Howard Phillips Lovecraft of Rhode Island was an early 20th century writer who really only found fame after he died. His work is based around things that would drive someone mad. His main contribution was the Cthulu mythos in which he wrote about dark elder gods living beyond outer space that were constantly trying to claw their way into our dimension. The hapless protagonists who encounter these beings are invariably driven insane and the world seems constantly on the brink of utter decimation.
Being a prose writer, Lovecraft often described events and creatures that are beyond human understanding. This makes them very hard to draw or bring to life in a movie. As such, adaptations of Lovecraft's work have been few and far between. His work exists best as stories so here are a few I would recommend...
1) The Rats in the Walls- This is an almost Edgar Allen Poe approach to a man living in an old mansion where he hears rats in the walls every night. His explorations beneath the house show him something very different.
2) Dreams in the Witch House- A boarder inside an old house known to have belonged to a witch starts having strange dreams, discovering impossible angles in the room and having run-ins with a rat that has the face of a man. Things get weirder from there.
3) The Nameless City- A traveler in the desert finds more than he bargained for when he begins exploring a ruined, ancient city.
4) The Music of Erich Zahn- A student in a small European town befriends a violin player who has a unique view out his window. He also has a very important reason for playing his violin every night.
5) The Colour Out of Space- When something falls from the heavens, a strange blight begins to grow over a family's lands.
6) The Statement of Randolph Carter- Just what did Carter see when he went with a colleague to explore an old tomb?
7) Dagon- What horrors lurk in the middle of the ocean? A survivor of a German boat wreck in World War 1 finds out when he runs aground in a strange place.
These are just some of the stories I could recommend. Lovecraft's work is usually reliably spooky. The one downside is his horribly racist views of African Americans that taint some of the writings. If you can deal with some old timey racism, the horror is actually quite good.
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