H. P. Lovecraft was a peculiar person. Apart from the short
life he lived -which I won’t delve into- he created a mythos so delicate, yet,
so utterly unworldly incomprehensible that the best word scholars found to
describe it was: insanity!
It’s what happens when you ‘allow’ your mind to flow. When
you allow yourself to think the ‘big thoughts’.
(Per example) What’s behind the universe? The expanding
universe has to expand into something, doesn’t it? Then, if the universe is so
immensely grand, where is God? And, more importantly, if God exists –and he is
ruling over all those different galaxies- what would such a mighty being think
about us: this silly group of mammals on this silly little planet of ours on
the outskirts of the universe. Would he spare us a moment’s thought?
It’s when you start thinking big, horror comes to creep.
(Taking the above examples as scripture) God doesn’t care about us. He’s got
other things on his eternal mind. We are alone...and the ‘lesser’ Gods want us.
This is, pretty much, the mindset you have to get into when
thinking about Lovecraftian horror. Basically the man created a mythos of Gods
and eternal beings that surpass us humans in every single way (intelligence,
bravery, valour). Whatsmore, these beings aren’t bothered by human traits like
compassion, self-sacrifice or heroism.
In short: Lovecraft has created a world of nemesis that
simply cannot be defeated. When ‘his’ monsters from the dungeon-dimension come
to show the only chance humankind has is to roll over and give in.
And that’s the point I’m making!
Hollywood has tried to make Lovecraftian horror movies but
most of these movies always fell short of the ending. One can’t win in Lovecraftian
horror. The end is predestined, bleak and final. You can’t escape your doom.
Hollywood doesn’t like this. Even in the cruellest of
horrors the ‘heroes’ need to have a fighting chance. That’s why each and every
slasher ends with ‘the final girl’ surviving. That’s why the cruellest ‘torture
porn’ movies (Hostel, Saw 3-7) end
with a shimmer of hope that, at least, one ‘good’ soul survived.
There are only a handful of horror movies that end bleakly.
And even the bleakness in (most of) those movies only relates to the main
characters. Never the entire world.
Just some examples to prove my point:
- Pet Semetary: ends with the main character kissing his undead wife. Then –as the credits roll- you hear her slaughtering her husband.
- The decent: ends with the main character escaping the cave only to find out that she’s still inside and that she’d been hallucinating. The creepers are crawling towards her and the movie ends.
- Rosemary’s Baby: ends with Rosemary cradling her infant child. The destroyer of worlds. But then the movie ends.
- The blob (the remake): ends with a priest who still has a canister of ‘the blob’. This substance could destroy the world. But the movie ends before it is released.
- Rings: ends with Samara’s ‘home movie’ uploaded to the internet. But then the movie ends.
Two things to take from this: one, in the example of Pet Semetary and The Decent the havoc this evil will wreak upon the world is minimal.
The creepers of The Decent will stay
in their cave and the undead won’t wander too far from Pet Semetary. The evil is contained.
In the example of The
blob, Rosemary’s baby and Rings, however, the evil is on the verge of
omnipresence. This evil could strike the entire world.
But...what do Hollywood movies do? They roll the credits and
call it a day (Phantoms).
I argue that Lovecraftian horror not only promises world
annihilation but also delivers on its promise. And it is in this delivering that
Hollywood is too afraid to (uhm) ‘deliver’.
This is a strange concept to realize as Hollywood gleefully
destroys the world (or New York, at least) on a yearly-summer-blockbuster
schedule. But then there is a difference between fighting against an opponent
you can win from and fighting against the ‘ancient Gods’ who are unstoppable.
One of the reasons why The
cabin in the woods was such a success (apart from the fantastic third act)
was because the movie allowed itself to play the Lovecraftian card though out
(even though it didn’t use the elements). The secondary storyline throughout
the movie was to keep the ‘old Gods’ at bay. Once that failed inevitability
came to play.
This makes In the mouth of madness such an unique
Lovecraftian movie just because it uses all the elements of the writer and,
above all, shows humanity’s end.
So, in the future, if Guillermo Del Tore decides
to take on Lovecraft for his next project we can expect one thing: things won’t
end happily. The question, however, remains, will the producers let him?
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