Fans of Gabriel Rodriguez & Joe Hill’s infamousLocke & Key comic bookswere pleasantly surprised when in December 2019 Netflix announced they would be producing a Netflix Original adaptation of the comic books.
Flash forward to March 2020 and Locke & Key has only been on Netflix a short period of time, but is already a meteoric success.
Matheson, not Lovecraft?
In the original graphic novels, the Locke family lives in a mysterious little town in Massachusetts, affectionally named after our favorite weird fiction author himself.
Indeed, the first story in the comic books bears the title “Welcome to Lovecraft”.
It comes as no surprise that fans were shocked and bemused when the Netflix title card read “Welcome to Matheson”.
What’s Matheson, and what happened to Lovecraft?
Time for a change
Obviously, it didn’t take long for the news of confused and indignant fans questioning the name change to get back to Joe Hill.
Did Netflix force his hand? Was Lovecraft’s controversial history too much for the streaming giant to handle?
Well, not quite. It turns out that it was Joe himself that decided to change the name of the town.
Explaining his reasoning, Joe went on to say that his opinion of Lovecraft had changed since he first put pen to paper on those graphic novels so long ago. He took the opportunity of working with Netflix to make changes to his material that had been long overdue in his mind.
It seems as though his further exploration of who Howard was as a person put him right off the name.
Howard Lovecraft may be one of, if not the most, influential authors in the history of horror and weird fiction, but his work is no stranger to criticism from modern audiences. Racist language has long been cited as a reason why many can no longer enjoy his works.
Whether you are able to separate art from the artist is your prerogative and a topic for another blog post that we won’t dig into here.
If Howard’s off the cards, just who is Matheson?
While Joe no longer felt the affinity with Lovecraft that originally inspired him to name the town in his story after him, he did want to keep the theme of paying respects to an author of the grisly and macabre. That’s where Richard Matheson comes in.
Richard Matheson
The creative mind behind the critically acclaimed novel, I am Legend. Richard Matheson was an accomplished writer who worked on some incredibly iconic books and movies. He counts the novel “The Incredible Shrinking Man” and work on various episodes of “The Twilight Zone” television show amongst his numerous credits.
Many well-regarded authors have cited Matheson as a major influence in their work, not least of all, Stephen King (who it turns out is actually Joe Hill’s father, what a small world we live in).
Sadly Richard Matheson passed away in June 2013, aged 87.
The Town of Matheson
As a big fan of Richard Matheson, it ended up being a no brainer for Joe to rename the town from Lovecraft to Matheson when Netflix came knocking.
The location Netflix chose for filming fictional Matheson is Lunenberg, a small fishing town just off the coast of Nova Scotia in Canada. It may not actually be in Massachusetts, but we feel like they perfectly captured the aesthetic of the region.
Keyhouse, the ancestral home of the Locke family is sadly not a real location. The exterior of the property was created in post-production using CGI techniques.
The holiday season is upon us once more, what does this mean? Parties are what it means. The ugly sweater party has become a yuletide (or whatever holiday you choose to celebrate) staple at this point, and for good reason, they’re a hilarious tradition that doesn’t take anything seriously. Essential when you have to spend so much time around your distant relatives.
My plan; create an H.P. Lovecraft Christmas sweater. Yes, this has been done to death already and honestly, there are a lot of really fantastic Cthulhu Christmas Sweaters out there. This one needed to be different, and I hope you’ll agree that it’s a nice new direction.
I wanted to create something fun and appropriate for the office Christmas party, but also sinister enough that it would prompt questions from the other guests, minimal, yet immediately obvious to anyone who considers themselves a fan of Lovecraft’s works.
With this in mind, I decided to base this design off of the iconic photograph of Howard’s face shrouded in shadows. It’s well-known enough to be distinctively him, and it’s also got a healthy dose of spookiness to it. I decided planned to draw him presenting a Christmas gift, as though leaning out from the shadows in a sinister fashion, what’s inside? Do you even really want to know?
My weapon of choice for creating the Christmas sweater is my 2018 iPad (non-pro) 9.7”, with the first generation Apple Pencil. I love the organic feeling of drawing directly on the screen, and it’s one of the most portable devices you can get for drawing.
I started out by sketching my design in Procreate, this is my absolute favourite app for drawing. The brush engine is second to none on the iPad, the only downside is that my poor little non-pro iPad can only handle so many layers in the app, because of this I primarily use it for sketching and then bring the sketches into another app for inking and colouring. Make no mistake though, Procreate is a powerful professional tool that can create amazing artwork! If you’re better at working with a few layers than I am you can even manage it on the humble regular iPad.
Procreate Sketch
I really wanted to emphasise the sinister and creepy in this illustration, so I played up the shadowing, especially around his face.
Taking the sketch I produced in Procreate, I then export it as a transparent PNG, which I can import into my vector art program of choice: Affinity Designer. Vector art is important for a project like this because the quality is essential, vectors can be scaled infinitely without any loss of quality so they’re
the perfect tool for the job. After importing the sketch I take advantage of the Apple Pencil and ink it with a pressure-sensitive brush, allowing for some natural line variation in the illustration.
Inking in Affinity Designer
I chose to use simple bold solid colours for the final product, in a comic book pop art inspired fashion. I know Howard would have despised the gaudy red suit and green shirt combo, but it’s Christmas and I took a little artistic license.
The finished design
So there we have it, the perfect Ugly Christmas sweater for your next Christmas party. Only your friends who are best educated in the arts of cosmic horror will be in on this little design, for everyone else? Brain-melting madness awaits.
Looking for something eldritch and horrifying to do this weekend? Well, it’s your lucky week, the bi-annual Providence, Rhode Island H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival is upon us once more.
First founded in Portland, Oregon in 1995 by Andrew Miglore, with the noble intent of bringing recognition to one of his favourite authors, the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival has grown since then to accommodate multiple screenings and locations. This time we’re returning to the birthplace and home of Howard himself, Providence, Rhode Island. The event is hosted by Brian & Gwen Callahan (of H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, Portland) and Neils Hobbs (of NecronomiCon, Providence).
The festival takes place over 3 days, from Friday the 17th of August at 6.00pm until the Sunday the 19th at 5.00pm. Directors, authors and fans of Lovecraft alike will descend upon Providence and partake of all this fantastic event has to offer.
Special guests include Philip Gelatt, Ben Wickey, Christian Matzke, Christopher Burke, Daniel Ellis Harrod, Donald Sidney-Fryer, Fiona Maeve Geist, Livia Llewellyn, Matthew Bartlett, Victoria Dalpe and Whitney Ellis.
This year we can look forward to over 12 hours of film screening, hosted at the Metcalf Auditorium, Rhode Island School of Design. With bonus events to take place at Lovecraft Art & Sciences, Providence Arcade.
Feature length films to be shown at the festival
Cold Skin
A young man travels to a remote South Atlantic island to take the place of a deceased meteorologist. The only other inhabitant of the island is a cold and unfriendly lighthouse keeper until the sun goes down that is.
Housewife
A young woman plagued by the traumatic childhood murder of her father at her own mothers' hands becomes involved with a cult lead by a famous psychic. Her nightmares will become more than just dreams.
Necronomicon: The Book of Hell
What would happen if the Necronomicon were real? What would happen if the guardian assigned to protect it was to pass away? An unwitting librarian is about to find out.
They Remain
The site of a former cultist compound, plagued by a history of horrifying events plays host to a romantically linked pair of scientists, sent to uncover the secrets that remain.
But that isn’t all the cinematic horror up for your entertainment this year, the festival also presents a selection of short films: Irreparable, To See You, And Nothing Hurt, Psychopompos, The Music of John Low, Echoes in the Ice, Folk Tales, Madder Isle, Occam’s Razor, The Transition of Juan Romero, A Sweet Man. Cool Air, Fragments, Just After Midnight, Love & Survival in Innsmouth, Mayflower, Mr. Memento, Nyarlathotep, Sound From the Deep, The Final Nights of E. Zann, The House of the Seven Gables, The Merciless Beauty and Young Liars
Set in 1924, on Darkwater Island, off the coast of Boston. Call of Cthulhu promises to fully embrace the Cthulhu Mythos as it was created by Lovecraft. Mysterious religious orders, abhorrent beasts, bizarre scientific experiments and whispers in the dark are all teased at. The game drips atmosphere, Darkwater Island is as bleak and unwelcoming as it is filled with secrets and intrigue. Formerly the site of a whaling industry boom, Darkwater is a decaying shell of its former self. Bilious old sailors and reclusive, yet wealthy and powerful families are all that remain. The island itself is home to rotting and abandoned warehouses left behind by the whalers, illicit speakeasies filled with goggle-eyed natives, unspeakably terrifying asylums, and of course the Hawkins family mansion.
You are Edward Pierce, a veteran of the Great War turned Private Investigator. Hired to investigate a fire that caused the unfortunate demise of artist Sarah Hawkins, you will travel to the Hawkins mansion on Darkwater Island to uncover the truth. The islands' inhabitants are not best pleased by your presence, and local law enforcement is less than helpful. This case goes deeper than you were initially lead to believe. Sinister goings on are afoot on Darkwater.
The game primarily draws influence from “At the Mountains of Madness”, “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”, and of course “The Call of Cthulhu”. Lead level designer Romain Wiart has also cited Amnesia, SOMA, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth and Alone in the Dark as being of significant inspiration to the game.
Cyanide’s Call of Cthulhu is the official adaptation of the eponymous Chaosium pen and paper roleplaying game, which was designed by Sandy Peterson and originally appeared in 1981, much of the world as described there has bled into their work. Enlisting the writing talents of Mark Morrison, most famous for his work producing scenarios for the aforementioned Chaosium Call of Cthulhu game to write the story for the game only further cements that this really is the Call of Cthulhu game.
Gameplay is investigation and stealth based primarily. Combat is an option, but even though Edward is a veteran he is described as “not being a fighter”, even worse is the possibility to find only a single gun in the entire game, with very limited bullets that are only capable of hurting human foes, meaning you shouldn’t expect to be run and gunning this one.
Sneaking past and hiding from enemies before they can slaughter you, or destroy your fragile human mind is definitely the order of the day. I’m sure the Alien Isolation comparisons will be coming thick and fast.
Despite their inhospitable nature, you’ll be able to build relationships with the residents of the island and use this as leverage to persuade them to part with more information to use in your investigations. Just remember that not every person on an island filled with loathsome horrors is going to be credible and trustworthy enough to believe everything they say.
Cyanide have been working hard to create a real feeling of madness in their sanity system, and let’s face it, that’s what we all want from our Lovecraftian horror. One of their biggest challenges was that they did not want the system to be predictable, and thus allow a player to anticipate and eventually overcome the effects. Instead, they wanted the insanity felt by Edward to feel real, unpredictable and become a real obstacle to the player.
Sanity can be affected by many things, coming across a horrifying foe is an obvious one, but in Call of Cthulhu even finding too many clues and possessing too much knowledge, as a result, can impact your mental state.
There’s also the interesting introduction of a phobia system. If you spend too long exposed to fear in certain situations Edward can and will become phobic. Claustrophobia is the last thing you need to develop while hiding from eldritch nastiness. Phobias can cause you to behave irrationally, such as making noises while hiding and alerting the bad guys to your location.
Your rapidly deteriorating mind is also going to hinder your ability to solve mysteries and investigate. Hallucinations and imagined clues are very real in the realm of the mad. The game won’t tell you when you’re wrong and will happily let you wander down the wrong track simply because you thought you saw something that never even existed.
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”
- H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"
Players are encouraged to find their own way through puzzles, and there will be multiple ways to achieve your goals. A townsperson may be persuaded to let you into a restricted area, but you’ll also be free to just steal the key and bypass the unpleasant social interaction. Choices will matter in Call of Cthulhu, and the decisions you make as you work your way through the story will ultimately decide the outcome.
As you get closer to uncovering the truth things are going to get nasty. The further you progress the more abhorrent creatures and happenings will come out of the woodwork and holding on to your precious sanity will become a struggle. Keeping your wits about you is the only way you’ll make it through this one.
The game is built on Epic Games: Unreal Engine 4. Making fantastic use of the engine to create beautiful and evocative environments.
Call of Cthulhu is due for release on October 30th of this year, it will be available on Xbox One, Playstation 4 and PC. Preorders are open now.
Set in fictional Oakmont Massachusetts near Arkham, Innsmouth & Dunwich, The Sinking City is an open world horror investigation game by Ukrainian indie developers Frogwares. Drawing inspiration from the developer's previous success with their Sherlock Holmes titles, we can hope for carefully crafted investigation and well thought out puzzles. Pitched as an expansion of Lovecraft’s universe by devoted fans of his novels, rather than an official adaptation this Lovecraft inspired adventure game promises open world, open investigation and Lovecraftian horror in spades.
It’s the 1920s, the city of Oakmont is isolated from the mainland and home to strange inhabitants, not fond of outside visitors, and even stranger things lurking in the shadows. Behind the gangsters, jazz music and social instability Oakmont hides many secrets. The history of the city goes back to the 1700s, having been built on several major supernatural sites, this has shaped the individual districts and given them a unique flavour. Each district has developed its own distinct architectural aesthetic as the city expanded over the centuries. Strange religious cults, such as the Esoteric Order of Dagon and prominent families run the city, the secret war for power and influence is a constant undercurrent.
References to Lovecraft's work are everywhere
This dark city dripping with atmosphere and Lovecraftian aesthetic would be more than enough to wet any genre fans appetite, but Frogwares have taken it to another level. Oakmont has been swept by an unforeseen and abnormal flood. Many Streets are submerged and the only way to travel to certain city blocks is in small, fragile boats. The flood didn’t just bring water and inaccessible streets though, terrifying eldritch beasts roam freely and have driven the city into a further state of panic and fear. The locals who have survived thus far are changing, the flood is not the only thing to have come to Oakmont, there is something in the air. People are becoming different, you can see it in their eyes, their complexion. The city is beyond the reach of the Government, and any aid it could offer. Oakmont is in serious trouble.
The Innsmouth look is catching on in Oakmont
“We are building our game on the same underlying themes that Lovecraft explored, fear of the unknown, hopelessness and desolation. This is what the mysterious flood in our game represents. Nobody knows why it occurred, and at this point, nobody has any hopes for help.
People are scared of uncertainty. They realise that the flood is relentless, that it can easily devour the whole city and destroy their lives, they are basically helpless. One thing they are quite sure of is: it’s only going to get worse. It kinda shows how insignificant and powerless people are in this world, and how callous the universe is”, says lead narrative designer, Sergey Ten.
Flooded areas are only accessible by boat
The Sinking City is a third person adventure game with a focus on cinematic story lead content.
Taking to the streets as a private investigator you will be free to explore and discover as you wish, finding side missions and hidden information connected to the main plot of the story. The developers are really embracing human nature and the need for exploration. Optional content will not be signposted in lights and it’s down to the player to really seek it out. Non-linear storytelling is an important part of the game, and missions will have multiple outcome possibilities.
As a P.I. You will be solving mysteries and criminal cases throughout the city, murders and missing persons are standard fare in Oakmont. Question everything is the mantra here, suspects, witnesses, surroundings, even your own sanity and perception. Shadows may be strange creatures, simply the environment or your own lapsing mental state. With cultists, abhorrent creatures and the unfriendly citizens to contend with your personal judgement is more important than ever before.
Not every crime is perpetrated by the supernatural, however. It’s down to the players and their deductive capabilities to discover whether the mysterious events are the result of blasphemous interference or the simple hubris of mankind.
The main story arc is obviously the most important of any game, and while we don’t have many details of what that may be the team have been hard at working creating hooks to draw the player in. The belief that if the content is compelling enough then the players will explore it naturally and organically. We’ve been promised strange unexplainable events that will drive the players innate curiosity. This is definitely not a game that leads you everywhere by the hand.
Exploration will lead the player into the darkest parts of the city
Combat is vital in a city brimming with eldritch horrors. Players will be given a choice of whether they want to play stealthily or go in guns blazing. A suitable arsenal of period based weapons will be available. The developers have been very keen to state that this isn’t another “run away and hide” horror game. Choices are in the players hands, but it’s up to them to make sure they have enough ammunition and resources to deal with the threats at hand should they choose to engage directly. If you’re in this for some gunplay then things are looking good.
Lovecraft wouldn’t be Lovecraft without a healthy dose of insanity, and with that in mind, The Sinking City has implemented an insanity mechanic. When your character witnesses horrifying events, finds mutilated bodies or sees an unspeakable monster it will impact his mental health. Frogwares are a little tight-lipped about how this will eventually appear in the game, but we’ve been teased with visual effects such as camera shifts and tears in the fabric of reality itself.
Horrific monsters can and will impact your mental health
The game is built on Epic Games: Unreal Engine 4 and the developers have created a rather clever city generating tool that has allowed them to create over 4000 buildings. You can read more about the city generator on the Frogwares blog here: http://frogwares.com/discover-frogwares-city-generator-saving-valuable-time-development-sinking-city/
One of the most interesting things about this city generation tool is that Frogwares have plans to open it up to the user. Players will be able to generate their own areas, create characters and quests. With a strong set of tools available, community support looks to be strong. I have great anticipation to see what the player base can produce.
The Sinking City is already no stranger to player generated content, as they previously ran the “Letters from Oakmont” competition, in which writers were invited to put pen to paper for a very last letter from a citizen living through the horrifying events as they unfold. They received over 200 letters and chose nine, which will be discoverable in the game.
Frogwares are aiming for around 30-40 hours of playtime to finish the main story arc and most of the side missions. However, they say that there will be many more hours for the explorers and completionists among us before we even get into user-generated content.
The Sinking City is due for release on March 21st 2019, it will be available on Xbox One, Playstation 4 and PC.
Welcome to Lovecraft Zone, a new blog covering the life, stories and other media surrounding the works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. This site aims to become a well-stocked larder of the strange and disturbing. Leave your sanity at the door and join us for the upcoming ride.
So who’s behind this blog? A horror buff, literary enthusiast, gamer, graphic designer, movie lover and professional weirdo. As a child, I was obsessed with the dark and spooky. From a collection of well-thumbed Goosebumps books, moving on to the works of Stephen King and of course the subject of this blog, H.P. Lovecraft.
An avid cinephile, I have absorbed masses of horror movies and my gaming time is filled with exploring the darker places of the virtual universe. Always leaning towards the Lovecraftian inspired when I consume these.
The eldritch influences have bled into my work as a graphic designer too. Finding inspiration in every story I read I have come to create many designs based upon or inspired by Lovecraft’s works. I hope to share some of these designs on this blog at a later date.
I created this blog as an outlet and a place to explore and write about the works of the man who has inspired me so much. I am looking forward to sharing my musings and observations with all of my newfound blog friends. Over time growing this site into a valuable resource for the community.
If you love cosmic horror, tentacles and small towns that stink of fish, this is the place for you. Cthulhu fans rejoice! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
We’re going to be delving deep into all things Lovecraft. Literature, movies, television, video games, board games, art. Everything Lovecraftian and Lovecraft related. There is such a breadth and depth to the mythos and everything surrounding it. We have a lot to explore and I’m sure even the most die-hard fans will find something new and useful here over time.
As a new blog, there isn’t much content here! Over the next few months, that will change as more articles are added and the site gets fleshed out. I hope you’ll consider following along on our little journey from zeros in the world of eldritch bloggers. Long term I’d like to start adding product reviews (there are so many amazing board games just begging for some blog time), mythos inspired short stories and guest posts from the many other fantastic members of this community.
Is there a specific topic you would like to see explored? Do you produce an awesome Lovecraftian product you’d like to see featured? Or even if you’ve just seen something cool you think would fit here, then get in touch. As a new blogger, I am all ears when it comes to hearing what sort of content my readers would like to see.
You can find Lovecraft Zone on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/LovecraftZone so don’t be shy, reach out with a direct message and let’s chat.
Thanks for reading, and remember to check back soon.
