Benjamin Franz | Musings of the Monster Librarian

Monster Movie Month: Friday the 13th

I’m guessing that since it’s Monster Movie Month and today happens to be Friday the 13th that you might wonder if I’m going to write about the subgenre everyone thinks about when the topic of horror movies comes up- slasher movies. Actually, I’m not that good at planning ahead, but when I realized today was Friday the 13th, I thought I should probably come up with something to say. Certainly, they were coming out in droves as I was growing up. But, honestly, this is a genre that I really don’t enjoy all that much, and outside of the first few Nightmare on Elm Street movies and a few of the more self-referential movies of the 90s and beyond, I haven’t seen the movies and don’t plan to.

It’s kind of hard to write about or even talk about horror movies without knowing the tropes, though. The plots and characters are so predictable that the denizens of the Shocklines horror community forum even compiled a horror movie survival guide... so predictable that moviemakers and can make fun of them and manipulate them (and movie watchers will enjoy it) in such films as the recently released movie The Cabin in the Woods (reviewed here, and accompanied by a great readers advisory one-sheet created by reviewer Benjamin Franz)

TVtropes.com provides a nice summary (with links) of the tropes of the slasher movie here. You can scroll down the page there to find a partial list of slasher movies. Along with Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th is considered an iconic film in the slasher genre, and the trope codifier.

If you’d rather try out a book in honor of the movie of the day, you can visit our page of reviews on Human Horror and Psychological Terror. Note that books in this genre are not for the faint of heart- they can be graphic, brutal, and gory, but much of the time they’re also psychological in nature, which makes them a different kind of creature.

Whatever your plans, may your day be a lucky one!

Monster Movie Month: At the Movies with H.P. Lovecraft

Howard Philips Lovecraft, known as H.P. Lovecraft, was a writer of weird fiction- tales with a supernatural bent- and a defining influence on the horror genre. He was born on August 20, 1890, and died at age 46 on March 15, 1937.

Lovecraft is best known for his invention of the Cthulu mythos- a cycle of loosely-related stories that concerned the “Great Old Ones,” beings from outer space who took up residence on Earth to cause total destruction. After Lovecraft’s death other authors, including August Derleth and Robert E. Howard, took up writing stories using the Cthulu mythos, and writers continue to use and find inspiration in his ideas and mythos today . The subgenre of Lovecraftian horror uses the concept of cosmicism. According to Wikipedia, that can be defined as “the sense that ordinary life is a thin shell over a reality which is so alien and abstract in comparison that merely contemplating it would damage the sanity of the ordinary person”.

The Cthulu mythos and Lovecraftian horror have taken hold in popular culture in interesting ways. There’s a roleplaying game, Call of Cthulhu; a band called H.P. Lovecraft; and a zillion products for your favorite cultists, including a cuddly plush Cthulu, perfect for baby showers(and yes, I did receive not one, but two of these at mine). And, of course, there are movies.

Click here to see a review and suggested read-alikes for the newest Lovecraft-inspired movie, Cabin in the Woods, and check out this one-sheet readers advisory handout for the newest Lovecraft-inspired movie, from reviewer Benjamin Franz.

For a list of Lovecraft-inspired and Lovecraftian movies, check out this page from the H.P.Lovecraft Archives or this filmography from IMdb.

If you’re interested in building your Lovecraft collection, take a moment to visit Jamie Blackman’s H.P. Lovecraft Collection Development Guide at MonsterLibrarian.com, and check out our Cthulu Mythos page for reviews of works of Lovecraftian horror.