Lovecraft is not really scary.

[JdA]

whos form I could never comprehend

That right there is the "scary" part of Lovecraft's style.

Some people are afraid of the familiar, seeing something they recognize made wrong, made evil. Stephen King's Cujo - a massive rabid dog terrorizing a mother and her frail child. It's all relatable, and it scares the bejesus out of some people.

Lovecraft works on the opposite side, trying to create fear out of something SO far out of this world that there's no safe comparison. These cosmic terrors are unlike anything you've ever seen both physically and psychologically. The fact that you CAN'T relate scares the bejesus out of other people.

To me, the scariest part of Lovecraft is his dialogue, some of his stories drown you in really awkward exposition. I love the worlds the guy could create, but navigating them can be a grind.

 

[RJ 17]

You have to take into context that these stories were written a long time ago. There is very little comparable to the Lovecraftian mythos in the supernatural or horror literature of the era, and the rare stuff that comes closest, like Hodgson's The Night Land is even more obscure than Lovecraft ever was.

Pretty much this. Things lose their "bite" as time moves on. A couple examples I can think of are Frankenstein and the movie The Exorcist

Frankenstein was considered to be the single most terrifying story of it's time...now it's little more than a piece of literature history. Same goes for The Exorcist. When it first came out, it was considered to be the single most terrifying movie ever made, and yet just like Frankenstein, it has become little more than a piece of cinema history.

 

[Paddy the Second]

I believe that the closest modern equivalent to Lovecraft is creepypastas, of all things, because they're presented in similar formats, many pretending to be last diary entries or notes written to warn others, and quote pieces of writing they 'found' in the course of the story. And of course they're both delivered to the reader in modern ways, Lovecraft was originally serialised in those newfangled magazines and creepypastas use the internet. They also deal with issues of the age in the most effective stories, a lot of the best (I use this objectively) creepypastas focus on technology, and it's possession by outside forces or simply being malevolent in itself; while Lovecraft dealt with the isolation of man in the universe and even on earth, in the Whisperer in the Darkness one man living in a secluded house miles away from the nearest town is the only one who knows enough about the foreign creatures to attempt to stop them. So if you want what Lovecraft offered back in the day but aren't getting it in his work, which is understandable in a world where we know a lot more about space and many people's default mood about life seems to be "It sucks, why am I alive anyway?" then read a creepypasta or twenty, they are addictive as hell.

 

[Quaxar]

I would be interested what story you were reading. Because I agree there are a few terribly boring ones like the Cats of Ulthar and then there's sheer horror that makes you afraid of keeping doors or windows unlocked at night even in mid summer like The Dunwich Horror or various short stories.

 

[VeryOddGamer]

You sound like you have no imagination whatsoever.

Incidentally there's a story of his that pokes fun at basically everything you said. Can't recall the name, though...

I have plenty of imagination and
give me the name of that story.

I can't remember! For all I know it's un-nameable, like all his insanity-inducing cyclopean horrors.

According to TV Tropes, a story named The Unnamable is a story that pokes fun at stuff that he's written. What an incredible coincidence.

 

[Muspelheim]

Of course he isn't really scary anymore. This isn't the 20's, and we've sort of gotten over the idea of our own insignificance.

I still read his stories, though. While I'm not really frightened by them, they're still entertaining. And honestly, isn't it a good sign of mankind's progression, that if a Shoggoth or some other Lovecraftian horror was found, we wouldn't be going mad by the mere unusualness and alien nature of it? Hell, we'd be all over the poor thing with instruments and cameras and whatnot. It'd be on a famous talkshow, explaining its motivations and feelings of humanity by the end of the week!

The fear of the unknown and the alien isn't nearly as all-present as it was back in Lovecraft's time, and the idea that we weren't under the ever-caring attention of some divine, well-meaning being in the very centre of the universe must have been harrowing in a way that is difficult for modern readers to recognize back when Lovecraft lived.

And lest we forget, he was also a massive racist. No wonder his main theme is fear for the unknown, when he couldn't even speak to a black person without breaking out in cold sweat by the way he goes on about them in his stories. If it isn't some scheeming jew behind it all, it's some primitive, spear-chucking tribe in the south seas, sacrificing people to the Deep Ones at the drop of a hat.

Again, I don't find Lovecraft very scary, either. I read a few of his stories once in a creeky old house on the countryside with late-summer pitch black outside (Complete with scary winds), and slept like a baby as soon as I put out the candle. But I still read them, even if they don't meet my personal horror-criteria.
For instance, one of my favorite LC-stories is one about a WW1-era German submarine captain, who finds himself adrift and alone inside his sub, at the very deepest depths of the ocean. It's still tickling my imagination. What could be there? Who built those ruins? To what purpose? And what could dwell within?

While his favorite methods of frightening me doesn't work anymore (Creatures so unfathomably alien that they defy description, going mad by a glimpse of the same, us humans being like mould in a petry dish) because I live in a different century (and doesn't have a mind built out of wafers as opposed to every Lovecraft protagonist), he still sparks my imagination, and that is really all that I ask of a good book.

 

[Stalydan]

Lovecraft's style is essentially that we're all ants in a universe filled with giants and incomprehensible landscapes. They don't care about us and will crush us without a second thought. Personally, I find to be a refreshing divergence from the typical "Normal but with something really wrong" style of horror where you can relate to the character but instead have a world where there are creatures so horrifying that looking at them drives people insane. Then you can let your mind do the work for you.

My favourite piece of his mythos is R'lyeh, the sunken city with impossible architecture. It's something that you can imagine being so alien that it's terrifying.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Things lose their "bite" as time moves on. A couple examples I can think of are Frankenstein and the movie The Exorcist

Frankenstein was considered to be the single most terrifying story of it's time...now it's little more than a piece of literature history. Same goes for The Exorcist. When it first came out, it was considered to be the single most terrifying movie ever made, and yet just like Frankenstein, it has become little more than a piece of cinema history.

Frankenstein is about a bit more than simply horror though.

It's about being sub-human in a cruel world, kinda in the sense that Pinocchio and The Hunchback of the Notre Dame were.

 

[RJ 17]

Things lose their "bite" as time moves on. A couple examples I can think of are Frankenstein and the movie The Exorcist

Frankenstein was considered to be the single most terrifying story of it's time...now it's little more than a piece of literature history. Same goes for The Exorcist. When it first came out, it was considered to be the single most terrifying movie ever made, and yet just like Frankenstein, it has become little more than a piece of cinema history.

Frankenstein is about a bit more than simply horror though.

It's about being sub-human in a cruel world, kinda in the sense that Pinocchio and The Hunchback of the Notre Dame were.

That doesn't change the fact that when it was first published it was considered the most terrifying story of it's time.

 

[Versuvius]

It's not 'scary' to modern audiences, no. Everyone is desensitised with alien and human centipede. At the time it was written however it was Off the Wall. Right out there, out in space and people who didn't pooh pooh it for being boring old shits, even in a boring oldshit time, it blew minds. What it does succeed in however is being atmospheric and good fiction. Even if it isn't scary it can still keep you reading and reading and wanting to know what the sound is, what the fuck is going on and feeling just a little unsettled in the dark after finishing. No it isn't scary but that is because of a jaded generation, and that doesn't make it bad.

 

[lacktheknack]

To be fair, it was way scarier back then, when we didn't have a great idea of what was in space/at the floor of the ocean/in volcanoes/whatever.

The only Lovecraft story I've read was Pickman's Model, which was pretty creepy and subtly horrific, but not outright scary.

 

[Saltarius]

I gotta admit, the only Lovecraft story I've read so far (out of about 8) that scared me was Shadow over Innsmouth, mainly because sea monsters, a eerie-ass town, and the dark night kinda all scare the shit outta me.

But as it's been said, Lovecraft mainly writes of a fear of the unknown, unlike more contemporary elements nowadays such as horrific beasts and building dread.

 

[Hallow'sEve]

Lovecaft is and was scary. I don't find him frightening, but he's known for a reason.
In his time very little was known about the order of things, the universe, the ocean, the things in the dark. I think the best way to describe it is from his poem "Nemesis"
I have seen the dark universe yawning,
Where the black planets roll without aim;
Where they roll in their horror unheeded, without knowledge or lustre or name.
You can see what he thinks about the universe, our place in it being worthless.

A lot of this loses its sting when you can look up at the stars and tell almost everything about them. Know horrors greater than Cthulhu like a black hole, an object who's mass collapses time itself.
Lovecraft also has an annoying tendency for purple prose, using the same "indescribable"/"MADNESS!" copout (sorry but it kinda is) that writes him into a corner (Cthulhu getting KO'd by a boat- WTF?!). Although this was the style at the time, nowadays it's so passe it's funny and another reason why people like him so much.

However, Lovecraft is scary because he founded cosmic horror. And he remains scary because if you read with that mindset, that there are things out there we will never know about, that can brush our whole existence aside effortlessly (and could be right HERE on Earth); that's scary.
I know the scariest story I read of his was "The Color Out of Space" because it took the very idea of cosmic horror and didn't recede at the "MADNESS!" interval that all his stories have. It showed, in detail, what happens when forces like these intrude on humanity, it shows our helplessness and horror of the unknown.

Fear is not knowing, Horror is finding out, Terror is understanding

 

[ThePenguinKnight]

Lovecraft's style is essentially that we're all ants in a universe filled with giants and incomprehensible landscapes. They don't care about us and will crush us without a second thought. Personally, I find to be a refreshing divergence from the typical "Normal but with something really wrong" style of horror where you can relate to the character but instead have a world where there are creatures so horrifying that looking at them drives people insane. Then you can let your mind do the work for you.

My favourite piece of his mythos is R'lyeh, the sunken city with impossible architecture. It's something that you can imagine being so alien that it's terrifying.

This.

I'd even argue that they're less about being "scary" and more about philosophy than anything. It's about being so insignificant, sheltered, and self absorbed we fail to see the real terrors in the world and therefore go mad just by the sight of them. It's like trying to have an insect comprehend neuroscience.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

Read some of the comics of his short stories. I can't remember the name but I remember this one where these two guys being killed by trees. Like, the trees went into their skin and stuff. Fuckin' scary

 

[Woulvain]

I find some of his work scary as all hell, whilst others it was a like a marathon attempting to read it. Like at the mountains of madness I didn't find scary at all, like I feel that the Shoggoth's SHOULD have been scary but I didn't think they were at all...

But yes what I would like to know is what you yourself find scary because it might just come down to taste and where you're taste differs to others! Like you might find hostel scary but not paranormal activity. Or you might find children's direct to dvd films truly terrifying but the likes of the hills have eyes you find hilarious.

Always about taste man

 

[MammothBlade]

It might be more that many people are so desensitised to horror, and especially gore, that Lovecraftian horror seems like babby's first ghost story to people who are used to visible brutalisation. It does require an imagination to follow Lovecraft's books.

My favourite is currently The Music of Eric Zann. Oh, what horrors lurk in the night sky! The less known, the better. It seems as if Lovecraft agreed; it was one of his favourites.

Lovecraft adaptations could possibly be made more frightening to modern audiences if there were more of a focus on unexplainable, otherworldy terror. Tales in which the protagonists are helpless in the face of the unknown. Horror films in which the survivors are the unlucky ones. They would have been better had they died, for the terrors they have witnessed will torture them for the rest of their lives. People are used to horror in which there is a tangible military solution: shotguns, tanks, nuclear weapons. In the epitome of a cosmic horror story, these are ultimately useless.

And remember, mortals:

ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

 

[Johnny Impact]

You have to take into context that these stories were written a long time ago. There is very little comparable to the Lovecraftian mythos in the supernatural or horror literature of the era, and the rare stuff that comes closest, like Hodgson's The Night Land is even more obscure than Lovecraft ever was.

The pacing of the stories is also very much of that era. The aforementioned Night Land was written even earlier, in 1912, and compared to that Lovecraft's work is fast paced.

I find the atmospheric descriptions of some of the locations where the stories take place more unsettling than the monsters themselves. Pickman's Model, the Shadow over Innsmouth, The Whisperer in the Darkness and The Colour out of Space are some examples of Lovecraft evoking a very strong sense of place.

Perhaps he's not scary to a modern reader, but the ideas and, as I mentioned, the atmosphere, is way ahead of the norm for that time. I think he holds up rather well.

This about sums it up. We're inured to cosmic grotesques because we play Dead Space. We don't find killing to be any big deal because we play CoD. Also, movies and TV regularly deal with this type of thing. Back in the early twentieth century there was nothing (except a world war, of course) to give people regular doses of unnameable horror.

I still like Lovecraft's stories. Imagine learning you're an ant, and there's a kid with a magnifying glass headed your way. You won't die in service to a cause, or in the accomplishment of some great deed. You will die an empty, meaningless death to provide a moment's amusement to a being infinitely more vast and powerful than you could ever understand, who attaches no importance whatsoever to your tiny existence. Furthermore, there is absolutely nothing you can do to prevent this. That's fairly horrifying.

 

[Waaghpowa]

People thought that Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven was pretty damn scary back when it was originally written. It's all about context of the times. Or maybe it's a sign of our times; people aren't so good with subtlety and wont "get it" unless it's right in their face. Kinda like modern comedies.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Lovecraft is an acquired taste, I think. Nowadays, Horror is more about well-known facets of our world peeling their masks back to reveal something wretched underneath; an action that either warrants sympathy or revulsion. It's gone to the point where the horrific and the commonplace are merging, and you end up with stuff that's not that far from Wondrous Realism.

Read stuff by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, as an example, and you'll see characters react to angels falling out of the sky and into chicken coops with an utter lack of surprise. We're pretty much smack-dab in this particular phase, where everything is so known and has been revisited so many times we're down to having vampire coworkers during night shifts who barely even have to hide. Or, you know, stuff like the Southern Vampire Mysteries. Blech.

Lovecraft really speaks to how things were before. Lovecraft was really active between the years 1910 and 1930 or thereabouts, and he's got old aristocratic roots. Considering this, there's still a very English bend to what he does, a bit of a Colonialist spirit; just twisted and turned really fucking negative. Between reading him and reading Poe, there's not really a whole lot of differences. The scope is simply bigger, more or less swapping traditional Gothic Horror for Pulp Horror, which means that the notion of travel, or of something coming from a far-off exotic place comes into play often enough.

To appreciate Lovecraft and the Mythos in general, you need to remember that a lot of things we take for granted in today's science were just on the cusp of being tested or discovered, in his time. Remember how the Large Hadron Collider made people freak out before it was turned on? If Lovecraft were alive today, he'd have written something about the LHC tearing the fabric of reality apart and letting unspeakable horrors in, much to everyone's doom and assured eternal suffering.

That's Lovecraft's deal, essentially. Whatever's left that qualifies as an Unknown, no matter if you're talking about a geographic location, a scientific principle or, well, whatever lies outside of the human eye's ability to perceive the color spectrum. What really drives this point home is how bigoted, conservative and in general just plain fucking racist he was. Not because he's an asshole on paper, far from it - but because these were the societal norms, back in his day.

In a sense, and I'm really simplifying things here, Lovecraft can and will appeal to you if you can imagine that a black pharaoh (not "African" black or "African-American" black; really "pitch-black" black) ruled over Egypt at some point in time and actually was the human guise worn by one of the Great Old Ones. You have to accept the idea that there's things Man Was Not Meant to Know - and you need to have some level of tolerance for plot devices which are pretty commonplace, today. "The Whisperer in Darkness" loses a lot of its impact if you just stick to the fact that it's another rendition of "OMG, THIS WAS SOME MONSTER WEARING MY FRIEND'S SKIN THE ENTIRE TIME!!"

The short and sweet of it is Lovecraft can't just be gobbled up wholesale like Stephen King. Not in 2012, at least. If you're into moldy aristocracy and forgotten civilizations, though, this just might fit the bill, along with anything by H. Rider Haggard, Arthur Machen, Robert Bloch, Lord Dunsany; so on and so forth.