MovieChat Forums > The Call of Cthulhu (2005) Discussion > Not Faithful

Not Faithful

posted 14 years ago by quenes
23 replies | jump to latest

I´ve watched this movie because I´ve been hearing all good reviews and how it was the ´´most faithful Lovecraft adaptation´´. Yet, the movie has just finished and I´m obliged to say that I didn´t find it a faithful adaptation. Yes, the plot is there. It is, you could say, a literal representation of the story. But the movie lacks a fundamental element of the short story: terror and horror. Is this film terrifying or horrifying? Has really anyone felt scared while watching this movie? Could a truly faithful adaptation of Lovecraft not be scary or suspenseful?

I think the problem with the movie lies within the decision of the filmmakers of trying to do two things at once, and unfortunately not succeeding greatly at any. They tried to do, on one hand: a faithful representation of the plot of the short story; while on the other hand: they tried to recreate and homage 20´s silent films.
Not necessarily both attempts are incompatible, yet, in this case, they don´t work well.

The recreation of a 20´s silent film it´s obviously deeply hurt by the lack of budget. This is not an attack to low-budget films, believe me. I´m just stating a fact that even fans of the movie have recognize. The digital video doesn´t make believable that you are watching a 20´s film. You have to force yourself to believe that, but it´s quite evident that you´re watching a modern digital movie attempting to pass as a 20´s film.

But this problem doesn´t have much to do with this being an unfaithful adaptation. The point of the filmmakers trying to homage silent films and the 20´s era does indeed conflicts with the film being scary. Not that a 20´s film about this short story couldn´t be scary or a faithful adaptation. But here, the filmmakers (and many reviewers) justify the biggest mistake of the film, and the one that stirs away the production of being faithful to the book: Cthulhu. What are the feelings you get when reading of Cthulhu´s appearance on the book? What are the feelings you get when watching the stop motion Cthulhu? Is this a similar feeling?
This is the point where the homage to the 20´s special effects conflicts with the feeling of the book. Instead of scary, disturbing, unsettling, we get something that might range from not-really-scary to laughable. It´s interesting cinematographically speaking... but does it helps the mood of the story to have a stop motion cthulhu being exposed as some kind of homage to king-kong? It´s just an excess of special effects, just for the sake of it, or just for the sake of making an homage. The great masters of terror and horror in film have done it well: ´´don´t show´´ or ´´show less´´.
This is the director´s fault, because in his homage to 20´s era special effects, he breaks any attempt at having a serious scary story. And this also is probably a mistake related to the literal approach of the adaptation of the plot (If cthulhu appears in the book, then it HAS to appear in the movie). A good adaptation doesn´t need to be 100% literal.

So it´s not really a question of budget, but of creative decisions. This filmmakers weren´t trying to faithfully recreate Lovecraft´s moods, but just faithfully representing the events of the plot and making a 20´s film homage at the same time. The events of the plot are scary in the book because of the words of Lovecraft. On film, the words aren´t there to help, so the horror must come from the direction. But it never comes.

This is why for me this movie isn´t really a faithful adaptation and it should be stated that the film isn´t scary nor does it tries to be (two things Lovecraft does). I would recommend, nevertheless, to any Lovecraft fan to watch it, but knowing what they are up against: a non-horror adaptation of The Call of Cthulhu, witch follows the same plot as the book and it´s made in a 20´s silent film style (shot in digital).

It is a very interesting adaptation indeed and the filmmakers obviously have love and respect for Lovecraft´s work, but I cannot avoid feeling mislead but those many ´´faithful´´ labels that have been put over this movie.

[–] smerd_70 14 years ago

Terror and horror are subjective.

I collect dead pigeons then I press them between the pages of a book.

[–] quenes 14 years ago

Wow.. I did not know that!

[–] runtheplacered 11 years ago

"Wow.. I did not know that!"

Obviously, you're being sarcastic. But if you did know that, then why did you write all of this?

[–] KitchenKnives 9 years ago

Maybe because it's a valid point. Surely you also know that?

[–] bakers4 14 years ago

Seems clear the fear factor came across stronger for you reading Lovecraft's written word, than in the film (as a viewing experience).

But how would that have to do with whether the movie is faithful to the story? Viewers have noted, the film recounts the story accurately, as Lovecraft wrote it -- characters, plot, etc. I find that to be true also, having both seen the film and read the story. This is why it's considered faithful. Nothing to do with whether its mood comes across as strongly on screen as from the printed page (per your point).

No doubt you found the movie a less effective telling of the story scare-wise. But arguing it's not faithful to the story on that basis, is a whole 'nother matter. Faithful simply means they followed the story, didn't change it.

[–] divisionbell-2 12 years ago

Because they did manage to following the story in a literal sense, but failed to capture the feelings and emotions of the story itself. Both are big parts. They technically did cover the plot, but failed to convey any of the emotion behind the written words.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

[–] KitchenKnives 9 years ago

Claiming mood isn't important is essentially disregarding everything that makes Lovecraft's work popular. It's not a good idea to simply copy something word for word without any attempt at coneying the same feelings when it's the feelings themselves that make the story what it is. That's the equivalent of reading lyrics in a monotone voice without the addition of music. The sense and intention is lost.

[–] Chris2453 12 years ago

quenes expressed my feelings about this movie perfectly. It's like they took a perfectly good horror story and used it to experiment with and pay homage to 20's films rather than present something terrifying. Sure, they may have been faithful to the story but they hardly captured any of the essence of Lovecraftian horror.

Since they didn't even commit 100% to the historical accuracy of 1920's film by using a digital camera and the wrong wardrobe, they could have at least used the advantage of SOME modern special effects. I'm not saying CGI everything, but make use of some of our modern tools, makeup, cinematography, etcetera to enhance the atmosphere.

Also, they should not have shown Cthulhu in full like that walking around. Like quenes said, less is better in that regard.

[–] andrewrrrr 12 years ago

i disagree. as has been said on this thread, it is faithful because it follows closely the work on which it is based. you claim it is not because it is not scary. well, i didn't find the story or the film 'scary'. they both created that sense of mystery but the story to a larger degree because it could go into much more detail. as per cthulhu, i (and i'm sure many others) would have been disapointed if he had not been shown. i'm glad they used classic stop-motion techniques as opposed to modern cgi to show him. it was kept to a minimum and we don't get many good looks at him. it was a faithful adaptation made by people who clearly cared deeply for the source material. you're just one of those people who always says 'the book is better.' (which is quite often true as in this case because, again, the written source material can go into a level of depth unavailable to a visual representation)

[–] guardian_owl 12 years ago

Indeed, if they had the money to hire a quality stop motion animator I am sure it would have come out better. I don't know what it is about the slightly herky jerky motion of stop motion which is so much scarier. For instance, I find the scariest incarnation of the terminator to be the Terminator 1, factory stop motion model.

[–] KitchenKnives 9 years ago

Yeah? Well it's my opinion you'd be a terrible filmmaker. So there's that.

[–] Karl Aksel 11 years ago

Is this film terrifying or horrifying?

No, not really. And that makes it a very good adaptation, because neither are Lovecraft's stories. They are strangely addictive, but terrifying, horrifying, scary? No.

[–] rnlol 11 years ago

Well, I think the short story loses all of its sense of dread and foreboding when Cthulhu actually appears and chases the boat like a big dumb sea monster. I think the sailors should have found the door to his tomb and maybe heard something stirring inside, but there should never have been an action scene where they ram Cthulhu with their boat.

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[–] triplegrim 11 years ago

Lovecraft was all about atmosphere, and not about horror. The endings to his short stories are usually predicted early in the stories, and there is little suspense, and very few twists.

Can the OP honestly say that he was scared while reading the Call of Cthulhu? I find that hard to believe. It is Lovecrafts imaginative universe, his atmosphere and the bleak, doomed moods of his stories that needs to be captured in a film like this.

[–] tipopwilliams 11 years ago

Ah, but if they had done as you describe, then this wouldn't be a faithful adaptation. What happened in the movie is pretty much exactly what happened in the short story.

[–] rnlol 11 years ago

Yeah, I actually meant that that's what Lovecraft should have written.

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[–] tipopwilliams 11 years ago

I'll break up my reply for clarity:

1) The short story upon which this is based was not "horrifying" or even particularly scary. It's atmospheric, with a sense of dread, with a bit of thrill near the end as the sailors flee for their lives and sanity. I felt the movie captured all of this well. I actually thought to myself as the final two sailors fled the island, "Wow, I'm actually feeling some adrenalin rush here. I didn't think that would happen in a silent movie."

2) Perhaps I am more willing to suspend disbelief than you, but I didn't see Claymation Cthulhu as being laughable or even "not scary." I was able to put myself sufficiently into the story that when I saw those claws at the entrance, the hand reaching down, the shadows on the wall, the thing wading through the churning waters of the Pacific… it seemed sufficiently frightening. Would better special effects have made it more frightening? Not in my opinion. At best, better effects would have made it seem more realistic, but not more frightening.

3) What effects there were (aside from Claymation Cthulhu) were pretty well done. The dead bodies hanging upside down in the swamp looked real enough for the purposes of this story, for example. The sailor standing on top of Cthulhu's cave who then seemed to fall inward definitely gave the appearance of strange physics and non-euclidian geometry. Oh, and the most startling effect was the sailor who slipped between two corners, seemingly falling into a crevasse that our perceptions were not meant to perceive.

4) Your overall complaint, that because it did not scare you as much as the story then it's not a faithful adaptation, is fallacious. It's very faithful to the story, and how much it frightened you has no bearing on that.

[–] tad-32 11 years ago

Excellent response and I agree.

The sailors reaching the island was a great third act. The music was especially well done for that part, conveying the weirdness of the city, the sense of impending doom slowly building, and the killings and the chaos that ensue once Cthulhu is free.

The design of the city was also well done, as you say...the crevasse that wasn't there, the weird door that appeared 2 dimensional or 3 dimensional pointed outwards, or 3 dimensional pointed inwards depending on how you looked at it. Loved it.

[–] GreyHunter 10 years ago

The main problem anyone, including these film-makers, runs into when trying to do a faithful adaption of most Lovecraft stories (a few exceptions, like Innsmouth, Witch-House, Mountains, and possibly Rats, among others, exist) is that Lovecraft relied heavily on ambiguity and lurid purple adjectival prose to convey the sense of horror. As much as I love his work, I -- and any fan who's being honest -- have to concede it's very much pulp in all its baroqueness and prolixity. He rarely conveys horror that can easily be translated to the visual medium due to the limitations his prose inflicts on itself. For the most part, the narrators and assorted leading men (and they're always men) attempt to convey what in latter days has become known as "Lovecraftian" horror -- that sense of a vast and uncaring universe populated by insanity-inducing beings that are beyond mere morality -- is done primarily through a description of how the sights and sounds make the narrator feel. His personal brand of horror writing relies heavily on subjective impressions. That's why a Lovecraftian movie is much more likely to be effective if it's not literally faithful to Lovecraft's actual plots. Loose adaptations and unrelated but thematically-faithful movies stand a better chance than something that attempts to actually recreate most of Lovecraft's works.

That said, I like the movie. Yes, the digital filming was distracting and obvious because Lovecraft practically demands the luxuriousness of film. But it's also vastly cheaper than film, and the movie makers were on a severe budget by Hollywood standards. But as far as the actual adaption goes, this was a bravura effort and I'm glad to own it.