The Temple of Dagon

As I played Res Evil on Gamecube I came to think that the Resi genre and the Dawn Of The Dead and etc. movies use zombies whereas HPL used ghouls. They're both dead but you don't catch ghouls mumbling and drooling. Whats their difference anyway? I know that ghouls were originally graverobbers but still they are depicted dead.

I know that in the Warcraft III game a ghoul is an undead thing. As far as the distinction, well, in my D&D experience they are just sorta like zombies but held together by arcane means (spells and spell-like abilities), rather than the tried and true zombie method of "radiation or a virus made them come back and eat people for no discernable reason".

Like mentioned, I think a zombie is simply a re-animated (by whatever means) corpse, and a ghoul is more of a creature of evil.

Ghouls have a bit more intelligence.. enough anyway to have a point to what they are doing usually.. aside from simple brain eating

aka noobs

Did Lovecraft ever state that ghouls are undead? I always thought of them as transformed humans with neither loss of intelligence nor inherently evil, despite their less-than-savory culture. The ghouls that help Randolph Carter in "Dreamquest of Unkown Kadath," including the near completely transformed Richard Upton Pickman, seem to support this.

From the way that Lovecraft wrote about Ghouls I thought that they were a seperate race that sometimes exchanged their children for human children, just like the fairies were supposed to have done.

I think the widely held view that Ghouls are undead comes from Dungeons and Dragons.

Yeah, I always read that ghouls were eaters of the dead (not the living) and began life as humans who had a taste for human flesh.

lI'm going to have to agree with popular opinion on this and say that ghouls are usually created for a dark but quite clear intent if they are in fact created at all, and they are usually not undead, whereas zombies quite often come from unknown origins, are rather mindless and have little to no ulterior motive.

Of course both interpretations are subject to an artist's opinion.

Zombies appear not to be living nor to be dead. The vodou rituals used to create zombies - possessed people that were very alive. Zombies in general are created chemically aka "Resident Evil" series or Romero movies.
Ghouls seem more seclusive and not as evil as zombies.

Adrian wrote:Zombies appear not to be living nor to be dead.

Sorry I wasn't taking voodoo myth into account. Either way the term "undead" fits fine. I love that word.

Ghouls were originally, in Arabic myth, evil critters (maybe spirits) who haunted graveyards, ate the dead, and would lure travellers into the desert to kill them. It was said that they could change themselves into hyenas, which suggests that they are simply the monster-myth adaptations of those animals.

Geez... trust somebody who knows what they're talking about to ruin the geeks' fun.

/joke

Not exactly on topic, but I just updated my Lovecraft Bestiary (http://www.unfilmable.com/Lovecraft_bestiary.html) and wanted to show it off!

It contains a few of the Lovecraft created creatures (including ghouls) that have appeared in film and TV adaptations...

Can anyone think of anything I missed, or direct me to some pics?

Take care,

Craig
http://www.unfilmable.com
H.P. Lovecraft Cinema
http://www.unfilmable.com/unfilmable_films.html
Unfilmable Films presents: Read me a story...

"It is not likely that any really finely wrought weird story - where so much depends upon mood, and on nuances of description - could be changed to a drama without irreparable cheapening and the loss of all that gave it power."

- H.P. Lovecraft

Ghouls are indeed part of Arab folklore, and associated with jackals and hyenas(nasty things, hyeanas).
They are of a lower order than the djinn, lesser to humans, greater than beasts.
A ghoul is never alone on Saturday night, they can always dig up a date.

Can you dig it?