The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society

I’ve already discussed the horror writer H.P. Lovecraft himself (January 18, 2008).  The man died in 1937 with no children, already divorced from his wife Sonia Greene.  He was relatively unknown at the time outside a few fans and a circle of pulp fiction writers such as Robert E. Howard, C.L. Moore, Robert Bloch, and August Derleth.  Derleth was the one who engineered the republication of his stories in the 1960s, compiled in paperback form, which finally led to HPL’s widespread fame and posthumous success.

            Nowadays his heritage is continued by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society (HPLHS).

First, a bit of background.

Call of Cthulhu.  This was a roleplaying game (RPG) from Chaosium, the company who brought you RuneQuest, probably the best competitor to Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (AD&D) (made by TSR).   Chaosium took the basic roleplaying model they developed in detail for RQ and adapted it, in much simpler form, to various other types of themes, the other major one being a Melnibone/Moorcock/Elric RPG called Stormbringer, which we also played.  Call of Cthulhu was based on HPL’s works and set (for the most part) in the same time period, i.e. the US in the 1920s and 30s.  Sanity was added as a feature, meaning that player characters could literally go insane from the various horrendous monsters they encountered.   They could also learn spells.  My major two characters were Martin Muller, a German member of the nascent National Socialist German Workers Party; and Charles Marx, a West Point graduate and Great War veteran. 

From there, some people – not our gaming clique – took it a step further and developed a live-action roleplaying system called Cthulhu Lives.  The HPLHS started out making props for this game, and eventually morphed into something far more interesting.

After making a few props and t-shirts, they ventured into turning HPL’s stories into movies and radio shows.  “The Call of Cthulhu” was done as a silent film, whereas, somewhat later, “The Whisperer in Darkness”, which is the story about the Mi-Go, Fungi from Yuggoth (Pluto), was done as a “talkie”.  Leaving these two movies aside, most of the HPLHS output has been “radio broadcasts”, or as they call it, “Dark Adventure Radio Theatre”. 

As TV didn’t make its debut until after WWII, and Lovecraft died in 1937, the dominant form of entertainment aside from movies during Lovecraft’s time was radio shows.   My parents, who grew up in the 1930s and 40s, can remember those shows fondly, particularly “The Shadow” and “The Lone Ranger”.  For my part, I grew up in Maryland in the 1970s, so it was TV for me.  Radio was something I ignored until the Greaseman & G. Gordon Liddy came along in the 80s and 90s; I’ve never been a fan of Howard Stern.

They started with “At The Mountains of Madness”, and continued with “The Dunwich Horror”, “The Shadow Out Of Time”, “The Shadow over Innsmouth”, “The Call of Cthulhu”, “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” (2 discs), “The Colour Out of Space”, “Herbert West: Reanimator”, “Dreams in the Witchhouse”, “Imprisoned With The Pharaohs”, “The Horror At Red Hook”, and most recently, “Dagon – War of the Worlds”, which adapts Orson Welles’ famous 1937 broadcast to HPL’s stories, mainly “Dagon”, which was originally very short and would not sustain an entire show on its own.  All of these come with an impressive array of props and materials which really add to the experience, plus “ads” for contemporary fake products, most interestingly cigarettes, but they’re also available in MP3 format for those who want the bare minimum.  Even if you’ve read the stories and know the plot beforehand, they do a remarkable job of instilling drama and excitement.  In fact, it’s a shame that these stories weren’t given this treatment when they were originally published. 

What would HPL himself think of all this?  We can only speculate.  Sadly, one side effect of Lovecraft’s eruption of posthumous popularity in the 60s was a spate of horrendously done, low budget horror movies based on his stories.  “The Dunwich Horror” seems the most faithful, and features Dean Stockwell (From “Quantum Leap”) as Wilbur Whately, whereas “The Colour Out of Space” looks like an ordinary, contemporary film for which they simply expropriated the name of the story and tacked it onto a movie which had nothing to do with it.  Later, more recent films like “Reanimator” and “From Beyond” simply did the same thing, except that it was modern shock horror films which received the nominal HPL adaptation.  Of these, only “The Resurrected”, set in modern day Providence, Rhode Island, essentially “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”, is remotely endurable, though whoever did that one was clearly attempting maximum homage and faithfulness aside from the time frame, probably due to budget constraints.  I’ll admit that this story lends itself well to a modern context anyway.

Getting back to HPL himself.  The man was somewhat cantankerous, difficult to please, and also had a nasty dose of intolerance for non-WASP people.  My own assessment is that the HPLHS does a fantastic job of adapting his works the way they do, especially the Dark Adventure Radio Theatre series.  However, I’m not so sure Lovecraft himself would approve.  But I’d say that has more to do with his own idiosyncrasies and hangups and not due to any errors or misappropriations from Branney, Lehman, and the rest of the HPLHS crew.  To them, as a fan of Lovecraft – and impossible to speak on behalf of the deceased himself – I say thank you and keep up the good work.