Filming Insanity

A plethora of highly regarded horror writers have had their tales put up on the silver screen in successful ventures. Films based on the writings of Stephen King, Clive Barker, and even Poe have generally met with success and have acquired large fan bases. However, not all horror authors (or, at the very least, authors of weird fiction) have had as much success on the screen. In the opinion of practically everyone that has both read his works and seen films based on his work, there is no film that truly captures the horror found in the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Is there something in his particular brand of horror that makes it unsuited for cinema, or has it just been unfortunate fate that no one with great skill has made the attempt?

First, one should look at Lovecraft’s writings and determine whether they would even fit the horror genre if applied directly to film. For this exercise, we shall consider the philosophy of Carroll. Lovecraft’s most famous tales (those most likely to be made into films) typically have to do with the Old Ones, alien beings that descended upon the Earth before the time of humans and lie beneath the sea neither alive nor dead. The “sleeping” Old Ones influence the transactions of all of humanity by means of magic and cults in an effort to be reawakened, at which point they will utterly undo all of human existence. Any attempt by a character to describe the beings involves incoherent rambling wherein Lovecraft imposes adjective after unrelated adjective in an effort to show the overwhelming nature of the beings and how they are unlike anything in human existence. For Carroll, this presents the story with a definite monster (an Old One). In his short tale, “The Call of Cthulhu”, he describes the first appearance of the story’s namesake in the following way: “The Thing cannot be described - there is no language for such abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order. A mountain walked or stumbled.” For Carroll, this presents us with a host of impurities – it is nothing within the bounds of natural physics, and yet there it towers before its horrified discoverers. On top of that, as with all Old Ones, Cthulhu is previously described as being neither alive nor dead, but waiting to be awakened by its cult. Being neither alive nor dead exceeds our understanding of the natural world, and the fact that it can actively influence the world above whilst in a “sleep” is also a deviation from the norm. Furthering a Carrollian account of horror, in the next paragraph, we are told that, “Three men were swept up by the flabby claws before anybody turned.” This indicates that the monster is definitely a threat, killing three of its discoverers almost instantly. Finally, beyond its impurities, the maddening mountain was also physically disgusting, “Everyone listened, and everyone was listening still when It lumbered slobberingly into sight and gropingly squeezed Its gelatinous green immensity through the black doorway into the tainted outside air of that poison city of madness.” In this fashion, we have been presented with a monster that would satisfy Carroll’s criteria.

However, the plot is also important for Carroll. Taking the same short story into account, we are presented with a complex discovery plot (a common feature of Lovecraft’s tales). The onset is presented in the form of a first-person narration on the part of the nephew of a professor who did great, but secret, research on the Old Ones. He describes the collection of notes and trinkets that his great-uncle had acquired, and also tells of his death. The narrative continues into the discovery area of the plot, wherein the nephew connects many of the notes and trinkets in a manner most horrifying, implying that something is not as it seems. From there, we get the confirmation in the form of an account written by a sailor who uncovered the madness. This second-hand account, which seems to be driving our guide closer to insanity, involves the confrontation part of the plot, and demonstrates how utterly hopeless it is to challenge an Old One. In many of Lovecraft’s tales, the confirmation stage does involve a descent into madness, but the tale never enters the realm of the fantastic, there is always a strong display of the marvelous at hand. In this tale, and many of Lovecraft’s others, we are given a complex discovery plot.

Since we have the Carroll monster, and the Carroll plot, what is keeping us from having a good Lovecraft-based movie? I posit that it relates to Lovecraft’s penchant for assaulting us with adjectives. What may otherwise read as, “The men sight a stone pillar coming from the sea and, sailing to it, come upon a nightmarish coastline”, becomes in Lovecraft’s tale, “the men sight a great stone pillar sticking out of the sea, and in S. Latitude 47°9', W. Longitude l23°43', come upon a coastline of mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry which can be nothing less than the tangible substance of earth's supreme terror - the nightmare corpse-city of R'lyeh, that was built in measureless aeons behind history by the vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars.. Furthermore, Lovecraft presents us with scenes that truly defy visual interpretation, “. . . Johansen swears [one of his comrades] was swallowed up by an angle of masonry which shouldn't have been there; an angle which was acute, but behaved as if it were obtuse.” Passages like these are meant to overwhelm our senses with something that can hardly be imagined. In our vain attempts to visualize such images, we become fearful at the prospect that they are utterly unnatural. To commit an image to the silver screen automatically removes this quality from our mind, for if it is seen, than it can easily be described in ways that do not defy what is natural. So if one were to impose a set image onto Lovecraft’s “monsters”, they would lose their instantly maddening visages. If there were indeed some way to produce the monsters and environs on screen, then the plot should have no problem being transformed to suit the medium. After all, there are many other films with successful complex discovery plots, so Lovecraft’s plots should be able to make the step to film as well.

The plots of Lovecraft’s more well-known pieces of weird fiction would translate nicely onto the screen, but the unnerving scenes that come with them can only be viewed in the mind. Attempts to render them on screen serve to undo the horror found within and leave us only with more failed attempts at producing a successfully Lovecraftian film.