HBO series supposedly about Lovecraft's works

[Kyriakos]

Cthulhu called before you woke up

Got to say, this doesn't have a Lovecraft vibe at all. I was also surprised by the idea to have black protagonists in the work of a notorious anti-black racist like Lovecraft ^_^

Most likely it will be generic and only tie to HPL in name.

edit: and apparently this is based on some 2016 novel some nameless guy wrote, where Lovecraft's work is juxtaposed to the Jim Crow era. So... Lovecraft's name is just used to sell this, but imo this is a terrible idea

 

[EgonSpengler]

It's based on a book that was inspired by Lovecraft's work, not Lovecraft's work itself. American racism is part of the story, as it's about and takes place in "Jim Crow" America. I don't know whether the Lovecraftian monsters in the story are literal or allegorical. I'm hoping it's the former, though, being a fan of sci-fi and horror. I haven't read the book yet, but I did read another by the same author - Sewer, Gas, and Electric - and that one was anything but generic.

 

[Kyriakos]

Yes, picked up that info a few seconds before you posted (by reading the comments in the youtube thread )

I still think this is a very bad idea, cause obviously the lure to sell the series was Lovecraft, so it is cheap to twist that into non-Lovecraft.

Next on HBO: "Kafka's world"! Based on fan-fiction about how someone read Kafka and tried to get through the soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia ^_^

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Are there any really good AAA movie/series about Lovecrafts universe?

 

[Kyriakos]

Are there any really good AAA movie/series about Lovecrafts universe?

Of course not.
Latest flop is Nick Cage's The Colour out of Space.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Yes, picked up that info a few seconds before you posted (by reading the comments in the youtube thread )

I still think this is a very bad idea, cause obviously the lure to sell the series was Lovecraft, so it is cheap to twist that into non-Lovecraft.

Next on HBO: "Kafka's world"! Based on fan-fiction about how someone read Kafka and tried to get through the soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia ^_^

Writers have been using the Lovecraftian setting for their own works for almost a century now, something Lovecraft himself encouraged.

 

[Kyriakos]

Writers have been using the Lovecraftian setting for their own works for almost a century now, something Lovecraft himself encouraged.

I seriously doubt he'd encourage this use of it, for a great demonic host of reasons

 

[AmazonQueen]

I seriously doubt he'd encourage this use of it, for a great demonic host of reasons

Sure, if he had female characters they'd swoon helplessly, black characters would be thugs, and Chinese characters would be sinister and sneaky.
I'd say take whats good from his work (which isn't much IMO) but ditch most of his attitudes and insecurities.

 

[Kyriakos]

Sure, if he had female characters they'd swoon helplessly, black characters would be thugs, and Chinese characters would be sinister and sneaky.
I'd say take whats good from his work (which isn't much IMO) but ditch most of his attitudes and insecurities.

There are (albeit few) minority characters in Lovecraft's work, but obviously they are always either cultists or other pariahs. Eg black people were part of the cults in the New Orleans bayou, iirc.
There are also some eskimoes in the Call of Cthulhu.

Melanesians are a part of the story The Shadow over Innsmouth.

I think it is a very bad idea to try simultaneously to leech Lovecraft for his name, and make the focus be his racism. The first would just be false advertising, but now it can be seen as a problematic cheapening of any merit Lovecraft's work may have (which, as you said, isn't much, but it is there).

 

[Zkribbler]

Most likely it will be generic and only tie to HPL in name.
...this is a terrible idea

Knowing how Hollywood works, this was my conclusion. Development people will get paid tens of thousands of dollars only to leave fans heartbroken and disappointed.

 

[Kyriakos]

It is a shame, given they had the money (= production value) to make something close to Lovecraft, if they meant to try.

 

[RobAnybody]

I didn't have a whole lot of interest in this to begin with but then I saw JJ Abrams was involved & my interest dropped to zero.

 

[Kyriakos]

Sweet home Carcosa

Although this isn't about Lovecraft, it might (or might not - I am not optimistic) include some interesting discussion of how the black reader of Lovecraft comes to terms with his literary idol being racist against blacks.

 

[Crezth]

It's a great name actually because Lovecraft was a massive Jim Crow white supremacist and this show is about how his country is as dangerous as any monsters.

With Jordan Peele at the helm I expect a better showing than you'd just get from JJ.

 

[Kyriakos]

Well, I generally liked Peele's first (?) movie, despite the entirely unrealistic premise (locked in one's mind).
Didn't like his second (?) one, which I couldn't watch to the end, and hated the Twilight Zone reboot he did.
So no, imo he isn't to be trusted on this one either, though maybe he is (because this isn't about Lovecraft, but how black people may see Lovecraft if they are his readers, like the protagonist of this show is).

At any rate Peele is mostly about comedy. Lovecraft has next to zero comedy.

 

[Leifmk]

It's based on a book that was inspired by Lovecraft's work, not Lovecraft's work itself. American racism is part of the story, as it's about and takes place in "Jim Crow" America. I don't know whether the Lovecraftian monsters in the story are literal or allegorical. I'm hoping it's the former, though, being a fan of sci-fi and horror. I haven't read the book yet, but I did read another by the same author - Sewer, Gas, and Electric - and that one was anything but generic.

Absolutely. Matt Ruff is not "some nameless guy", just an actual good novelist with a number of interesting books to his name. Sewer, Gas and Electric is also freaking hilarious (It starts out with this massive Ayn Rand fanboy being found murdered, beaten to death with his own luxury hardcover edition of Atlas Shrugged...)

Juxtaposing Lovecraftian pulp cosmic horror with the horrors of racial injustice historical and present-day is the POINT of the book, here. The racial theme is front and center. The book would not be possible in the first place if it wasn't for Lovecraft's ridiculously excessive racism. It belongs to a growing body of literature by a number of authors where central tropes from pulp-era SF and horror are re-examined from a more modern perspective. Anoher fine example would be Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys, where a few survivors of the Innsmouth raid are stuck in an internment camp with Japanese-Americans during the war and then more or less forgotten about and released after the war is over. (Then things get complicated.)

 

[Lohrenswald]

My main take on the like commentary or re-examination of lovecrafts work is that what he wrote isn't interesting enough to comment on or reexamine

 

[EgonSpengler]

Sewer, Gas and Electric is also freaking hilarious (It starts out with this massive Ayn Rand fanboy being found murdered, beaten to death with his own luxury hardcover edition of Atlas Shrugged...)

I'd forgotten about that. I might reread that book. I hope I still have it, but it might be one of those books I "loaned" to someone 20 years ago...

 

[Leifmk]

My main take on the like commentary or re-examination of lovecrafts work is that what he wrote isn't interesting enough to comment on or reexamine

Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

 

[Kyriakos]

I think the fact that no serious/good adaptations of Lovecraft exist is due to laziness mostly, and not so much (as it is often claimed) that the actual writing makes an adaptation impossible. Sure, Lovecraft doesn't write as tv-friendly as (say) Stephen King, but there is no reason why at least some of his stories couldn't have been decently adapted. And when it was attempted, the failure was due to the directors just fusing stuff in an idiotic manner, as seen for example in the movie Dagon (which mostly is about The Shadow over Innsmouth).

Even if Del Toro's At the Mountains of Madness would have been filmed (afaik the project is dead), everything about it sounded wrong. Tom Cruise can never be the protagonist in something remaining loyal to Lovecraft, I mean come on.

Some directors/others had claimed that in cinema you can't have protagonists like the one's Lovecraft uses: loners and intellectuals. This is obviously false. I mean movies such as Pi do exist (maybe it can be said to have somewhat of a Lovecraft vibe, despite no cosmic horror - the protagonist is a half-mad loner and the subject is supposedly intellectual).

I think a good italian movie which has a Lovecraft vibe, and (more importantly) is all-around worth watching is this one:


Link to video.