Introducing our newest tour in Providence, USA: The World of H.P Lovecraft

We here at Where Now Tours love H.P Lovecraft. Not his personal politics mind you, but his stories and his imaginative mind. Which is why we are launching our first ever east coast Audio Immersive Experience – The World of H.P Lovecraft.

If you are local to, nearby, or happen to be passing through the College Hill area of Providence Rhode Island, please do stop by the Roger Williams memorial park, stick your earbuds in and dive into the amazing world of Lovecraft as presented to you by us and the good people at VoiceMap.

Now, in honour of us launching this, I thought I’d put together a small piece about the Lovecraft stories that inspired the tour. Starting with:

The Call of Cthulhu

Yup, had to be on here, didn’t it? Cthulhu as a story is endlessly fascinating not only because of the enormous mythos and cultural touchstone it has spawned, but also because it’s not actually one of his tightest narratives. Cthulhu starts like a train, the mystery starts to unfold and then it kind of… ends? It’s almost as though Lovecraft was keeping someone waiting so he wrapped things up quickly. I have read many opinions that the ending is, and I quote “terrible” but I kind of disagree. I really love how ramshackle the plot is and then how big the third act is, just to sort of end with a bit of a whimper.

Despite it all, I will always love the Call of Cthulhu – it’s a noir tale set in New England that ends with a fight with a kaiju where our hero triumphs in, quite frankly, the most unbelievable way imaginable. What’s not to love? It served as a huge influence on our audio experience and we feel honoured to be able to take our audience to various places in College Hill that appear in this story.

The Shadow Over Innsmouth

This is the good stuff isn’t it? Phwoar, goodness me. Just excellent writing by Lovecraft. The Shadow Over Innsmouth might be his greatest work and it definitely served as a thematic inspiration for ‘The World of H.P Lovecraft’. The plot of our audio tour - where our tour guide is being pursued by something otherworldly - is ripped directly from the second half of this story.

If you are unfamiliar, the story follows Robert Olmstead, our narrator, who has finished his studies and decides to go on a jaunt around New England. He happens upon a place called Innsmouth, a cursed place where everyone smells like fish. On his journey, he’s picked up by a dilapidated bus, driven by a silent and creepy driver (who also stinks) all the way to Innsmouth. Once he is there, Lovecraft’s ability to paint a picture of utter foreboding takes flight. As you read the book, you are internally screaming “JUST LEAVE. JUST RUN.”, but of course, you want to keep reading. After Robert, spends a short while investigating the town and feeling as though he is being watched, he heads to a hotel to stay as its only guest.

And then the fun begins.

I have said this before, and I will say it again – Shadow Over Innsmouth is not a short story. It is not a novella. Somehow, way before it was even a thing, Lovecraft penned an action film. Sorry, an action HORROR film. As soon as Robert wakes up to weird sounds outside his door Lovecraft puts his foot on the gas and does not let up. It is staggering to read. Bold, breathless, brilliant. Shadow Over Innsmouth should not only be required reading in literacy circles, it should be taught in film school.

The Haunter of the Dark

A young writer named Robert Blake (named after Lovecraft’s friend Robert Bloch) arrives in College Hill and becomes fascinated by a church that he can see on the horizon. While researching the origins of the church, which is in the neighbouring district of Federal Hill, he discovers that it’s connected to a mysterious group called; ‘The Church of Starry Wisdom’, lead by a cult-leader called Enoch Bowen. As Blake has an interest in the occult he decides to launch a full scale investigation that takes him all the way to the church itself.

When he arrives in Federal Hill, he notes that the locals not only stay clear of him but also away from the church. He decides to break in and ascend the steeple. At the top he finds the body of a journalist who went missing in 1893 called Edwin M. Lillibridge. He also finds a strange artefact described as a “Shining Trapezohedron”, as well as some notes and “cyphers”. While examining the artefact Blake accidentally triggers something and releases a monster into the world – the titular Haunter of the Dark. This, of course, will be his undoing.

‘Haunter of the Dark’ is a fantastic piece of writing. It is lean, smart, and also very sinister. The inevitability of Blake’s fate is palpable as well as the character’s panic as he starts to realise what he has done. Putting the pieces together that the creature can only travel in shadow it becomes a siege story towards the end. With him holed up in his lodgings counting down the minutes until the creature finds him. His untimely end comes because of a city-wide power-outage allowing the creature to pass through the city unmolested by the light.

When you realise that this was Lovecraft’s last proper piece of work before his own death it does make you rather sad. It is so clear that he had finally stumbled onto the perfect formula for his stories in his last few years. They are quick, brutal, visceral, and shorn of ponderous tangents.

The Haunter of the Dark not only gave us inspiration for our audio tour in character motivations - our guide becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth in Providence - but it also might have leant us a character for our audio experience.

Now for some notable mentions.

The Lovecraft Investigations – BBC Sounds Podcast

If you’ve never given it a go I would highly recommend ‘The Lovecraft Investigations’ by the BBC. It is a fictional podcast that follows a pair of investigative journalists who are producing their own podcast and stumble into the worlds that Lovecraft created, starting with ‘The Case of Charles Dexter Ward’. In their world, Lovecraft the writer does not exist but all his lore and characters do and are scattered around its four seasons in various interesting ways.

Naturally, as it’s very high concept it starts to buckle under the weight of its own lore (as well as Lovecraft’s) as it goes on and on and starts to get quite silly but it is a fun ride, is really well written and incredibly acted. So far they have done The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, Whisperer in the Darkness, Shadow Over Innsmouth, and The Haunter of the Dark.

Rumour is that the writer Julian Simpson has now split from the BBC and that the next series will be The Call of Cthulhu. I will definitely be listening.

Underwater (2020) – 20 th Century Fox, dir. William Eubank

This is the final source of inspiration I discovered in the writing of ‘The World of H.P Lovecraft’. Naturally, when you immerse yourself into audio tour research, you are reading a lot about the world you’re creating. In this case, I perused the works of Lovecraft after taking care of my young kids, and I’ll admit I sometimes started to nod off after opening up yet another short story on the old kindle (thank you The Street). This particular evening, I said “Sod it! Tonight, I’m watching a film”.

Now, seeing as you ended up reading this, probably on the search for Lovecraft content, chances are you know that, despite his thematic and aesthetic tendrils being all over cinema and TV there really aren’t many Lovecraft adaptations. Of course, we have ‘Colour Out of Space’ or ‘Re-Animator’ but as a whole, consider the bottom of the barrel scraped. So, on my own search for a Lovecraft movie, the 2020 film Underwater had appeared on my radar - it was indeed a cosmic horror with Lovecraftian vibes.

I remembered that this film was savaged by critics, recalling two star reviews from publications like Empire magazine, but guys this is an excellent film. If it came out in the late 70’s, 80’s or even 90’s it would be considered a stone cold horror/thriller classic. It features an all-time best performance from the much underrated Kristen Stewart and unsurprisingly takes place Underwater. Stewart plays Norah, an engineer working at the bottom of the Marianna Trench in a research facility. We never really get to see what this facility is researching but we are aware it is in the near future and it all feels a little shady. We open on Stewart, looking into a mirror, she sighs with what we presume is exhaustion and then boom, the film begins.

An “earthquake” hits the facility and everything starts to go turbo. We follow Norah and her colleagues as they make their way from facility to facility across the ocean floor. Along the way, we get an idea that - guess what - they might not be alone down there. Now, is there anyone you can think of from Lovecraft lore who might also enjoy the depths of the Marianna trench?

If you’ve never seen it, I would say give it a go. You may encounter a fantastic realisation of one of Lovecraft’s most famous creations towards the end of the film.

Thanks for reading this guys ‘The World of H.P. Lovecraft’ is now available on the Voicemap App in Providence, Rhode Island, USA.