Let’s be fair, there have been a lot of movies whose fame can be traced back to the great Mr. Lovecraft: The Thing, Pacific Rim, Alien, Pans Labyrinth, and Event Horizon to name a few of the obvious ones.
But even the great works could be greater, and I think that adding Lovecraft is the answer for success!
The way I see it, there isn’t enough Lovecraftian prose weaved into our favorite stories. That’s when I asked myself which movies probably could have benefited from a touch by the scribe himself.
Titanic (1997):
Lovecraft’s Titanic
Deep Sea scientists searching for the historic wreckage of the Titanic discover a long lost safe amidst the wreckage. Inside? A bright green jewel held in place by metal-crafted tentacles. All of this is attached to a long necklace. Retrieving the necklace and gem, the scientists broadcast their discovery on the television, where the gem is seen by a 101 year old woman. Memories and terrors that she thought long buried bubble to the surface of her mind and she decides she must tell her story…
She tells of how, while traveling with her family, she met a drifter and an artist who was unlike the rest. This drifter, Jack Marsh shows her another world of art and sea-gods.
“Paint me like your fish-people, Jack…”
Terror strikes on that fateful voyage as the Titanic runs into an iceberg. As people scream and leap into the icy waters, Jack begins to chant to his sea-god and begs for his beloved to join him in the ritual.
The boat rocked again, and together they are forced to cancel their ritual and dive into the icy waters, where Jack says he’ll never leave her.
Pleading with her, Jack explains that together they can live in the world of Dagon and his children, she need only take the icy leap into the water with him.
Her heart shattered as she couldn’t convince herself to take that leap of faith. Jack stayed with her for as long as he could, until the call of his people became too strong to ignore. Letting go of the makeshift raft and his beloved, Jack sunk into the dark depths of Y’ha-nthlei…
Pretty Woman (1990):
Pretty Woman by Lovecraft
In this not-so-modern update to the classic Cinderella story, a prostitute and an Elder God fall hard for each other, forming the least of unlikely pairs. While visiting L.A., Cthulhu, who spends his days devouring souls and spreading madness like a disease, picks up a hooker, Vivian. Cthulhu decides to hire Vivian to keep him company for the weekend, and these two beings from literally different worlds begin to grow closer to each other. Getting closer brings up an entire Necronomicon of troubles as the two try to bridge the galactic distance between their worlds.
The Big Lebowski (1998):
The Esoteric Order of Lebowski
When Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski is mistaken for an ancient Cultist of the same name, two thugs urinate on his rug to coerce him into summoning a demon he knows nothing about. While attempting to gain recompense for the ruined rug from his Esoteric counterpart, he accepts a one-time job with a high pay-off. He enlists the help of his bowling buddy, Walter, a gun-toting Jewish-convert with anger issues, and together they follow a trail of deceit and white russians as they attempt to find the Cultist’s wife. It doesn’t take long before The Dude and Walter learn that the Cultist’s wife kidnapped herself in hopes of escaping her husband’s soul-transference ritual, to rid himself of his aged body. Incapable of locating the wife, The Dude becomes the aging Cultist’s next choice of body. With the help of Walter and a band of Nihilists, The Dude disrupts the ritual and finds a newer and classier rug.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986):
Ferris-Bueller-Reanimator
Ferris Bueller has played hooky numbers of times, and this time he’s got the entire school and more believing he is on the verge of death. They don’t know how close to the truth they really are. On this special day off, Ferris invites his friend Cameron Fry and girlfriend Sloane Peterson to his day of fun, while taking Cameron’s father’s precious Ferrari along for the ride. All the while, the principal Ed Rooney is determined to prove Ferris is destroying the laws of nature in his home laboratory. Ferris enjoys his day with his friends, until the mileage of the Ferrari reads one too many miles driven and Cameron has a blow out.
During Cameron’s resulting catatonic state, he suffers from an accidental drowning, but Ferris won’t let this ruin his day. Pulling out a green syringe of his most recent experiment, Ferris revives his friend, but the thing that returns only looks like Cameron. The day’s festivities turn into carnage as Ferris spends the day trying to recapture the beast that was once Cameron, avoid the principal, and make it home before his parents and sister can figure out his secrets.
The Lost World Jurassic Park (1997):
The Lost World of Lovecraft
With the apparent public discovery of the ‘Site B’ production island full of ancient beasts, John Hammond assembles a team to visit and document the area before it is exploited by others. Included in the four man team are Dr. Ian Malcolm and his girlfriend, Dr. Sarah Harding. When the team reaches the island, they soon discover the presence of another group of people. Cultists come to worship and recruit what they thing to be the resurrected beasts that owned this world from long before even the dinosaurs. This new group however are not there to observe data but instead have something more sinister in mind. After a series of events, both groups become stranded when all their communication equipment is lost. It is then that the terror really begins as both groups scramble for their lives. As things heat up on the island, the only answer is escape. Both groups race back to the mainland and San Francisco, but one of the groups didn’t come alone.
Their ship, filled with the corpses of men whose minds had melted from the sheer terror that had beset them, crashes into the harbor. Hammond’s teams hadn’t just resurrected dinosaurs, they had resurrected the long extinct progenitors of our world. Shoggoths came back from the island and only Ian Malcolm can stop them.
Life found a way.
