Howard Phillips Lovecraft, has been hailed by literary critics as the inventor of modern horror, and a cultivating force behind such modern writers as Robert Bloch (Psycho), Wes Craven (Nightmare on Elm Street) and Stephen King (Pet Semetary), just to name a few. His fame rests largely on his Cthulhu Mythos stories, referring to a "race who, in practicing black magic, lost their foothold and were expelled, yet live on outside ever ready to take possession of this earth again."