Varga Dalia-Maria

Re2
Year II
“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest
kind of fear is the unknown”

Today I’m going to talk about a personality that inspired Batman, Black Sabbath,
South Park, Or Batman’s city, at least. Batman puts his dastardly criminals away in
Arkham Asylum, Arkham being the name of the fictional city this personality
created as a setting for many of his stories.

 One of the most known characters that he created (Cthulu) appeared in an episode
of South Park and killed Justin Bieber.

Black Sabbath’s album “Behind the Wall of Sleep” is named for one of his short
story As well as one song from the band Metallica.

The Book of the Dead, discovered in a cabin in Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” films, is
based on his Necronomicon. Today you can find the Necronomicon in all good
bookstores, without unleashing a zombie apocalypse, if you were wondering.

As you may have guessed I’m talking about Howard Phillips Lovecraft (August 20
1890-March 15 1937).

He wanted to be a professional astronomer but never finished high school. Because

of his passion for cosmos and literature he was able to create the Lovecraftian
horror.

Lovecraftian horror is horror fiction that emphasizes the cosmic horror of the
unknown (or unknowable) more than gore or other elements of shock Lovecraftian
horror, is man vs. nature. Replace “nature” with “cosmos”.

Knowing this thing you might expect him to be a rich, happy successful man, but I
wasn’t quite like that, he was mostly supported financially by his wife, He only
leaved the house after sunset, and he stayed up late to study science and astronomy
and to read and write. He would sleep late into the day. Lovecraft’s mother called
him “grotesque” during his childhood and warned him to hide inside so people
couldn’t see him.
 Varga Dalia-Maria
Re2
Year II
His best friend was Harry Houdini who kept seeking out work for Lovecraft until
his death in 1926.

Lovecraft suffered of sleep paralysis, night terrors and dreamed of what he called
“nightgaunts” which later appeared in his books as thin, black, and faceless
humanoids that tickle their victims into submission. He also died of small intestine
cancer.