THE ELDRITCH INFLUENCE: THE LIFE, VISION AND PHENOMENON OF H. P. LOVECRAFT. After watching Raymond Saint-Jean's not-quite-biography film of H. P. Lovecraft (the remarkable "OUT OF MIND"), the Lovecraft fan might still desire -- hunger for, actually -- a more straightforward documentary-style film; deft and masterful as "OUT OF MIND" undoubtedly is. Well, in 2004 just such a documentary was made entitled "THE ELDRITCH INFLUENCE: THE LIFE, VISION AND PHENOMENON OF H. P. LOVECRAFT" directed by Shawn Owens. This is quite a nice little documentary which has maybe one or two disappointments. The film's subtitle accurately announces that the "phenomenon" of Lovecraft will also be examined -- and quite rightly. The influence HPL has had mushroomed only after his death and this aspect is just as important as the events of his lifetime. I would have liked the film to be longer, perhaps since something so vast and ambitious as this stated task makes one wonder if 86 minutes is enough time. But, as an introduction to Lovecraft's life and writing, "THE ELDRITCH INFLUENCE" is a nice place to start.

It's a heartfelt labour of love, obviously, but does sometimes betray it's semi-professional origins; especially in the rather poor sound quality of one or two of the interviews. One suspects HPL scholar S. T. Joshi's interviews were conducted first on inferior audio equipment, for example. The other disappointment is the rather silly inclusion of a fake occultist (Dr. E. MacTavisch of Miskatonic University) in fake B&W archival footage (a concept seemingly "inspired" by "OUT OF MIND") and an outdoors ceremony by a fake Cthulhu cult which is amateurish at best. What they're apparently going for is a "Blair Witch" handheld kind of vibe but it looks more like a family picnic with pantomime demon. Both of these conceits are not meant to be taken seriously by the filmmakers but, because of their too obvious "student film" amateurishness they can try one's patience a little. Andrew Migliore and John Strysik, in their book on HPL films "LURKER IN THE LOBBY" are slightly more offended by these scenes than I was but I tend to agree with them as they chalk it up to a misstep caused by the filmmakers' youthful exuberance. Other than that, "THE ELDRITCH INFLUENCE" is a fine documentary on HPL until a more weighty one comes along. As always, anything to do with Lovecraft will involve scholar S. T. Joshi and his interview segments are, as always, extremely informative and serve to detail the factual line of Lovecraft's life and work. This is rightly and necessarily complimented by more subjective interviews with fellow horror writers Neil Gaiman, Brian Lumley, Ramsey Campbell and others. These are indispensable in understanding the effect of Lovecraft's writing as well as the long shadow of HPL's influence. Lumley is particularly fun in a boisterous, barroom sort of way while Gaiman is more quietly wry and Campbell is infectiously enthusiastic. Special kudos also go to the filmmakers for seeking out just about every place HPL lived in his lifetime (as well as actual buildings HPL used in his stories to get them more substance) and showing the houses on camera! This gets us close to the author in ways simply reading about him don't quite manage to do; actually seeing where he lived seems to matter somehow in aiding our understanding of the man. This is particularly effective when a present-day Lovecraft enthusiast stands outside the very apartment building in which HPL spent a hellish time at 169 Clinton Street in New York. We next see Lovecraft himself in an old photograph; standing in front of the self-same building as a voice over reads HPL's scathing words concerning his difficult time living there: "Something unwholesome, something furtive, something vast lying subterraneanly in obnoxious slumber; that was the soul of 169 Clinton Street!" My one regret is that the documentary film team did not manage to buy an underwater camera in order to provide some shots of the deep, sunken city of R'lyeh where the Great Cthulhu slumbers. Obviously some trouble with permits.

Use of humour is (quite rightly) found throughout the documentary; especially by the aforementioned Brian Lumley and Neil Gaiman. The director also makes sure to include some humour to save the film from becoming too dry or serious; a frequent pitfall Lovecraft's followers often fall into. A sense of humour does not automatically equate with disrespect. The reason why the bogus Miskatonic University Doctor McTavisch fails as humour is in the casting of such a young-looking actor as a university professor; a much older, over the top actor with wild eyes and wilder hair would have been more appropriate to carry the joke. This actor merely looks like he's about to drop his hookah and go surfing. On a coffin.

The subjective appreciation of such men as Lumley and Gaiman (and yes, much like in Lovecraft's actual writing, there are no women interviewed) greatly helps get a handle on HPL. Gaiman neatly summarizes the Old Ones: "The vision of Lovecraft is one in which you have these ancient powers that are godlike and malign. They do not particularly like us and they are much more powerful than we are and they can squash us like bugs. And if we simply get into the kinds of places where they exist, we will be destroyed. There is an ineffable rightness about the Mythos he came up with. . .he simply gave you a vision of an impossibly inhospitable universe in which we are screwed." Brian Lumley also expertly explains the Necronomicon: "It was a book of spells, conjurations, damnable writings, forbidden words that were written by the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred. It was called the "Al Azif" which is the noise made by insects in the desert. A spooky enough noise in itself, yeah?"

The true fact of H. P. Lovecraft's racism is touched on, but briefly, in the documentary. S. T. Joshi does a fairly good job, I think, of fine-tuning our idea of Lovecraft's racism as arising from the particular time period: "These old Americans were very afraid or threatened by an enormous influx of immigration that was coming in basically from 1890 to 1920. It has often been said that 'How can Lovecraft be a racist when he married a Jewish woman?' Well, the fact of the matter is that what Lovecraft believed was that immigrants, whether they be Jewish or Spanish or whoever, should renounce their own cultural heritage and adopt that of the native Americans." This obvious view of a threat from alien cultures (a very real threat to the job-hunting, nearly always close to poverty HPL) produced a fear in him that manifested itself in the loathsome "otherness" of the inhabitants of Innsmouth, for example, who also incorporate the author's other great fear and repulsion towards fish.

By the documentary's halfway point, Lovecraft is already dead and the focus moves to the author's circle of friends who succeeded in printing HPL's work in hardcover and thus spread his influence far and wide. August Derleth and Donald Wandrei started Arkham House for this very purpose. The often-maligned Derleth is thankfully put in proper perspective in this film by his fellow authors. Derleth's "Christianisation" of the Cthulhu Mythos, in that he transformed it into a struggle between good and evil gods, was untrue to HPL's vision, it is true. S. T. Joshi calls it "particularly egregious". The general opinion is that Derleth somehow diverted Lovecraft's mythos down a different alley. However, Brian Lumley makes the point that "I don't think anybody who comes to it can help but sidetrack it into their direction if they're going to write in that genre or sub-genre. Of course, they're going to write it from their point of view."

Ramsey Campbell also makes the good point of remembering that HPL's friend Frank Belknap Long, in his Lovecraftian "THE SPACE EATERS" uses a glowing cross to dispel his space monster and Lovecraft, who certainly read the book, made no formal objection to Long's introduction of Christian elements into a mythos-type story. This, of course, doesn't imply Lovecraft's approval but it certainly shows he didn't strongly (or vocally) disapprove. "So, in a way," Campbell concludes, "Lovecraft had his chance to make absolutely clear that he didn't want people putting Christianity into his mythos and he didn't. So you can't entirely blame Derleth for in a sense following along the lines that had already been at the very least hinted at." Fair enough. "It may have been diverted," Lumley sums up, "but it hasn't stagnated. That's the point." And that certainly is the point; even though I firmly believe that Christian elements imposed on Lovecraft's mythos makes it a completely different, and less effective, mythos and I prefer HPL's original mission statement.

HPL's influence certainly hasn't stagnated; it has grown exponentially. Lovecraft's reach is long and extends much further past his death in 1937 all the way up to the present day. Neil Gaiman, whose "SANDMAN" has been compared to Lovecraft in some respects, mentions the two distinct branches of Lovecraftian influence:

"There were two different sides to what H. P. Lovecraft did. There was the poetical "Through the Gates of Dreamland", "Quest for the Silver Key", "Randolph Carter-y", "Dunsany-ish", "Cats of Ulthar" kind of stuff. And then there was the much, much harder edged "At the Mountains of Madness"; all that stuff . . . The joy of Lovecraft is the things he is describing are fundementally indescribable."

"THE ELDRITCH INFLUENCE" does a good job, in its second half, of showing us the eldritch influence at work in the films of Stuart Gordon, in the role-playing game "The Call of Cthulhu", in the annual H. P. Lovecraft film festival and the aforementioned fake Cthulhu cult ceremony. In a very sincere moment of documentary filmmaking, Stuart Gordon sits holding his "Howie" award (a small statue of Lovecraft) making a plea for the erection of a statue to HPL in his native Providence, Rhode Island. I frankly don't hold much hope of seeing that happen but the sincerity of Gordon is heartening. In fact, everyone in the film demonstrates a sincere affection for the writings of HPL and, for those of us who are used to the dismissal of the unknowing, clod-hopping mainstream, that is good to see. "THE ELDRITCH INFLUENCE" is obviously a labour of love and is a very respectable documentary with only one or two slip-ups. Otherwise, it's an absorbing, informative and affectionate appreciation of a reclusive writer who changed the face of horror in the 20th century. I'll leave the final word to Brian Lumley: "Crazy, isn't it? No, no, I think no such thing. He just had a remarkable mind and he wrote stories which did not rely upon stuff that had gone before. In other words, he was an original."