Firstly, I feel strongly that horror film directors have often borrowed ideas and themes from Clark Ashton Smith and H P Lovecraft in order to simply build images of graphic horror on screen. Yes, I still enjoy some of the films which seem to do this - but think it is sad that there have been so few attempts to make accurate on-screen representations of their works. After, both writers are experts in fantasy and horror. Some examples of such films include "The Beyond" and "Necronomicon". May the souls of CLark Ashton Smith and HP Lovecraft rest in peace!....... (and infamy perhaps?)


Looking forward to your replies, devoted and worthy fans of the genre!.......


From Julian


julianuk@37.com

Lovecraft and CAS have borrowed as well - isn't this the definition of culture - a shared borrowing.

I agree that more adoptions may be nice however I am always disappointed with films of books. Crash being the only exception.

Less accurate adaptations tend to work better as they understand the diffidence in the mediums.

I don't think that the point is that filmmakers have merely borrowed from Lovecraft and Ashton Smith, and that should be OK because these writers borrowed from others, too. I think the point is that filmmakers have used Lovecraftian and Smithian themes for their own ends without ever trying to replicate the spirit--which does not necessarily mean reproducing the tales to the letter--of the works in question. It's a shame, I agree, but all I can say is, "Welcome to the world of commercial filmmaking!" There is one movie that I feel captures the spirit of some of Ashton Smith's better interplanetary or science fiction tales: The Angry Red Planet (1959).

Film director Curtis Harrington made a film called Planet of Blood (or something like that, I don't have the information available now) which I believe was partly influenced by Smith's story The Flower-Women. There is a nice scene where a green vampire lady from Mars(?) subtly thirsts with eager lips just like the flower-women. Harrington also had his own copy of Arkham House's Lost Worlds, in which he probably found much inspiration. :-)

Where'd you find out that Harrington had his own copy of LOST WORLDS? I'll have to check this one out, since it is out on DVD (MGM's Midnight Movies series). IMDB suggests that PLANET OF BLOOD may have inspired ALIEN, since the plots are quite similar (although the respective aliens are definitely polar opposites on the frightometer, one being essentially an erotic siren and the other a ravening beast). Of course, I always thought that ALIEN owed a lot to "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis." Getting back to Harrington, he seems to have had a varied career, directing the Robert Bloch scripted THE CAT CREATURE and also the Dennis Hopper indie NIGHT TIDE, which I for one found suggestive of "Shadow over Innsmouth." Harrington may well represent an example of just how thoroughly images, themes and motifs from the works of HPL and CAS have penetrated popular culture. Best, Scott

That is indeed fascinating news that Curtis Harrington owned a copy of Lost Worlds. I hadn't thought of Planet of Blood (aka Queen of Blood) in decades, because it's been at least as long since I've last seen it. I remember it as being a creepily effective little film, considering its ultra-low budget (Rpger Corman had Harrington incorporate scenes from a Soviet science fiction film to which he had purchased the rights). The "Flower Women" connection never occurred to me, but, if Harrington had read CAS's works, then it certainly seems plausible.

Harrington was, I think, an intriguing and talented filmmaker with a poet's eye who rarely had the opportunity to work with material that would allow him to give free reign to his abilities--in a word, someone much like HPL and CAS during their "pulp fiction" periods. He was as skillful with more "realistic" subject matter, such as psychopathology (The Killing Kind, 1973), as he was with in his dealings with the fantastic. Night Tide remains my favorite of his works. Although I can see some "Innsmouth"-like themes in it, it is in essence a re-make of the famous Val Lewton-produced Jacques Tourneur film Cat People, which in turn took as its inspiration Algernon Blackwood's tale "Ancient Sorceries".

To veer slightly off topic for a moment, Lewton also had read for inspiration Margaret Irwin's ("The Book") story "Monsieur Seeks a Wife," from her collection MADAME FEARS THE DARK (which I am reading currently for a project with Joshi), when he scripted THE CAT PEOPLE. I haven't seen NIGHT TIDES for many years either. I taped it off of a UHF station back when they ran movies at 3:00 am instead of infomercials. I see that it is out on dvd, though, and am putting it on list (ordering a bunch of Val Lewton DVDs from France takes priority, though!) Wish they'd bring Harrington' THE CAT CREATURE out.
Someone else who had a copy of LOST WORLDS is Philip K. Dick, incidently. Tim Powers passed that information along to me a while ago.
Best,
Scott

Well, I have Harrington's copy of Lost Worlds now. I has his inscription in it. I bought it from a second hand book dealer.

Here was much interesting information about Harrington. I didn't know much about him, and I have only seen The Planet of Blood, some years ago. I liked it very much because it was, as you say poetic, and relied on mood and visuals rather than action (although this may be partly due to the Soviet parts, which I believe are the beautiful lanscape scenes from the alien planet) Lovecraft would have approved! :) I remember the vampire as being very creepy. Somehow nonhuman and mindless... well almost plantlike :)
I once read in a film festival program about another of his films, but I never saw it. I think it was loosely based on a fairy tale, Hansel and Gretel, although my memory may be incorrect.

My feeling is that films that try to correctly and slavishly adapt a written story fail. The director is only a parrot, and it is always dead. Much better results come when the film director is "inspired", and makes something more or less based on the source, speaking with his own voice. Then it becomes alive. I don't want to see serious, ambitious, and "truthful" transfers of Smith's stories to the screen (we already have the films in our heads, and with Smith's vocabulary descriptions we don't need a screen), but inspired artist directors with unique voices are welcome.

Read "..Smith's vocabulary visualizations.."

As a relatively new user of this site, I would like to thank those who have replied to my disccussion threads so far. From what I have read, it is clear that there are of course both advantages and disadvantages when film directors attempt to portray the fantasic "visions" which Clark Ashton Smith and H P Lovecraft describe in their writings. In my experience as a dedicated fan of the horror genre, "From Beyond" and "Necronomicon" are perhaps quite good film adaptions of stories by H P Lovecraft. Even so, as readers will remember, Lovecraft's short story, "The Beyond", does not actually include any graphic descriptions of violence or even include some clear details about the creatures. Therefore, in my view, the film adaption actually builds upon the origional narrative. In other words, Brian Yuzna's film of this story actually improves upon the narrative by allowing an audience to visualise what Lovecraft did not describe! .......

From Julian (Mr J L Hawksworth)

P.S. Whilst there are some weaknesses in the film "Necronomicon", I hold the view that this one does at least try to re-invent some of Lovecraft's themes for the modern world.......

Further responses to this ongoing thread would be most valued!

I can't really agree that NECRONOMICON is a faithful adaptation of HPL's work, although unlike many I think that portions of it are quite effective (especially the riff on "The Whisperer in Darkness"). (Interestingly enough, the director of the first segment, "The Drowned," also directed THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF, which I thought captured the flavor of an Averoigne tale rather well.) The film THE BEYOND, by Lucio Fulci (spelling?), doesn't really have anything to do with either CAS or HPL despite the appearance of the Book of Eibon; unlike Dario Argento or Mario Bava, I can't really appreciate Fulci's rather repellant tales.
Speaking of Bava, it seems that the DVD of PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES which is out is one directed by him and not Curtis Harrington, as I thought earlier.
Another film which is highly reminiscent of CAS is THE HAND OF NIGHT, aka BEAST OF MOROCCO, an unusual vampire story set in North Africa in the early 1960s. It involves an American mourning the loss of his family in an accident whose death-wish opens him to approach by a lamia-like revenant existing in a palace of illusion in the desert. Eventually he turns his back on her, causing her destruction, only then realizing that he really had loved her and that the pain of losing her far eclipses his earlier and more mundane loss. The dry, desert setting and general atmosphere of decadence and loss is strongly suggestive of both the Zothique stories, especially "Morthylla," and "The End of the Story." I had a copy on Beta taken from TV but it has long returned to the dust, just as its heroine did. I wish someone would resurrect it on DVD, especially since such fine films as CASTLE OF BLOOD with Barbara Steele have been resurrected.
As a general rule, what I look for in a film adaptation is not slavish adherence to plot but more a general understanding of themes and values. A motion picture is a new, if not original, work of art, and also a work of literary criticism since the director and scenarist are presenting their interpretation of what the author of the source material wrote. Sometimes this works out well, as with the BFI film of M. R. James' "WHISTLE AND I'LL COME TO YOU," othertimes it doesn't as in DIE, MONSTER, DIE. Sometimes a film gets it half right, as in the films THE CURSE (Claude Atkins in "Colour out of Space") and "The Resurrected"): they got most of it right but failed to understand just how important the original settings were to the story.
Oh well--back to Irwin, and then some W. F. Harvey.
Best,
Scott Connors

I have a rather nice little 4 minute animation live-action adapation of "Dagon" by Richard Corben, available on "Lurker In the Lobby volume II" from http://www.beyond-books.com. DAGON features an effective sound-track with manic chanting, and half-frog humanoid worshippers dancing blasphemously, and also Dagon Itself.

Beyond Books have many amateur films based on Lovecraft's works, but, alas, nothing based on Smith (it makes me think of "The Chain of Aforgomon" where Smith perhaps might have sensed his own destiny. Lovecraft reaches a wider audience because his work combines his deeper qualities and philosophies with more general horror which the masses can identify with, that is, the feeling of belonging to the world, wanting to be snug in ones home and community, but that something from outside threatens this, a feeling most people are familiar with. Smith on the other hand was weary of the world and his brilliant mind could sense beauties beyond the mundane world, something which most people can't grasp except for divine yearning).

THE HAND OF NIGHT sounds very interesting. Must check it out.

In his Dance Macabre Stephen King wrote something like that there are three forms of fear: the finest form of fear is terror of the unknown. If a writer is unable to achieve terror, he can use horror, by showing the "unknown" to the audience. And if he is even unable to make something scary to exhibit to the audience, he can use the third and lowest form, chocking with blood and gore.
I feel that many horror films have very high ambitions in achieving something in the second form of fear, revealing the creatures and other things hidden in the unknown. That is fine, and fascinating, but also very very difficult; in my eyes it often becomes ludicrous rather than scary.

FAO Mr Scott Connors. You seem to have misunderstood my thoughts regarding the film NECRONOMICON. I do not in fact believe that this one is a good adaptation of Lovecraft writings. However, I do feel that the producers of this film have helped to bring his themes into the present day. In addition, films such as this do at least draw attention to the fact that H P Lovecraft's classic works will always be there for genuine fans to agree, no matter how far into the future that might be.......

Further replies to this popular thread would be appreciated.....

From: Julian (Mr Julian L Hawksworth)


e-mail: julianuk@37.com

I'm not trying to be a troll or anything, Julian, but your latest statement that "I do not in fact believe that this one [ie, the film NECRONOMICON]is a good adaptation of Lovecraft writings" is in direct contradiction to your earlier statement that "In my experience as a dedicated fan of the horror genre, 'From Beyond' and 'Necronomicon' are perhaps quite good film adaptions of stories by H P Lovecraft." I think that I understand what you mean, but a little more rigor in formulating one's forensic argument is always a good idea. If I read you correctly, you are giving the directors and screenwriters of this and other adaptations credit for attempting, in varying degrees of good faith, to make accessible to the general public the themes that HPL and CAS explored in their work, but that they have not been successful in translating the actual works that these themes were first explored in to the screen. I can see that as a valid position. In fact, ever since John Strysik directed his version of "The Music of Erich Zann," I have viewed attempts to film HPL less as adaptations and more as commentaries, since the cinema is an artform of its own, and one should not expect a literal translation of a work of prose to film than one should expect its translation to ballet.
A coda to our discussion of Curtis Harrington: the DVD of THE OLD DARK HOUSE, the classic James Whale-directed comic mystery starring Boris Karloff, contains an interview with Harrington which recounts how he saved the last print of the film after Universal lost the rights to the J.B. Priestley novel upon which it was based in 1957, making it commercially without value in those pre-home video days. Harrington was a friend of Whales in his last years, and organized a screening of this film at the British Film Institute in Whales' honor, one of the few bright moments in a career shrouded in twilight.
Speaking of Karloff, how many of you have seen the film he did with Bela Lugosi that was rather loosely adapted from Poe's THE RAVEN? One scene is rather of interest to the CAS fan. During the interpretational dance sequence, where the heroine shows her gratitude to doctor and Poe fanatic Lugosi by staging the title poem, the actor playing Our Eddie is one Raine Bennett. Bennett was a friend of George Sterling's who published a little magazine called BOHOEMIA that published quite a bit of CAS' poems in verse and in prose. Bennett actually offered to publish CAS' second collection, but CAS did not wish to give up the copyright as he did with THE STAR-TREADER. STUDIES IN WEIRD FICTION published an interesting letter from Bennett to H. L. Mencken about how Sterling enlisted Bennett's aid in a futile attempt to set young Clark up with a willing lassie, the idea being that once his cherry had been plucked CAS' poetry would become more "human." Hummm...don't think it worked.
Best, Scott

FAO: Mr SCott Connors

Thanks for helping to lengthen the thread which is slowly weaving into a longer roll! On a more serious point, I accept that one of my comments could be read as contradictory. But then again, is it not possible that I can enjoy the qualities of the film NECRONOMICON without being critical of it also? Also, I am well aware that Lucio Fulci's infamous horror flick "The Beyond" has very little do with H P Loecraft or Clark Ashton Smith. However, one needs to remember that the cinematic medium is unique and many writings by the magnificent Clark Ashton Smith and H P Lovecraft may never be filmed for cost reasons and because some would be almost impossible to interepret in this context. I'm sure that you would agree with this argument (more or less). Anyway, bye for now and thanks for helping to keep this interesting thread going.......

From: Julian

e-mail: julianuk@37.com