"The Ideal Lovecraft Adaptation"

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Fri May 11, 2012 2:18 pm

Word up, everybody. I'm a guest at the HP Lovecraft Film Festival this weekend, and one of the things I'm being a part of is a panel that shares its name with the thread title. Now, I've got a few things I thought I might talk about, but was just wondering what my comrades in the Den might have to say.

So, big budget or no budget? Period piece or modern setting? Fish sticks- neither a fish nor a stick?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri May 11, 2012 2:24 pm

That's a hard one, both because of how difficult it is to adapt some of HPL's stories, and how many adaptations there have already been.

If you had the budget for some real heavy FX, I'd go for At the Mountains of Madness or "The Shadow Out of Time." Otherwise, if you just wanted to do a really simple, low-budget thing...there's always "The Picture in the House" as my personal favorite.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Fri May 11, 2012 2:26 pm

I've seen a decent "Picture in the House" short. A piece I'm workshopping right now is actually a riff on that story and the "Foxfire" books.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri May 11, 2012 2:41 pm

Of course, if you want to get really bizarre, ambitious, and gruesome, there's always "The Mound".

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri May 11, 2012 4:54 pm

Gotta say--Whisperer in Darkness would be best for me. I mean, the tension of Akeley being out by himself and under observation, the nightly bumps and attacks--his phone being cut all the time, the dogs going wild, etc.

Put it in period--early 20th.. Don't show the Mi-Go that often--the dead one he finds and tries to photograph should be the only one we get a good look at. Have a budget, but be subtle about how you use it--don't go total blowout, but make sure you put in the effort on the Mi-Go voices. Throw around a few extras in town who are stiff-faced or have some other tell to show they're not normal.

It'd be a hell of a windup for the end, when Akeley's face and hands are on the chair. Can and should be done in-period--early 20th. A lot of the tension goes out if Akeley has a cell phone.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Fri May 11, 2012 4:58 pm

http://www.cthulhulives.org/whisperer/index.html

They premiered it a while back but it's having a big showing this weekend. Looks pretty awesome so far- not sure how they could have topped the silent "Call of Cthulhu", but yeah.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Fri May 11, 2012 6:08 pm

Ancient History wrote:Otherwise, if you just wanted to do a really simple, low-budget thing...there's always "The Picture in the House" as my personal favorite.

Okay I just read that one and I really liked it. Still, I have a question about the ending:

So, it's pretty obvious that the old man has been killing and eating people (and possibly living a long time because of it). At the end, the blood comes down from the room above, they both see it, the narrator closes his eyes, and then oblivion comes in the form of a titanic thunderbolt. Now, I'd taken that to be the old man killing him, likely by hitting him over the head. Still, when I read the wiki article on it, they say that the house was literally destroyed by an actual lightning bolt.

Is that just one of those "up to interpretation" things? It seemed really obvious to me.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri May 11, 2012 6:11 pm

I always thought it was fairly obvious that the house was directly struck and destoryed by an actual lightning bolt, but I approve of your interpretation as an alternate ending.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Fri May 11, 2012 6:12 pm

They discussed this on the HPL Literary Podcast-consensus seems to be literal lightning. I believe that's a trope from Gothic horror- the merciful/cleansing thunderbolt.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Fri May 11, 2012 6:31 pm

Well sonovabitch. I guess I was literally reading too much into it. Thanks, guys.

Nebuchadnezzar · Post by **Nebuchadnezzar** » Fri May 18, 2012 1:18 pm

I'd like to see a decent adaptation of The Dunwich Horror.

echoVanguard · Post by **echoVanguard** » Sat May 19, 2012 2:28 am

In terms of what story would make the best film adaptation, I have to concur that "The Whisperer in Darkness" would be the best of the presented list. It, more than any of the other stories, focuses on things that are conveyed best via film - dialogue and setting.

Spoilered: pretentious English-major claptrap about Lovecraft in general.

Individual examples of Lovecraft's work generally do not tell the whole story - rather, it is the overall picture of the mythos that is substantially impressive. While individual pieces can be powerful ("The Outsider" is a particularly sharp example), much of core pieces like "The Dunwich Horror" lack their full impact when examined in isolation. Most importantly, a great deal of Lovecraft's work is inextricably text-based in nature - no other medium can accurately convey, for example, the music of Erich Zann; any actual violin piece, however bizarre, cannot match the unknowable music in a reader's imagination when he reads the narrator's description. Similarly, what medium can convey the understated subtle menace of "a horrid smell" that plays such an important part in "Cool Air"? Actors wrinkling their noses and commenting on "what smells so awful" is an anemic and banal substitute for the actual experience, conveyed so much more effectively via direct description.

It's a unique effect that relies specifically upon evoking imagined sensory perception instead of relaying actual effects, because the actual perceptions are impossible. When the core idea of the work is the unknowable, the unexperienceable, any adaptation into another medium which conveys concrete experiences is intrinsically flawed.

echo

The Gaming Den

"The Ideal Lovecraft Adaptation"

What would be the best HPL story/novella to adapt?

"The Ideal Lovecraft Adaptation"