BEAST IN THE CAVE

BEAST IN THE CAVE

"Its hair was snow-white, a thing due no doubt to the bleaching action of a long existence within the inky confines of the cave, but it was also surprisingly thin, being indeed largely absent save on the head, where it was of such length and abundance that it fell over the shoulders in considerable profusion."

"From the tips of the fingers or toes long nail-like claws extended. The hands or feet were not prehensile, a fact that I ascribed to that long residence in the cave which, as I before mentioned, seemed evident from the all-pervading and almost unearthly whiteness so characteristic of the whole anatomy. No tail seemed to be present."

"They were black, those eyes, deep, jetty black, in hideous contrast to the snow-white hair and flesh. Like those of other cave denizens, they were deeply sunken in their orbits, and were entirely destitute of iris. As I looked more closely, I saw that they were set in a face less prognathous than that of the average ape, and infinitely more hairy. The nose was quite distinct."

"The creature I had killed, the strange beast of the unfathomed cave was, or had at one time been, a MAN!!!"

H.P. Lovecraft, The Beast In the Cave

For my redrawing of this guy, I really wanted to fix the leg anatomy and make his eyes larger and more defined. 

This is one of Lovecraft's devolved human creatures. It's a theme he loved to return to (the gaya-yothn from The Mound, the Martense's from The Lurking Fear, the white ape from Arthur Jermyn), I think it's safe to assume he had racist ideas of white supremacy and the "degradation" of the race because of immigration and class mixing. He was a scumbag after all. 

As far as my reasoning for the actual design, I stuck to all of HPL's descriptions: long, thinning white hair, claws instead of fingernails etc. The fingers are all thick and have only one knuckle since they're losing their prehensile characteristics. He's hunched from being in a cave, his legs are bent like an animals with his pinkie toe migrating up his leg like dew claw and he's got large ears for hearing in the dark where his eyes would be secondary. Speaking of eyes, HPL says they're sunken and devoid of iris. This is the only part I really ignored this go around. As I thought about it, it made less sense. An animals eyes would protrude in order to capture as much light as possible and the iris wouldn't disappear since it's the muscle that expands and contracts to let light in. My thinking was maybe the iris would lose all color turning gray, therefore giving the appearance of nothing but a pupil. 

The idea of humans devolving because of subterranean living is a popular one in pop culture. The morlocks are a devolved race of humans from H.G. Wells' Time Machine which was published in 1895! 

As well as the morlocks from the original film version from 1960, the theme keeps popping up in horror cinema. There's Raw Meat aka Death Line (1972), C.H.U.D. (1984) & Creep (2004) which all use the settings of subway tunnels in place of caves.

The most like Lovecraft's original story is probably Neil Marshall's amazing film The Descent. His film is set in an actual cave and features humans that have devolved into some sort of bat-like creatures.

Lovecraft's own supremacist anxieties aside, this idea obviously connects with people on a visceral level, which is why creators keep returning to it over and over again.