A man and his mythos

H.P. Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown
is a solid introduction to the life of
the legendary horror writer

CALLING CTHULHU: Lovecraft

by MARK SLUTSKY

H.P. Lovecraft is one of those writers, like Philip K. Dick, whose impact on pop culture only became discernible after his death. Like Dick, Lovecraft was largely unknown outside genre audiences in his short lifetime, but his creativity was so original, so strange and personal and unlike anything else before it—and such a strong influence on everything after—that the state of horror (or science fiction, in Dick’s case) today would be unimaginable without his contribution.

Lovecraft imagined a world that was, in many ways, unimaginable. His stories cross eons and dimensions, feature freaky non-Euclidean geometry and inconceivable alien architecture and tell of gods and god-like creatures so ancient and evil as to be almost incomprehensible to us mortals. His is a universe where humanity is largely a passive actor, utterly and paralyzingly powerless when confronted with horrible forbidden knowledge.

Today the influence of his far-out cosmic horror can be seen everywhere, from the movies of Guillermo del Toro to video games like Dead Space to stuffed dolls of ancient god Cthulhu, a Lovecraft creation, that craft-minded fans seem to enjoy making. Appropriately enough for Halloween, the Cinéma du Parc will be opening a new documentary, H.P. Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown this week, a feature-length exploration of the man and his mythos.

Featuring interviews with del Toro and others, including John Carpenter, Neil Gaiman, Stuart Gordon, Ramsey Campbell and Peter Straub, Fear of the Unknown does a good job outlining the life of the uncommonly timid and xenophobic man who Luc Sante dubbed the “Heroic Nerd.” It’s methodical in its delineation of Lovecraft’s universe, charting its development (and his) chronologically throughout his life.

Fear of the Unknown may rely a bit too heavily on the talking-head documentary format, though it does spice things up visually by including lots of shots of Lovecraft-inspired art. And its subjects do have interesting things to say, especially if you’re a fan—if you’re not, this is a fine introduction to the life of a truly strange, yet somehow loveable author whose ideas are still informing fiction, comics and cinema some seven decades after his death.

H.P. LOVECRAFT: FEAR OF THE
UNKNOWN OPENS THIS
FRIDAY, OCT. 31