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H. P. Lovecraft films

TimCallahan

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A few nights ago I was channel surfing and found on the Chiller channel an exquisite black and white film version of H. P. Lovecraft's The Whisperer in Darkness. Unfortunately, I hit on it fairly well into the movie; but it was still well worth watching. It was set in the late 1920s, with a 20s' view of advanced technology. Filming it in black and white made for excellent use of chiaroscuro. It had a very creepy Lovecraftian atmosphere. The same people who made this film also made a silent version of The Call of Chthulu. I've heard of a German version of The Color out of Space, done, appropriately, in black and white, that is also supposed to be well done.

This is a lot better than the 1970 film version of The Dunwich Horror, starring, Dean Stockwell, Sam Jaffe, Sandra Dee and Ed Begley, although it was fun seeing Miss Dee in sexy open-sided outfit. Before that, there were a bunch of Roger Corman style films, supposedly based on stuff by Edgar Allen Poe, but in reality Lovecraft stories.

You can see a preview of At the Mountains of Madness here which is being produced by James Cameron. From the preview one can see that they've sensibly set the film in the 20s or 30s. It's big budget, which may be promising, although I'm not sure Tom Cruise is a good fit for the film.

What do the rest of you think of this film, as well as The Whisperer in Darkness, The Call of Chthulu, The Color out of Space and others?
 
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I've been on a Lovecraft kick with my scripts, as such my finished script has been heavily influenced by the mythos, and my current script is a straight-up Cthulhu story set in the near future.
 
TimCallahan said:
You can see a preview of At the Mountains of Madness here which is being produced by James Cameron. From the preview one can see that they've sensibly set the film in the 20s or 30s. It's big budget, which may be promising, although I'm not sure Tom Cruise is a good fit for the film.
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That trailer is a fan-made edit of other footage. There was a proposed Cameron-produced Universal production, true. Del Toro was set to write and direct, and it's true that Cruise was mentioned, but the project got canned pretty early in development. Which I'm not sure if I think is a good or a bad thing. I like Del Toro, I like Lovecraft, but maybe that story is one of the unfilmable ones.

I really, really like Reanimator, Reanimator 2 and The Beyond. They're so much schlocky fun, and Jeff Coombs precisely hits the appropriate level of overacting.
 
ThatSoundAgain said:
That trailer is a fan-made edit of other footage. There was a proposed Cameron-produced Universal production, true. Del Toro was set to write and direct, and it's true that Cruise was mentioned, but the project got canned pretty early in development. Which I'm not sure if I think is a good or a bad thing. I like Del Toro, I like Lovecraft, but maybe that story is one of the unfilmable ones.
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The film that Man Was Not Meant to Produce.
 
Seems to me that Vincent Price did a couple of Lovecraft-themed films...As I recall with the titles oddly reversed....Yeah, IMDB says his "The Haunted Palace" is actually "The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward".
I would certainly like to see At The Mountains Of Madness done... Modern CGI could likely render the scale of the structures and the alien "Old Ones" pretty well.
Just re-read the thing... It's one of H.P.'s more science-fiction oriented stories.

I watched that version of The Color Out Of Space mentioned above, it's on Netflix too, I believe. Pretty well-done.
 
Couple other Lovecraft-related films that are worth a watch:

In the Mouth of Madness
The Last Lovecraft - Relic of Cthulhu
 
Another vote for Dagon.

I didn't like Re-animator, either the film or the original story. Out of all the Lovecraft stories to make into a movie, Re-animator is the worst of the lot. So much better material they could have used in place of this crappy story.
 
Gawdzilla said:
The Call of Chthulu is on Netflix. Pretty good retro.
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Yes, absolutely. I like Dagon quite a bit, too.

Re-Animator is not of the same mood at all, but is a classic.

I have all three on DVD.

I mostly read Lovecraft rather than watch it, mind you, so I haven't seen the other ones.
 
I refuse to see a Lovecraft work in movie form until John Waters directs it. He alone could capture the true atmosphere of absolute horror born of eldritch abominations!

I've always mentally pictured Nyarlathotep as Mink Stole anyway.
 
Bikewer said:
I would certainly like to see At The Mountains Of Madness done... Modern CGI could likely render the scale of the structures and the alien "Old Ones" pretty well.
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Difficulty would be with the ending.

Do you show the monsters that turn that guy into a gibbering wreck, or just show his reaction à la John Wayne in The Searchers? Personally, I'd opt for detailing the lesser creatures, but hide the big bad.
 
I just watched Dagon, the full movie, here and I agree that it was well done. However, can anything really match this?
 
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Best Lovecraft movie IMO is "The Resurrected" aka "Shatterbrain", with Chris Sarandon as Charles Dexter Ward. It's pretty faithful to Lovecraft's original story, although the piece is moved to contemporary (80s) times.
 
also...

The Un-nameable (sp?)


there was also an Unnameable 2 , but that one blew... the first one is very Lovecraftian tho'...
 
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