Primarily this subreddit is to study the under-studied Lovecraftian influences of film 🎞️ and early cinema on the writer HP Lovecraft (1890-1937; by his admission, his first cinema experience was in 1906, at age 16).

HOWEVER.

This sub (which I launched and am primarily populating) is all about bringing things to light, and to add variety alongside the long excerpts from his letters, I’m featuring this creature that I originated.

Without getting into the nitty-gritty around Loras, which are sorta like filters you can attach to AI-art (but for things that range from costumes to scenery to specific character-Loras and even special effects ones), they are essential if you’re making real unique AI art 🖼️ with any depth to it.

But most of them are smutty, cuz internet and Rule 34 being flagrantly obvious 😂. So I saw several Loras involving tentacles 🦑 but without sayin more, there were NONE which could be regarded as Safe For Work.

So as a self-challenge, I set out to make a tentacles Lora which could be safe for wider viewing.

…….. which eventually led to this bizarre silly character.

SANTA CTHULHU

I hope he doesn’t blow your mind to the point of gobbling lunacy, but no money down no money back. He is as he is, in all his festive glory. 😁

Interesting to the max: Lovecraft was actually offered the opportunity to have “The Dreams in the Witch-House” adapted for radio 📻, but clearly and emphatically rejects the idea of his work ever being adapted to radio or cinema 🎞️ because of how it would cheapen and vulgarize his visions.

Soooooo ………

He would be both horrified and (sporadically) impressed by how many people over the course of nearly a CENTURY have been attempting to adapt his creatures and finely-honed stories into other media.

What thinkest thou of this, dear Redditors?

Yr most humble obt svt,
L. Theobald the 3rd

As usual, Lovecraft speaks clearly for himself, but here’s some context:

He won $25 in 1917 (which was a LOT at that time) for a review lambasting a recent film 🎞️ — there was a ‘best review’ contest, and he wrote FOUR PAGES about what a slipshod piece of garbage it was.

Tragically, I cannot yet locate this review itself, but the outline of it pretty clearly dismisses the film as overrated, inaccurate, mawkish, and altogether dull.

🪶🪶🪶🪶🪶🪶🪶🪶

“Last week a local emporium of amusement known as Fay's Theatre offered a cash prize of $25.00 for the best essay or review concerning a "feature picture" displayed by them—a widely advertised picture entitled The Image-Maker of Thebes (Thanhouse Pathé release.)

Having something of a critical nature, I resolved to witness the great five-reel film spectacle, & to participate in the competition. The picture was even poorer than I expected—a rough-hewn amateurish affair dealing with reincarnation in a pitifully feeble & hackneyed manner, containing not the slightest subtlety or technical skill in plot, directing, or acting. It was a hopeless relic of the time-honoured
“10-20-30" melodrama.

I gave up all hope of winning the prize, since I thought nothing but a favourable critique would be acceptable; but in a spirit of semi-humour I sent the management a genuine criticism covering four typewritten pages—an essay in my customary U.A.P.A. manner—which would, in colloquial parlance, be designated as a "roast"!

Imagine, then, my surprise at receiving yesterday a cheque for $25.00 as winner of the prize—a cheque accompanied by a letter of exceedingly flattering nature!! Which goes to show that the best method of eliciting praise from a motion-picture exhibitor is to ridicule, satirise, & condemn the pictures he displays!!”

CLEOPATRA (1934) informal review by HPL:

“Yes I did see the "Cleopatra" cinema, agree that it was a marvelously fine spectacle. The Roman architectural backgrounds gave me a mighty kick-for as I may have mentioned, I have a devotion to classical Rome which amounts virtually to a sense of personal identification.

Contrary to your expectation, the Egyptian settings caused me many a groan despite my admiration of their intrinsic beauty & impressiveness.

How come?

Why, simply because they didn't belong in the Greek city of Alexandria! As a moment's reflection will remind you, the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt were Macedonian Greeks & nothing else but.

Alexandria was bult on previously unoccupied land in B.C. 332, at Alexander's orders & was laid out in the most sumptuous Greek fashion by the celebrated architect Dinocrates, who also repaired the damaged temple of Diana at Ephesus.

The court & army of the Ptolemies were Greek from start to finish—in language, costume, man. ners, & habits of thought; very few ideas being picked up from their native Egyptian subjects.

The folkways of the Egyptians were always respected, but were never copied. The Egyptians lived their own lives up the Nile, just as they had done in the days of their independence or under the Persian sa-traps-but Alexandria stayed purely Greek. Indeed, it soon became the virtual centre & intellectual capital of the Greek world.

There were, of course, many Egyptians in Alexandria—but they formed a subordinate element in a "native quarter" like the Chinese in Victoria, Hong-Kong, or the Hindoos in Calcutta.

To represent Cleopatra as an Egyptian queen in costume & setting is just as absurd as to represent a British viceroy of India in a rajah's turban & living in a Hindoo palace.

Alexandria & its ruling class were just as Greek as Athens or Corinth or Syracuse.

Hundreds of coins show the real appearance of Cleopatra—a Greek matron in coiffure & dress. If she ever put on Egyptian finery it was probably only once or twice a year to impress & flatter her subjects up the river.”

As Lovecraft puts it in this letter to J. Vernon Shea (Feb 10, 1935), his attendance in the past year has only been to shows which he was “dragged to” by hosts on various trips.

This fact has to do partly with his perpetual lack of funds, and chronic ill health. Not to mention his eccentric scorn for poorly played parts whether in stage drama 🎭 or the strange new phenomenon of the moving pictures 🎞️.

He was born in 1890, so his life actually tracks right alongside the growth of silent film and the cultural impacts of Hollywood on American audiences.

Here are some specific names, but also an unnamed film that he apparently snoozed 😴 through on a visit to the Longs (family of Frank Belknap Long, one of his closest friends via correspondence and IRL).

So the actual number of movies he watched can’t be nailed down precisely in any case. But from the surprisingly high list of NAMED FILMS 🎞️ , we are up to nearly or just past one hundred specific films he saw.

This is the reason for having a specific new subreddit to discuss his fascination with film in this manner. 🧐 Not just as trivia, “oh didja know that that weird horror guy Lovecraft was a fan of Charlie Chaplin?”, but naw, he was a serious moviegoer with strong opinions, and the literally thousands of letters he wrote contain an unknown number of additional comments.

Whether or not a specific film 🎞️ is named (like Pabst’s DON QUIXOTE in this passage), he gives us pointers and commentary on how cinema was influencing people to name their kids after movie stars. ✨ Stuff like that, which is valuable rare reportage from a time of film history which cannot be replicated. The actual contemporary reactions of an intelligent and nitpicky viewer from 1906 to 1937.

For anyone who wants to talk about Lovecraft being a hateful racist, here’s a passage which doesn’t include direct slurs but clearly demonstrates the jaw-dropping extent of his biases and race-hatred.

Get it outta your system or don’t 🤷‍♂️

I’m Jewish, and am capable of separating the things he says about “repugnant Semitism” from the valuable information in his letters.

If this post attracts too much BS, I may need to nix it, but I hope we can have a reasonable and MATURE discussion of these archaic and repulsive opinions.