H. P. Lovecraft Goes to the Movies

H. P. Lovecraft Goes to the Movies: The Classic Stories That Inspired the Classic.

Edited by Michael Kelahan.

Cosmic Horrors on the Silver Screen

Monsters from beyond space and time! Alien invaders! Ghouls beneath the city streets! Mad scientists resurrecting the dead! These are just some of the horrors that await you in H. P. Lovecraft Goes to the Movies, the first-ever collection of Lovecraft tales all of which have been adapted for television and the silver screen. The thirteen stories gathered for this book are among Lovecraft’s most frightening tales of terror — works that virtually screamed to be turned into horrifying films and telecasts:

“The Colour Out of Space” — A nightmare narrative of a meteorite’s devastating impact on the New England countryside, filmed as the Boris Karloff vehicle Die, Monster, Die!

“Pickman’s Model” — A story of ravenous subterranean monsters that was turned into one of the most memorable episodes of Rod Serling’s television program Night Gallery.

“The Call of Cthulhu” — The famous tale of an abominable alien invader whose name became the signature for the cycle of Lovecraft stories known as the Cthulhu Mythos.

“Herbert West — Reanimator” — Lovecraft’s riff on the theme of Frankenstein, which served as the basis for Stuart Gordon’s cinema cult classic Re-Animator.

For more than half a century, films of H. P. Lovecraft’s fiction have featured the work of some of Hollywood’s best and brightest directors, screenwriters, and actors and become staples of film festivals and the midnight-movie circuit. You’ve thrilled to them in theaters. Now read the classic horror stories that inspired them.

H. P. Lovecraft wrote stories in the first half of the twentieth century that laid the foundations of modern horror fiction. He is recognized today as the greatest American writer of supernatural fiction after Edgar Allan Poe.

Contents:

• Preview
  • H.P. Lovecraft on the Silver Screen by Michael Kelahan
• Feature Presentation
  • The Colour Out of Space
  • Cool Air
  • Beyond the Wall of Sleep
  • The Dreams in the Witch House
  • The Statement of Randolph Carter
  • The Unnamable
  • The Dunwich Horror
  • Herbert West—Reanimator
  • Pickman’s Model
  • The Call of Cthulhu
  • From Beyond
  • Dagon
  • The Shadow Over Innsmouth
• Credits