I last read Lovecraft at the impressionable age of 14 when I demolished The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward, a fair tale of a fellow possesed by a sorcerous ancester. This is just one of the stories in this collection. Bizzarely it was filmed as The Haunted Palace by Roger Corman, as part of his Vincent Price/Poe series in the 1960s.
Sadly the rest of the collection just does not do it for me. The title piece takes place in the Antarctic where a mission from the Miskatonic University has uncovered the remains of long lost lfeforms and their civilisation. While the plot development is initially very atmospheric (very much like john Carpenter's The Thing with which the story shares some characteristics) where it loses me is when we meet the creatures. They just make me think of giant sushi rolls with octopus tentacles and little batty wings. They just ain't scary.
Lovecraft was a fair writer, but he had a tendency to make 100 words do when ten would and the shorter novellas and stories in this collection really could really have done with being savagely pruned.
So aside from Ward all a bit of a disappointment.
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