This article originally appeared in The Unspeakable Oath #11.

When one thinks of Cthulhu Mythos films, titles like The Dunwich Horror  (with Dean Stockwell) or more recently the Reanimator films, come to mind.  But these Mythos movies offer very little inspiration for Keeper's looking for better ways to run their game.  This article is going to suggest five films, readily available on video tape, that do contain some very important lessons on how horror works and how you can use it in your Call of Cthulhu campaign. 

1. THE HAUNTING or Facing the Unknown

The Haunting (1963) based on Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House(1959) has been rated as the scariest film ever by writers like Stephen King.  The film's power is in its total mysteriousness.  Most horror films provide only a small amount of mystery.  This delicious sensation is usually dispelled once the viewer sees the nature of the monster.  Ho hum, another werewolf.   All that remains after this point is countless scenes of gore.  The enemy who remains unknown, is much more frightening.  The Haunting does not rely on blood and violence to create this true sense of fear (As Lovecraft is often quoted: "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.")  The director of The Haunting, Robert Wise, starts in small, building up each inexplicable detail until the tension is brisk.  In the end, very little is explained and we leave the viewing with a sense of some larger, unimaginable thing.  It is this feeling that all Call of Cthulhu monsters should give. 

2. THE CHANGELING or The Fathomable Mystery

The sense of mystery need not be directed only toward the unknowable.  In The Changeling (1979) the origins of a ghost in an old house weave a fascinating investigation for George C. Scott's character, leading to a truly horrifying revelation.  Since mystery, both of the unknown and the knowable are such a part of Call of Cthulhu, this film offers Keepers an example of how well-paced clues with a solution can building the pitch and interest of the over-all game. 

Mysteries are not hard to come by.  Anything from The Hound of the Baskervilles to this week's episode of PBS' Mystery will help Keepers to design intriguing puzzles to solve.  But unlike the standard mystery, The Changeling demonstrates one thing more: how the puzzle heightens the horror.  The terrible acts that created the ghost child would be ineffective if simply explained as "The child was murdered." The slow and painful process of figuring out how and why the child was killed amplifies the terror, as the viewer relives the horrible acts of the father.  Awful things, when experienced quickly, have less effect than the prolonged contemplation of them.

Investigation is a large part of Call of Cthulhu.  The separate adventures aren't called "investigations" for nothing.  If the mystery is weak or has no reason to exist other than an excuse to meet a slimy beastie at the end, your players may be disappointed.  As with The Changeling, let your mystery build tension, logically coercing the players into a sense of rationality against which the insanity of the Mythos can really shine.  The simple enjoyment of solving a difficult puzzle is as much a part of Call of Cthulhu's popularity as it is of the hundreds of mystery novels written every year.

3. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD or The Relentless Foe

George Romero's classic black & white Night of the Living Dead (1968) has a documentary 'feel' which creates a convincing vision of ordinary people surrounded by the mindless hoards of the walking dead.  The film proposes the idea that the recently dead rise from their graves in search of human flesh.  A young woman, a black man and some others take refuge in an old farm house.  The zombies surround the building and slowly kill off the besieged.  As the people die, they join the ranks of the undead, attacking those they have stood beside. 

Ignoring any political or sociological comments, the film does show Keepers and players what it is like to be surrounded by the forces of evil and how the fallen comrade can become one of the enemy.  Perhaps the only other film to do this as well was the low-budget The Evil Dead (1983) with its lack of excess making it frighteningly real.  Like Romero's film, it shows how heartless and driven the undead are, how Sanity-smashing it is to see someone you loved turned into a slavering monster. 

4. ALIEN or The Roach Under the Sink

Alien (1979) has been called a "haunted house movie in space" and contains one of the best lessons for Keepers: the alien creatures out there can not be reasoned with, nor mechanically exterminated like the lowly buffalo.  Taking their physical and spiritual aspect from nature's hardiest animals -- the wasp, the snake, the spider -- the alien is a strange life form that finds its way onto the space ship Nostromo inside the belly of one of the crew.  The three stage organism lays eggs which produce a face-hugging entity that places an infant alien inside its host.  This unfortunate carrier is devoured in the birthing process.  The infant grows to be a worker, a soldier or even a queen, which lays the eggs, which produce the face-huggers, and the cycle continues as long as there are hosts.  The Alien films' cruel survivialism conveys best the ruthless, unstoppable, and impersonal drive of the enemy.  Where the zombies in Night of the Living Dead are relentless in death, the alien is equally unstoppable in life.

The second lesson in these three films is one which has taken many years to be realized in Hollywood.  The monsters of the '30's (the first horror Renaissance) were shambling, stumbling things which one only had to flee to survive.  Run all you want, because the alien can move!  It's insectoid body can not only out-distance you, it can do it in just about any environment.  The alien is smart, too.  Not until recently when Spielberg did Jurassic Park (1993) did any other film maker combine a superior physique with human-level (or better?) intelligence.  The combination is a scary one.  And one Keepers have had at their finger-tips from the very beginning.  Whether it is a Deep One or Cthulhu himself, the beings of the Mythos are not stupid.  Investigators who assume they are, deserve their fates.

5. PRINCE OF DARKNESS or There Is No Escape!

John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness (1987) is a varied piece of film-making, despised by some critics.  While at times it is nothing more than the typical special effects film, its over-all structure can be terrifying.  The reason for this is the inevitability of the events.  Unlike Night of the Living Dead  or Alien, Carpenter's film offers no hope.  The message at the end of Romero's zombie picture is bleak, but life still goes on for humanity, if not for the protagonists.  In all three Alien films, mankind ultimately wins out, in different ways in each film.  In the first film, the triumph is of an individual.  In the second and most positive film, the good guys win through sacrifice and technology.  In the last film, even though Ripley dies, the human spirit goes on. 

In Prince of Darkness, the final scene proves that the evil forces always win in the end, no matter the short term victories.  This is a Lovecraftian idea.  The plot, which uses a message from the future and the fulfilling of its prophecy, shows that all events are inescapable, in spite of and largely because of, the good guys attempts to succeed.  It is this same core of ultimate failure that lies at the base of Call of Cthulhu, which has been described as a game people play for a while then their characters go nuts or die.  No one can ever claim to have really won at Call of Cthulhu.   If they do, they weren't playing it right. 

Unlike other games, role-playing or otherwise, Call of Cthulhu is special.  It derives its pleasure not from winning the final battle against the enemy, but from the chills and thrills along the way to the eventual defeat.  This sad, fatalistic end is both necessary and inherent in the game.  If there is hope, there can be no real horror.  Lovecraft knew this, and used it to great effect.  As Keepers it will be your responsibility to carry out that same terrible goal.  BUT, with as much fun and nerve-shivering horror as you can muster. 

Enjoy the popcorn! 

Copyright G. W. Thomas 1994.