# Movies based on the Cthulhu mythos?



## Angel Tarragon (May 21, 2007)

I am looking for a near complete list of all the movies made based on the Cthulhu mythos. Does anyone know where I can find one?


----------



## Hand of Evil (May 21, 2007)

Re-Animator
From Beyond
Cast a Deadly Spell


----------



## Hand of Evil (May 21, 2007)

Bride of Re-Animator
The Call of Cthulhu
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
Mansión de los Cthulhu, La
Dagon
The Thing on the Doorstep
Nyarlathotep
Return to Innsmouth


----------



## Brown Jenkin (May 21, 2007)

Try http://www.thelurker.com/


----------



## Wycen (May 21, 2007)

I wonder, do any of these feature any sort of Cthulhu figure?  Not a deep one, depraved cultist or undead, but the Great Old One himself. 

My family came over this weekend and I had my Horrorclix Cthulhu out on display.  The two youngest present wanted to know all about him.  Little Cadence asked how come his tummy was big and why he was bleeding (tentacles bursting out).  I told her it was because he ate too much candy.

Anyway, their father asked what movie he's from and I told him 'Call of Cthulhu' but I doubt any movie I've seen has really shown a good representation of the sleeping one.


----------



## Brown Jenkin (May 21, 2007)

Wycen said:
			
		

> I wonder, do any of these feature any sort of Cthulhu figure?  Not a deep one, depraved cultist or undead, but the Great Old One himself.
> 
> My family came over this weekend and I had my Horrorclix Cthulhu out on display.  The two youngest present wanted to know all about him.  Little Cadence asked how come his tummy was big and why he was bleeding (tentacles bursting out).  I told her it was because he ate too much candy.
> 
> Anyway, their father asked what movie he's from and I told him 'Call of Cthulhu' but I doubt any movie I've seen has really shown a good representation of the sleeping one.




The recently released _Call of Cthuhlu_ is very good. It was intentionally filmed to look like a 1920's silent film and of all the Lovecraft movies this captures the feel of the times, is accurate to the book, and features the big guy himself.

http://www.cthulhulives.org/cocmovie/


----------



## DMH (May 21, 2007)

Which one had Peter Cushing?


----------



## Sir Brennen (May 21, 2007)

I'd add _Hellboy_ to that list of mythos-related movies.


----------



## Henry (May 21, 2007)

Wycen said:
			
		

> I wonder, do any of these feature any sort of Cthulhu figure?  Not a deep one, depraved cultist or undead, but the Great Old One himself.




Cast a Deadly Spell had Big C. himself, crawling out of a fissure. A bit cheesy on the special effects (it was like 1990, I think), but it was a remarkable homage to quite a few of the Lovecraft elements, but put in with a twist that is VERY similar to the RPG. I'd swear whoever wrote the movie had been playing the RPG, with the combination of dark and humorous elements present in the movie. I haven't see a movie to rival its feel ever since.

Re-animator and I have no mouth but I must scream probably came closest to the atmosphere of the short stories...


----------



## Frostmarrow (May 22, 2007)

*The Haunted Palace*

The Haunted Palace starring Vincent Price is a decent Lovecraft take on The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. -Directed by Roger Corman THP is Lovecraft disguised as Poe.



			
				Jeremy Perkins said:
			
		

> Charles Dexter Ward travels with his wife to Arkham to inspect a large house he has inherited. It was once owned by his great grandfather Joseph Curwen, a disciple of the devil, who cursed the local villagers as they burned him at the stake. Everyone is hostile to Ward, blaming the curse for the number of mutants in the village. Indeed, Ward's arrival allows Curwen to take over his body and restart his evil ways by revenging himself on the descendants of those who killed him.




I've seen this movie and I liked it a lot.


----------



## Henry (May 22, 2007)

Henry said:
			
		

> Re-animator and I Have No Mouth but I Must Scream probably came closest to the atmosphere of the short stories...





GAH! 

What was I thinking?!?! Re-animator was a piece of dung! The Resurrected  (1992) was the one I was thinking of - quite a good film, actually.


----------



## Andrew D. Gable (May 22, 2007)

DMH said:
			
		

> Which one had Peter Cushing?



None, that I know of.  I was going to say _Die Monster Die_ (which is admittedly not Cthulhu and based on "The Colour Out of Space"), but that was Boris Karloff.  He was in _The Creeping Flesh_, which, at least to me, was sort of Lovecraftian.


----------



## Templetroll (May 22, 2007)

Henry said:
			
		

> GAH!
> 
> What was I thinking?!?! Re-animator was a piece of dung! The Resurrected  (1992) was the one I was thinking of - quite a good film, actually.




Hmm, a freudian slip there, perhaps?      Re-Animator did have grossly funny scene with the girl captured by the semi-dead guy.     

I like "The Dunwich Horror" but I also am a fan of Sandra Dee.  It does accurately portray the creepiness of the Whatley family and lousy security of Miskatonic University Library.


----------



## trancejeremy (May 22, 2007)

Yeah, I think the Dunwich Horror is underrated. I mean, you're not going to be able to find a 9 foot person to do a literary duplicate of Wilbur Whatley. But for creepiness, it's hard to be beat Dean Stockwell, he certainly has the goat like big covered. And the same with the flashbacks with the hippies - that certainly creeped me out.

I also love the introductory music. Sort of an evil version of the themes from 60s romantic movies.  It's hardly a great movie, but it's decent.


----------



## DMH (May 22, 2007)

Andrew D. Gable said:
			
		

> None, that I know of.  I was going to say _Die Monster Die_ (which is admittedly not Cthulhu and based on "The Colour Out of Space"), but that was Boris Karloff.  He was in _The Creeping Flesh_, which, at least to me, was sort of Lovecraftian.




I remember him in a scene where he speaks of Yog-soth-oth with some other people. I thought it was based on Charles Dexter Ward but could be mistaken.


----------



## Andre (May 22, 2007)

Frukathka said:
			
		

> I am looking for a near complete list of all the movies made based on the Cthulhu mythos. Does anyone know where I can find one?




_The Unnameable_ has Cthulhu-esque references, tho I don't know how close it is to the real stories. Fun, in a "bad horror movie" kind of way. And it does have John Rhys Davies in it.


----------



## David Howery (May 23, 2007)

Andre said:
			
		

> _The Unnameable_ has Cthulhu-esque references, tho I don't know how close it is to the real stories. Fun, in a "bad horror movie" kind of way. And it does have John Rhys Davies in it.



oh God, I saw that one... the closest it had to anything by LPH was a character named Randolph Carter, IIRC, and a mention of Miskatonic U. and Arkham.... and there was the sequel too...

you know, I don't remember LPH having so many bare breasted women in his stories...


----------



## Storm Raven (May 23, 2007)

Henry said:
			
		

> Cast a Deadly Spell had Big C. himself, crawling out of a fissure. A bit cheesy on the special effects (it was like 1990, I think), but it was a remarkable homage to quite a few of the Lovecraft elements, but put in with a twist that is VERY similar to the RPG. I'd swear whoever wrote the movie had been playing the RPG, with the combination of dark and humorous elements present in the movie. I haven't see a movie to rival its feel ever since.
> 
> Re-animator and I have no mouth but I must scream probably came closest to the atmosphere of the short stories...




Wasn't _I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream_ a short story by Harlan Ellison?


----------



## sedarfaery (May 28, 2007)

Brown Jenkin said:
			
		

> Try http://www.thelurker.com/



Ooh! Great link, thanks for sharing that. Now I can catch up of my Cthulhu mythos movies seen.


----------



## The Lost Muse (May 31, 2007)

I'd argue Event Horizon is mythos inspired.


----------



## trancejeremy (May 31, 2007)

FWIW, Call of Cthulhu (the recent silent movie) is now available for rent at Netflix (though it says "long wait")


----------



## Mouseferatu (May 31, 2007)

Timmundo said:
			
		

> I'd argue Event Horizon is mythos inspired.




I've heard that claim before, but having seen the movie, I can't agree. Can you point to specifics as to why you think so?


----------



## WayneLigon (May 31, 2007)

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> I've heard that claim before, but having seen the movie, I can't agree. Can you point to specifics as to why you think so?




The _Event Horizon_ has an experimental gravity drive/stardrive that works by pushing the ship through another dimension, exposure to which drove everyone on the ship insane. Something seems to come back with the ship when it returns to our universe, which also drives others insane. The captain of the rescue mession finally goes mad himself, and pilots the remainder of the ship back into the hell-dimension. 

Dimensions that drive you insane = Lovecraft.


----------



## Mouseferatu (May 31, 2007)

Hrm...

Seems a bit of a stretch to me. The fact that a story contains a specific detail that sort of also exist in HPL doesn't make it an HPL-inspired or HPL-related story.

I guess I can see how some people would make the association, but to me, the feel, the specifics, and the imagery were all wrong for Lovecraft.


----------



## trancejeremy (May 31, 2007)

People have different ideas of what is "Lovecraftian", and IMHO, it's often colored more by Call of Cthulhu (the game) than what Lovecraft actually wrote.

In this case, probably the closest thing to Event Horizon would be Dreams in the Witch House. And in that, despite being exposed to dimensional travel (along with other things), the main character only goes slightly crazy. He retains enough moral sense to kill Keziah Mason rather than help her sacrifice that baby.

Also, in HPL, people driven crazy usually just babble incoherently, it's more in Stephen King's stuff that they become psychotic/violent after being driven insane by supernatural forces. The only HPL story I can think of with a guy who goes crazy and kills people was really a case of possession.

(edit:I can't remember the name of the story I'm thinking of (edit2: Beyond the Wall of Sleep), but it was some guy brought into an asylum after killing some people, then it ends with the doctor killing him and seeing a new star born, meaning the creature had been released.  Also now that I think about it, it happened in "The Rats in the Walls", but in that case, it was more a theme of racial/familial degeneration, another big theme of his.)


----------



## James Heard (Jun 1, 2007)

I thought that In the Mouth of Madness was pretty mythos inspired.


----------



## Angel Tarragon (Jun 1, 2007)

I need to threajack this for a second. When I asked for the list, I wan't looking for inspired movies, but movies directly tied to the mythos.


----------



## Templetroll (Jun 1, 2007)

Frukathka said:
			
		

> I need to threajack this for a second. When I asked for the list, I wan't looking for inspired movies, but movies directly tied to the mythos.




Check the link to the TheLurker.  It mention Lovecraft didn't want his works adapted for the screen so there are none that are directly based on his work.


----------



## Mouseferatu (Jun 1, 2007)

Templetroll said:
			
		

> Check the link to the TheLurker.  It mention Lovecraft didn't want his works adapted for the screen so there are none that are directly based on his work.




Of course, given the creation of _Call of Cthulhu_, that statement is no longer accurate.


----------



## WhatGravitas (Jun 1, 2007)

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> I guess I can see how some people would make the association, but to me, the feel, the specifics, and the imagery were all wrong for Lovecraft.



Yeah - the dimension pictured in Event Horizon was far too... hellish for Lovecraft. Sure, it made you crazy, but rather Jack-the-Ripper- or Ed-Gein-crazy, not Abdul-Alhazred- or Erich-Zann-crazy.

The evilness in EH was far too concerned with human madness, human fears... while the space/outer dimension-context was right, the actual horror wasn't very Lovecraftian (more gibberisch craziness, things from beyond, things not meant to know), and the style of the film even less - it lacked the self-reflection twist at the end.


----------



## Piratecat (Jun 2, 2007)

Frukathka said:
			
		

> I need to threajack this for a second. When I asked for the list, I wan't looking for inspired movies, but movies directly tied to the mythos.



There really aren't very many! Dagon, Reanimator... most have been mentioned.

With luck, though, some more will float to the top. And it's an interesting discussion.


----------



## Piratecat (Jun 2, 2007)

Henry said:
			
		

> GAH!
> 
> What was I thinking?!?! Re-animator was a piece of dung!



Pistols at dawn, mister. How can you say that? Re-Animator was great! What other movie has the line "Cat dead, details later," and has a character strangled _by someone else's animated large intestine_? That's pure unadulterated movie magic, that is!


----------



## James Heard (Jun 2, 2007)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Pistols at dawn, mister. How can you say that? Re-Animator was great! What other movie has the line "Cat dead, details later," and has a character strangled _by someone else's animated large intestine_? That's pure unadulterated movie magic, that is!




If getting strangled by unusual things in horror films interests you, I recommend you look up Soul Vengeance. I'd hand you some links, but I think it might be pushing the grandma rules. Watching Soul Vengeance though, you understand the horrors that men were not meant to see.


----------



## PrinceXaxor (Jun 2, 2007)

And no one has mentioned John Carpenter's "The Thing"?  The atmosphere is perfect.  The ending is certainly like Lovecraft, uncertain and still holding the promise of further horror.


----------



## Templetroll (Jun 3, 2007)

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> Of course, given the creation of _Call of Cthulhu_, that statement is no longer accurate.




That was mentioned already and didn't seem to fit his criteria.  I don't know what would so I pointed out what was posted on that website.

Do we have a Cthulhu smilie?


----------



## Caliban (Jun 8, 2007)

If I remember correctly,  "Lair of the White Worm" had some mythos references.


----------



## Capellan (Jun 8, 2007)

I'm pretty sure most of Uwe Boll's movies are caused by the mythos.  It's really the only explanation for them 

More seriously, I recall a film named 'From Beyond' that purported to be mythos inspired, but didn't really feel that way to me when I watched it.


----------



## Swoop109 (Jun 9, 2007)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Pistols at dawn, mister. How can you say that? Re-Animator was great! What other movie has the line "Cat dead, details later," and has a character strangled _by someone else's animated large intestine_? That's pure unadulterated movie magic, that is!




My favorite dialogue from the movie;

Daniel; You mean he's dead?

West; Ugh... not anymore.


----------



## Angel Tarragon (Jul 3, 2007)

Henry said:
			
		

> The Resurrected  (1992) was the one I was thinking of - quite a good film, actually.



Hope to be receiving this one from Amazon soon. I think it might be a movie I have been searching for since 1996.


----------



## Plane Sailing (Jul 4, 2007)

Templetroll said:
			
		

> Do we have a Cthulhu smilie?









 ?


----------



## Tuzenbach (Jul 5, 2007)

Dagon is both frightening & disturbing without relying on any of the current "we'll shock the audience by speeding up some scenes & having things come straight at the camera very quickly" horror movie trends. 

It's very atmospheric and even radiates evil. I'm serious! It's the type of film I'd watch with others but be too afraid to either rent or own as it's physical manifestation might invoke curses upon the bearer. Don't believe me? Go rent it yourself and prepare to be sickened & disturbed!


----------

