Old and New Lovecraftia

Inspiration
1

What are some non-Lovecraft “Lovecraftian” media, either new or old? I want to make a list of works whose style is reminiscent of Lovecraft without being H.P. himself. Take the definition of Lovecraftian to be your own, I want a bigger list rather than a more defined one. Though if you add a one-line description of why you think it’s Lovecraftian, it would give other readers some orientation.

I’ll kick off with a few on the modern-ish side:

  • Thomas Ligotti. Author with works featuring asylums, old gods, weird dream-like sequences. I might like Ligotti more than Lovecraft, personally.

  • Laird Barron. Author who does a mix of hard-boiled detective story and cosmic horror. I think the jaded detective-minded characters give a slightly different flavor to investigations of ancient malignant entities.

  • Anchorhead by Mike Gentry. A 1998 interactive fiction game. I picked this up a few summers ago and have gotten back into it. It’s a straight up homage to Lovecraft: backwater towns, creepy people, and a town called Innswich. It has me “brooding eternally over old New England secrets…”

1 Like
2

Very modern (and possibly too meta), but the HBO series Lovecraft Country springs to mind for me. It’s Lovecraftian in the sense that it more or less presents the same world that Lovecraft did (the in-fiction world is one with H.P. Lovecraft in it, but one where his writings were based on real-world experiences in a specific town). Plus…you know…it’s right there in the name. The series was a…sequel?..to a novel of the same name by Matt Ruff, so though I haven’t read the novel, I have to assume the novel would belong on the list, too. :smile:

1 Like
3

Annihilation, both the movie and the book. Weird cosmic horror about exploring an area of Earth apparently corrupted by aliens.

Likewise, Roadside Picnic and its movie Stalker.

1 Like
4

Some movies:

  • Alien. What the crew is fighting is only the shadow of the bigger entities.
  • To Cast a Deadly Spell. It’s the best Lovecraft movie out there, even though this isn’t a Lovecraft movie, despite the main character’s name.
  • The Void. It’s the best Lovecraft movie out there. Yes, this one, not that other one. It is not a Lovecraft movie but uses the Lovecraftesque structure.
  • Event Horizon.
  • Hellraiser.

I guess you know of the last two already.

1 Like
5

Oh, hell yeah. Event Horizon is a great pick!