Strange Flesh: The Use Of Lovecraftian Archetypes In Queer Fiction: Cthulhu (2007)

Authors Note: This is Part 7 of an ongoing series. Click here for Part 1  Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 and Part 6

It is fitting that we save this text for last as it brings the article full circle and back to the plot of The Shadow over Innsmouth. Cthulhu is a 2007 film which loosely adapts TSOI and presents it in modern times. Directed by Dan Gildark and co-written alongside Grant Cogswell, the film received mixed ratings and holds 63% on Rotten Tomatoes. While the queer themes in the film split viewers, it has garnered a following and an appreciation in the last few years. Film critic Steve Barton of Dread Central writes that the film is:

“High on ambition and originality and the closest we’ve come to a true H.P. Lovecraft film.” (Barton, 2009)

Strange Flesh: The Use of Lovecraftian Archetypes In Queer Fiction – Mysterium Tremendum (2010)

Authors Note: This is Part 4 of an ongoing series. Click here for Part 1  Part 2 and Part 3

“The entire tradition of cosmic horror fiction can be regarded as a heroic but doomed attempt… …to communicate the uncommunicatable, by suggesting – in the absence of any possibility of explicit description – the sheer enormity of the revelation that would be vouchsafed to us, were we ever granted permission to see and conceive of the world as it really is, rather than as it appears to our senses: deflated, diminished and domesticated. It is for this reason that “the cosmic horror”, conceived as an entity is by far the most elusive of all the icons of horror fiction, almost definable by its indescribability. Its presence can be felt, but only the merest glimpses can ever be caught of its form. Its description and definition can be tentatively approached in various ways – one may observe that it is daemonic rather than demonic, and that it is more akin to the alien than the traditionally supernatural – but can never be completed or clarified.” (Stableford, 2007, p. 71)

Strange Flesh: The Use Of Lovecraftian Archetypes In Queer Fiction – The Shadow Over Innsmouth (1931)

Authors Note: This is Part 3 of an ongoing series. Click here for Part 1 and Part 2.

Perhaps his most famous work next to “The Call of Cthulhu” “The Shadow over Innsmouth” is the only one of Lovecraft’s stories to be published as a standalone book in his life time. Written in 1931 it follows a student narrator who is traveling around New England on an antiquarian and genealogical tour. Intending to pass through “ancient Newburyport to Arkham” to visit the place his mother’s family was derived from, he learns of the mysterious and disliked seaport of Innsmouth, a place that seemingly does not exist on any of the maps and is subject to all kinds of horrific rumours:

Strange Flesh: The Use of Lovecraftian Archetypes In Queer Fiction – Introduction

In the summer of 1926 in Red Hook, New York, a young writer by the name of Howard Phillips Lovecraft penned one of the most memorable monsters in all fiction – the great “Cthulhu.” In his short story “The Call of Cthulhu” Lovecraft explored themes of despair, forbidden knowledge and the unbearable, searing reality of humanity’s insignificance in comparison to the cosmos.

Although initially rejected by Weird Tales, Lovecraft’s magazine of choice, it went on to become so influential in the realms of horror and science fiction, that today, it can be seen as a founding text of these genres, from ALIEN to Hellboy and beyond. Shortly after his death in 1937, Lovecraft’s story would inspire what would become known as “The Cthulhu Mythos” – a collection of horror and scifi tales that revolved around the monstrous creations of his short stories, connected together within a pantheon of Great Old Ones, Outer Gods, Elder Gods and many other aliens, cults, magic books and unspeakable horrors.