will_cherico 's review for:

The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft

4.0

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H.P. Lovecraft’s most action-packed story is one of his scariest, despite his meandering pace when he writes the climactic chase in the story. The reason it is one of the scariest stories is not because of the Deep Ones themselves, but what they stand for. The Innsmouth Look, if we look at it from a broader stance than Lovecraft’s aversion to miscegenation and more towards his fears of illness after his father’s contraction of syphillis, shows how the line between a hereditary disease (mental or physical) can be seen as just about the same as a storybook curse. The Innsmouthers are creepy and so is their town, but the true horror of the book occurs in the last few pages when we get the twist that the main character is a descendent of Obed Marsh and as such is doomed to the fate of the Deep One hybrids. The fear of turning into something we are not, and the fear that we will face the consequences of the actions of our ancestors.