Re-animator is the 1985 cult classic H.P. Lovecraft adaptation directed by Stuart Gordon, who went on to direct a lot more Lovecraft adaptations based on the success of this. The movie is loosely based on Herbert West: Re-Animator and stars Jeffrey Combs in the lead role.
The original story was published in 6 parts in Weird Tales magazine, and maintains both of Lovecraft's hallmarks of the use of a framing story and of having the timeframe last several years. The movie departs from this by using a highly compressed timeframe of days, maybe weeks, and also telling the story with more a traditional 3rd person dramatic narrative. The story is also the first Lovecraft story to use the location of Miskatonic University.
The movie itself is an amazing exercise in pure 80's horror cheese. The acting is hilariously over the top and the soundtrack is almost cartoony. It was a lot of fun to watch, not being particularly scary or even disturbing. It felt a lot like The Evil Dead movies, but maybe a little more restrained. Gordon doesn't spray fake blood out of a firehose at people like Sam Raimi enjoys doing, but he definitely showers the set and actors in lots of strangely colored liquids. The movie is also a lot more perverted than anything from The Evil Dead. Some of what happens is downright nasty, but the movie sprints by almost gleefully.
The special effects are almost impressive for the time, but do look pretty weird and fake. I think it's by design, though. The movie revels in that odd sense of humor that calls attention to how corny everything is, but it's also got a massive sick streak. Well worth the watch.
Coming up, we close out Lovecraft week with John Carpenter's In The Mouth of Madness.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Friday, October 5, 2012
October Horror 2012: Cthulhu
Cthulhu, released in 2007 and directed by Dan Gildark is a vague adaptation of The Shadow over Innsmouth. Their use of a gay protagonist is often discussed, but thankfully the film doesn't entirely hinge on it. It's just a point.
The story is moved from Innsmouth to a small coastal town in Washington state called Rivermouth and begins when Russel Marsh receives a phone call informing him of his mother's death. He's now living on the East coast with his partner, but drives home to attend to funeral and help his father put her affairs in order.
While there he spontaneously shaves his head, gets involved in uncovering a deep secret about his family, rekindles some old relationships, and gets drugged by Tori Spelling. It's a bit weird.
I liked the movie, the 1st and 3rd acts where both really good. It was disturbed, kindof creepy, mysterious, and uncomfortable. The psychology was good, the imagery was fantastic, and everything going on was pretty interesting. I guess it had a cliff hanger ending but the action building up to it was fun.
The 2nd act was where I wasn't enjoying myself. It was weird in all the wrong ways. Mainly the amount of time spent with Tori Spelling character was too damn high, and it was monumentally awkward because her and her wheelchair-bound husband effectively date rape Russel so that they could have a child. I understand that the fact the he's a Marsh and needs to have a child for the good of the cult, which most of the town are members of, but it just seemed really out of place and tasteless for a movie that for the most part was being really even and real about how a gay man might be treated when returning to his conservative and highly religious small town home. Yes, it's a religion based around Deep Ones and immortal half-breeds, but still a religion.
It was a good movie, I liked it, but that middle bit was just a bit off-putting.
Lovecraft week draws one step closer to its inevitable end, but before that comes the classic Reanimator.
The story is moved from Innsmouth to a small coastal town in Washington state called Rivermouth and begins when Russel Marsh receives a phone call informing him of his mother's death. He's now living on the East coast with his partner, but drives home to attend to funeral and help his father put her affairs in order.
While there he spontaneously shaves his head, gets involved in uncovering a deep secret about his family, rekindles some old relationships, and gets drugged by Tori Spelling. It's a bit weird.
I liked the movie, the 1st and 3rd acts where both really good. It was disturbed, kindof creepy, mysterious, and uncomfortable. The psychology was good, the imagery was fantastic, and everything going on was pretty interesting. I guess it had a cliff hanger ending but the action building up to it was fun.
The 2nd act was where I wasn't enjoying myself. It was weird in all the wrong ways. Mainly the amount of time spent with Tori Spelling character was too damn high, and it was monumentally awkward because her and her wheelchair-bound husband effectively date rape Russel so that they could have a child. I understand that the fact the he's a Marsh and needs to have a child for the good of the cult, which most of the town are members of, but it just seemed really out of place and tasteless for a movie that for the most part was being really even and real about how a gay man might be treated when returning to his conservative and highly religious small town home. Yes, it's a religion based around Deep Ones and immortal half-breeds, but still a religion.
It was a good movie, I liked it, but that middle bit was just a bit off-putting.
Lovecraft week draws one step closer to its inevitable end, but before that comes the classic Reanimator.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
October Horror 2012: The Call of Cthulhu
Alright, this one's a bit odd. It's a black & white silent movie based on the story of the same name, released in 2005 and produced by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. They call the filming style "Mythoscope" which is a blend of traditional and modern filming techniques that produces a film which very much adheres to the aesthetic of a movie from the 20s or 30s while still respecting certain modern sensibilities.
As such we have a lot of static cameras, but a few moving shots. What's funny is the static shots feel appropriate and refined but a lot of others that technically look better seem amateurish and out of place, like someone's home movie.
From what I can tell it's also the most accurate to the original story, aside from a few minor changes which do seem like they would make it easier to hook the narrative or make certain scenes easier to film. As an example, according to wikipedia the original story had the Alert crewed by cultists which would have required another scene with many many extras so they made it that the Alert was abandoned which required no additional cast members. Basically the sort of rigid adherence to the source material you'd expect from a group calling themselves the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.
Beyond that I can't really judge anything because the movie is so far out of my realm of experience. It moved pretty briskly, and the music was nice. More dramatic than the silly scores I usually imagine going with silent movies. It was fun to watch...but it's really not my thing.
Tomorrow will be the 2007 Cthulhu, based on The Shadow Over Innsmouth. It will probably be the most "artistic" thing yet.
As such we have a lot of static cameras, but a few moving shots. What's funny is the static shots feel appropriate and refined but a lot of others that technically look better seem amateurish and out of place, like someone's home movie.
From what I can tell it's also the most accurate to the original story, aside from a few minor changes which do seem like they would make it easier to hook the narrative or make certain scenes easier to film. As an example, according to wikipedia the original story had the Alert crewed by cultists which would have required another scene with many many extras so they made it that the Alert was abandoned which required no additional cast members. Basically the sort of rigid adherence to the source material you'd expect from a group calling themselves the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.
Beyond that I can't really judge anything because the movie is so far out of my realm of experience. It moved pretty briskly, and the music was nice. More dramatic than the silly scores I usually imagine going with silent movies. It was fun to watch...but it's really not my thing.
Tomorrow will be the 2007 Cthulhu, based on The Shadow Over Innsmouth. It will probably be the most "artistic" thing yet.
October Horror 2012: The Resurrected
The Resurrected (aka Shatterbrain) is a 1992 direct to video horror movie directed by Dan O'Bannon, who's only previous directing credit was 1984's Return of The Living Dead. He'd also written the screenplay for Screamers and Total Recall and created characters for Alien. The movie starred Chris Sarandon, John Terry, and Jane Sibbett. It was based on The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, which Lovecraft actually wrote immediately prior to The Colour of Outer Space.
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by this one. I wasn't sure what to expect since it was early 90's VHS release, but the movie was really good. It was tense, had a pretty compelling story, was decently acted, and had better effects than some movies I've seen that came out last year. The movie also seems to fit the pace of the original story the best, and may have actually extend the story. They've borrowed the framing device that Lovecraft is fond of and the story is told to the audience by someone else after-the-fact, often resulting in multiple levels of flashback.
Oddly, for as much as they seemed to respect the source material they changed the name of the narrator from Marinus Bicknell Willett to John March and changed his occupation from family doctor to private detective hired by Ward's estranged wife. I don't actually fault the movie here because it was a convincing angle and enabled them to add a few fun support characters.
The movie has token nods to Lovecraft's Cosmic mythology, but the horror elements here are the result of a person accessing an unnatural power. There aren't really far-reaching ramifications, there's no manipulation by unseen forces, just a power-mad alchemist discovering a secret to prolonging his life and even returning from the dead with a hunger for blood and super-human strength that almost makes him vampiric.
The mystery is tense and twists naturally, but the effects are stand-out. They really had some nasty looking blood and gore effects and a lot of a super-gross creature effects. It lent a lot of good creepiness and tension, especially to a certain underground scene involving a matchbook.
This was pretty much great. I think this is the strongest movie of the season so far and so far the only one that was actually scary in the traditional sense. The age on the first two movies this year made them a bit campy.
Tomorrow we watch the 2005 silent Call of Cthulhu from the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by this one. I wasn't sure what to expect since it was early 90's VHS release, but the movie was really good. It was tense, had a pretty compelling story, was decently acted, and had better effects than some movies I've seen that came out last year. The movie also seems to fit the pace of the original story the best, and may have actually extend the story. They've borrowed the framing device that Lovecraft is fond of and the story is told to the audience by someone else after-the-fact, often resulting in multiple levels of flashback.
Oddly, for as much as they seemed to respect the source material they changed the name of the narrator from Marinus Bicknell Willett to John March and changed his occupation from family doctor to private detective hired by Ward's estranged wife. I don't actually fault the movie here because it was a convincing angle and enabled them to add a few fun support characters.
The movie has token nods to Lovecraft's Cosmic mythology, but the horror elements here are the result of a person accessing an unnatural power. There aren't really far-reaching ramifications, there's no manipulation by unseen forces, just a power-mad alchemist discovering a secret to prolonging his life and even returning from the dead with a hunger for blood and super-human strength that almost makes him vampiric.
The mystery is tense and twists naturally, but the effects are stand-out. They really had some nasty looking blood and gore effects and a lot of a super-gross creature effects. It lent a lot of good creepiness and tension, especially to a certain underground scene involving a matchbook.
This was pretty much great. I think this is the strongest movie of the season so far and so far the only one that was actually scary in the traditional sense. The age on the first two movies this year made them a bit campy.
Tomorrow we watch the 2005 silent Call of Cthulhu from the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
October Horror 2012: Die, Monster, Die!
Die, Monster, Die! is the 2nd entry in Lovecraft week. It was released in 1965 and was directed by Daniel Haller who would also go on to direct The Dunwich Horror in 5 years. This stars Boris Karloff, Suzan Farmer, and Nick Adams.
The movie is loosely based on Lovecraft's The Colour of Outer Space, which was his attempt to create a truly alien outer space creature. However, aside from the crashing of a meteor that strangely affects life, the movie is very different. The original story is the second hand account from Ammi Pierce of what happened to the "blasted heath", an area outside Arkham where a metorite had landed years ago. The metorite was examined, but no one could explain its effect on the nearby vegetation. The media seeps globs of "Colour" that eventually drive a nearby family insane while eroding the vegetation into grey dust and tainting the water. The family goes missing one-by-one before Pierce shows up with several other men only to discover everyone is dead as the "Colour" and the metorite leave the planet. This also takes place over years.
The movie is significantly quickened, and most of the cast are inventions. Some of the family members are loosely based on their equivalents in the story, but the names are changed. They've also created a romantic plot between the Ammi-clone and a member of the family.
So while these changes are a little disheartening and detracts a lot from the Lovecraftian spirit, it's still a pretty good movie. It plays a lot like a great 50s-60s style ghost story with a mysterious secret and a figure in black stalking the woods. It was actually really fun to watch. Some of the character motivations and behaviors are a little strange in the beginning, but when cool stuff starts to happen it doesn't really matter.
As far as faith to the source material this is probably the weaker of the two, but it was actually a more entertaining movie.
Next up: The Resurrected, sometimes known as Shatterbrain.
The movie is loosely based on Lovecraft's The Colour of Outer Space, which was his attempt to create a truly alien outer space creature. However, aside from the crashing of a meteor that strangely affects life, the movie is very different. The original story is the second hand account from Ammi Pierce of what happened to the "blasted heath", an area outside Arkham where a metorite had landed years ago. The metorite was examined, but no one could explain its effect on the nearby vegetation. The media seeps globs of "Colour" that eventually drive a nearby family insane while eroding the vegetation into grey dust and tainting the water. The family goes missing one-by-one before Pierce shows up with several other men only to discover everyone is dead as the "Colour" and the metorite leave the planet. This also takes place over years.
The movie is significantly quickened, and most of the cast are inventions. Some of the family members are loosely based on their equivalents in the story, but the names are changed. They've also created a romantic plot between the Ammi-clone and a member of the family.
So while these changes are a little disheartening and detracts a lot from the Lovecraftian spirit, it's still a pretty good movie. It plays a lot like a great 50s-60s style ghost story with a mysterious secret and a figure in black stalking the woods. It was actually really fun to watch. Some of the character motivations and behaviors are a little strange in the beginning, but when cool stuff starts to happen it doesn't really matter.
As far as faith to the source material this is probably the weaker of the two, but it was actually a more entertaining movie.
Next up: The Resurrected, sometimes known as Shatterbrain.
October horror 2012: The Dunwich Horror (1970)
We begin H.P. Lovecraft week with The Dunwich Horror, released in the first few weeks of 1970. It was directed by Daniel Haller and starred Dean Stockwell and Sandra Dee. It also involved the Michael Fox who forced Michael J. Fox to use the J, which is kindof cool. The movie itself is an adaptation of the Lovecraft story of the same name, written by Curtis Hanson, Henry Rosenbaum, and Ronald Silkosky.
The story is only loosely based on Lovecraft's short, some of the major differences being the timeframe that it takes place during and the Nancy character. The original story unfolds over the course of several years, while the film is covered in less than a week. Also, Sandra Dee's character doesn't exist in the original at all.
The core concept, however, has remained intact. That is that Wilbur Whateley (Dean Stockwell) wants to "procure" a copy of The Necronomicon from the Miskatonic University library so that he can summon the Outer God: Yog-Sothoth, one of the Old Ones. Since this is Lovecraft week, this is going to come up a lot. The Old Ones were a race of other-dimensional beings that are coterminous with our space-time continuum. There's a lot to suggest the Old Ones were also the gods of various ancient poly-theistic religions. The mythology suggests they ruled the earth before the ages of men and are now trapped outside our universe, having been overthrown and all but destroyed by the shoggoths, a slave race of their own creation. Now that I type it out it also sounds a lot like the Goa'uld from Stargate. Moving on.
The cult imagery they use is kindof a hodge-podge of early Meso-American and Egyptian symbols, which seemed very unfocused because it was largely treated as dressing. Lovecraft is all about this sort of magic, where words and symbols have mighty power and simple drawings can drive people mad. So this seems like a missed opportunity to make the images actually symbolize something.
It's disheartening that the actual Dunwich Horror has become a B-plot in its own movie, with the mysterious entity sequestered in the Whately house being referenced visually only a handful of times and barely ever during dialog. When it eventually escapes it racks up maybe 2 casualties before straight up vanishing, presumably during the climax at the end of the movie. Its origins remain the same as the story but there is so little focus on it that it almost doesn't make sense its included at all.
In the film, everything that happens is the direct result of human action. In the story, like most of Lovecraft's cannon, humanity is just along for the ride. Wilbur is killed in the original during a pretty chance encounter, so there is no ceremony. In the film the ceremony is an easily relatable and tangible thing that Armitage has to stop in order to save the day. In the story, the thing to be stopped is an invisible monster that explodes out of the Whateley house to rampage across the countryside where it terrorizes the locales for several days before being killed by Armitage and several others from Miskatonic University. So the Horror, the evil, was not called immediately by a human in a way that killing the human would stop it. It is worth pointing out that this is one of the few Lovecraft works where a human manages to stop the monster, possibly because this is just a purely terrestrial creature with possible cosmic parentage, not an Elder God itself...or even a cult.
It's a fun movie that seems to nod strongly to Lovecraft while trying to update his pacing to something much more brisk. Although, to be totally honest they may have moved things along a bit too quickly since it feels like something is always happening which prevents anything from having weight. The summoning ceremony, which seems to have been basically invented for the movie, fits really well into the story. However, it does make the climax seem really strange, since it basically consists of Armitage and Whateley shouting gibberish at each other until Whateley spontaneously combusts and falls of a cliff. It's so early in the 70s, it really seems like it should be considered a 60s movie and the animated title sequence and cheese theme-music reinforce that. Though one of the things I found really interesting was when the composer was making the contemporary theme music go off-kilter with theremin and merging it with the generically "exotic" theme they've been using as the cult theme.
Tomorrow: Lovecraft week returns with Die, Monster, Die! also directed by Daniel Haller and based on the Lovecraft short story The Colour of Outer Space.
The story is only loosely based on Lovecraft's short, some of the major differences being the timeframe that it takes place during and the Nancy character. The original story unfolds over the course of several years, while the film is covered in less than a week. Also, Sandra Dee's character doesn't exist in the original at all.
The core concept, however, has remained intact. That is that Wilbur Whateley (Dean Stockwell) wants to "procure" a copy of The Necronomicon from the Miskatonic University library so that he can summon the Outer God: Yog-Sothoth, one of the Old Ones. Since this is Lovecraft week, this is going to come up a lot. The Old Ones were a race of other-dimensional beings that are coterminous with our space-time continuum. There's a lot to suggest the Old Ones were also the gods of various ancient poly-theistic religions. The mythology suggests they ruled the earth before the ages of men and are now trapped outside our universe, having been overthrown and all but destroyed by the shoggoths, a slave race of their own creation. Now that I type it out it also sounds a lot like the Goa'uld from Stargate. Moving on.
The cult imagery they use is kindof a hodge-podge of early Meso-American and Egyptian symbols, which seemed very unfocused because it was largely treated as dressing. Lovecraft is all about this sort of magic, where words and symbols have mighty power and simple drawings can drive people mad. So this seems like a missed opportunity to make the images actually symbolize something.
It's disheartening that the actual Dunwich Horror has become a B-plot in its own movie, with the mysterious entity sequestered in the Whately house being referenced visually only a handful of times and barely ever during dialog. When it eventually escapes it racks up maybe 2 casualties before straight up vanishing, presumably during the climax at the end of the movie. Its origins remain the same as the story but there is so little focus on it that it almost doesn't make sense its included at all.
In the film, everything that happens is the direct result of human action. In the story, like most of Lovecraft's cannon, humanity is just along for the ride. Wilbur is killed in the original during a pretty chance encounter, so there is no ceremony. In the film the ceremony is an easily relatable and tangible thing that Armitage has to stop in order to save the day. In the story, the thing to be stopped is an invisible monster that explodes out of the Whateley house to rampage across the countryside where it terrorizes the locales for several days before being killed by Armitage and several others from Miskatonic University. So the Horror, the evil, was not called immediately by a human in a way that killing the human would stop it. It is worth pointing out that this is one of the few Lovecraft works where a human manages to stop the monster, possibly because this is just a purely terrestrial creature with possible cosmic parentage, not an Elder God itself...or even a cult.
It's a fun movie that seems to nod strongly to Lovecraft while trying to update his pacing to something much more brisk. Although, to be totally honest they may have moved things along a bit too quickly since it feels like something is always happening which prevents anything from having weight. The summoning ceremony, which seems to have been basically invented for the movie, fits really well into the story. However, it does make the climax seem really strange, since it basically consists of Armitage and Whateley shouting gibberish at each other until Whateley spontaneously combusts and falls of a cliff. It's so early in the 70s, it really seems like it should be considered a 60s movie and the animated title sequence and cheese theme-music reinforce that. Though one of the things I found really interesting was when the composer was making the contemporary theme music go off-kilter with theremin and merging it with the generically "exotic" theme they've been using as the cult theme.
Tomorrow: Lovecraft week returns with Die, Monster, Die! also directed by Daniel Haller and based on the Lovecraft short story The Colour of Outer Space.
Monday, October 1, 2012
October Horror 2012 Movie List
We're back to October once again, so horror movies are back in season. And! My apartment decorations are finally appropriate again.
So we've made our list, checked it Se7en times, or 666, or whatever.
Anyway, as is tradition we've split October into 4 weeks, each with an oddly specific theme.
This year we've got:
First on the list, kicking off Lovecraft week and going up in a few hours is going to be the 1970 "The Dunwich Horror".
So we've made our list, checked it Se7en times, or 666, or whatever.
Anyway, as is tradition we've split October into 4 weeks, each with an oddly specific theme.
This year we've got:
- H.P. Lovecraft adaptations - Anything obviously Lovecraftian or directly inspired by a story by Lovecraft.
- Internet Horror - Any movie where a computer game or the internet is a major plot point.
- Anthologies - Mostly just an excuse to watch Trick 'R Treat again, also V/H/S due to Ti West's involvement.
- Stephen King adaptations - Any movie based on a story by Stephen King.
First on the list, kicking off Lovecraft week and going up in a few hours is going to be the 1970 "The Dunwich Horror".
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