Courtesy of Furious D, here’s a little film trailer for a low-budget production of H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Whisperer In Darkness.”
Honestly, isn’t that a great trailer? Aren’t you interested in seeing this movie?
I know I am, and–here’s the thing–I hate H. P. Lovecraft’s body of work. All that nihilism, and the whole the-universe-is-more-horrifying-than-you-can-imagine Cthulhu Mythos, is to me not only depressing and demoralizing, but full-out blasphemous.
But this trailer is irresistable. The people who made it (and, we assume, the film) are having so much fun, first in telling a story they enjoy, and then in re-creating the whole atmosphere of a 1930s horror film, that all their love shines through (which is ironic when you’re dealing with Lovecraft material).
Bravo.
Lovecraft is great to read for craft and understanding the history of the horror genre. But for theme? Yeah, not so much. He was a truly troubled individual with an awful, racist philosophy. I’d have a hard time living if I shared his worldview.
Wonderful trailer, though.
Lovecraft may have been a nihilist(1). However, he did give birth to a whole genre of “making fun of Cthulhu” (Adventures of Lil Cthulhu, for example), which is very healthy.
(1) I’ve never read him, not do I think I will. When I want horror, I get a history book.
Lovecraft is one of those authors who I would readily admit are not really great writers, or even very good ones. But they do one thing SO well that their work endures. In Lovecraft’s case, what he did superbly was to create an atmosphere of eeriness and horror.
For me it works every time, even though I can see how he’s doing it. He repeats phrases, uses a vocabulary of repeated archaisms, and you can frequently guess the ending of his stories. But still, it works.
I re-read a Lovecraft collection a few months ago. Just reading the title “The Whisperer in the Darkness” sent a shiver up my spine.
Ori, you really should read 1 or 2 Lovecraft stories, just so you understand why people are still reading him.
Lovecraft’s nihilism is so much more honest that the new age all-values-are-relative crap. If the universe is uncaring, the universe is horrific, and he shows that.