Agreed on "drier than a thousand-year-old Saltine cracker." This is the reason I can't actually make it through an entire Lovecraft story and instead prefer to read Neil Gaiman's short stories set in Innsmouth.

Looks like Guillermo del Toro is blowin' up!

He's the new Peter Jackson, who was the new Steven Spielberg, who was the new George Lucas!

Eh, you guys just have to have patience with Lovecraft. Once you get used to his vocabulary of style, you start to see what all the fuss is about.

I WILL LOVE THIS MOVIE, as I have loved Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth, and even The Orphanage. Know why? There is a coherent vision driving them, and that vision, for the first time in years, is not geared to the lowest common denominator.

I, for one, welcome the new Spanish overlord of our collective imaginings.

this is actually my favorite lovecraft by far. giant albino penguins!

this has got me so excited im beginning to worry that im going to prematurely...

"drier than a thousand-year-old Saltine cracker." WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!!!!

O wait just ignore me i enjoy reading product user guides.

I'd like to know where the "2010" date came from, because this has been in the theoretical stage for years and there is no way he'll have time to do this while making 2 Hobbits- that's three or four years right there- plus the 3993 he's talked about...
I'd rather seen Mountains than The Hobbit by him any time.

"After working with a vampire"? Singular? Please tell me it's Blade II you're glossing over, and not the excellent Chronos (which was also the first time he worked with Ron Perlman)!

@Plague: Yes I'm more interested in Lovecraft-based movies than in the retelling of hobbit stories. I'm really over the whole kinda scarey but kinda cute-puppety stuff in movies. Although, I was prepared to hate Pan's Labyrinth (b/c of a stubborn closed mindset at the time) but oh how my eyes were opened. Beautiful movie.

The thing I love most about Lovecraft is his ability to create atmosphere. There's often not a whole lot of action, and although the climaxes are great, the real enjoyment is in the (often quiet) buildup. I read his work so slowly because I just get carried away in the pacing.

Del Toro is a master of atmosphere. I think this is a match made in R'yleh.

@Tommmcatt: del Toro didn't had as much to do with "The Orphanage" as Tarantino had to do with "Iron Monkey," i.e. none. And del Toro is Mexican, he speaks Spanish.

@Tim Faulkner:

Ah, my bad. I thought he was more of a hands on producer. Also, I thought he was from Spain, obvs. "Mexican Overlord" has a better ring anyways.

This is great news to me. I think Del Toro can pull off the creeping dread and slowly building horror necessary for this. When the blind penguins show up, you'll all be hiding your eyes!

This has been in production for years. It's one of his long standing projects that has been on and off again. I'd love to have a source for the 2010 date.
Also for those interested the creatures in the portal in Hellboy are called Ogdru Jahad (The Seven Gods of Chaos).

Also the link at the bottom of the article appears to just jump right back to this page.

Those things in Hellboy sure did look like they came straight outta HPL.
There's also some good info at: [www.deltorofilms.com]

@Tommmcatt: Thats rigth gringos !!! ALL HAIL YOUR NEW MEXICAN OVERLORD!!!

Sorry, i got carried away, hehehe, we been waiting for a chance like this for ages.

Hellboy has a LOT

I just became a really happy man.

Loved "At the Mountains of Madness", though it took me a long time to get trough as it was my first Lovecraft story. Only one that was harder to get trough was the letters in "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward". Spent a good time trying to figure out exactly what was written in those letters

Hellboy has LOTS of Lovecraftian references in the comic books, as in any of Mignola´s works. in "tman: The Doom that Came to Gotham", its all Mountains of madness related, giant penguins included.

We can now look forward to something rather more sophisticated than "Die, Monster, Die."

Hows this going to be compared to Dagon?

Yes, yes! I'm excited, yes!

I can't wait to see what Del Toro makes of this. Shoudl be awesome.

i thought that cloverfield was Cthulhu. of course maybe thats because i dont know too much about him..?

(shrugs) i actually still kinda think it. giant tentacle octopus style monster=Cthulhu in my book.

Bring it ..

Cloverfield = Cthulhu - not even close - The Great One would only have to appear and NYC would destroy itself.

"Yet He shall rise and His kingdom shall cover the Earth."

@jrghoull: Cthulhu and the Cloverfield monster don't even really look the same. If the Cloverfield monster were Cthulhu, the movie would have devolved into absolute madness within the first five minutes of Cthulhu's appearance.

Actually, movie probably would have been more amusing with HUD's mangled, mad commentary XD Plot to save the girl? Totally subverted. Roll for sanity?

I'll be interested to see if the monsters are actually scary. I've never really been freaked by huge monsters--for intsance the raptors were WAY more terrifying than the t-rex in Jurassic Park (as xkcd.com theorizes), and the face-huggers in Alien were way freakier than mama alien, etc etc. I've always figured I'd probably be able to outrun something as big as the Cloverfield monster, but the little skittery things...*shudder*

I have got to see Pan's Labyrinth, and The Orphanage!

Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!

Hmmm, you know this means yet another movie with CGI penguins. Only this time they'll be giant scary ones.

Sneggleblech: Yes, do. Great movies. But not feel good movies. Oh no, definitely not. The Orphanage could almost be called a tear-jerker, except the jerking is done by jabbing electrodes into your tear ducts, so you just kind of sit there stunned.

"Madness" is my second favorite HPL story; "Colour Out of Space" just barely edges it out. John Campbell's "Who Goes There?" aka "The Thing," owes a huge debt to "Madness." (Campbell became editor of "Astounding Science Fiction Stories" in 1937, one year after Lovecraft's novella was published, and published "Who Goes There?" the following year. If you're gonna steal, steal big.) Antarctic setting, scientists, alien artifacts, shape-shifters, it's all there.

Del Toro could bring it off. He shouldn't do CGI giant penguins, though. They should be played by Ron Perlman.

What's the attraction to The Moutain of Madness? It's about all the bad that can happen, and very little if anything about Goodness. Humans are viewed as bits of monster candy, meaningless cotton candy fluff in a universe that has no regard for them--at all. Lovecraft is the perfect writer for those who also find suicide an attractive theme. If there are elder beings like Cthulu, then there is an equal chance that such being are countered by thinking, loving beings.

@Jeff-Minor: There are a number of interesting elements here.

In the first place, horror is a powerful human social elements--since the times of the Greeks, artists have recognized the fact that terror of the unknown and of the supernatural has a bonding-effect on small social groups (it's one of the reasons why horror movies are so popular as date movies). Lovecraft's representation of an infinitely massive and terrifying universe is, in one respect, simply a mechanic for achieving the effect of stimulating social fear.

From a more intellectual/epistemological perspective, part of the point of the stories is to promote the idea of human humility. There doesn't especially need to be any focus on Goodness, because in the first place not all artists are required to talk about all things, but in the second place, there's already a huge body of literature that describes the universe as being full of omnipotent, beneficent entities (it's called religion).

The problem is that this body of religious literature tends to make people think that we're at the center of the universe, and that we occupy some special position in terms of its operating principles. Lovecraft's stories are a way of positing that this simply isn't true: mankind is far from the center of the universe, and the best-case scenario is that those entities that rule the universe won't notice us.

In many ways, this is no different in principle than Sophoclean tragedies like Oedipos Tyrannos, or more frenetic, even less optimistic tragedies like Euripides' Bakkhai.

@Jeff-Minor: IMO you answered your own question.

BRAAK great job you explained it much better than i could. comparative literature aint never been my strong point.

WWCD?

YES! See, that's MY kinda Cloverfield! :D

(Why wasn't it Cthulu in Cloverfield *sniff Why?)

Braak, nice post. I think I'm looking at Lovecraftian stuff from two perspectives. One, the psychology of it: what part of our mind does it appeal to? What's it doing for us? Secondly, in story telling, there is usually a Good element that overcomes evil. I don't like stories where humans are given no chance at winning. Lovecraft and the Existentialists might be an interesting bit to write.

@Jeff-Minor: Lovecraft and Beckett, for example, make an interesting pair.

Obviously, there are two ways to approach this. One is that the story itself is an ends, the other is that it's a means. Is writing (and, ultimately reading) horror an end in itself? Or is it mean to achieve a particular purpose?

There is certainly a lot of storytelling that explores the manichean dynamic between Good and Evil, but I'd hesitate to say that all stories should be that way, or even that stories that suggest a lopsided perspective don't have some kind of merit.

@Jeff-Minor: Cthulu not evil. Cthulu is neutral on humanity much like you are neutral on bedbugs. Im sure when you shower and wash your sheets. Its not because you have deep and burning hate for them.

Yet i could be wrong on that last part.

i didn't know benicio del toro directed movies.. oh wait. (yes, this happened in my brain)

this has me jazzed. since 'pan's labyrinth' showed he's not necessarily all about a happy ending, he and lovecraft should get along famously.

@geekgrrl:

I do the Benicio translation every time I read his name as well.

I don't care how dry it is, could be creepy as hell. That dude with the eyeballs in his hands from Pan's Labyrinth still freaks me out.

Lovecraft fans should check out Neil Gaiman's Only the End of the World Again. I loved it.

[www.amazon.com]

@Jeff-Minor:

Because there's no evidence that humanity isn't meaningless cotton candy fluff in a universe that has no regard for them at all?

There's no evidence for horrible ancient gods either, of course - but I always just figured they were metaphors meant to highlight humanity's insignificance.

As for suicide... I don't know why people have so much trouble coming to terms with the fact that they aren't significant (in any macro sense, anyway). It doesn't really bother me.
-Kle.

@Klebert: Well, it's actually problematic if the bulk of the population thinks that the only reason to keep on living is because they each are the center of the universe.

klebert said, "I don't know why people have so much trouble coming to terms with the fact that they aren't significant "

If you have a child, have you ever told that child that they aren't significant? I hope not. As a species, I think it is adventagious for us to think/feel that there is meaning and significance for each of us. Feeling like we are significant, even in some small way, might make the difference between living a good life or not. We are all important. Cthulu = the Id.

@Jeff-Minor: In one respect I don't think HPL and Existentialists (like Beckett) are too far apart: God never shows up. They differ as to why.

I think there's a logical reason behind the scarcity in fiction of thinking, loving beings to act as counterweights to the dark forces. Good superior beings would be more likely to leave us alone, out of politeness, prudence or a prime directive, and could be motivated by self-interest or altruism. It's not that the Good have forsaken or abandoned us; they're just following their own "enlightened" rules. Doesn't help if Cthulhu is hoovering up your family, but there you are.

@engtech: thanks just ordered it. somehow i missed that one

have you read Alan Moore's The Courtyard?

[www.amazon.com]

Clem, the issue of gods/aliens helping is used a lot in fiction. I use the issue in my own stuff. I think the Universe's intelligent life should feel obligated toward saving a lessor race from the likes of Cthulhu. But that's my morality in a nut shell. I just dislike anything as horrible as these disgusting Elder races. I'm very human friendly, not friendly towards anything that can harm us. I'm all for blasting the mullusk into quarks. And make it suffer a little too. Hehehe

@Jeff-Minor: I'm sympathetic, Jeff. I'm human-friendly too, but after seeing "Cloverfield"twice I didn't sit down to make drawings of Lizzy Caplan. Beasts have always helped me deal with feeling threatened. HPL lived with a lot of fear and saw the future as one long slide into chaos. I'm guessing that you don't, and neither do I. I do have an affinity for big, nasty creatures, but I tend to locate the monstrous in humans. To me, other species are beyond judgment, except for chimps, they are vicious little monkeys.

As for the ethical obligation of superior beings, I really do think it's a matter of perspective. If I'm on a South African shark-watching boat, and a terrified baby sea lion tries desperately to scramble on board, the naturalist in me would stand back, and that would be an ethical thing to do. Predators hunt to eat. The shark's just being a shark, and the sea lion's just unlucky. On the other hand, the fellow mammal in me would reach down and save the little guy, and that would also be ethical. Dying in terror should be prevented, and the shark'll get more out of an old, fat sea lion, anyhow. I wouldn't think the shark evil, however, and an unseen superior being in Lovecraft's world might look at Cthulhu in a similar light. Squidfaces gotta eat.

You know, come to think of it, I should draw Lizzy Caplan, she's much nicer to look at.

@Jeff-Minor: The Good/Evil dichotomy doesn't really exist in the Lovecraftian universe; that's an afterthought written in later by August Derleth who, like many others, couldn't cope with even the CONCEPT of gods who were malevolent or indifferent to humans. Cthulhu doesn't love humans, nor hate them. He merely consumes them with ravenous delight.

The fact that, in Lovecraft, the bad guys pretty much always win, is one of the most refreshing things about the entire story cycle.

Thomas Ligotti, who has written some excellent Cthulhu mythos work, takes it even farther; his premise is the Gnostic one, that the world is being dreamed into existence by gods (see where it connects with Cthulhu?). His unique slant on this is that the gods are having nightmares.

@Dybbuk: Best explanation of Cthulhu EVAR!

And its not just that Cthulhu and them don't think about us more then as samiches, but that the good ones think about us just as much. We just are to them. When was the last time you, as a good person, stopped and helped out some worms from being eaten by a bird, or saved some plankton from a whale sharks mouth?

@cde:
;) checks in the mail

I think the pertinent quote is:
"The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom."
In which scenario the Cthulhu cultists turn out to resemble so-called "hardline" Nietzscheans, more or less. Curious, too, that Call of Cthulhu was published in 1926, the same year as Mein Kampf.

@dr_henry_armitage: Great quote

that is curious, buts IMO its more likely that Benito Mussolini & Giovanni Gentile's book A Doctrine of Fascism (1932). In addition too the 1933 Spanish election that had more influence on both of them. Orwell, Hemingway, and Robert Capa all wrote about it at the time.