Cthulhu movie!

[ghost_warlock]

How did this one slip by me!? :smalleek:

Official website (http://www.cthulhu-themovie.com/).

[Steven the Lich]

Sounds extremely wierd. Hope they don't provide a glimpse of Cthulu, because then anyone who sees the movie is driven insane. Still, it has my interest.

[Ascension]

Sounds like a weird mishmash of Shadow Over Innsmouth, CoC, and a bunch of random junk just thrown in for the heck of it.

Color me unimpressed.

[Trizap]

..................ok......whatever, people will just think its some weird horror flick or something and completely forget about it a month after it comes out.

[DraPrime]

Lovecraftian horror is far too "mental" for it to be expressed with moving pictures on a screen.

[Mr.Bookworm]

I'll see it, but I'm not very hopeful. All of it's in use for Del Toro's movie.

Though apparently, there's a Lovecraft Film Festival. Whoda thunk it?


Lovecraftian horror is far too "mental" for it to be expressed with moving pictures on a screen.

I think you could do it, you would just need to very careful to either only show the monster in tiny, little glimpses, or not at all.

[WalkingTarget]

Well, as far as Lovecraft stories go, Shadow Over Innsmouth is one of the ones I think would translate ok. Obviously needs to up modernized a bit, but the general plot of guy goes to small fishing village, finds out horrible secret, and has to escape while the horrible fishman-hybrid people chase him is doable. There's nothing overtly "unnamable" in that story that it would make it hard to show.

Now, why they would call the film Cthulhu given that he doesn't have anything to do with that story (at least, nothing that wouldn't make it more complicated to explain it).

I may see this thing eventually. Probably not while it's in theaters, though.

[Jayngfet]

Now, why they would call the film Cthulhu given that he doesn't have anything to do with that story (at least, nothing that wouldn't make it more complicated to explain it).

The townspeople worship cthulhu(and dagon, but people rarely remember him).

[WalkingTarget]

The townspeople worship cthulhu(and dagon, but people rarely remember him).

And Mother Hydra, but the word "Cthulhu" only comes up thrice in the story, twice in the "Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah-nagl fhtaga" part and once near the end after the narrator has started to succumb to the madness and at no point is what he is described.

I guess that since Dagon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagon_(film)) was taken they couldn't really use that as a single-word title despite it being in the name of the cult involved.

[Ascension]

They could have called it Esoteric Order of Dagon or EOD...

I would have probably called it Innsmouth, though.

[Eita]

This is... Upsetting to say the least. They don't even try to hide the fact that it's been Hollywood-ized. "some sexuality, nudity" does not sit well with me. Lovecraft is not meant for such. I didn't bother watching the trailer after I saw that.

[Ascension]

This is... Upsetting to say the least. They don't even try to hide the fact that it's been Hollywood-ized. "some sexuality, nudity" does not sit well with me. Lovecraft is not meant for such. I didn't bother watching the trailer after I saw that.

They could just be talking about a visual depiction of the intermingling of humanity and the fish-men...

...but the trailer seems to say that the protagonist is half of a homosexual couple, so it's probably a completely unnecessary love scene between the two of them, instead.

[fireinthedust]

Shadow over Innsmouth translates great: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagon_(film)

There's good special effects, and in a way the audience does go insane. Granted, it's not blow-by-blow for SOI, but I enjoyed it on its own merits before I read the short story.

I worry that "evil that drives you insane" has been so well documented that it's a passé genre gimmick now. Look at the Far Realm in D&D: if you have dungeoneering, you can check to know about creatures from a realm that's supposedly "outside" the rest of D&D. Which means if you go caving enough and learn about myconids, you can make checks to know about Cthulhu... which is stupid.

What this means, I think, is that it's hard to truly grasp HPL or, rather, what we the audience *thinks* he wrote. The horrifying part of HPL is related to twentieth century literature's major feature: Trauma. It's the inability to express, or inability to comprehend our pain. 20th lit has that as a major theme (ah, university first year lit).

Basically, starting with WW1 we had soldiers going away from home and coming back with Shell Shock, or post traumatic stress disorder. There was no way to describe the horrors of war. "the Sun also rises" featured a reporter (ironically) whose injury during the war (castration from shrapnel) separates him from the language of the world around him (he is in love with this woman, but they can never be together; lots of motifs of manly action (bull fighting, etc.) and his separation from that; the whole book is about him and other vets being drunk in Paris, but that's between the lines).
Also, technology was failing people: mass train wrecks, horror on a huge scale, when technology was supposed to be progress, infallible.

We, right now, don't have the same language as HPL for trauma. We fill in the blanks with pictures of squids and gibbering mouthers, when that doesn't really do what HPL is writing about justice.

Back then, when folks were pillaging egypt for its treasures (king tut, etc.), there were parties thrown to open a coffin and look at what was inside. Now we've basically mapped out Egypt, and have a better understanding of the ancient past. Then, however, it was mysterious, alien. Now movies like "the mummy" are seen by the audience as kitch; the beauty of the mummy, and what the original it was based on was really trying to get at, is the unvoicable nature of the unknown.

if this movie does that, then it could be good. Personally, I'd also like to see a period piece of CoC, like King Kong was done. That would be cool.

[nobodylovesyou4]

if youre going to watch a cthulhu movie, watch this one. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478988/) it's superbly done and follows the story incredibly well, differing only on one minor detail.

[Irenaeus]

if youre going to watch a cthulhu movie, watch this one. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478988/) it's superbly done and follows the story incredibly well, differing only on one minor detail.Hell yeah! Best Lovecraftian movie ever made!

[Bhu]

Yeah basically the Cthulhu movie is a gay man returning to his home town and the local cult wanting him to go straight and turn Deep One. Or at least all the review materials I've gotten ahold of imply that.

[kamikasei]

Yeah basically the Cthulhu movie is a gay man returning to his home town and the local cult wanting him to go straight and turn Deep One. Or at least all the review materials I've gotten ahold of imply that.

Think I heard something about this a while back. The idea I think is to set up a superficial/mundane conflict between the main character and his family's expectations to ground and heighten the "come turn into a fish-monster like the rest of your clan" weirdness. Something a little more concrete than "I've never heard of this town before, but it turns out one of my ancestors is from here, and I feel a yearning for the sea now".

[Whoracle]

Now, that doesn't look too overwhelming.

However, I like the sewer lid at 1:46 in the trailer ^^

[banjo1985]

Doesn't look too promising to be honest, though I'm willing to give it a go. I must agree that it's going to have to be a very weird film to get the atmosphere of the setting and original stories anywhere near right.

[JabberwockySupafly]

I have one very sound reason for saying this movie will be terrible, and that is... Tori Spelling is in it... and I'll leave it at that...

[Occasional Sage]

if youre going to watch a cthulhu movie, watch this one. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478988/) it's superbly done and follows the story incredibly well, differing only on one minor detail.

I have this one on my shelf, and love it. It's a black-and-white silent film from 2005, with the "bad film" crackle and static digitized in; essentially, it's "what Hollywood would have done with Lovecraft if they had been smart enough to film his stories when he was alive." The film makers go to great lengths to capture the style and tech of the era, which plays very nicely with the accurate translation of the script.

[Tormsskull]

I read the synopsis, and as such I have absolutely no interest in seeing it.

Edit: V of the one that the OP introduced.

[Occasional Sage]

I read the synopsis, and as such I have absolutely no interest in seeing it.

Read the synopsis of which? There are two movies being discussed here (or maybe three if I missed a link).

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Uh, yeah... that's...

It was almost like two movies in there. Some flashes looked well done and realistic, others had the distinct look of B-movie... but the acting looks horrible throughout.

Ho hum.

[doliest]

Oh god not that crap, it's basically(Like most independent films) some movie about some gay guy, only they through in cthulhu to get a built in audinence, you'll get a better adaption by putting on a cthulhu costume and running around your house talking about the cake being a lie....come to think of it, that would also be much more entertaining.

[Hectonkhyres]

Hope they don't provide a glimpse of Cthulu, because then anyone who sees the movie is driven insane. Still, it has my interest.
The prospective audience members are already Lovecraft-buffs. There is nothing the movie can do to them that hasn't been done already.

Well, as far as Lovecraft stories go, Shadow Over Innsmouth is one of the ones I think would translate ok. Obviously needs to up modernized a bit, but the general plot of guy goes to small fishing village, finds out horrible secret, and has to escape while the horrible fishman-hybrid people chase him is doable. There's nothing overtly "unnamable" in that story that it would make it hard to show.
And, oddly enough, the horrible secret wasn't that horrible.
You could have made the damn thing into a Disney film for cripes sake.

[Revlid]

Fabulous - the essence of Lovecraft... maybe the best Lovecraft adaptation I have seen to date
-- S.T. Joshi
What makes Cthulhu so riveting is not only the mounting suspense as the mystery surrounding Russell and his family begins to spiral out of control, but also the exploration of sexual orientation and gender that take place within the bond between Russell and Mike, as well as the depictions of heterosexuality as expressed by the religious cult.
--Desiree Valdez

Fabulous - the essence of Lovecraft...
the exploration of sexual orientation and gender that take place within the bond between Russell and Mike, as well as the depictions of heterosexuality as expressed by the religious cult.

essence of Lovecraft
exploration of sexual orientation

DOES NOT COMPUTE

EDIT: To talk about the film itself and not just the apparent obliviousness of the film makers to what Lovecraft actually wrote about (come on, Guillermo del Toro fought Hollywood to keep the Love out of Lovecraft, the least you indies can do is try to do the same), I'd like to point out something.

A Shadow Over Innsmouth, whether you call it Cthulhu, Dagon, or Dark Corners of the Earth, cannot be summarised as 'The Wicker Man with fish'. Please, don't do so.
Also, please note than in real Lovecraft, the gays (and blacks, but in-universe we put that down to voodoo influence by Nyarlathotep, rather than racism) would be more likely to be cultists. I'm not the kind of guy who desires absolute adhesion to the source material, but throwing gay main characters, an 'exploration of sexuality', and a 'sexy seductress' into Lovecraft is a load of bull**** that frankly stinks of Author On Board. Also Adaptation Decay.

[Occasional Sage]

Fabulous - the essence of Lovecraft... maybe the best Lovecraft adaptation I have seen to date
-- S.T. Joshi
What makes Cthulhu so riveting is not only the mounting suspense as the mystery surrounding Russell and his family begins to spiral out of control, but also the exploration of sexual orientation and gender that take place within the bond between Russell and Mike, as well as the depictions of heterosexuality as expressed by the religious cult.
--Desiree Valdez

Fabulous - the essence of Lovecraft...
the exploration of sexual orientation and gender that take place within the bond between Russell and Mike, as well as the depictions of heterosexuality as expressed by the religious cult.

essence of Lovecraft
exploration of sexual orientation

DOES NOT COMPUTE

What? You think film critics know what they're talking about? pshaw!

[WalkingTarget]

What? You think film critics know what they're talking about? pshaw!

S. T. Joshi is pretty much the Lovecraft scholar. If he thinks the filmmakers got the tone right, I'll accept it for now.

I had never heard of Desiree Valdez before. Looks like she blogs (http://americansexuality.blogspot.com/2008/06/cthulhu.html) on the Voices of American Sexuality Magazine website. Methinks there's likely to be a filter on how reviewers from that publication interpret things.

[Philistine]

S. T. Joshi is pretty much the Lovecraft scholar. If he thinks the filmmakers got the tone right, I'll accept it for now.

I had never heard of Desiree Valdez before. Looks like she blogs (http://americansexuality.blogspot.com/2008/06/cthulhu.html) on the Voices of American Sexuality Magazine website. Methinks there's likely to be a filter on how reviewers from that publication interpret things.

A filter? Ya think? :smallamused: However, the fact that the filmmakers chose to quote her review on their Web site (one of only three reviews to be quoted) - and chose to quote that specific line of her review - seems to point toward this being intended on the filmmakers' part.

And the problem, to me, is that it just screams out Agenda Movie. Agenda Entertainment more often than not fails on both counts - heavy-handed moralizing generally interferes with making good fiction (for example, compare Tolkien's Middle Earth with Lewis's Narnia), nor is it usually an effective way of communicating with people who don't already agree with the message being presented (again, the example is Middle Earth vs. Narnia).

[Nerzul9000]

Lovecraftian horror is far too "mental" for it to be expressed with moving pictures on a screen.

yup...he speaks the truth

[Nerzul9000]

And Mother Hydra, but the word "Cthulhu" only comes up thrice in the story, twice in the "Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah-nagl fhtaga" part and once near the end after the narrator has started to succumb to the madness and at no point is what he is described.

I guess that since Dagon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagon_(film)) was taken they couldn't really use that as a single-word title despite it being in the name of the cult involved.

Not so true persay...they're basically remaking this same move, little modernasation(spell check here?) but nothing more really...they could prolly get ahold of the rights to that name considering it's the same story...(because you know, calling the movie "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" is way too obvious)

[Nerzul9000]

if im not mistaken there were like a total of somewhere near five female characters in ALL of HPL's writings that had ANY real significence, Romance was NEVER a part of his writings, sexuality? nudity? no, not HPL stuff, Damn you hollywood...*shakes fist*

[Setra]

It looks like it could have been alright... but I get the feeling there's going to be too much of a 'lesson' on sexual orientation which will make it fall flat.

The combination of the two is just silly, to me.

[Nerzul9000]

ya...having thats for sure gunna nerf the entire story with a diff element. wasnt even in the story...

[Dryken]

I remember this making the film fest rounds last year...

It seems like it's a very loose interpretation of Shadow Over Innsmouth (not a stranger to the town, but an estranged son) and the director has thrown a lot of "messages" into this one.

I'm reminded of a Ectoplasmosis review (http://www.ectomo.com/?p=262) on the movie...

What we’ve been given instead is a second-rate simulacra of The Shadow Over Innsmouth (in which our aforementioned Old One only cadges brief mention), a story of which Lovecraft himself was critical. It would appear his fears have been realized in celluloid form. Cthulhu: The Movie falls exceedingly short of delivering the shock and horror one might expect from a Lovecraftian tale, not to mention the stilted dialogue, non-linear editing, and costuming that turns shoggoths into a preschooler’s pipe cleaner homage to albino tumbleweeds.

...Far be it from me to dissuade someone from a round of Bush-bashing or discussion on what it means to be gay in today’s society, but a movie about a bloodthirsty godlet spawned from the stars is not the place for it. The place for it is the corporate coffee chain a block from the theater, where you and your self-righteous friends can discuss the political and social merits (or lack thereof) of the film.

...Cthulhu: The Movie is anything but. Part gay love story, part Tori Spelling rape scene, part Anti-Bush propaganda, all garbage, and sadly, not in a way many of us enjoy. The creators of the film themselves have professed their previous lack of respect for the horror genre, something evident throughout the film by the complete and total mishandling of what is otherwise a great story.

[WalkingTarget]

if im not mistaken there were like a total of somewhere near five female characters in ALL of HPL's writings that had ANY real significence, Romance was NEVER a part of his writings, sexuality? nudity? no, not HPL stuff, Damn you hollywood...*shakes fist*

Five, hmm...

Lavinia Whateley (The Dunwich Horror)
Asenath Waite (The Thing on the Doorstep)
Keziah Mason, I guess (The Dreams in the Witch House)
umm...

Nope, that's all I can come up with offhand. :smallwink:


*film review, etc.*

Ah, less than promising, then. I wonder what impressed Joshi about it. :smallconfused:

[Setra]

Ah, less than promising, then. I wonder what impressed Joshi about it. :smallconfused:
They paid him money?

[WalkingTarget]

I suppose that's always a possibility. I'd like to think that somebody who's built his entire career on the works of Lovecraft and his contemporaries would care more, though.

Or maybe he's just never been asked to give a blurb about anything before and he didn't want to hurt their feelings. Oh well. I'd be curious to know what else he said about it that got ...'ed out of the quote.

[Lord Tataraus]

What we’ve been given instead is a second-rate simulacra of The Shadow Over Innsmouth (in which our aforementioned Old One only cadges brief mention), a story of which Lovecraft himself was critical. It would appear his fears have been realized in celluloid form. Cthulhu: The Movie falls exceedingly short of delivering the shock and horror one might expect from a Lovecraftian tale, not to mention the stilted dialogue, non-linear editing, and costuming that turns shoggoths into a preschooler’s pipe cleaner homage to albino tumbleweeds.

...Far be it from me to dissuade someone from a round of Bush-bashing or discussion on what it means to be gay in today’s society, but a movie about a bloodthirsty godlet spawned from the stars is not the place for it. The place for it is the corporate coffee chain a block from the theater, where you and your self-righteous friends can discuss the political and social merits (or lack thereof) of the film.

...Cthulhu: The Movie is anything but. Part gay love story, part Tori Spelling rape scene, part Anti-Bush propaganda, all garbage, and sadly, not in a way many of us enjoy. The creators of the film themselves have professed their previous lack of respect for the horror genre, something evident throughout the film by the complete and total mishandling of what is otherwise a great story.

That is exactly what I feared. Stop ruining HPL!!! *shakes tentacle*

[Irenaeus]

Hm. I kind of think that as long as a feeling of a cold and essentially nihilistic universe is conveyed thay can have as much sexuality as they want in a Lovecraft adaptation. I don't really need any other of Lovecraft's convictions or values adapted to the silver screen (even if they can be great fun sometimes).

To me at least, introducing such a theme will only be a superficial change. Now if you throw in a "Love that conquers all" (regardless of gender) or any glimmer of hope whatsoever, that pretty much ruins everything.

I don't know which will be the case in this movie. But I'll have to see it. Shadows over Innsmouth is my favourite HPL story, after all.

[SurlySeraph]

I'm fine with a movie whose message is "It's OK to be gay, even if your family wants you to be straight." But a movie whose message is "It's OK to be gay, even if your family wants you to be straight, because they only want you to be straight to make you mate with an evil fish-woman to continue the bloodline of an evil star god" has some issues.

[Nerzul9000]

I'm fine with a movie whose message is "It's OK to be gay, even if your family wants you to be straight." But a movie whose message is "It's OK to be gay, even if your family wants you to be straight, because they only want you to be straight to make you mate with an evil fish-woman to continue the bloodline of an evil star god" has some issues.

for sure...im openly bi and have a ton of gay friends but...man this kinda crap is ridiculis...

[fendermallot]

http://miscellany.lolthulhu.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/swampwolf-tps.jpg

[UncleWolf]

The movie I would like to see would be At The Mountains of Madness.