Lovecraftian Cinema

[j. d. worthington]

Any information on how to get hold of this?

[Nesacat]

Have never heard of this one Ravenus and it sounds very intriguing indeed. Where and how could we find it

[ravenus]

Well, being in India where access to most stuff that's not absolute mainstream is extremely difficult and frustrating, I oftentimes have to depend on the internet *cough* emule *cough* to check out stuff and then make efforts to buy the ones that sufficiently interest me. Most of my DVD collection consists of stuff that I first checked out through such means

I suspect the above referred film was commissioned for some TV channel, have no idea if it's available as a video purchase. I have heard that the makers of this have also assembled a more full-length effort called H.P. Lovecraft - The Terror Within which returns to and expands on the ground covered in this film.

About Terror Within:
Link 1
Link 2
Official Site
IMDB link
Film review link

[j. d. worthington]

Ah, well, I'll keep an eye out for mention of it... Thanks for the heads-up, anyway.

[Tau Zero]

Originally Posted by ravenus

The Man with the X-Ray Eyes - Roger Corman (1963)

How this movie brings back memories! I saw this when it came out. It was a double feature (as all movies were in those days) with Dementia 13, a horror movie by Francis Coppola. I was 8 years and saw it with my friend who was 10. I came out of those films ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED. He dropped me off at home so he could go home, but i was so scared i made him stay until my parents came home. I fond memory now, but man, was i scared!

[j. d. worthington]

A couple of things I should give people a head's-up about. One is the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, held each year in Portland, Oregon around the first weekend in October; this year it will be the 6-8. You can find out information on events, programming, etc. by going to lurkerfilms.com; they are also, I just found out a few days ago, going to have one here in Austin on August 20, in celebration of HPL's birthday. This will be held at the Alamo Drafthouse downtown, and will include a big-screen presentation of the silent Call of Cthulhu, a 16mm presentation of the old Night Gallery episode "Pickman's Model", a host of small indie films presented by Andrew Migliore (the man who began the festival and runs Lurker Films), and a midnight presentation of Cast a Deadly Spell, a sort of a cross between HPL and the Chandler/Hammett school of detective fiction that originally aired on HBO.

The October festival is usually attended by people such as Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi, director Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, From Beyond, Dagon, etc.) and I understand that Ramsey Campbell and Peter Straub are also supposed to be present this year....

And, speaking of Stuart Gordon, I finally got around to seeing Castle Freak, based (very) loosely on HPL's "The Outsider"... I hate to say it, but don't bother. It has some nice moments, some good camera work and good ideas here and there ... and is almost totally lifeless. It simply lacks any sort of verve at all, which is a pity.

[Nesacat]

Sometimes, just sometimes the world just becomes a really ginormous place. Have fun at the festival j.d. and tell us about it.

Sounds like they have a good programme and it's also the Old Gentleman's birthday. A fitting tribute I think.

[Foxbat]

Unfortunately I'm on the wrong side of the world also. I'd have loved to have seen Call Of The Cthulhu on the big screen

[j. d. worthington]

All right; I've been meaning to get to this all week, but it's been a wonky week and I've not really had much of a chance to organize my thoughts, but here goes:

As stated, last week (August 20) I attended the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival here in Austin at the Alamo Drafthouse. I include that information because, according to the response it got, it looks like Andrew Migliore, the founder of the festival (held yearly in Portland, Oregon in October) will be coming back here next year around HPL's birthday again for this new offshoot of the original; so those unable to make it to Portland now have another option to see some of these often rarely seen films.

The program began with a presentation of the old Night Gallery adaptation of "Pickman's Model", which it was nice to see again for the first time in 35 years (lord! it's been that long???) yet which, as is all too typical with Hollywood adaptations of the Old Gent's tales, fell flat because it ended up going with the "guy-in-a-rubber-suit" monster at the end. Had they avoided that, despite the addition of a romantic involvement, it might have been an adequate, though not good production. Nonetheless, it had its moments and, as I said, was quite nice to see after all this time.

This was followed by a presentation on the big screen of the recent 47-minute silent short adaptation of "The Call of Cthulhu" by the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society; a film which has garnered much well-deserved praise. For those who have not seen this, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It was done on a shoestring budget by fans of Lovecraft and, despite literally being done in a basement and in a back yard, is actually quite a beautiful film, and extremely faithful to the story, capturing much of the flavor not only of the story itself, but of the silent-movie era with astonishing eclat. If you have any chance to see it, this is definitely one not to be missed.

After a rather lengthy break for a special presentation of Trainspotting, there was a rather lengthy presentation of several short, amateur, independent and student films based on Lovecraft's work, including: two shorts by Richard Corben (adaptations of two of the Fungi from Yuggoth sonnets); Maryia's Hubris (a modern loose adaptation of the central theme of "The Thing on the Doorstep") from Germany; Christian Matzke's adaptation of "Nyarlathotep"; a film titled Between the Stars, which was a very interesting take on the HPL fragment "The Book" (a tad slow, but fascinating visually), as well as several others, both animated films and live action, and culminating in a presentation of Austinite Cathy Welch's 1980 Master's thesis adaptation of "Pickman's Model" (which I had the pleasure of seeing all the way back then). This one is interesting because, despite being filmed in Austin and on a student budget, it actually captures much more of the atmosphere and charm of Lovecraft's story, even with the updating necessary for costs, than the earlier Night Gallery episode. Of course, it suffers from the flaws of trying to adapt a tale centered around 300-year-old sections of Boston to a town dating back not quite 150 years; but it is nonetheless an admirable and very enjoyable effort, well worth seeing.

And the program wrapped up with a screening of the 1991 HBO film Cast a Deadly Spell, featuring Fred Ward as hard-bitten private eye Philip Lovecraft; a quirky, entertaining, and quite successful blending of Raymond Chandler and Lovecraft featuring such actors as David Ward, Julianne Moore and Charles Hallahan. Set in the late 1940s in Los Angeles, at a time where literally everyone uses magic of some sort, which has consequently become big business; the only holdout against this is Lovecraft, who believes in standing on his own two feet and his ethics, both of which frequently take a beating, especially when he is hired to find a certain book stolen from a rich collector's library: the infamous Necronomicon. The problem is that the reason he has been hired to find the book is hardly as straightforward as it at first seems.... And, again, for those who have not seen this (as I had not, until this opportunity), this is one well worth seeking out. The tongue-in-cheek aspects only rarely mar the overall excellent production, and for any fan of either film noir, Lovecraft, or the hard-bitten Hammett/Chandler school of detective fiction, this one is a rare treat.

As for the shorts... they proved a somewhat mixed bag (I must admit that I grow weary of all female figures in Corben -- including what must be a very bizarre sort of dryad in one of these -- having huge breasts; it would be nice to have a bit of variety, at least); nonetheless they were all at least interesting, and many were actually quite impressive.

So, for anyone who has a chance, by all means attend the film festival either this year in Portland in October, or next year (the Elder Gods willing) here in Austin in August or in Portland in October. For more information on tickets and the various attendees (such as, I understand, Ramsey Campbell and Stuart Gordon, as well as HPL scholar S. T. Joshi) for the one in October, all such can be found at the parent website www.lurkerfilms.com or at www.hplfilmfestival.com. You can also find out about the three volumes of the H. P. Lovecraft film collection (of which a fourth is due out later this year), all of which I highly recommend.

Hope to see some of you next year!

[Foxbat]

Thanks for the report j.d. Sounds like an entertaining jaunt into the world of H.P. and a good time for all involved

[Nesacat]

Thank you very much for the report j.d. Sounds like a wonderful festival all around. Elder Gods willing I'll try and make one or the other of the festivals next year. For now I'm going to see if any of the pirates have Cast A Deadly Spell.

[j. d. worthington]

Well, something was posted in the Cthulhu Mythos in films thread on this, and I just looked up the trailer, so here's the link:
http://www.cthulhuthemovie.com/cthulhutrailer.htm

Now, I'm a bit concerned with the casting of Tori Spelling, but it looks (from the cast information on the site) that she plays a very minor role, so she may be used to good effect here. Whether the film itself will be good, bad, or indifferent, who knows? But it at least looks like they're not trying to a) slavishly follow a Lovecraft story with no regard to changes necessary for cinematic adaptation b) use a Lovecraft title to draw an audience while completely eschewing anything to do with the Old Gent altogether, or c) making it into a splatterfest with tentacles. At least it looks like they're using the mythic ideas as a springboard for exploring their own ground (very much what Grandpa had in mind, I'd say after reading his letters more than once), and so we could actually end up with a Hollywood-produced Lovecraftian film of substance... I remain sceptical, but we'll see.

[Jaggy Jai]

Japan has done afew Lovecraftian toned movies, most recently Marebito staring Shinya Tsukamoto. They also did a version of Shadow Over Innsmouth that I would kill to see, but I have never found it anywhere, if anyone has any information on this please let me know.

[j. d. worthington]

I believe this is the one you're talking about:

http://www.thelurker.com/tv/innsmouthwoooukage.htm

To the best of my knowledge, it still remains unavailable outside Japan, but I'd definitely love to see the thing if I could lay my hands on it ... and with the growing interest in HPL, I'd think some enterprising DVD producer would go ahead and translate the thing.... with just a little advertising in some of the fan sites, it'd be money in the bank....

[Jaggy Jai]

Agreed on that!