Ranking H. P. Lovecraft's Novellas

My honest ranking of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft's seven novellas.

#hplovecraft #cthulhu #innsmouth #arkham #horrorstories

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[michaelk.vaughan]

Excellent video! Really interesting hearing your thoughts on these stories.

[davekidd]

Great video. I do feel that Call and Dreams in the Witch House should stand shoulder to shoulder in lists with these longer works. Even though not novellas, they are as accomplished (if not more so) than several here, full of the styles and themes so unique and particular to HPL and as important to his overarching Mythos (if you can call it his, but that's another discussion!). The Thing on the Doorstep possibly too, if only as the prototype for concepts further explored further in both Charles Dexter Ward and Whisperer. But I guess you gotta draw the line somewhere :P
I'd not have Dunwich at the top of the list though. For me the top three would be Shadow Out of Time pipped only just by Mountains (the epoch spanning horror of both being truly "Lovecraftian", though it could definitely be argued that one heavily influenced the other with their shared discovery and exploration of antediluvian ruins with older and more evil discoveries within forcing the climax) but at number one it has to be Shadows over Innsmouth. It has everything... Horror, humour (if a little on the black side), mystery, tense action (a chase scene that was reworked brilliantly into the Dark Corners of the Earth computer game) and an actual twist ending that was reasonably subtly hinted througout the story.
I do agree about the movie Dagon though. It's pretty much the best screen adaptation so far of a HPL story, despite the liberties Stuart Gordon took. The primary filming location was a little fishing village on the coast of Galicia called Combarro, quite famous for it's unique look, with ancient narrow streets carved ourt of the coastal rock overhanging with closly packed (and somewhat run down in places) stone houses and the odd dark and narrow passage between leading down to boat slips and the rocky shore. The first time I visited it I was struck by how it would make an awesome setting for a Lovecraft movie... a couple of years later I popped the Dagon Dvd into the player and there it was!
Also agree on Dreamquest, it's kinda tosh... An important piece of Lovecraftiana that every serious fan or scholar shoud read (or at least listen to) but certainly not a go to for fun ;)

[efrenandrade]

great video. I really like Lovecrat's work. And yeah, at mountains of madness is was a hard read