Tentacles

Why does Lovecraft get into everything? Is it like the cat hair of moment as it were?

This is something a friend and I recently chatted about. The fact that Lovecraftain themes are appearing everywhere these days. It seems that it has become the go-to when it comes to a new form of horror or the needed for something ‘strange’ to appear in so many different kinds of art. Lovecraft inspirations are so common I don’t even feel the need to explain who the author is, what he purposed in his fiction. A decade ago was that true? I remember growing up and having a dear friend yammering into me in high school about this new author he discovered and how interesting and awesome his stories were. Over the next few years he and I both devoured as much of the writings as we could.

Yes I know that Mythos influence has been around for a while. It appeared in DnD before being yanked out years ago. Stephen King and Clive Barker note them as inspirations. However like the sinister ideas of that genre it always lurked in the shadows. One glimpsed it now and again in direct to DvD horror or an author’s homage to it. Now all one has to do is look at the news stand or sign on to the most popular MMO in the world.

Marvel Comics recently had its brush with the Cancerverse, clearly of the Lovecraft aesthetic. World of Warcraft for years now has had its old gods lurking in the background and driving even the most powerful beings on the planet insane. Magic the Gathering introduced the Blind Eternities and the Eldrazi – both of which are a fantastic concept really adding depth to a fantasy setting that has waxed too often into bland. You have the Hellboy comics made into two solid movies. This is of course not even discussing a wide swath of console games but remember when Eternal Darkness was shiny and new? Besides messing with the players head its ancient evils and dead inhuman civilizations were novel, new. Now it’s just another formula.

The question is why? Is it because as a whole we’ve become jaded with the older horror of yesteryear? I don’t know. Saw and Paranormal Activity have made a ton of money but I have a feeling the general public is being primed for cosmic horror as it gets its tentacles into more and more games, comics and smaller flicks. Sooner than later someone is going to make a Lovecraft movie that’s going to turn into a blockbuster, mark my words.