Introduction

This review contains spoilers.

What follows is a subjective, informal, unorthodox review based on my personal opinions about Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s short story “The Call of Cthulhu” and the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society silent movie The Call of Cthulhu (screen adaptation by Sean Branney; directed by Andrew Leman).

This article and its contents are not intended to be attacks or accusations of any kind against the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, Sean Branney, Andrew Leman, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, or anyone involved in any way with the making or presenting of the short story “The Call of Cthulhu” or the film The Call of Cthulhu and such. Nor are they intended to be attacks or accusations of any kind against anyone who enjoys their works. This article and its contents are not intended to defame any business, anyone, or anything.

I wished only to share my mercurial thoughts, interpretations, opinions, hypotheses, and beliefs. Through this composition of mine, I hope to form new artistic conversations, and to illuminate new ways of thinking artistically and creatively.

1. H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu” short story!

Serious artistic and aesthetic vanguards, literary intellectuals, and dedicated pulp connoisseurs should defend, not discount, the arcane charms which “The Call of Cthulhu” exhibits with shades of materialist nihilism and cosmic fantasy, malgré the regrettable circumstance that it is one of the most elitist, classist, and xenophobic works ever written by Lovecraft. It is like an embodiment of madness and self-righteousness. Its attitudes concerning themes of purity, decline, and upheaval seem tailored to be uncomfortable and uncomforting.

Reading the tale while thinking of the main narrator and the quasi-narrators of the story as unwell, feebleminded, unreliable cravens (maugre the possibility of them perchance being well-educated or reputable) may permit a discovery of numerous, ambiguous interpretations of the whole story; thus, reimagining the characters and the voice of the text preserves or adds to the aesthetics of and appreciation for the short story, the quintessence of which is partly weirdness.

Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu” is a well-structured, eloquent story enhanced by touches of Decadence. Wafting throughout its plot is a preoccupation with artists, artworks, architecture, writings, occultism, exotic-seeming locations, and dreams—all of which help create and contribute to the rich scent of Decadence lingering upon the narrative—mingled with a contemplation for history, science, geometry, and various artistic movements, schools, or characteristics.

2. The Call of Cthulhu, the HPLHS silent!

Many retro charms are possessed by this movie, which exemplifies what a sincere adaptation should be like! A noteworthy score; old-fashioned costumes (seemingly redolent of fashion circa 1910s–1930s); its sets, properties, constructions, set pieces, et cetera; the black-and-white style; the fact that it is a silent movie; and an antiquated atmosphere—almost everything about the movie is marvelously archaic!

Although there are some discrepancies between the HPLHS movie and the Lovecraft short story on which the movie is based, the HPLHS film does retain a high level of respect and faithfulness to Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu.” At no time during my viewing of the film did I ever think that anything was missing or added to the film in an overly jarring, pandering, or spiteful way; every change seemed to feel to me like it could effortlessly fit in among Lovecraft’s efforts and intentions. It’s a film that feels made to please fans of H. P. Lovecraft and any fans of cosmic horror; not to guilt, stigmatize, or belittle anyone.

The most serious flaws of the movie I would say rest with these: the orgy scene and the ship scenes. The cult orgy of the story was portrayed in the movie as an anemic, uncivilized congregation lacking sufficient rousing sexuality; the throng in the film is unworthy to be called an orgy. Eroticism, which the orgy scene in Lovecraft’s short story fairly hinted at, is predominantly absent in the movie. Fight scenes based on the ones in the short story were either dull or not included in the film. The film delivers scenes depicting characters fighting swamp cultists, but the impressions conveyed by those instances are hollow and overly emblematic. The ship battle from the original short story is not in the movie, and that is a terrible shame. Sensual interpretations and sizzling spectacles of dripping blood and palpitant flesh would have elevated the film to greater aesthetic heights.

Conclusion

I fully recommend that fans of weird fiction, cosmic horror, and anything Lovecraftian should read the original story and watch the HPLHS silent back-to-back. The movie amazingly calls to life the events and spirit of short story (at least one interpretation of the original short story) while not incorporating all of the xenophobic elements from Lovecraft’s work; although, an anxiety about paganism or the supernatural exists somewhat throughout the movie and Lovecraft’s short story.

The Call of Cthulhu is an imperfect, imprecise adaptation that mimics the major, important fabric of the original well and additionally attempts to replicate the weirdness and horror of the original short story in changed ways. In the movie version, sometimes an incident or a character comes across lighter in ways that should have been heavier, and vice versa; sometimes a character will behave differently than they appeared to in the short story; and sometimes tones or circumstances don’t exactly match the related tones or circumstances in the original story.

The short story and the movie sustain qualities of incongruity and ambiguity in different ways, and they are both enjoyable works individually; however, for someone looking for the more brooding and passionate experience, read H. P. Lovecraft's “The Call of Cthulhu”; for someone who needs something with more of a temperate spirit, I would recommend the HPLHS film adaptation. Both are touched by nihilism, which the original story uses to create an ominous mood. Most importantly, ask yourself this: do you enjoy reading more or watching movies?

Comparing those works helped me discern the significant strengths and flaws of the movie and of the short story. I also have realized just how faithful the plot and the overall tone of that HPLHS movie are to the original short story (despite the missing ship battle, and other minor details excluded), and I have also been able to see the small details and circumstances where the silent deviated from the original story.

For me, the things that make the adaptation fun to watch are the nigh-metaphysical, partly cubist formations and crude futurist constructions (e.g., things in the dream scenes, the statuette figures, and the final escape scene of the climax); howbeit, I am not entirely fond of every aspect of those interpretations, especially the way the movie made the cultists, R’lyeh, Cthulhu, and the statuettes look. Should Cthulhu have looked taller, maybe? Could R’lyeh have been more nightmarish? I like that nothing shown feels totally substantial, as if the boundary between dreaming and reality is blurred. However, the impressive strengths of the HPLHS film version are undercut by weakening presences of plainness; lukewarm acting; a greater lack of sensualism; and an altogether pedestrian, indecisive, yet restrained, mood. Largely, I see the movie more as a cathartic procession of dreamy psychosomatic phantasms that signify human experiences of repression, dissociation, and paranoid delusion.

The strengths of the original short story are its weird mood; its labyrinthine plotline; its air of secrecy mingled with enigmas, exploration, and insanity; and the arcane and occult qualities within the writing, which also reveals real talent and workmanship. Lovecraft’s short story was xenophobic; Puritanical; ultraconservative; and, while it provided exoticism and imagination, it lacked real sensuality—sacrificing lusciousness for vague, slimy sensations of horror that never really get close enough to states of the macabre or abject phantasmagoria; preferring to glide around entities, shapes, ideas, and concepts. Primarily, I see the short story as a nightmarish rapture woven with a fanatically materialist expression of existential horror and self-destructive intolerance.

The juxtaposition of those two works is meaningful because it helps me see the strengths and weaknesses of the HPLHS revision, and it also reveals the merit of the adaptation. The comparison itself (if one perceives it almost like a gestalt) points to the limitations and to the advantages of writing and of filmmaking. The film version gives the genres of cosmic horror and weird fiction an audiovisual environment in which to exist and challenge perceptions of the original Lovecraftian material. Collocation of the two works highlights the superiority of Lovecraft’s short story, but it also illuminates the limitations of the devices and notions weird writings are typically most concerned with (namelessness, the unknowable, the indescribable, and the unthinkable); with those concepts given audiovisual form on the screen, weird fiction and cosmic horror as genres must adapt and ask new questions (or old questions in new ways); it is the evolution of the genres but also the mirror that exposes their schemes and failures. The HPLHS picture, perhaps partially because it is faithful to the original story, serves up an interpretation that betrays those weaknesses, and dampens its own horror and the horror of the original, because it shines on things that were meant to stay imaginary, hidden, or vague (mystery and the unknown being at the foundation of those genres), and the scary world of the story becomes something that can be explored, sensationalized, and made amusing—which is not always a bad thing. For those, like myself, that would love to explore a sunken extraterrestrial city, the movie can better provide escapist amusement. However, that same illumination might also show the way to new horrors, and the HPLHS provides designs that help redefine the story and weird fiction for the cinematic realm and for the modern world. Readers or viewers should be able to decide for themselves individually how to interpret the juxtaposition. The adaptation is a droll, muted, entertaining decoration, a recasting, a rendering, an impressionistic deciphering, that respects fans of Lovecraftian fiction and demonstrates a manner of reprocessing, reconceptualizing, playing with its materials without so many of the offensive items ingrained in Lovecraft’s style and writings. The adaptation on the one hand demonstrates the redundancy of adaptations and on the other hand offers an example of how translating a work through a different medium (text to movie) can lead to interpretations, dimensions, and perspectives differing from those previously attached to the original source. Analytical reflection and aesthetic thought benefit from accumulating manifold perspectives.

The HPLHS version shows how it is possible to make a satisfying film adaptation that honors the original story while also being different enough that the nature and soul of the movie remain fundamentally similar and faithful to the original but without overtly exhibiting all the bigoted tinges in the original. But maybe that shouldn’t be the norm? It would have been better to adopt Lovecraft’s deranged vision as it was and to let audiences be freethinking adults who can each individually interpret the film in whatever way they prefer and decide for themselves whether they even want to watch it or not.

Overall, the short story “The Call of Cthulhu” and the HPLHS movie adaptation (The Call of Cthulhu) are respectable pieces of art that should be experienced and examined, especially by anyone even remotely interested in weird fiction.

Matthew Pungitore’s short story “Wychyrst Tower” appeared in Cirsova Magazine (Winter 2021).

He has written various articles for the DMR Books blog. In the past, he has done volunteer work for the Hingham Historical Society. Matthew is the author of The Report of Mr. Charles Aalmers and other stories, Fiendilkfjeld Castle, and Midnight's Eternal Prisoner: Waiting For The Summer. Matthew graduated with a Bachelor of Science in English from Fitchburg State University.

If you’re curious, visit his BookBaby author-page.

Contact him at: matthewpungitore_writer@outlook.com