouth of madness. Oh, yeah. Okay. It's a love letter to love cra to Lovecraft.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

Yeah. Now there was it's it's like you said, it's not adapted. No, um, it's heavily inspired by. Now there is a Lovecraft story called At the Mountains of Madness.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Found that out.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

And In the Mouth of Madness borrows a lot from that, but it's mostly inspired by the cosmic horror concepts that HP Lovecraft.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

Scott all has said on the elements, the forbidden books, reality breaking down, ancient beings returning, and humans pretty much discovering they're powerless. Totally powerless. I mean insignificant. Yeah. Loved it, though. Absolutely loved it.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

That's a classic directed by John Carpenter. Yes. And starring Oh, and he uh Paxton? Sam Neal. Sam Neal, I'm sorry, yes. Yeah, that's a classic, classic movie. Gotta watch it. That's one of the ones that if I hadn't put my money on it, if you're a horror fan, you've seen it and loved it, and not realized that you were watching Lovecraft. Right. Yeah. That's one of the ones most horror fans have seen in the mouth of Madness. Right. And not put that together.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

So there you go.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

Totally agree. Totally agree.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

Fantastic. Give me another one. Uh, one that is blew me away, and I mean I didn't have to re-watch it, but just doing the study. I think this is the the closest Lovecrafty masterpiece you can get. Okay. And it's John Carpenter, and it's the thing. Yeah. Lovecraft's influence uh at the Mountain of Madness, the color out of space. It's we're in the isolated Antarctic, the research station, and then we have this frozen bean that they unthaw, and it all goes to hell, doesn't it? Yeah. But I thought this was, in a sense, so much Lovecrafting. And John Copperton may be saying, This is how much I really was influenced by him.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Well, the thing obviously is a remake of The Thing from Another World. Right. And I would bet Dollars to Donuts that the thing from Another World, the original, in the original script, was somebody somebody had read their Lovecrafts and they came up with that concept.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. So that's it. I mean, and how big is the thing in horror culture? It's gotta be one of the biggest movies in horror history. We're talking the exorcist shiny, the thing. Yeah. I mean, it's there. It's right up there. It's there. So totally agree. Totally agree. And it it and it's the sense in these movies if you watch them, and the sort the creature is not evil in a human sense. It is simply alien life form doing what it does. And that is pure Lovecraftian.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

Yeah, yeah. It's just existing and following its nature. Right. And we are hopeless in it in the face of its power.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Right. Really is what abortion is. And that to us is so scary. Because as human, we want to be in control. Right. And you strip that away, and things get real terrifying when we're finding out you're pretty insignificant to this million billion year long life for the world. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

And it can so different from a Michael or a Jason, you know.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

Right. It can do things that we can't even wrap our heads around. Right. So if we survive, and this is another thing that Lovecraft deals with quite a bit. If we don't get killed by this thing, if we survive, we are we've totally lost our mind.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

There's nothing left. You're snapped. You're dead. Yeah. There's nothing left of us.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

You're Sally at the end of Texas chancel.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

What do you got, bro?

SPEAKER_01 39:30

Um, I'm gonna do well, since we just kind of talked about hammer horror era films, I'm gonna do one more from that era. 1968, Curse of the Crimson Altar. Okay, yes, which is an adaption of HP Lovecraft's story Dreams in the Witch House. Right. Starring Christopher Lee and Boris Karlov. Nice. So check that one out as well. Another one that's just stacked. It's just a it's got every ingredient is top-notch in in this 1968 hammer era film. And you really feel the influence on that one as well. Oh yeah, oh yeah. It's I I wonder back then, because HP Lovecraft wasn't so well known as he is now back then. I wonder if people went and saw these in the 60s and thought, what the heck did I just watch? Psychedelic, right? Yeah. And that could be, you know, that could be when it when his uh influence started creeping in. Right. People were into the psychedelic stuff and people were dropping acid and stuff, and they probably were a little more receptive to these kind of cosmic influences and these strange ideas, you know. Right. Good time for him. That could have been direct. Yeah, you know, now that we say that out loud, that could have been a big reason why definitely he rose in popularity at when he did, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

Right place, right time. Yeah, yeah. This is what we haven't talked about on the show, and I don't know why, because you want to talk about a cult classic. Okay, I'm talking about the void. Oh, yeah. Dude, the modern cult love craft film, a hospital becomes surrounded by strange hooded figures while horrifying creatures appear inside.

SPEAKER_02 41:09

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 41:09

And it's influenced by the Dunwich Horde, the Shadow Over Insomoth, and the Kaluth Mythos. Yes. Okay, dude, it's cult worship, alternate dimensions, mutations, ancient entities. This movie is awesome.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

It's it's so awesome.

SPEAKER_01 41:27

Another one where you, as a horror fan, you probably saw it, probably didn't know you were watching.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

Yeah, but now you know.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

1970 adapted the Dunwich Horror directly and called it the Dunwich Horror. Dean Stockwell, Sandra D, and Ed Begley. That's right. Yeah. That's awesome. What do you think about? We haven't talked about the void. You're right. We haven't. We haven't. That is again, um, I would say in the practical effects. Yeah. I would say uh in the mouth of madness and the void, I would put those together insofar as if you're a horror fan, you've seen it, you love it, you didn't know what you were being fed. Right. You know, but man, they're great, aren't they? Really, really good. Yeah, The Void is The Void is one of the best 80s horror movies. Hands down. Hands down. Hands down, dude. Yeah, we don't talk about it enough. No, I agree. That's why I wanted to bring HP Lovecraft, you know, into our podcast, because there's just a slew of fantastic borrow movies. I mean, you don't have to be an HP Lovecraft fan to love a lot of these movies because these are just good horror movies.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

I didn't love HP Lovecraft. I really didn't know nothing about him. I knew he was someone you liked his stuff, but until I really got to know you, I didn't look, I didn't realize how much he influenced the genre of horror. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

Huge influence. I mean, like I said, Stephen King and um a lot of 80s and 90s cinema owes directly to him. Yeah, directly.

SPEAKER_00 43:08

Yeah, what do you got, you got next?

SPEAKER_01 43:10

Uh let's see. I talked about this one not too long ago because it was one of my uh re-watches. Uh Dagon.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

Yeah, you did mention that.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

And you just mentioned The Shadow Over Insmith. This was a uh adaption of that. Okay. And this was directed by Stuart Gordon.

unknown 43:28

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

It was not starring Coombs or Crampton, but it was directed by Stuart Gordon. Another one of his uh adaptions of HP Lovecraft. This one came out in 2001, and uh I talked about it pretty heavily in one of our previous episodes, so I I won't go too deep into it right now, but uh The Shadow of Randsmouth is basically this uh coastal port city, and these people. Get stuck there and realize that the people who live there are not normal human beings. I like that. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. In in uh the story, HP Lovecraft story, of course, it takes place in New England, in one of these coastal port cities. But in the movie, they switch it to I think it's Spain. It's a coastal town in Spain. Okay. Um, but that's really the only big shift. It's just location. Every yeah, it's just location. Everything else is pretty true to the story.

SPEAKER_00 44:29

Is HP Lovecraft a lot like with Stephen King, his everything's pretty much a man? Everything, yeah. So I wonder if Steven barred that for or just Lovecraft.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

I would think so. I would think so. So like you've heard you may have heard the term Lovecraft Country. Yes, sir. Or you may have even heard of the HBO series that's called Lovecraft Country. And I was gonna bring that up. What they buddy what they're referring to is his little corner of New England. When you hear the term Lovecraft Country, they're talking about his little fictional New England. Because his world. He changes he changes the names of things. Like Innsmouth is not a real town in New England, but it's a real town in Lovecraft country. Gotcha. Or Arkham. Now Batman has Arkham Asylum, and they borrowed that term from HP Lovecraft. I didn't know that. Arkham is a is a HP Lovecraft uh term. Um miscatonic university, where a lot of these things take place, including the events of Reanimated. It's not a real university. It's not a real university, but it is a real university in Lovecraft country. Okay, I love that. That's so cool. That story, you know, telling that building. I think that's a hundred percent why Stephen King has Derry Main, which is not a real town, Castle Rock, Maine, which is not a real town, but it's um it's the main of Stephen King country.

SPEAKER_00 45:55

Yeah, and that will I mean we all know it too.

SPEAKER_01 45:57

I think it's a direct influence from Lovecraft. Absolutely. 100%. Absolutely. That's so cool. Yeah, that's so cool.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

I want to mention two movies, and one I know is personally your favorite. I don't know if you've seen the other one, and I researching these huge influences. The Lighthouse. Oh, yeah. Okay, it's not a direct Lovecraft adaptation, but deeply cosmic horror in that movie, man. 100%. And it's it's the two lighthouse keepers descended to man, that's why isolated from civilization. And I just thinking about watching that movie, what a huge throwback that is to Lovecraft.

SPEAKER_01 46:38

100%.

SPEAKER_00 46:39

And I didn't get that the first time, but researching, I was like, wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:43

And it's not the thing that's neat about the lighthouse is it's not the isolation that's driving them insane.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

You can tell that there's something sinister going on behind this behind the curtain that's driving them insane, and that's very Lovecrafting. Okay. And then the the last one I've got on here is alien, your baby.

SPEAKER_01 47:02

Yeah. Do you would you call that? I mean Well, it's definitely about uncovering what's out there, right? And then the terror, the sheer terror that follows when you realize what's out there. You know, I mean, that's that's definitely the case. I think alien brings it a little more into the realm of like physical embodiment. Because a lot of Lovecraft's things, like you never encounter the creature like one-on-one. Right. It's more like, like you said, the knowledge of these things existing is what does you in. But in alien, the creatures themselves come and get you. But uh, it's definitely Lovecrafting and its theme that if you go deep enough into the universe, you're gonna find something. You're not gonna like that. Yeah, totally agree. Uh, I have one more as well. That's it. And this is a brand, not brand new, but new-ish movie to 2023. Just came out three years ago. And this is the one where I wanted to come back to Barbara Crampton, but also starring Heather Graham. It's called Suitable Flesh. I've heard about it. Suitable Flesh, and it's based on HP Lovecraft's story, The Thing on the Doorstep. Nice. Tell me about it. Uh, I just watched it for the first time this past week as part of my research for this, and it's been on my list as a movie that I wanted to watch, but I didn't realize that this was a Lovecraft thing. But I should have known because it has Barbara Cramp today. Watch it. I'm telling you, go watch this. What do you watch it on first? Shutter. Okay. It's on Shudder. It's called Suitable Flesh. I love the title. It's right there, you got me. It's great. It's a great title. It's a great title. It really is. And it's Lovecraft Through and Through, and it's based again on the thing on the doorstep. That could be our metal band name. It's great. Um, so tell me about it. Heather Graham is a shrink, and she has a young gentleman as one of her patients, and he's like um very vague at first, like, help me, he's coming to get me. I need your help, he's gonna get me. And she's like, Who? Who's gonna get me? He's he's almost got me. He's uh he's gonna get me. I need your help, kind of thing. Uh, I don't want to give too much away, but basically, um he brings her into his problem.

SPEAKER_00 49:50

Okay, and it's a bad problem. It's a bad problem. Like someone really something is coming.

SPEAKER_01 49:54

There is something that is trying to get him, and then once he brings her into the loop, now it's gonna try to get her.

SPEAKER_00 50:04

First is this body whore? No.

SPEAKER_01 50:07

Okay, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 50:09

Um it's with that name, I was thinking body.

SPEAKER_01 50:14

It's more of a possession thing. Oh. Um the entity wants to possess some suitable flesh, is kind of where I think the title comes from. But um Barbara Crampton's role in it is that she's Heather Graham's friend, and then when what ultimately happens to Heather Graham uh happens, Barbara Crampton becomes her doctor, she becomes one of Barbara Crampton's patients. Nice. And then of course the thing is a thing. It's got its now it's got its sights on Barbara Crampton. So it's just kind of hopping from person to person. And it's like you said, you never see the thing, do you? Uh no. Yeah, no, it's totally unseen, but it's it's it's there and it's and it's moving through the chain of people, of victims.

SPEAKER_00 51:12

Kind of reminds me of it follows.

unknown 51:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:14

In a sense, it just jumps and it can be anything or anybody. Yeah. In a way.

SPEAKER_01 51:19

But the thing about this is the they're the person who has it is very aware that they have it, and they're trying to caution the people around them about it, but people either can't really fully comprehend what they're doing. Don't believe them, or they don't believe them. Which would happen. Yeah, totally, totally would happen. Suitable flesh. Let's check it out on Shattered. It's brand new. Well, not brand new, I keep saying that. It was brand new to me. 2023. It's only three years old. It's it's very high production value, very you know, modern in its aesthetic, but not bad CGI kind of modern. Okay. Um, it doesn't really need CGI. I'm pretty sure all the effects are practical.

SPEAKER_00 51:59

Trying to think if Heather Graham's ever been in a foreign movie.

SPEAKER_01 52:02

Well, she kills it in this.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

Yeah, she last time I seen her was in uh the hangover. Awesome, man. I will check that out. Yeah, Paul, I had a great time doing the research for this and just blew my mind how impactful that dude's been on horror culture.

SPEAKER_01 52:20

I totally agree. This was super fun. Even you know, some of this stuff was new to me because he has such a huge influence, even though I've done research on this in the past, you can't uncover everything, you know. Right. And uh, so I I learned some new stuff too. I'm super glad to hear that uh your mind was opened. Yeah, really was. As HP Lovecraft would caution you against having your mind open.

SPEAKER_00 52:48

Uh but yeah, uh, all y'all out there, um take some of these things that we've talked about and go watch them and be the mouth of madness the little wind, yeah, and be like, wow, I can't believe it really is inspired by do you want to tell the uh audience what we're doing next week?

SPEAKER_01 53:09

Yeah, so our next episode is gonna be our coverage of HorrorCon OKC.

SPEAKER_02 53:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:17

Oklahoma City. So Cody and I uh in a week are gonna travel to Oklahoma City. We're gonna go to HorrorCon OKC, and then on our next episode, we're gonna cover our experience there.

SPEAKER_00 53:29

Are we gonna do it in the car on the way back or something? You want to?

SPEAKER_01 53:33

I'd like to. Um, our buddy Ivan from Don Amantis, he said he has those little lapel mics that we might be able to borrow and use to kind of record as we go. I like that. And I that's what I'd like to do. So we're gonna try to do that. I'm really looking forward to this. This is gonna be fun. You're gonna meet your hero, Derek Mears. Yeah, this is gonna be a good time.

SPEAKER_00 53:56

It is, it's gonna be awesome.

SPEAKER_01 53:57

This is um not your first convention, but this is gonna be your first one that's all whore. Yes, and it's gonna be a blast.

SPEAKER_00 54:04

And that last one we went to, I really like. And just from the little bit of horror, it held my attention for the time being there. So this one being all whore, I'm I am just yeah, you're in for a tree, man.

SPEAKER_01 54:14

You're in for a tree. And I've been to horror conventions before, but I haven't been to this one in particular. And um, this one looks good and has previous ones have gotten rave reviews. So I'm super pumped. Well, hopefully, you hear us from the road next. Yes, sir. Y'all tune back next week and listen. And uh check out some HP Lovecraft inspired movies. Absolutely. You will not be disappointed. You will not. You guys be good.

SPEAKER_00 54:38

All right, take care, y'all.