Book-To-Movie: H.P. Lovecraft's 'The Outsider'

Credit: Pixabay

It's the fourth weekend of the month and so time for another Book-To-Movie review! In a Book-To-Movie, we review a work of prose fiction and its movie adaptation. H.P. Lovecraft is known for his cosmic horror stories. Cosmic horror is a subgenre of horror that concerns itself with the dread of a force that is bigger than humanity and indestructible, or at least nearly, by anything on earth. It often involves monsters that are beyond anything recognizable in our world and because of that they are terrifying beyond description. A lot of sci fi horror contain these elements. The movie “Alien” is an example. So, there's a sense of helplessness in in this kind of horror making it existential. Although not one of his most well-known cosmic horror short stories, Lovecraft’s "The Outsider", is no exception to the subgenre. A movie adaptation of this story was released in the 1990s: "Castle Freak". However, the problem with this movie is that it’s missing the cosmic horror of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Outsider”. It also lacks the strong irony so crucial to good horror of any type. Because of this, it lacks something else that’s very important to all horror--suspense. 

The Short Story: 'The Outsider'

"The Outsider" is about the nameless narrator who tells the story of his solitary life in an old decaying castle. He does not remember how he came to live there and cannot even remember who raised him, an ignorance that enhances the existentialism. Yet he vaguely recalls the person having been very old and decayed like the castle. He’s never been away from the castle grounds which is in a vast, dark forest so thick that he has never been able to see sky. So, he sets off up the stairs of a tower that he's never climbed before to look at the sky and see how far the woods stretch. However, when he reaches the top he finds himself in another realm entirely which leads to a monstrous terror that will change his entire view of his very existence. 

The story has many of the elements of both cosmic and gothic horror. Good gothic analogy is tied into the setting and character. As in many of Poe's stories, the protagonist in Lovecraft’s “Outsider” is identified with the decaying castle. As part of the terror and irony that this story depends on, a dark existential secret is revealed at the end which supports the other gothic and cosmic horror elements that come before. The monsters in this story are ghouls some of which are extremely ugly, barely human-looking and so beyond description. Also, there’s the theme of interdimensional terror that ran through many of Lovecraft's cosmic horror short stories and longer fiction alike and has become even more popular in today's speculative fiction. 

The Movie: 'Castle Freak'

"Castle Freak" was released in 1995, ten years after its director, Stuart Gordon, released his other H.P. Lovecraft film, "Re-Animator" (which became a cult classic). It stars Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton (who also played a major role in "Re-Animator"). 

The movie is very loosely based on "The Outsider" even though elements of the original story can be seen. The protagonist is John Reilly (Combs) who moves his wife Susan (Crampton) and their blind daughter to an old castle they inherit in Italy. They soon suspect that they and their live-in maid are not the only ones in the castle. First it seems a ghost is haunting the estate, but it’s actually the deformed mad man who has been locked away in the cellar for most of his life by the late duchess who John inherits the castle from. Spoiler? No, because this “secret” is already revealed at the very beginning of the film robbing it of irony. The mad man gets loose and murders some people. John must prove to the Italian authorities who is responsible for the killings before that person can kill his wife and daughter. 

Unlike the Lovecraft story it's based on, this movie is mundane slasher rather than cosmic horror. Nothing is mentioned about existential terror found in many of Lovecraft's stories. Let alone there's no concept of interdimensionality as there is in the short story. It's gothic like "The Outsider" but only in setting and the dark family secret that comes at the end but is poorly built up to. Besides lack of irony, too much of the horror is revealed too soon which destroys the suspense. The film sways way too far from Lovecraft's story not so much in the sense of plot than in the sense of cosmic horror. Though I can't say for sure, the producers sacrificed the elements of that subgenre most likely to cash in on the extreme gore. That was '90s horror cinema. 

When a movie is based on an author's work, I usually expect it to resemble somewhat that author's vision and style. That is, minus any xenophobic messages that vision may have which was, unfortunately, the case with many of Lovecraft's cosmic horror stories. But "Castle Freak" loses that vision altogether. Yet, I can understand that making a film based on one of Lovecraft's cosmic horror short stories can be really difficult. For one thing, the story has to be expanded on in order to fit a one-and-a-half to two-hour film. For another, it deals with unimaginable, inconceivable horrors. A remake of “Castle Freak” came out in 2020 which actually includes the cosmic horror elements. Perhaps it portrays more successfully that inconceivable horror but I haven’t seen it yet so that will have to be a movie for a future Book-To-Movie review.

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Have you read Lovecraft’s “The Outsider”? Have you seen 1995’s “Castle Freak” or its 2020 remake?

Until next time . . .