match 1. Misery (1990) v Re Animator (1985). Two of my all time favourite films of any genre. if i could call draw i would, but that's lame, so... Combs is hobbled by Bates! Crampton crushes Caan! Dr Carl Hill beheads everyone and declares himself the winner. 1-0 HPL

match 2. The Running Man (1987) v From Beyond (1986) Arnie wades through slimy primordial soup creatures to take the prize. 1-1

match 3 The Shining (1980) v The Haunted Palace (1963) Jack axes em into an early lead pinning Vinny down by the hairs on his chinny, but just as the final blow is about to be delivered Edgar Allan Poe comes from nowhere to shock Danny and the crowd into submission. no DQ the ref contrtoversially giving HPL the tightly fought contest 2-1

Dagon (2001) V Storm of the Century (TV Mini-Series 1999)
Dagon was very good. Probably HPL best adaptation but Stephen King gets this one.

Re-Animator V Pet Sematary (1989)
iI love Re-Animator but Pet Sematary wins it

The Resurrected (1991) V The Dark Half (1993)
Ah, The Dark Half is very good

looks like it a whitewash. 3-0 to King

Dagon is great, love the constant dank atmosphere of dread

Interesting thread, foz... (I'm limiting this to horror adaptations):

1. The Shuttered Room 67 vs The Shining 80 HPL
2. Re-Animator 85 vs Salem's Lot 79 King
3. The Haunted Palace 63 vs Cujo 83 King

King, but barely... if I had included King's non-horror he wold have won easily though.


Despite this I prefer reading HPL. He gives me the chills, that guy.

s'all about the cinematic, or at least visual, adaptations - i too prefer reading Lovecraft, but King has his moments on paper that cant be translated to screen. s'pose both have. anyhoo Shuttered Room i'm gonna check out & Cujo is great, love the corn syryp rabid dogface!

Hope you enjoy Shuttered Room... it was a pleasant surprise for me. Reed was sexy and there were some really creepy moments imo.

On concepts alone Lovecraft would always win for me.

1) Carrie vs The Re-Animator
Hate to make a pick both are great top 50 movies for me for sure. I go for Carrie using her rage and telekinesis to full potential

2) Misery vs The House by the Cemetery
Another hard choice, apple vs oranges. I can't explain that well why I like the Fulci movie that much. It gets the slight edge.

3) It vs City of the Living Dead
This one isn't much of a contest. Love It but City has such fukked up graphical scenes while still having a somehow decent story and atmosphere that it wins hands down

1-2 for Lovecraft

i didn't know City of the Living Dead was based on Lovecraft story. You learn something new everday

Imdb mentions with both City and House by the C inspired by Lovecraft so I do think they count.
The Ressurected had its moments too but went rather silly towards the end in a movie that was for the rest pretty serious. I really didn't like From Beyond or Dagon.
But Re-Animator I do like mostly because of director Stuart Gordon who made a few other movies I love:
Dolls, Pit and the Pendulum and even Castle Freak had some good moments.

you can count 'inspired by', Lovecraftian, Kingesque whatever goes, the rules are arbitrary & the gamesmaster fickle!

Gordon also made Dagon & From Beyond, but i get what you mean. He & Yuzna were partly responsible for the Lovecraft resurgeance in the 80s, after the relative success of thie adaptations re-issues of HPL collections were published here n that's how i found him so eternally grateful to those two.

It's because I love Dolls so much that I have been looking more into Stuart G's oeuvre. From beyond and Dagon are visually nice but I couldn't really get into the story or characters. Not sure if there was much of a plot in From Beyond. Dagon I thought was nice when roaming the dark village, creepy, mystery and such. But once the creatures showed up it became rather cliché with a really stupid predictable ending IMO.
Re-Animator is top notch so is Dolls and Pit and the Pendulum IMO. It also helps that Stuart often uses the same faces, people who work pretty well together and can play both the good or bad guy convincingly: Jeffrey Combs, Stephen Lee, Barbara Crampton (ok she made From Beyond worth a 1 time view with that sexy outfit) and last but not least Carolyn Purdy-Gordon. Usually I'm critical of a director employing his own wife but I really like Purdy. She was awesome as the evil stepmother in Dolls. Contrary to Tim Burton employing wife Helena Bonham Carter (now ex apparently) who doesn't impress me at all.

Great idea!

Carrie (1976) vs. Re-Animator
'Salem's Lot (1979) - vs. From Beyond
Creepshow vs. The Call of Cthulhu (2005)

It's a sweep for King. I think the same thing that makes him a better writer (better characters and plotting) makes his stories better films as well. Lovecraft has great concepts and some truly creepy bits that make your skin crawl. It's interesting that almost all the succesful Lovecraft films have a great deal of black humour that doesn't come through when reading him.

Who's next? Poe vs. Barker?

Yay we have the same number 1's
Dunno who is the better writer (not a reader) but I do love the concepts of Lovecraft a lot more.

Even for his time Lovecraft wrote in an old fashioned style with all his preternatural gibbous moons and eldritch gods, King is way more accessible and can write dialogue. and paragraphs less than a page long! Both writers are hugely imaginative and as mentioned by others HPL had concepts which were way ahead of thier time. Aside from the racism, which had already caught on...

Pretty sure the filmmakers inject the balck humour, in the Yuzna/Gordon collaborations at least, From Beyond story is just four pages and not funny, nor is Herbert West Re Animator as i recall.

Poe vs. Barker is an exccellent idea, however my predisposition to all things Hellraiser would make it a one sided contest, though the Corman/Price flicks from the 60s are excellent.

*edit - meant to ask is the Call of Cthulu the silent one? there's a few adaptations out there

Yep, I meant the silent Cthulhu from 2005. I forgot there were so many other versions. I'll edit my post to add the date in.

Great idea for this poll - hope you'll keep doing them. I'm still weighing my choices for Poe vs Barker but it would probably come out 2 to 1 in favor of Poe.

I set this post to a poll, so you don't need to update shit anymore.

My vote is rather biased, because I've seen way more Stephen King than I have Lovecraft. Of course, if Stuart Gordon directs Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton, the result will always be good. Re-Animator is good, From Beyond is good, Castle Freak is good... that's the extent of my knowledge there.

King though? There are at least two dozen movies by him that are various degrees of entertaining. Some are downright classics, some are shit, but most are still fun enough.

Perhaps this thread will give me some H.P. recs.

Have you seen Dagon (2001) ? I think that is a very good movie.

That's a negative, but I'll get on it soon. I saw someone added it on here, and that'll always help me remember what to watch.

Honestly I think that is the worst from Stuart Gordon. Once the monsters are revealed it goes pretty bad IMO. Pretty cliché.

Johan, having got to know your tastes over the past couple of years. What is the common factor that makes you like movies. I know you like movies with female characters but is there other factors involved? Cause i remember recommending you The Dollhouse Murders (1992) (a movie that is the same as dolls). I don't know if you liked it or not.