List of Lovecraftian Horror Movies Part 2

films and television shows with Lovecraftian references and themes

This list of Lovecraftian movies is so exhaustive I've had to split it into four parts as follows:

1 - those that are direct adaptations of H. P. Lovecraft's fictional works ... HERE.

2 - those that are inspired by the fiction of Lovecraft, incorporating elements of his Cthulhu Mythos or other aspects of his fiction, and that could feasibly be set within the same fictional world or universe ... these are HERE on this page below.

3 - those that are influenced by the fiction of Lovecraft, making reference to Lovecraft or his Yog-Sothothery, but that aren't feasibly set directly within his fictional universe ... HERE.

4 - and finaly a list of documentaries about either the man himself or his wider legacy ... HERE.

The term Lovecraftian Horror is often used when describing a wider sub-genre of horror better termed Cosmic Horror, that emphasizes puny humanity's helplessness in the face of an unknown (or unknowable) malevolence (or indifference) at a cosmic (or universal) level. Much of Lovecraft's fiction falls into this wider sub-genre and he was very much among it's pioneers. This sub-genre will be explored in our Cosmic Horror section HERE soon. Some of Lovecraft's fiction also falls under the umbrella of the wider Body Horror sub-genre which can soon be explored HERE.

Read our summaries and reviews with confidence - this is a NO SPLOILER zone!

2: Movies & TV inspired by Lovecraft & the Cthulhu Mythos

A chronological list of films and television shows that reference or are inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's work (and the wider Cthulhu Mythos), and could feasibly be set within his fictional universe.

2.001: Dark Intruder (Harvey Hart, USA. 1965)
Tagline: He killed with the power of demons a million years old!
Initially the pilot for a failed television series called The Black Cloak it was (apparently?) deemed too scary and violent for mid-sixties television so was released theatrically as a B-Movie creature-feature for drive-ins. It was written by Barré Lyndon and produced by Jack Laird (who would later write, direct or produce more Lovecraftian shows in the television series Rod Serling's Night Gallery - see 1.05 and 1.06 above and 2.03 below).
      Set in San-Francisco in 1890 it stars Leslie Nielsen as Brett Kingsford, an independently wealthy expert on the occult who gets called in by the police to help them solve a series of brutal and ritualistic murders carried out by a clawed and bestial black-cloaked cultist. Kingsford investigates with the aid of his dwarf assistant Nikola (Charles Boldender) and an old Chinese curio dealer, Chi Zang (Peter Brocco).
      Though its an ancient Sumerian demon cult that seems to be involved in the murder plot - comparison is made to the cult-like worship of the old gods Dagon and Azathoth (both Lovecraft creations), and later - towards the end - the old-one Nyogtha (one of the additions to the Cthulhu Mythos made by Lovecraft's colleague Henry Kuttner) is invoked by the sorcerous villain.
Runtime: 59 min - B&W - English.
The Lovecraftian's Rating: 5/10 (Mediocre) - typically cheesy 60s TV-Show genre mystery piece that's just entertaining enough to be watchable.
Buy Dark Intruder on DVD or Blu-ray at Amazon.com
Buy Dark Intruder on DVD or Blu-ray at Amazon.co.uk

2.002: City in the Sea (Jacques Tourneur & Ishirô Honda, UK/USA. 1965)
AKA: The City Under the Sea | War Gods of the Deep.
Set on the Cornish coast in 1903, the film features a group of people discovering an underwater society of smugglers who never age living in the lost underwater city of Lioness along with their gill-man slaves.
      Though nominally based on the Edgar Allan Poe poem of the same name, it draws some uncredited and even looser inspiration from Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth (chiefly with the use of Gill Men / Deep Ones, underwater cities etc) and has a little Jules Verne thrown in for good measure. Despite the pedigree and a good cast, it's a lacklustre effort to say the least and is very much a Saturday Afternoon family-friendly type deal with some very cringe comic relief. Vincent Price though, as ever, is well worth watching.

2.003: The Shuttered Room (David Greene, UK. 1967)
AKA: Blood Island.
On the small island of Dunwich off the coast of Massachusetts, a series of horrific murders within the isolated community there seems to be connected to someone, or something, that inhabits an old mill house. A moderatley effective British movie with Oliver Reed, Gig Young and Carol Lynley. Based on a short story of the same name by August Derleth, one of his so-called "posthumous collaborations" with H. P. Lovecraft.

2.004: Professor Peabody's Last Lecture (Jerrold Freedman, USA. 1971)
Segment 4, Episode 8, Season 2 of Rod Serling's Nignt Gallery TV series.
A humorous short telecast written and produced by Jack Laird in which the good professor (Carl Reiner), after lecturing his students about the folly of ancient religious cults - including Cthulhu and other "Old Ones", unwisely decides to read a-loud a passage from the Necronomicon. Possibly the first time Cthulhu's name appeared on national (USA) television.

The Evil Dead (Sam Raimi, USA. 1981)
The Lovecraftian's Rating: 8/10 (Very Good) -

Gramma (Bradford May, USA. 1985)
Segment 1, Episode 18, Season 1 of The Twilight Zone (1985 Revival) TV series - based on the short story of the same name by Stephen King that is heavily indebted to H. P. Lovecraft's story The Thing on the Doorstep.

Forever Evil (Roger Evans, USA. 1987)

The Evil Dead II (Sam Raimi, USA. 1987)
The Lovecraftian's Rating: 9/10 (Extremely Good) - massively entertaining and scary

Beyond Dream's Door (Jay Woelfel, USA. 1989)
Loosely inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Out Of Time, this feature film's plot follows a college student who tries desperately to unravel the meanings behind his horrific nightmares as they begin to break into reality and threaten the people surrounding him..

Transylvania Twist (Jim Wynorski, USA. 1990)

Army of Darkness (Sam Raimi, USA. 1992)
AKA: Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness | Army of Darkness: The Medieval Dead
The Lovecraftian's Rating: 8/10 (Very Good) -

Cthulhu Wore Tennis Shoes (Lesley Matheson, USA. 1996)
A five minute short in which, at a meeting of a college society, a student is lured by the offer of free pizza into becoming a human sacrifice to the Great Old Ones.

Out of Mind: The Stories of H.P. Lovecraft (Raymond Saint-Jean, Canada. 1998)
A 56 minute TV movie in which, haunted by disturbing dreams from an inherited book, a young man becomes interested in the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. Incorporates a few of Lovecraft's characters, storylines, and Lovecraft himself - played wonderfully by Christopher Heyerdahl. Recommended.
Featured in The H.P. Lovecraft Collection, Volume 3: Out of Mind (2005).

Between the Stars (Djie Han Thung, Netherlands. 1998)
Short film inspired by a fragment from an incomplete H. P. Lovecraft story.
Featured in The H.P. Lovecraft Collection, Volume 4: Pickman’s Model (2007).

Mystery of the Necronomicon: Book of the Dead (Yoshitaka Makino & Hideki Takayama, Japan. 1999)
AKA: Kuro no dansho
hentai animation

Rough Magik (Jamie Payne, UK. 2000)
Featured in The H.P. Lovecraft Collection, Volume 2: Rough Magik (2004).

The Hapless Antiquarian (Anthony Penta, USA. 2001)
Featured in The H.P. Lovecraft Collection, Volume 1: Cool Air (2004).

Unknown Beyond (Ivan Zuccon, Italy. 2001)
AKA: Maelstrom - Il figlio dell'altrove

Corpse-O-Rama (Vince D'Amato, Canada. 2001)
the third story of four, Six Shots at Dawn, in this portmanteau features Herbert West, Re-Animator.

The Attic Expeditions (Jeremy Kasten, USA. 2001)
AKA: Horror in the Attic
Content Warning: features full frontal nudity and sex scenes, some brutal bloody violence, gore and drug use.
The Lovecraftian's Rating: 7/10 (Good) -

The Yellow Sign (Aaron Vanek, USA. 2001)
based on the short story by Robert W. Chambers

Beyond Re-Animator (Brian Yuzna, Spain. 2003)
The Lovecraftian's Rating: 6/10 (Pretty Good) -

Ryleh (Mikael Genachte-Le Bail & Gaetan Boutet, France. 2003)
3D animated short

Marebito (Takashi Shimizu, Japan. 2004)

Halfway House (Kenneth J. Hall, USA. 2004)

Angry and Moist: An Undead Chronicle (James Raynor, UK. 2004)

Necronomicon (Ulas Bozkurt, Turkey. 2004)

Innsmouth Legacy (Edward Martin III, USA. 2004)

H.P. Lovecraft - Ipotesi di un viaggio in Italia (Federico Greco & Roberto Leggio, Italy. 2004)
AKA: H.P. Lovecraft's Road to L. | H.P. Lovecraft - Possibility of a trip to Italy (English translation)
a mockumentary

The Cthulhu Chronicles: The Ropes (Jayson Argento, USA. 2004)

Read Me a Story (Bret Mix & Craig Mullins, USA. 2005)

ReCreation (Edward Martin III, USA. 2005)

Experiment 17 (Christian Matzke, USA. 2005)

The Dead Inside (Brian Clement, Canada. 2005)

Call of Tutu (Aaron Vanek, USA. 2006)

The Horror of H.P. Lovecraft (Various (11), USA. 2006)
AKA: LovecraCked! The Movie (original title)
Tagline: The truth is out there... we're just not entirely sure where.

The Miskatonic Acid Test (Rob Mackenzie, USA. 2006)

Kammaren (Robert P. Olsson, Sweden. 2007)
AKA: A Legend Told (USA)

Come to Us (Edward Martin III, USA. 2007)

Dark Paradox (Brian Clement, Canada. 2007)

Primevil (Mike Turner, USA. 2007)

Re-Animator: 1942 (Gary Fierro & Justin Tacchi, USA. 2008)

Beyond the Dunwich Horror (Richard Griffin, USA. 2008)

Tomb with a View (Craig Mullins, USA. 2008)

Dirt Dauber (Steve Daniels, USA. 2009)

The Necronomicon (Joseph Nanni, Canada. 2009)

The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu (Henry Saine, USA. 2009)
The Lovecraftian's Rating: 5/10 (Mediocre) -

The Seventh Shadow (Brian Clement, Canada. 2009)

Elder Sign (Joseph Nanni, Canada. 2009)

The Last Battleground (Sonny Fernandez, USA. 2010)

Three Shadows (Ansel Faraj, USA. 2010)
a portmanteau of three stories - the final of which is an adaptation of Derleth's The Shuttered Room

The Valdemar Legacy (José Luis Alemán, Spain. 2010)
AKA: La Herencia Valdemar

Fyren (Robert P. Olsson, Sweden. 2010)

The Valdemar Legacy II: The Forbidden Shadow (José Luis Alemán, Spain. 2010)
AKA: La Herencia Valdemar II: La Sombra Prohibida (Spain)

The Island (Nathan Fisher, USA. 2010)

Tähdet Ovat Väärin (Tapio Ranta-Aho, Finland. 2010)
AKA: The Stars Are Not Right (literal translation)

A Fish Called Martha or: Who's Really Afraid of H. P. Lovecraft Anyway? (Debora Roventini, USA. 2010)

Waiting Fear (Jason Janes, USA. 2010)

A Dead Girl's Toys (Jim D. Fuller, USA. 2010)

Hunters of the Dark (Ansel Faraj, USA. 2011)

Call of Nature (Rick Tillman, USA. 2011)
AKA: H. P. Lovecraft's Call of Nature

Ethereal Chrysalis (Syl Disjonk, Canada. 2011)

Black Goat (Joseph Nanni, Canada. 2011)

Demon's Play (Jim D. Fuller, USA. 2011)

A Cosmic Kiss Goodnight (Jim D. Fuller, USA. 2012)

In Between (José Luis Martínez Díaz, Spain. 2012)

Night Gaunts (Daniel Ferguson & Matthew Ferguson, UK. 2012)

Subb Niggurath (Roberto Julio Alamo & Guillermo García Insa, Spain. 2013)

The Deep Ones (Simo Paulakoski, Sweden. 2013)

The Night-Gaunts (Domiziano Cristopharo & Adam Rehmeier, USA/Italy. 2013)

Invectum (Adam-Gabriel Belley-Cote & Francis Fortin, Canada. 2013)

Cthulhu's Witnesses (John Hidalgo, USA. 2013)
Short comedy horror mockumentary following three evangelicals as they spread the word about the slumbering Great Old One.

Footage Found, Arabi (Mike Lyddon, USA. 2013)

Curse of the Necronomicon (Sam Pearson, Australia. 2013)

Miskatonic University (James Bentley, USA. 2014)

Call Girl of Cthulhu (Chris LaMartina, USA. 2014)
Content Warning: dark humour and over the top bloody violence, some nudity and sexual scenes - includes a giant mutated penis so... be ready for that.
The Lovecraftian's Rating: 3/10 (Bad) - hackneyed writing, bad acting and some atrocious special effects... still kinda fun though.

The Deep End (Daniel Johansson, Sweden. 2014)

Arkham Sanitarium: Soul Eater (Julian Grant, USA. 2014)

Callgirl of Cthulhu (Emily Schooley, Canada. 2014)

Escape from Midwich Valley (Pierre-Henri Debies, France. 2014)
Short film concerned with a home-coming to Innsmouth.

Naming the Unnameable (Edward Martin III, USA. 2014)
Short film in which two cultists realise that to bring their plans to fruition they must first name the unnameable.

NightScape (Leonel Ortega-Valdez, USA. 2015)

The Last Case of August T. Harrison (Ansel Faraj, USA. 2015)

Innsmouth (Izzy Lee, USA. 2015)
An 11 min short inspired by various tales by Lovecraft.

The Stranger Who Came from the Deep (Rubén Arnaiz, Spain. 2015)
A 15 min short.

Sandra Munt's Adventure (Rubén Arnaiz, Spain. 2016)
AKA: Weird Stories | Sandra Munt
A short half hour TV Movie. Spain, 1934. Sandra Munt and her friend Elsa travel the world in search of a mysterious and mystical book. But the two friends will face the Nazis, a secret society and a Mysterious Stranger, emerging from her past.

The Void (Steven Kostanski & Jeremy Gillespie, Canada. 2016/2017)
Taglines: A New Dimension in Evil | There is a Hell. This is worse
Originally crowd-funded on Indiegogo this horror, mystery, sci-fi homage to classic pre-CGI creature features, especially those of John Carpenter, has loads of allusions to various Lovecraft tropes including strange cultists, reanimated dead, alien evils older than time and weird portals to regions beyond the stars. First shown at the 2016 Fantastic Fest and then later at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival. It was given a wider theatrical release in 2017.
      James (Evan Stern) flees from an isolated farmhouse and escapes into the woods. A screaming woman tries to follow James, but she is shot and callously set on fire by Vincent (Daniel Fathers) and his mute son Simon (Mik Byskov), both of whom also came out of the farmhouse. A short time later Deputy Daniel Carter (Aaron Poole) comes across a bloody and incoherent James crawling down a rural road and delivers him to the nearest medical facility; a half-burned-out, understaffed hospital which is soon to close - and also happens to be where the good Deputy's estranged wife Allison (Kathleen Munroe) works as a nurse. The only other staff at the hospital are Doctor Powell (Kenneth Welsh), Nurse Beverly (Stephanie Belding) and intern Kim (Ellen Wong). In the waiting room is an old man, Ben (James Millington), with his heavily pregnant granddaughter Maggie (Grace Munro) and, in one of the rooms, there is a young patient called Cliff (Matt Kennedy).
      The hospital descends rapidly into chaos as Beverly seemingly goes crazy, pealing her own skin off and killing Cliff, forcing Deputy Carter to shoot her dead. A State Trooper (Art Hindle) then arrives, investigating an apparent occult mass murder back at the farmhouse, looking for James. Strange, otherworldly horns then sound ominously and the hospital is surrounded by hooded, knife wielding, cultists seemingly intent on making sure that no one leaves alive - just as Vincent and Simon burst into the hospital, also on the hunt for James.
      Things just get stranger, more weird and more violent from there on in, so prepare yourself for a gruesome roller-coaster ride to a place far worse than hell itself as Deputy Carter tries to make sense of what is happening. All while sorting the good guys from the bad, dealing with in-fighting, more murders, unusual visions, the dead that will not lay and the sanity defying appearances of hideous slithering entities and other cosmic horrors... oh, and don't forget the cultists.
Content Warning: very violent, with plenty of blood and gore - enough even for the most ardent fan of grotesque body-horror.
Runtime: 90 min - Colour - English.
The Lovecraftian's Rating: 7.5/10 (Good to Very Good) - a great attempt at a good old-fashioned (80s) style practical-effects driven action packed horror. A bit weak regards characters and dialogue but a very entertaining and bloody slice of creepy and intense Lovecraftian shenanigans none the less.
Buy The Void on DVD or Blu-ray at Amazon.com
Buy The Void on DVD or Blu-ray at Amazon.co.uk

Sound from the Deep (Joonas Allonen/Antti Laakso, Finland. 2017)
Short 29 minute movie inspired by the stories of Lovecraft and set aboard an Arctic research vessel that picks up a strange underwater sound.

Skuggan över Innfyr (Simo Paulakoski, Sweden. 2017)
Short movie inspired by the stories of Lovecraft. AKA Into the Town of Madness.

Underwater (William Eubank, USA. 2020)
Big budget claustrophobic sci-fi action survival horror movie that follows a group of workers on a drilling facility at the bottom of the ocean who encounter hostile creatures after an earthquake destroys the facility. The unnamed antagonistic creatures are inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos, featuring what appear to be Deep Ones and what might actually be Cthulhu.

The Deep Ones (Chad Ferrin, USA. 2020)
Another indie movie inspired by The Shadow Over Innsmouth and others. A married couple rents a beach side AirBNB only to be surrounded by peculiar neighbors and occurrences, and are soon in the grips of a mysterious cult and an ancient sea god.

Sacrifice (Andy Collier & Tor Mian, UK. 2022)

Glorious (Rebekah McKendry, USA. 2022)

Gods of the Deep (Charlie Steeds, UK. 2023)

The Innsmouth School for Girls (Joshua Kennedy, USA. 2023)

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