^I like some of his short stories (eg from the Nightshift collection), but imo overall he is pretty much a hack (with some talent). Certainly he has no intellectual element to his work (of those which I read, anyway).
That said, some movie adaptations of his work can be good. The best example I can think of is The Mist (the movie, not the terrible tv show
).
Sometimes one doesn't need to be a good writer to become famous. According to Lovecraft, Stoker was a terrible writer as well, with some cool ideas -btw, if you want to see a really terrible horror movie, check "The lair of the white worm", with Hugh Grant
Lovecraft himself has issues with style, but had a very interesting imagination. Machen was imo far better as a writer than Lovecraft, yet clearly he is much less known. Dunsany today isn't really famous either - but iirc was back in Lovecraft's day.
I think, if we are talking horror writers, the two I regard as being more intellectually powerful (and among the great writers of Europe anyway) are de Maupassant and ETA Hoffmann.
Poe is another case - I think he wrote beautifully, but I have reason to believe he did profess to have more intellectual knowledge than he did. Who cares in his case, though, he wrote so elegantly that it is besides the point.
Washington Irving is another cool case, but not quite of the level of Maupassant/Hoffmann imo.
