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.

[–] chibistevo-478-46753 9 years ago

Seems like an odd criticism given that very few of Lovecraft's works were really terrifying due to the method of which they were told. His prose, as of the era, was long winded, at times completely purple and utterly vague (a good technique for most fiction, but not, I would argue, for horror and events really needing explanation). But most problematic was his method of delivery. Many of his stories, primarily, The Call of Cthulu (which isn't remotely horrific or suspenseful) because it was basically told matter of factly from a narrator who is essentially telling a story of other people. This loses the personal view of the narrator which in turn lessens the stakes and captivation of the events leading up to the 'appearance' of Cthulu, which in turn makes the story feel somewhat like a newspaper article account, void of any suspense.

In fact out of the 15 or so works of his I've read, pickman's Model was the only one that completely hooked me and sold a suspenseful story.

[–] BrainGremlin 9 years ago

I didn't find the original story "terrifying or horrifying" either. Interesting, yes, but it never came close to actually scaring me. Much like this movie that's probably a result of experiencing it in the 21st century.

King Kong is also far from frightening, but it scared the bejebus out of people back in then, so I'd imagine this would have had a lot more merit in that sense, if released in its day, which is what they were going for.

I agree with the others: it is faithful, even if to a fault.

---
Sad story. You got a smoke?

[–] GreyHunter 8 years ago

I've been reading a few of these threads and some reviews, and I have to ask -- have y'all actually read H.P. Lovecraft? The man had an incredible eye for detail and expressing it, but the horror itself was almost entirely vague and cosmic in ways that simply cannot be effectively adapted to the screen. What drives his protagonists mad and sends them howling off to write long screeds is mostly an unspeakable, ineffable, indescribable dread and terror. Now it can therefore be argued that means trying to faithfully adapt one of his stories and expecting it to convey the "terror and horror" is an exercise in futility and thus these are wasted efforts. I won't dispute that in theory. But once a piece is adapted, it's rather petulant to decry the fact that it fails to accomplish the very thing it was doomed to fail by the source material. Take the movie for what it is, which is a good effort by a group of amateur filmmakers on the sort of budget that amateur filmmakers can manage to scrape together.

Incidentally, it was shot in digital because that's an order of magnitude cheaper than film. Cinema-quality film...ain't cheap, and if you're an amateur who is likely to make numerous mistakes, you're going to use up a lot more film than a professional, which makes the entire affair even more expensive.

[–] trouvere_york 7 years ago

I have great fondness for many of Lovecraft's stories and a deep gratitude for his near single handed invention of a whole genre. That said, I have never found his stories scary or terrifying. I did not expect to experience any terror while watching this film. Indeed, for a horror writer, Lovecraft tended to steer away from the horror tropes that are now all too familiar for us. As a result his stories are usually not truly 'horrible' in the way that would attract an '18' certificate (re-animator perhaps being the exception...).