How The Willow Series Found Unlikely Influences In H.P. Lovecraft And Stephen King – Looper

While “Willow” may not be a horror movie, Jon Kasdan wanted his streaming sequel series inspired by it to feature scary elements. To create that, Kasdan revealed in an interview with Collider that he sought inspiration from possibly the two most influential and well-known horror authors of the 20th century: H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King. “[H]ugely influential on this story was the novel ‘It,’ which I read when I was…twelve or thirteen,” said Kasdan. And falling in love with King’s “It” led Kasdan on what he says is a familiar journey: “And I went deep into it and started to look at where it had come from and the tradition it had come out of for King, which leads all teenagers to love Lovecraft inevitably, and this incredible world he created.”

Kasdan said he wanted his “Willow” to have some of the same frightening themes one reads in King and Lovecraft: “I found myself going back to Lovecraft and going back to ‘It’ as of an existential dread of these things that are so massive and so powerful that they make our human lives seem inconsequential and ridiculous.”

So if as you watch future episodes of “Willow,” you start to feel a terrifying, unknowable fear creep up your spine, you’ll know it’s on loan from Lovecraft and King.