Cthulhu mythos in films

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by white_wanderer

Is it just me, or was The Thing along similar lines to mountains of madness?

I had attempted three times to post an answer to this earlier, and it didn't work... so perhaps this time will be the charm....

Ahem: No, it's not just you....

While I seriously doubt that the original story ("Who Goes There?", by John W. Campbell, Jr.) was any sort of tribute to HPL (whose style, I understand, he had grave problems with), there have been quite a few who have noted points of similarity... enough so that the tale was included in one of Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu/Mythos Cycle books: The Antarktos Cycle, along with several other pieces connected in one way or another to Lovecraft's.

As for the film versions... well, Carpenter's certainly has some Lovecraftian touches, such as the alien's appearance in the dog-pen being suspiciously like that of a shoggoth at one point, for instance.... And Andrew Migliore and John Strysik included both versions of the film in their guide to Lovecraftian cinema, The Lurker in the Lobby.....