Thursday, November 15, 2018

The Lovecaftian Thing a Day (2018) No.319: Quatermass 2


As yet, I’m unaware that Nigel Kneale ever admitted to having read Lovecraft; it is entirely possible that Kneale’s characteristically English, folk-inflected speculative horror arose independently of Lovecraft’s influence; even so, the work of both Kneale and Lovecraft share common tropes, with Quatermass or Quatermass and the Pit being showcased as exemplars of this; for my part, I have long felt that Quatermass 2 deserves equal recognition as being a firmly Lovecraftesque piece. As Mark Jones notes in New Critical Essays on H.P. Lovecaft,

‘With a plot-initiating event...similar to that of ‘The Colour out of Space,’ enslaved and conspiratorial human accomplices, impending planetary destruction, and enormous gelatinous monsters, Quatermass 2 is saturated with cosmic pessimism and terrestrial paranoia typical of Lovecraft.’

Nice.

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