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There still has never been a film that truly captures the essence of H. P. Lovecraft

posted 5 years ago by zephyr_cape (2979)
15 replies | jump to latest

It looks like with the release of another Lovecraft adaptation, we have still not cracked the seal on capturing the tone of HPL's writing in film. Will it ever happen? Is it possible?

This movie looks interesting and I'll definitely see it, but it does look like it will fall in with a similar camp tone to most of the Stuart Gordon et al adaptations.

A user on reddit remarked that they couldn't imagine a better casting for an HPL film than Nicholas Cage. I LOVE Nicholas Cage, loved Mandy, and I'm sure he'll be great in this sort of interpretation, but I would never think to cast him if I was really trying to capture the spirit of HPL's writing.

What do you think?
What would a Lovecraft film need to truly capture the essence of his written works? Who would you cast? Who could be best suited to direct? If you were directing what choices would you make?

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[–] Moonglum9 (10852) 4 years ago

Well if they ever do manage to capture the essence, I hope it's when they're filming At The Mountains of Madness. What an great tale!

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[–] zephyr_cape (2979) 4 years ago

There was a Mountains of Madness film in development for a long time, to be directed by Guillermo Del Toro, produced by James Cameron, and starring Tom Cruise. It's cancelled now. I was skeptically curious to see what they did with it. Here's hoping next time it gets picked back up, they figure out how to not cast Tom Cruise for starters...

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[–] Moonglum9 (10852) 4 years ago

God please - no Tom Cruise!

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[–] ChipDouglas (1607) 2 years ago

Del Toro is an absolute shit director. I would hate for him to direct anything like this. Any smart producer should keep him and is CGI garabge stories away.

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[–] zephyr_cape (2979) 4 years ago

A few quick thoughts now having seen it.

I found it to be, as expected, a totally middling, basically un-Lovecraftian, predictable, just this side of SciFi original, horror movie.

There are a few nearly cool elements, like some of the creature designs and stuff like the view through the forehead rune to the tentacle dimension of the Old Ones, Chong's undead tape recording, some of the climactic dissolution imagery, even though it's rendered in shitty videogame-esque CGI, sometimes it's kinda sorta ALMOST there.

Also some amusing OTT Nick Cage moments. Freaking out in the car? And was he doing a straight up Donald Trump impression at one point? LOL

I don't know if it's possible to cast Chong in a stonery horror film without just making me think of The Evil Bong.

At the end of the day, I just don't think you can do a modernized Lovecraft film, using CGI, big name actors, while showing explicitly this much, etc. and not expect maximum disappointment.

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[–] zephyr_cape (2979) 4 years ago

Oh but I will say the score/sound design was pretty damn sick! Appropriately otherworldly, psychedelic, and not modern horror cookiecutter. Definitely the best part of the whole thing.

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[–] Moonglum9 (10852) 4 years ago

Through what service / channel did you see this?

BTW - Have you ever seen "Cast A Deadly Spell". Not an actual Lovecraft story, but takes place in the Lovecraft universe. It is pretty damn good. Awesome cast, good story. The special effects are somewhat cheesy, but not too horrible. I think it's available on Amazon Prime and HBO on demand.

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[–] zephyr_cape (2979) 4 years ago

"Someone who isn't me" "may or may not have" "happened to be in the room" while this was streaming on putlocker. 😉 😉

I have seen Cast A Deadly Spell! I thought it was a pretty cool, fun movie! I can dig using Lovecraft elements in a way different context like that. I liked the sfx too. I have a thing for practical effects of all quality lvls.

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[–] snoopdawgydog (0) 4 years ago

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[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

I don't know if it can really be done. Lovecraft's horror wasn't the stuff of movies. But since we're at it, what is the movie you think most approaches what you'd like to see?

The Call of Cthulhu "silent film" is neat.

The Resurrected is a good attempt at modernizing Lovecraft. Too bad they left out too much of the occult aspect of the story.

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[–] zephyr_cape (2979) 4 years ago

Call of Cthulhu silent film was an interesting take. I do think black and white could be an effective choice, but I felt they played it way too hard as vintage novelty. There was a deliberate kitsch factor to the silent film aesthetic there that made the whole thing cutesy, which is of course way off the mark in terms of being true to the essence of the source material. Lovecraft was, perhaps above all else, a hardcore antiquarian, but it wasn't a cute, surface level thing for him. It was emblematic of a deep loathing for the modern world and all things corruptly human that permeated everything he did. I think that ideology needs to be imbued on every level of production to get it right.

I maintain that it could be done, but agree HPL's work forcefully resists moviefication. I don't know if I can say there is one that exists yet that comes close to what I'd like to see.

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[–] Kentrey (2) 4 years ago

The setting in Dagon felt like the town described in The Shadow Over Innsmouth. My favorite adaptation.

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[–] zephyr_cape (2979) 4 years ago

Dagon gets a few things close, Innsmouth does feel Innsmouthy enough, but the overall tone and aesthetic is way off. If it wasn't for the excessive bad cgi I'd say it's one of the closer ones though.

On that note, I'm just going to go right ahead and boldly say that for me, one of the immediate dealbreakers is cgi, and a close as possible Lovecraft film will use NO digital tools WHATSOEVER.

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[–] Moonglum9 (10852) 4 years ago

Don't know if you watch South Park, but there was a 3 part episode called the Coon Trilogy that was all about Cthulhu and Lovecraftian things. Pretty damn funny.

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[–] zephyr_cape (2979) 4 years ago

Love SP, haven't seen that one! I'll put er down for a check out. 👌

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