This thread's about the influence of American author H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) on modern entertainment. First of all: the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer . In the show's hourlong pilot, the Watchers made reference to the Old Ones as an extradimensional race who fell to Earth and became vampires, etc. In Lovecraft's books and stories, they are a prehuman race of extraterrestrial and extardimensional entities who once ruled our world and...

Chief of these is Cthulhu, a hundreds-foot tall man-dragon-cuttlefish monstrosity who has the ability to change shape. This Protean feature could be considered to be the basis for the 1950s monster movie "The Blob."

In "Buffy's" third episode, a cheerleade-witch has hers and her mothers' personalities forcibly changed by her mom. This theme of psychic possession was used twice by Lovecraft.

More to come..............
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"That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die." -- H.P. Lovecraft

"The world is a vampire." -- Smashing Pumpkins

Here's the most accurate image I could find.

These both also give a general representation of Cthulhu.

In the May 1998 "Go Fish" episode of Buffy... , the school swim team becomes a group of half-human, half-amphibian creatures. H.P. Lovecraft introduced this "Frogman" concept in his lenghty "The Shadow over Innsmouth".

Known as the Deep Ones, they look something like this image:

Look familiar? It should: It was the basis for the 1950s horror movie "The Creature from the Black Lagoon" and Uncle Gill on The Munsters.

An early October 2001 episode of BTVS mentioned the Order of Dagon.
Dagon was another of Locecraft's "ancient astronaut" creatures from prehuman times that somehow still survives. In the story "Dagon", a submarine crew washes up on a deserted island in the Pacific Ocean and runs into Dagon, who's a precursor to Cthulhu. Images of Dagon are here: