There’s nothing in this world quite like Lovecraftian horror films. When discussing Lovecraft in general, it really exists in its own genre of true terror. Howard Phillips (H.P.) Lovecraft is notoriously known for his novels, novellas, short stories and tales which birthed an entire universe of cosmic horror that was so terrifying that it was unfathomable. This has led to some of the best Lovecraftian horror movies of all time.
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Lovecraft made his work terrifying by channelling his own fears in his writing. While no one will honestly know what ailed him, he was said to have an intense fear of space, the ocean, and the unknown. This led to his creations, horrifying creatures, and often extra-terrestrials or aquatic.
Although there are plenty of heroic tales regarding H.P. Lovecraft’s stories, if you are hoping for the good guy to win, I warn you that this rarely happens. Lovecraft was a writer that emphasised the insignificance of human lives in the face of the unknown horrors that lay waiting for us in the cosmos and didn’t think humanity had a fighting chance against it.
Many magnificent directors have tried to bring his creatures and monsters, cults and mad scientists to life while summoning in us the fear of the unknown that H.P. Lovecraft was so good at portraying in his works. Still, some have been more successful than others in bringing their Lovecraft adaptations to the big screen. With so many adaptations out there, here is a list of the best Lovecraftian movies of all time.
28. Necronomicon (1993)
This 1993 movie is also called Necronomicon: Book of Dead, and actually tells three stories in one movie, bringing Necronomicon: The Drowned, The Cold and Whispers to life in three parts, so this one is technically cheating because it has three Lovecraftian stories all in one.
The Necronomicon is a book that is often referred to in H.P Lovecraft’s stories as a book that holds a well of untapped secrets and information about cosmic horrors that usually turns its reader mad.
The French-American anthology film starts with scenes in The Library where H.P. Lovecraft himself (played by Jeffrey Combs) is learning about a monastery where a copy of the fearsome book, the Necronomicon, is held, pickpocketing a key to get to where it is being held. After making his way into the cellar, Lovecraft is locked in with the book, dropping his key down a grate into the water below. With no other choice, he sits down to read the book’s contents, reading stories from the future.
Part 1, Necronomicon: The Drowned, is directed by Christophe Gans and tells the story of Edward De Lapoer (played by Bruce Payne), whom we find in Sweden. Edward discovers that he has inherited his family’s abandoned hotel after his uncle’s tragic passing. A sealed letter left by his uncle Jetrho De Lapeor (played by Richard Lunch) contains the details of his passing, as well as the shipwreck that robbed him of his wife (played by Belinda Bauer) and son (played by Peter Jasienski).
After losing his family, Jethro possessed a copy of the Necronomicon, which he used to bring his family back, which proved a horrible decision. Instead of taking the letter as a warning, Edward is inspired to perform the ritual to revive his wife, Clara (played by Maria Ford), whom he had lost in a car accident. However, the events that follow show him why Jethro regretted his choices.
Part 2, Necronomicon: The Cold, is directed by Shûsuke Kaneko and tells the story of a young reporter named Dale Porkel (played by Dennis Christopher) investigating a string of mysterious disappearances in Boston that has spanned several decades. His investigation leads him to meet a woman who invites him into her apartment, which he discovers is frigid. The woman explains that she has a rare condition in which she is allergic to heat and sunlight.
Demanding answers from the woman, Dale is told the story of a young woman named Emily Osterman (played by Bess Meyer), who fell in love with a scientist (played by David Warner) in Boston some twenty years prior. After some questionable experiments, the scientist reveals that he has discovered the secret to sustaining life thanks to the Necronomicon. Still, it requires fresh spinal fluid in humans, and that sunlight never touches the person.
Although the scientist didn’t survive the fire, Emily was pregnant at the time of the fire. Dale is led to believe that this young woman is the child of Emily and the scientist but realises that she is, in fact, Emily. She reveals that after all those years, she is still pregnant, stockpiling spinal fluid for her own survival and preparing for her baby. Wondering why she has admitted to so much, Dale realises that his drink has been spiked. As he fades unconscious, he sees an old woman looming towards him with a syringe.
Part 3, Necronomicon: The Whispers, is directed by Brian Yuzna and tells the story of two Philadelphia police officers, Paul (played by Obba Babatundé) and Sarah (played by Signy Coleman), in pursuit of a suspect known as “The Butcher”. During their pursuit, the two discuss their failed relationship and their unborn child on the way. Their discussion is cut short when their cruiser slips in an accident.
Paul makes it out of the car but is knocked unconscious and dragged into the woods, so without any way of calling for backup, Sarah follows the trail alone. Following the trail to a warehouse, she meets The Benedicts (Don Calfa and Judith Drake), who say they are the tenants of The Butcher. In a series of confusing events, Sarah finds herself trapped in a cave inhabited by bat-like creatures and other monstrosities who have eaten the brain of Paul.
Suddenly, Sarah wakes up in a hospital, leading the audience to believe she imagined everything. She discovers that she lost the baby due to the accident, but when Paul enters the room, he is in the same terrifying state as in the cave. Terrified, Sarah screams, but her mom tells her she will disturb the baby…
Zoomed back to the present, Lovecraft is confronted by the head monk and asked to put the book back where he found it, but is attacked by a monster from the water beneath him, as the seals protecting the book are broken. Managing to free himself from the battle with the monster, Lovecraft escapes with the book.
Don’t worry; they won’t all be anthology movies, so hang in there. That being said, although this anthology film is at the bottom of the list, it still made it onto the list of the best Lovecraftian movies of all time, and what better way to start than with three movies in one?
27. The Void (2016)
This 2016 Canadian film was written and directed by Steven Kostanski and Jeremy Gillespie and tells a chilling Lovecraftian tale of strange occurrences linked to a group of mysterious hooded figures and an unimaginable cosmic horror. While it isn’t based directly on any of H.P. Lovecraft’s books, it is heavily influenced by the Cthulhu Mythos that Lovecraft created.
At the film’s start, we meet Deputy Sheriff Daniel Carter (played by Aaron Poole), a bloodied man crawling along the road and taking him to a run-down hospital. When he enters the hospital, he finds pandemonium. Daniel collapses and, while he is unconscious, experiences a strange vision. Once he awakens, he goes to his patrol car but doesn’t get far before being attacked by a robed cultist.
Running back to the hospital for safety, Daniel realises that the cultists have surrounded the building, where the remnants of the people inside have turned into a tentacled creature, and learns that the vision he had is somehow connected to all of this madness. A terrifying series of events leads to the passing of many of the characters introduced during the movie. The cult leader (played by Kenneth Welsh) opens a portal to the void, promising Daniel that he can be with his estranged wife again. Despite tackling the leader and tumbling with him into the void, Daniel and his wife (played by Kathleen Munroe) are shown holding hands in another world, with a black pyramid floating in the sky.
26. Underwater (2020)
This is one of the more recent Lovecraftian films introduced to audiences and directed by William Eubank and written by Brian Duffield and Adam Cozad. The film follows a crew of oceanic researchers working deep within the Mariana Trench. It explores Lovecraftian elements like the fear of the unknown and deep water. Again, this film isn’t based on any particular Lovecraft book but has undeniable Cthulhu influences.
Deep within the Mariana Trench, the crew aboard the Keppler 822 Station are part of a project to drill seven miles into the bottom of the Mariana Trench for resources. A mechanical engineer on the crew, Norah Price (played by Kristen Stewart), is the only one awake when the station suffers a catastrophic breach, which only she and Rodrigo (Mamoudou Athie) survive before they can close off the area.
They no longer have any means of escape, as the escape pods have already been deployed, and they later encounter a distress beacon from the depths. When they investigate it, they find it ripped open and find hatchlings of previously undiscovered species that are hostile. When a few remaining survivors manage to escape, more creatures follow them up, and an even more giant creature emerges from the depths.
With a rare appearance of a Cthulhu-like creature, even with only a glance, Underwater is one of the best Lovecraftian movies of all time, dealing with the fear of the unknown within the depths, and the catastrophic effects of seeing a cosmic horror.
25. Castle Freak (1995)
This 1995 Lovecraftian film was directed and written by Stuart Gordon and Dennis Paoli and even credits H.P. Lovecraft as one of the writers. Once again, we see an instance of a mysterious inheritance that takes a family to Italy to live in an old castle. Castle Freak is a loose adaptation of two Lovecraftian books, The Outsider and The Dunwich Horror.
John Reilly (played by Jeffrey Combs) travels to Italy with his wife Susan (Barbara Crampton) and their teenage daughter Rebecca (Jessica Dollarhide), who is sight impaired. While the family inherited this 12th-century castle, they are trying to escape their past and the memories of a car accident that caused the loss of their five-year-old son, which also resulted in their daughter losing sight.
Unbeknownst to the family, there are other inhabitants of the castle. John has to uncover his complicated past and how he is involved with inheriting the castle and surviving the unseen denizens of the castle.
The movie was remade in 2020, but the newer remake didn’t do nearly as well as the 1995 original, which is still considered one of the best Lovecraftian movies of all time.
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24. Daniel Isn’t Real (2019)
Another newer film, Daniel Isn’t Real, is actually thought to be based on In This Way I Was Saved, a novel by Brian DeLeeuw. Still, because of the fantastic, mind-bending nature of this psychological horror, and the dark creature elements, many consider it influenced by Lovecraft as well.
The film was written and directed by Adam Egypt Mortimer and credited to Brian DeLeeuw.
The story opens with the main character, Luke, in his childhood, who meets the calm and confident Daniel and becomes best friends. There’s only one issue the adults in Luke’s life can’t see Daniel, despite him feeling completely reel to Luke. Their close connection helps Luke through a lot of the trauma that Luke has had to go through throughout his childhood.
Even in childhood, Daniel would convince Luke to do terrible things when the young boy had no idea of the consequences, leading to his mother asking Luke to lock Daniel in his grandmother’s old dollhouse. For years Daniel disappears until one day, college-aged Luke unlocks the dollhouse, and Daniel reappears the same age as Luke.
At first, his return seems helpful to Luke. Still, his influence quickly becomes dangerous as Daniel starts taking over Luke’s body. Luke learns that Daniel might have also been the invisible friend of someone who influenced his life to a horrible extent, forcing Luke to realise that his imaginary friend might not be what he thinks he is.
23. Uzumaki (2000)
Originally called Uzumaki and then retitled to Spiral for English audiences, Uzumaki was a Japanese horror manga series that was illustrated by one of the most well-known horror manga artists out there, Junji Ito, and the story is also widely considered by readers as one of Junji Ito’s most disturbing tales he ever made. It was later adapted into a movie directed by Higuchinsky and written by Junji Ito, Kengo Kaji and Takao Nitta.
The movie and manga are said to be directly inspired by two of Lovecraft’s stories, The Thing on the Doorstep and The Shadow Over Innsmouth. The film tells the story of the inhabitants of a small town in Japan that all become overtaken by their obsession with spirals that torment them.
The audience meets Kirie Goshima (played by Eriko Hatsune), who notices that the people in her little Japanese town are becoming obsessed with spirals to the point where they either take their own lives or become spiral-like creatures.
22. The Empty Man (2020)
Directed and written by David Prior with the help of Cullen Bunn, The Empty Man isn’t based on any particular Lovecraftian book but has many elements that categorised his horror genre.
The film starts with a group of hikers encountering something terrifying in a cave wall when one group falls down a crevice and ends up in a catatonic state. Influenced by a strange inhuman skeleton embedded in the cave wall, the group suddenly disappeared in 1995.
Years later, in 2018, a former detective named James Lasombra (played by James Badge Dale) is grieving the passing of his wife and son, whom he lost in a car accident a year prior.
His neighbour, Nora Quail (played b Marin Ireland), and he have become friends because she is widowed and a single mother.
Suddenly, her daughter Amanda (played by Sasha Frolova) runs away, and the two find a message in her bathroom written in blood saying, “The Empty Man made me do it.” It is revealed that Amanda had pressured her friends into summoning a local legend, the Empty Man, before her disappearance, and when James goes to the bridge where the ritual supposedly took place, he finds the bodies of all of Amanda’s friends with the same message.
The Empty Man is revealed to be far more than just a legend. Still, an entity that a local cult believes can give its followers whatever they want as long as they do his bidding for him. James discovers that Amanda has probably become a member of this cult.
A mind-bending series of events follows where James realises that everything he knew about his life was a lie and that he is the latest vessel for The Empty Man.
21. The Resurrected (1991)
This 1991 thriller is thought to be loosely based on the Lovecraftian classic The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward and was directed by Dan O’Bannon and written by Brent V. Friedman. Again, although Lovecraft had already passed in 1937, he is credited as one of the project’s writers.
The movie follows Claire Ward (played by Jane Sibbett), who hires a private investigator by the name of John March (played by John Terry) to investigate her husband, Charles Dexter Ward (played by Chris Sarandon). The reason for investigation? The esteemed Rhode Island chemical engineer has been disappearing to an isolated carriage house after discovering his family history.
When the couple was visiting an old family farmhouse, Charles discovered a portrait of Joseph Curwen, with whom he shared a remarkable resemblance. Soon after, Charles started to crave blood and raw meat. They also uncover an underground lab in the catacombs near the farmhouse. It turns out that Charles had somehow raised Joseph from the dead, which cost him his life as Joseph had replaced him in his existence.
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20. Color Out of Space (2019)
A movie based on a Lovecraftian horror novel rarely shares its name, but that is true with the 2019 Color Out of Space movie. Directed and written by Richard Stanley with the help of Scarlett Amaris, the credits for the movie also include H.P. Lovecraft as a writer.
The story follows the Gardners, a family who have moved to a remote farm in rural New England. Father Nathan Gardner (played by Nicolas Cage) and his family, Theresa (played by Joely Richardson), Lavinia (Madeleine Arthur), Benny (Brendan Meyer) and Jack (Julian Hilliard), are trying their best to adapt to their new life in the countryside when a strange meteorite crashes onto their front lawn.
What is strange about the meteorite is that it almost buries itself into the Earth, like a seed, and starts to terraform or infect the land and the woodland creatures with a strange, otherworldly colour and nature.
What starts out as a harmless discovery is a horrifying cosmic phenomenon that mutates and changes everything it comes into contact with. The Gardners are included in that. While it changes everything, it also alters their minds, driving some of them mad while showing others the cosmic power it holds.
19. Dagon (2001)
Directed by Stuart Gordon, this well-loved horror classic is based on two of Lovecraft’s works, the more prominent being Dagon and the less obvious being The Shadow Over Innsmouth.
The story of the film follows Paul Marsh (played by Ezra Godden), a young man who finds himself shipwrecked on hidden rocks on the shores of Spain where he was vacationing with some of his friends and his girlfriend, Barbara (played by Raquel Meroño).
After Paul and Barbara had made their way to the shore, they found themselves in a church where only the priest would help them. After trying to find their friends in the wreckage, Paul is transported to a hotel where Barbara supposedly stays but doesn’t find her there.
Strange, fish-like people surround the hotel, and he flees to a tannery where he discovers some secrets that would be better left undiscovered. Paul learns from the last full-blooded human left in the town, a drunkard named Ezequiel (played by Francisco Rabal), that when the town had fallen on hard times in the past, a fishing captain named Orpheus Cambarro (based on Captain Obed Marsh from The Shadow Over Innsmouth) convinced the town to worship Dagon, establishing the church in Dagon’s honour.
Dagon required blood sacrifices and human women to breed with, leading to the town’s population being slowly replaced by Dagon’s half-breed offspring and their own. The movie ends as Paul realises he is a half-breed when he sprouts gills while being dragged down into the depths of Dagon’s lair, deep beneath the ocean.
18. The Ritual (2017)
Here we have yet another fantastic Lovecraftian horror movie that was actually not based on one of his books but is filled to the brim with Lovecraftian elements, from descents into madness to finding an unnamable supernatural being lurking within the woods who is worshipped by a cult. Before I get too far ahead of myself, here is some background.
The Ritual is based on Adam Nevill’s horror novel of the same name, which had elements of horror that went far beyond what we consider human, ranging more into the terror and dread you would find in a Lovecraftian tale.
The Ritual (2017) was directed by David Bruckner and written by Joe Barton, with credit for writing given to Adam Nevill, and finds four friends reuniting for a holiday in the Swedish mountains after losing the fifth member of their friend group in a robbery gone wrong.
Deciding to take a holiday in memory of their lost friend, Phil (played by Arsher Ali), Dom (Sam Troughton), Hutch (played by Robert James-Collier) and Luke (played by Rafe Spall) find themselves looking for shelter in the nearby woods when Dom injures his knee.
Nothing is as it seems at first as the group finds ritualistic markings, which leads to the group having nightmares, which eventually become a reality when the group encounters a cult that is worshipping a primordial creature, the one responsible for their nightmares. They now have to try and escape a living nightmare.
17. A Cure for Wellness (2016)
The screenplay for A Cure for Wellness was written by Justin Haythe, who came up with the story alongside the movie’s director Gore Verbinski, drawing inspiration from The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. Despite not being based on a book by Lovecraft, audiences worldwide have agreed that they could see many elements drawn from the Mythos that Lovecraft created, including stories like Dagon and The Shadow Over Innsmouth.
The psychological horror tells the story of Lockhart, a young and ambitious financial firm executive sent to a mysterious “wellness centre” in the Swiss Alps to retrieve the CEO of his company, Roland Pembroke.
While unable to retrieve Roland from the spa, Lockhart is in a car accident and wakes up three days later as a patient in the very spa he was sent to find his CEO. There, he learns the shocking history of the spa from other patients and the many horrendous acts the baron of the castle that had stood proudly on the land where the spa was built had done. The baron had harmed many people in pursuit of a cure for his wife’s infertility.
Horrified by the history, Lockhart attempts to leave but discovers that no patient is permitted to leave. What follows is a series of shocking discoveries about the nature of the “treatments” that the patients undergo at the spa, a terrifying tale of how sane patients can be driven mad by experiments in a mental institution, and a quest for ever-lasting life that has catastrophic consequences.
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16. The Endless (2017)
Written and directed by Justin Benson and directed by Aaron Moorhead (who also stars as the main characters of the film), the film was apparently not intended to be inspired by Lovecraft, but producers of the film couldn’t help themselves from drawing from the deep well that is Lovecraftian terror.
The film follows Justin and Aaron Smith, brothers who had escaped a commune growing up. The brothers’ ideas of the group, called Camp Arcadia, vastly differ, with Justin remembering them as a strange UFO-obsessed death cult. In contrast, Aaron remembers them as a friendly and welcoming group. The two receive a video cassette from the group, which piques their interest; they convince themselves to return to the group to satisfy their curiosity and discover the truth.
When they arrive at the commune, they are warmly welcomed but notice that no one in the group seems to have aged since the brothers left as children. They start to notice increasingly weird occurrences the longer they stay, starting to feel like they are watched by an unseen entity.
Following clues leads the brothers more profoundly into the mystery and into the trap of feeling like they aren’t alone no matter where they go, a mystery that leads them to distortions in time and an entity beyond their comprehension that has the cult in its clutches.
15. Prince of Darkness (1987)
This fantastic Lovecraftian film was written and directed by John Carpenter and is a testament to the thought that older films just portrayed unfathomable horrors better. The movie is part of a series of films which Carpenter supposedly dubbed his Apocalyptic Trilogy. These movies portrayed Lovecraft’s sense of a slumbering, malevolent cosmic terror that mankind simply cannot understand.
The story begins when a group of researchers discovers a canister that has been locked away in the basement of an abandoned church for an unknown amount of years. With help from a priest at another church, the group discovers that the canister contains a strange green liquid.
Upon further study, the group came to believe that the liquid contained in the canister is liquid evil or, instead, the remains of Satan himself. They also discover ancient knowledge that Satan plans to come to life and bring his own father, an all-powerful anti-God ack.
Suddenly, the remains come to life, bringing all manner of horror to life with it. While the story has a vast religious overtone, an element you won’t find in many Lovecraftian stories, the movie is still considered a Lovecraftian classic, and one of the best Lovecraftian movies of all time.
14. The Whisperer in Darkness (2011)
Here we have yet another Lovecraftian horror film that has been remade twice. Still, unlike many others on this list, the successor did better than the predecessor. Based on the Lovecraftian book of the same name, the film was directed and written by Sean Branney with the help of writer Andrew Leman, who expertly brought this story to life.
A folklore professor at the Miskatonic University named Albert Wilmarth (played by Matt Foyer) travels to the most remote hills of Vermont to investigate legends of strange creatures there. While he doesn’t find the answers he is looking for at first, his investigation is fruitful in that he discovers many horrors he couldn’t ever have imagined.
Not only are the creatures real and that they are a terrifying extra-terrestrial race called the Mi-Go, but he discovers that there is a cult here on Earth that has a connection to them and is trying to open a portal between Earth and the creatures’ homeworld, Yuggoth.
Unlike the book (where Wilmarth manages to escape), audiences see that the film ends with Wilmarth becoming part of the Mi-Go’s constructs. It is simply a brain trapped in a cylinder, connected to a machine to give it a voice. The best Lovecraftian movies are usually ones that are based directly on the amazing writer’s work rather than inspired by it.
13. From Beyond (1986)
This 1986 horror film is one of a few Lovecraftian films on this list directed by Stuart Gordon and stars Jeffrey Combs in the leading role. The film was written by Brian Yuzna and Denis Paoli, with credit given to H.P. Lovecraft directly.
This classic film tells the story of a group of scientists who have created a device that allows them to see beyond our human realm of perception.
Dr Edward Pretorius (played by Ted Sorel) and his assistant Crawford Tillinghast (played by Jeffrey Combs) manage to invent and develop what they call the Resonator. This machine lets users see beyond our standard perception by stimulating the pineal gland.
While testing the machine, everything that can go wrong seems to do so, ending with Crawford going insane and Dr Pretorius losing his head. The two discovered they might have opened the doorway to something that can’t be closed and will have calamitous consequences for the waking world.
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12. Event Horizon (1997)
With Lovecraft’s intense fear of the unknown and space, it shouldn’t be too surprising that we will find a few space-themed movies here. One of the best space movies and the best Lovecraftian movies of all time is Event Horizon.
Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson and written by Philip Eisner, Event Horizon is a terrifying tale that tells Astronauts and space voyagers an interpretation of what could happen if they traverse space travel into the unknown.
A crew ship called the Event Horizon disappears from the ether one day and remains gone for seven years before reappearing one day. When people start to realise that the spaceship has reappeared, the crew of the Lewis and Clark ship is dispatched to investigate the disappearance of the ship.
The crew of the Lewis and Clark is led by Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne) and joined by the esteemed creator of the Event Horizon ship, William Weir (Sam Neill). They explored the abandoned vessel, not finding any trace of the previous inhabitants.
Soon, the unknown and reality seem to collide as the crew starts to feel that they aren’t alone on the vessel, and they slowly start to uncover what happened to the last crew piece by piece. Dealing with space and the unknown, as well as madness, it’s no wonder that this film is loved as one of the best Lovecraftian movies.
11. Spring (2014)
Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead appear again on a list of the best Lovecraftian horror movies, so it can’t be a coincidence. Although not explicitly related to one of Lovecraft’s books once again, the directors seem unable to keep Lovecraft out of their work. This time, however, the directors don’t star in the film.
Spring (2014) is an exciting film, as it brings horror and romance together in a way that not many films find possible. The story follows a young man, Evan Russell (played by Lou Taylor Pucci), who feels like nothing in his life is going right. Hence, he decides to travel to Italy for fresh air and to see new surroundings.
While in Italy, Evan meets a beautiful woman named Louise (played by Nadia Hilker) and even takes a job at a local farm, living in a small town in southern Italy, so that he can pursue a relationship with her. However, it does take some time for her to stop rejecting him. The two make love, and the following day Louise wakes up having monstrously transformed into an unrecognisable creature. Still, she manages to transform back before Evan notices anything.
When Evan is on the run for working illegally in Italy, he seeks shelter with Louise. Still, he doesn’t find her, finding an octopus-like creature in her place wearing a dress. After transforming again, Louise reveals that she is a 2,000-year-old mutant who must get pregnant every twenty years so that her body can use the cells to keep herself young. However, if she falls in love, her body will not use the embryo, and she will start to age.
A monstrous journey about a mutant that can defy the effects of time turns into a stunning and touching love story in Spring, and it is one of the most heart-warming and best Lovecraftian movies of all time.
10. The Haunted Palace (1963)
We are travelling back in time for this one, not only in years, but The Haunted Palace is technically the predecessor to The Resurrected, both based on the H.P. Lovecraft novel The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Both director Roger Corman and writer Charles Beaumont thought it only fitting to credit Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft.
Interesting fact, but H.P. Lovecraft drew much inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe in his early writings. Hence, it’s incredible to see a correlation being drawn between the two influential writers.
Unless you skipped over the part about The Resurrected, you might remember that the story followed Charles Dexter Ward and Joseph Curwen. The Haunted Palace tells the story of Joseph Curwen (played by Vincent Price) and the events that led to his passing. More than 100 years later, Charles Dexter Ward (also portrayed by Price) moves into his ancestor’s old mansion.
From here, we get a prelude to what occurred in The Resurrected and the events that led to Joseph’s resurrection and replacing Charles.
Although the film is an old classic, it made its way to the upper tier of this list because of the magnificent way that it portrays Lovecraftian horror and brings the story of Charles Dexter Ward to the big screen in one of the best Lovecraftian movies.
9. Hellboy (2004)
Traditionally when you think about Hellboy, your mind probably doesn’t jump straight to the conclusion that it is considered a Lovecraftian film. Still, thanks to the cultists, the mutants, the monsters, the magic, and the possibility of a world-ending evil, it fits into the Lovecraft category.
If you don’t believe me, just look at the character Abe Sapien (played by Doug Jones) and tell me that that isn’t a totally Lovecraftian creature right there. If you need further convincing, Seed of Destruction by Michael Joseph Mignola is where the concept of Hellboy was birthed, which is dedicated to H.P. Lovecraft and the comic book artist Jack Kirby.
Hellboy was initially brought to life by Guillermo del Toro in 2004, which was really well-loved compared to the 2019 remake.
Ron Perlman brings the character of Hellboy to life as he learns to navigate life in the human world while facing an overwhelming evil prophecy to which he is the key. The movie is a stunning tale, with many fantastical and fairy tale elements and Lovecraftian elements to keep you hooked, and also making it one of the best Lovecraftian movies of all time.
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8. Annihilation (2018)
Said to be another adaptation of The Color Out of Space, Annihilation is written and directed by Alex Garland, with the help of writer Jeff VanderMeer. Although the movie came out before the Nicolas Cage starring movie that shares its name with the inspirational novel, Annihilation could be considered its predecessor.
Lena (played by Natalie Portman), a cellular biology professor and former U.S. Army soldier, signs up to be part of an exploration party into an anomalous zone in Florida. The zone, which they dub “The Shimmer”, appeared after a meteor landed in a lighthouse in Blackwater National Park that completely terraformed the environment around it (sounding familiar yet?)
When the team enter the zone of the Shimmer, which is constantly but gradually expanding, they find unusually mutated plants and animals. Through meeting mutated creatures that are hostile and discovering clues left by the previous expedition team, they learn that the zone will continue to spread and absorb and mutate everything that it comes into contact with…including them.
Taking a concept that has been covered with two movies before and turning it into something entirely new and that we haven’t seen before, while staying true to the elements of the original source material isn’t an easy task. Having accomplished all this and more, Annihilation is easily one of the best Lovecraftian movies ever made, while not only using the element of terror in the Lovecraftian genre, but also the wonder of otherworldly existence.
