Would add The Void for movies and Dredge (which is on sale) for games.
ETA: In other media, The Lovecraft Investigations is a full cast audio drama re-imagining of several Lovecraft stories. Recommended!
DREDGE is one of the greatest recent games that actually get Lovecraftian horror.
You have the unnerving sense that, despite all of the minor assurances, the place you’re in is somehow wrong.
And once you start fishin’, you see the major things are Down There. Maybe they have minions Up Here.
And by the time you actually see some actual major real horrors, it’s already too late.
(Me, I’m just happy the game added a Photographer who said, hey, you can always photograph turtles. Because I know in my heart turtles can’t be evil.)
The Void isn’t perfect, but I love it. They knew exactly where and how to allocate their low budget, and the practical effects are so fun
Dredge was fun! I didn’t know it was based on Lovecraft going in but not long after I started I was like, wait a minute…
I hate to admit it, but I loved playing Dredge and all its DLC. It’s not normally my kind of game, but I’m glad I gave it a shot. It does have a Lovecraftian vibe. Perhaps that’s why I liked it.
Sunless Sea is also an amazing Lovecraftian game. Also on sale right now.
The next game Sunless Skies is amazing too and has a ton of quality of life changes.
Movies:
Necronomicon: Book of Dead (1993)
The Color Out of Space - Die Farbe (2010) - I liked it
Color Out of Space (2019) - great movie
In the Mouth of Madness (1994) - Loved it
The Island of the Fishmen (1979)
The Resurrected (1991) - wrong year on the graphic
Underwater (2020) - I liked it, had a game-like quality, reminded me of SOMA
The Endless (2017) - also liked it
Annihilation (2018) - great movie once you realise you shouldn’t treat it in a literal way, but extremely symbolic
Not on graphic:
Games:
Call of Cthulhu - poor adaptation imo
Call of Cthulhu®: Dark Corners of the Earth - oldish, hard to get into
The Sinking City - there is also a remaster, there were some problems with publisher being utter cunts, so idk if it’s not better to pirate
Conarium - Loved it
Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones
CARRION - hour long, not very lovecraftian
Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft - free
Bloodborne - ps exclusive
Borderlands 3 - graphic mentions a dlc, this seems forced here
Not on graphic (no order)
SOMA - might be the best horror I’ve ever played
Euclidean - game about falling
Cyclopean: The Great Abyss - retro crpg
Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition
Static Dread: The Lighthouse - lovecraftian “Papers, please”
How about some interactive fiction games? Check these out for starters:
Anchorhead https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=op0uw1gn1tjqmjt7
The King of Shreds and Patches https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=9ntef9expou18abv
Coloratura https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=g0fl99ovcrq2sqzk
Ps. Really nice list & graphic, thanks!
Dont play Conariun on steam. Dunno about other platforms but it has a game breaking bug about halfway through. I left a review on steam about it but yeah. You can’t progress cause you get stuck in a room and can’t move forward to the door.
Bug was reported as long ago as 2017. It’s still not fixed. I’m still mad. It was shaping up to be super interesting.
The sinking city has charm but I got bored and didn’t finish it. The detective mechanic was tedious.
The Cthulhu game was decent and I played it thru.
Two other games not on the list.
The Sherlock Cthulhu was pretty solid.
Still water wakes the deep- is stellar. Chefs kiss. Fantastic.
Another cool game I’d recommend is Dredge. It’s not too much horror, but there is definitely some fear factor in it. The lore of the game is simple, but going in the game blind feels real nice because the game is built on the sense of unknown.
also if you’re looking for board games:
- Mansions of madness
- Arkham horror 3rd edition
- Arkham horror the living card game
Great list. Some additional good titles are:
The Call of Cthulhu (2005) - Independent silent film adaptation produced by Sean Branney and Andrew Leman and distributed by the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society
The Whisperer in Darkness (2011) - From the same producer with the look of a 1930s-era film
CTHULHU (2007) - Not really an adaptation, but more like an original view of the thematic elements of the Cthulhu Mythos.
The Shunned House (2003) - A low budget movie produced by Ivan Zuccon
Documentary - Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown (2020) | Guillermo Del Toro - old post with links
Movie: The Lighthouse (2019)
Video Game: No one lives under the lighthouse
I was trying to remember the name of that game yesterday. Glad someone else knew it!
Also Prometheus is pretty much In The Mountains of Madness, but in space instead of in Antarctica.
Shout out to The Endless and all the Benson and Moorhead movies. They are so good.
Dark Corners of the Earth is awesome. The newer one kinda sucks.
Also Carrion is not Lovecraft inspired… It’s inspired by John Carpenter’s The Thing. You essentially get to play as The Thing. But it is still hella good.
I’ll be honest, I actually thought the movie The Thing was loosely based on The Mountains of Madness until I saw it was written by Carpenter.
In case you are curious, it was adapted from a story by John W Campbell.
I could see that. The monster is kinda like a shoggoth, but not broken.
AFAIK, it is inspired by The Mountains of Madness, although the connection is very loose, mainly the setting and some elements of the early parts of the story.
EDIT: Turns out Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell was the bigger inspiration. That being said, I remember reading somewhere that The Mountains of Madness was inspiration (the same article also mentioned Who Goes There?, but that initially slipped from my memory).
And what inspired “The Thing”?
Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell
Dark Corners of the Earth is awesome
If someone loving a bit of a challenge sees that, it’s not meant to be played at a top difficulty. Some places, especially the bridge passing 2 minutes before the final cutscene are completely broken - I went that far and still watched the ending on youtube, lol. Going into it on normal difficulty is the way to avoid unnecessary frustration.
Stuart Gordon is the GOAT!!!
Secret World Legends is free.
Technically an MMO, but plays like a single player RPG.
There are three factions - 99% of the game is the same regardless, with the exception of some cosmetics and a single faction-specific quest chain. If the cosmetics are the priority for you, then choose whichever; if the story line is more important, choose Illuminati. The other two sound cool on paper, but the quality and execution just don’t compare.
The investigative missions will make you feel like a fucking dumbass - try to tackle them as though you’re in the characters shoes and act as you would IRL.
This game is janky as fuck, but is one of my favorites.
Does anyone have any books to reccomend? I’ve read H.P. Lovecraft but don’t know of any other authors using the IP.
Uses Lovecraft IP:
- The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle retells “The Horror at Red Hook”.
- Clark Ashton Smith, who was friends with Lovecraft, wrote a lot of Cthulhu-related stuff.
Strongly Lovecraft-inspired:
- The Fisherman by John Langan gets recommended a lot.
- Carter & Lovecraft by Jonathan L. Howard
- B.P.R.D., the sister series to Hellboy, has a lot of Lovecraftian influence in certain story arcs, if you like comics.
General cosmic horror/looser Lovecraftian vibes:
- Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer is pretty different from the movie.
- The Immaculate Void by Brian Hodge
- Agents of Dreamland by Caitlín R. Kiernan
- The Willows by Algernon Blackwood (free on Gutenberg )
Obviously not an exhaustive list (there’s a lot I haven’t read yet!), but hopefully you’ll find something to get you started.
Thank you for taking the time to write this detailed reply.
You’ve done me a massive favour!
Have you read the “John dies at the end” series by David wong / Jason parquin?
I haven’t heard of it, thanks for the recommendation!
