References to the Cthulhu Mythos

Although originally created by H.P. Lovecraft, the Cthulhu Mythos have spread and became part of popular culture. This is a list of non-Lovecraftian places where Lovecraft's creations appear in works not his own.

Contents

1 Prose and poetry 2 Television 3 Movies 4 Games 5 Comics 6 Music 7 External links

Prose and poetry

• Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett: In Moving Pictures, Lovecraft is quoted directly.

• Good Omens - a novel of apocalypse, Good Omens features Dagon, Ligur (Probably from Lloigor), and Hastur, as well as more traditional apocalyptic spectres.

• The Illuminatus! Trilogy - a number of the characters read the Necronomicon, and several of Lovecraft's creatures actually appear in the storyline.

• A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny is about a battle between those who want to open the gate to the Elder Gods, and those who wish to keep it closed.

• Neal Stephenson's novel Cryptonomicon and the fictitious work referred to in it take their names from the Necronomicon, but Stephenson seems to have been unaware of the name's Lovecraftian origin.

• Charles Stross has written a number of works which mix the Cthulhu Mythos with both hacker culture and Len Deighton-style spy fiction. The first was the novelette A Colder War, published in Spectrum SF #3 and now available online (http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm). The novel The Atrocity Archive and its follow-up novella The Concrete Jungle take the same basic approach, though they are not set in the same universe as A Colder War.

• Practical Demonkeeping, by Christopher Moore, features a character named Howard Phillips, named after H. P. Lovecraft himself. Howard believes in a race of Old Ones that ruled the earth before man, and tries to keep them at bay by naming the specials at his café things like "Eggs Sothoth".

• The SubGenius mythos overlap heavily into the Cthulhu mythos.

• Virgin "Doctor Who" novels - in All-Consuming Fire (also featuring Sherlock Holmes), White Darkness and Millennial Rites, among others, entities from the Doctor Who universe are equated with the Old Ones of the Mythos, including Yog-Sothoth, Lloigor, and Hastur. White Darkness also features Cthulhu and the Necronomicon, and in All-Consuming Fire the Doctor visits the planet R'lyeh.

• The Taking of Planet 5 by Simon Butcher-Jones and Mark Clapham from BBC Books is a Doctor Who novel in which the Doctor encounters a race of Elder Things in Earth's past, also referred to as Shoggoths. The Doctor also mentions he has met Lovecraft.

• The works of Thomas Ligotti often intersect with the Mythos, whether obliquely or subtly.

• Foucault's Pendulum, by Umberto Eco, chapter 113 - In the culminating episode of the novel, a nocturnal ceremony which takes place in Paris' Musée des Arts et Métiers, a member of the Tres secret society pronounces the following incantation: "I'a Cthulhu! I'a S'ha-t'n!" ("S'ha-t'n" is apparently an allusion to Satan, see [1] (http://bbs.bapho.net/bbs/l-drive/topicx/files/set/text/1993/set93252.txt)).

The works of popular writer Stephen King are chock-full of Lovecraftian references - in his autobiography, King pays homage to Lovecraft and even quotes from several of his short stories (although he sharply criticizes Lovecraft's reclusive tendencies and writing style). To name a few:

• Needful Things makes references to Lovecraft's Plateau of Leng.
• The Tommyknockers is a re-telling of the Lovecraft story "The Colour Out of Space" (King quotes this short story in his autobiography).
• A character in The Eyes of the Dragon reads from the Necronomicon.
• King's Gunslinger series includes many Lovecraftian terms, such as "Old Ones."
• Thinner - There was a pub called Ligur's; when this burned down, it was replaced with a clothing shop called The King in Yellow.

Television

• The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy: In one episode, Billy calls up the creature Yog-Sothoth from his pit of darkness.

• The anime/manga series Hellsing is known for including certain themes from the Cthulhu Mythos, as well as from the works of Bram Stoker.

• The Simpsons: At a meeting of the Springfield Republican Party, Mr. Burns announces that Bob Dole will now read from the Necronomicon. Dole proceeds to speak in a strange tongue.

• South Park: At one point, the regulars meet the cast of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, who turn out to be 'crab people'. These may be the Mi-go Lovecraft wrote of.

• Justice League In one episode, the JL characters meet something like an Old One, which once posed as a god on Hawkgirl's home planet.

• Mighty Max (IMDb entry (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0140749/)): The later seasons incorporate the Cthulhu mythos into the storyline.

• Real Ghostbusters (IMDb entry (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090506/)): An episode features the Ghostbusters fighting the Cthulhu monster, entitled The Collect Call of Cathulhu.

• Digimon: In one episode of season two, Yagami Hikari (Kari) disappears in the real world and she is zapped to another world called the Dark Ocean which has the injured digimons, "Scubamon" are actually the Digital Deep Ones which wanted her to fight with the underwater sea master. In the third season, there are several Lovecraft references, including one to Miskatonic University. There is also a digimon that resembles Cthulhu.

• Garth Marenghi's Dark Place: In this comedy series (aired in the UK on Channel 4), there are some vague references to Lovecraft-esque mythology, one episode being titled 'THE CREEPING MOSS FROM THE SHORES OF SHUGGOTH'. As the show is about a Horror writer this is quite fitting.

• Night Gallery: This post-Twilight Zone vehicle of Rod Serling often made use of Lovecraft's short fiction, including adaptations of Cool Air, and Pickman's Model. One episode, entitled Professor Peabody's Last Lecture, was a witty parody of the Cthulhu Mythos.

• Star Trek: The Original Series: Episode #7 of the first season, "What Are Little Girls Made Of", features an ancient android built by the "Old Ones", whose tale parallels that of the Old Ones in H. P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness". The episode is written by Robert Bloch, a friend of Lovecraft.

• The Justice Friends: The Legion of Doom (The bad guys) have a headquarters that looks like Cthulu's head.

• The backstory to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and inherently its spin-off Angel) is that before humanity, the world was ruled by the Old Ones. In the final season of Angel, the character of Fred is taken over by one named Illyria.

Movies

• The Evil Dead (IMDB Entry (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083907/combined)) and its sequels, where the Necronomicon acts as a central plot device.
• In the Mouth of Madness (IMDB Entry (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113409/combined)) is a movie based on work of H.P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos.
• Dagon (IMDB Entry (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264508/combined)) is a movie based on the H.P. Lovecraft's story The Shadow Over Innsmouth.
• The Dunwich Horror (IMDB Entry (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065669/combined)) is a movie based on the H.P. Lovecraft story of the same name.
• Nyarlathotep (IMDB Entry (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0325913/combined)) is a short film based on the H.P. Lovecraft story of the same name.
• Re-Animator (IMDB Entry (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089885/combined)) and its sequels are based upon the Lovecraft serial Herbert West: Reanimator.
• From Beyond (IMDB Entry (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091083/combined)) is a film from the team behind Dagon and Re-Animator based on the story of the same title.
• Necronomicon (IMDB Entry (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107664/combined)) is made up of short Lovecraft-inspired vignettes, based on Cool Air, The Whisperer in the Darkness, and one original story.
• The Lurking Fear (IMDB Entry (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110410/combined)) is based on the story of the same title.
• The Gates of Hell AKA City of the Living Dead (IMDB Entry (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081318/combined)) is an Italian film set in Lovecraft's fictional town of Dunwich, but otherwise does not resemble any of HPL's work.
• The Beyond AKA Seven Doors of Death (IMDB Entry (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082307/combined)) features The Book of Eibon, a piece of the Mythos invented by Clark Ashton Smith.

Games

• Alone in the Dark: action-adventure game by Infogrames

• Call of Cthulhu: A role-playing game based on the works of Lovecraft.

• Quake: A first person shooter inspired by the Lovecraftian universe, with the Shub-Niggurath entity as its final boss.

• Blood: Another FPS containing certain humorous references to the Cthulhu Mythos.

• Atlach=Nacha: A H-game named after Atlach-Nacha, the Spider God creature from the Cthulhu Mythos.

• Deus Machina Demonbane: A mecha adventure H-game with many references to the Cthulhu Mythos. One of the three heroines is named Al Azif, a reference to Kitab Al-Azif.

• Persona 2 series: A role-playing game by Atlus with a good amount of references. Hastur is the strongest Persona of the TOWER Tarot, while Nyarlathotep is the final antagonist of the game.

• Star Munchkin: One of the card games in the popular Munchkin series by Steve Jackson. The "Great Cthulhu" appears as one of the more powerful monster cards.

• Castlevania series: In Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, a flying monster called "Ctulhu" can be found, with an appearance very similar to the Lovecraftian description. The Necronomicon can be seen in both Castlevania 64 and Legacy of Darkness.

• Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem: the game is heaviliy inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos, in terms of plot ("Long before humanity graced the universe, our planet belonged to another species - an ancient species bound by neither phsyics not nature, purpose nor ethic"), atmosphere, and the use of diminishing sanity (and its effects) as an integral part of the game.

• Final Fantasy X-2: This sequel to Final Fantasy X contains several creatures that are from the Cthulhu Mythos, such as Shantaks, Gugs, and Hounds of Tindalos.

• X-COM: Terror from the Deep: Unlike its predecessor X-COM: UFO Defense, which drew inspiration from popular UFO lore, this computer strategy game was based very heavily on the Cthulhu Mythos. The adversaries encountered during the game included Deep Ones (although they appear different from their original description) and Lobstermen (the latter being comparable to Lovecraft's Mi-go), and the ultimate objective was to prevent the "Great Dreamer" (a Cthulhu-like alien being) from waking from his slumber within the undersea city of T'leth (a probable reference to the city of R'lyeh).

• The Lurking Horror: A text adventure game from Infocom recalls "the ghastly visions of H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King".

• Final Fantasy Tactics: Features enemies, called Pisco Demons and Mindflayers, which look like Cthulhu and can confuse (characters make random actions) or berserk (characters attack nearest enemy) your characters.

Comics

• Hello Cthulhu (http://www.hello-cthulhu.com) is a webcomic describing Cthulhu's attempt to dominate the world of Hello Kitty.

• The User Friendly webcomic features Cthulhu as a recurring character.

• Uncanny X-Men #148-150 features Magneto living on what appears to be the island of R'lyeh.

• In Batman, some of Batman's foes are sent to Arkham Asylum, a prison for the criminally insane. The asylum is believed to have been named after Arkham city from Lovecraft's stories. The three-part Elseworlds story The Doom That Came To Gotham by Mike Mignola draws heavily on Lovecraftian themes. It features Bruce Wayne battling against a conpiracy to bring an ancient evil to Earth in Gotham, and recasts many Batman characters and villains in terms of the mythos. The story also features the Green Arrow.

• Hellboy by Mike Mignola is a demon summoned from another dimension which it is hinted (especially in the film of the comic) contains Mythos-like entities as well as more traditional demons. Abe Sapien, another character in the comic, is a "fishman" who, while clearly not a Deep One, has encountered beings like them on at least one occasion.

• 2000 AD comic Zenith (comic), starring an eponymous anti-superhero, written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Steve Yeowell, features a Lovecraftian pantheon of ancient, evil god-like entities called the Lloigor, living in a different dimension. These entities can be summoned to our universe through dark rituals to inhabit the body of a superhero, as ordinary mortals are too fragile. The storyline of the comic involves certain deviations from history as we know it, such as Adolf Hitler being a member of a Lloigor-worshipping cult, and as a result, Nazi Germany being created - along with German "übermensch" Masterman; a superhero created with genetic engineering and inhabited by a Lloigor entity. also see the 2000AD series Finn.

• The obscure Marvel Comics character Shuma-Gorath appears to be inspired by Cyäegha.

Music

• Metallica: is a heavy metal band that has recorded two songs with references to Cthulhu mythos. The group's second album Ride the Lightning contains the closing instrumental track titled The Call of Ktulu and their third album Master of Puppets has the track The Thing That Should Not Be with lyrics referring Lovecraft's Shadow over Innsmouth .

• Aarni is a Finnish doom metal band. Several Aarni songs refer to Cthulhu Mythos, including: Ubbo-Sathla, Reaching Azathoth, The Black Keyes (of R'lyeh) and Persona Mortuae Cutis.

• Bal-Sagoth frequently show a Lovecraft influence in their lyrics; for example, the song In Search of the Lost Cities of Antarctica is based heavily upon At The Mountains of Madness while Cthulhu actually is mentioned in the song The Dreamer in the Catacombs of Ur.

• Cradle of Filth is a British heavy metal band, which has a song referring to Cthulhu Mythos: Cthulhu Dawn.

• The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets is a Canadian rock band based in Vancouver. The band's music draws heavily on Lovecraft's work, though with tongue planted firmly in cheek. Their name comes from the story The Tomb, album titles include Cthulhu Strikes Back and The Great Old Ones, and among their songs are Shoggoths Away, The Innsmouth Look and The Sounds of Tindalos.

• The Norway black metal band Immortal recorded a song on their album At the Heart of Winter (1999) titled At the Mountains of Madness.

• Therion is a symphonic metal band who have a few songs directly based on the mythos, such as Cthulhu on their album Beyond Sanctorum and more recently The Call of Dagon on the album Sirius B.

• Tri-Cornered Tent Show is a music band. They classify their music as "Urban electro acoustic folk improv", inspired by the Lovecraft story, "The Music of Erich Zann". Lovecraft's works also feature heavily in their songs, which have an eerie, haunting quality to them. Album titles include Maze above the Abyss and Beneath The Mountains Of Madness. Among their songs are Dagon Rising, The Plains of Leng and Waltz of the Shogoths.

• Beatallica is a heavy metal parody band. They combine elements and lyrics of songs by the Beatles and by Metallica. Their song The Thing That Should Not Let It Be is a case in point. It combines The Thing That Should Not Be and Let it Be.

• Rudimentary Peni is a punk/death rock band, often associated with Crass. Vocalist/lyricist Nick Blinko wrote several songs about Lovecraft and the Mythos on the album Cacophony, including The Lovecrafts Were Quarreling, Lovecraft Baby, Necronomical Secular and Spiritual, and Arkham Hearse.

• Nox Arcana (http://www.noxarcana.com) is a gothic band who has recorded a CD entitled Necronomicon, a dark symphony based on Lovecraft's legendary book of shadows.

• "H.P. Lovecraft" was a 1960s psychedelic band. Several of their songs drew inspiration from Lovecraft's writings, including "The White Ship" and "At the Mountains of Madness".

• A Shoggoth on the Roof (http://www.cthulhulives.org/shoggoth) is a full-length Broadway-style musical, fusing the works of Lovecraft with the music of Fiddler on the Roof. The result is amusing and somewhat disturbing.

• A Very Scary Solstice (http://www.cthulhulives.org/Solstice/index.html) The maniacs at the HP Lovecraft Historical Society (http://www.cthulhulives.org) have struck again with a collection of 25 Lovecraftian holiday tunes, professionally recorded: complete with convenient singalong songbook.

External links

• The Ultimate Cthulhu Mythos Book List (http://lovecraft.cjb.net) - Listing of all mythos novels, anthologies, collections, comic books, and more.