Lovecraftian Flicks

[The_Beast]

Somebody slap me silly; I scrolled through the thread and can't find:

1) Night Gallery tv series. Cool Air was done, and I thought well, and a really cute short with Carl Reiner as a professor reading a forbidden tome*. There were others that you could see influence. Beware really uneven production quality, including the occasional incomprehensible edit.

2) HPLHS.

And I have a vague memory of something in Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond that had suggestions of Dagon, though the series presented itself as 'true stories.'

Doug

Edit: *“Professor Peabody's Last Lecture”

[GarrisonMiniatures]

Having just joined I'm gradually reading through and making odd comments...

Not mentioned, but Bleeders and Hemoglobin are the same film -I think Hemoglobin American version based on the spelling, Bleeders UK title. Could be the other way round. Alan Reeves soundtrack is brilliant

The Kindred can be found on YouTube - no idea how 'legit' it is

Lair of the White Worm has a strange version of a North Eastern song about the Lampton Worm...

Lots of Lovecraft fan movies and audio books on YouTube - worth doing a search for them.

[Smokeyrone]

Not enough. 

Dunwitch Horror begs for a better remake.

Lots of loose adaptations, but few true Lovecraft films.   

Stuart Gordon, IMO, absolutely rocked HP stories set in modern times. 

Re-animator is GOAT, as is Dagon, and From Beyond is no slouch either

[Connectamabob]

The Void was pretty enjoyable, an old school physical effects film (no shortage of sprayed Kensington Gore).

Saw this just recently. Thought is was a pretty decent B movie. Very good visuals and atmosphere. VERY Lovecraft influenced, and IMO a better source of reference/inspiration than many actual Lovecraft movies.

But, and this will sound weird if you haven't seen the movie, it also works ESPECIALLY well as an unofficial distant WH40K prequel, sort of like how some fans view the movie "Event Horizon". The thought occurred to me about halfway through the film, and I was surprised not only at how well it clicked, but also by how the stuff that would otherwise be too muddled or vague gets explained perfectly if you project 40K lore behind it in your head.

[Connectamabob]

YellowBrickRoad (loved it)

This... I didn't like.

Well, I DID like it, until the very end. It's basically a creepypasta in movie form, and it's SUPER obvious the writer/filmmakers got nearly done making the film before realizing that creepypastas don't have endings (they aren't so much stories as faux urban legends: set-ups that trail off without resolution to blend the scenario into reality), but their movie really needed one. They'd done too good a job hyping the MacGuffin to not show the audience what it was, but they had had no idea what it was themselves, so they crapped together some bollocks for the last 5 minutes that was utterly lazy, leadenly anticlimactic, AND completely clashing with the style of story they'd being telling up to that point.

I would not be surprised in the slightest if that ending wasn't even written 'til after the rest of the film had already been edited. In fact I'd be very surprised if that that wasn't the case.

Up 'till that final denouement, it's pretty creepy and tense and weird in a good way.

[Ballardian]

 I recently picked up 'The Creature Below' - I can only say that if you should see it lurking in your supermarket bargain bin, hurry on past & utter a little prayer to the deity of your choice.
 If 'The Void' is an excellent example of a film that wears its Lovecraftian influences lightly, 'The Creature...' gallumphs on yelling "Look, look, I once read... (insert any Lovecraft story here)". Terrible (& I really mean terrible) CGI & acting that wouldn't pass muster in the local village hall, avoid.

[Ballardian]

 I'd forgotten about 'Dead Shadows' (2012), a visually fairly stylish French effort - think 'Night of the Comet' with Lovecraftian mutations instead of zombies, plot-wise a bit 'meh' but reasonably enjoyable.

[Connectamabob]

Two of a sort: "Sauna", and "Beyond the Black Rainbow".

Both are not explicitly or exactly Lovecraftian, but fit into the general milieu.

"Sauna" is about a pair of brothers in medieval Finland, who come across an isolated village while on a surveying/cartography mission. Creepy weird stuff is going on that seems to be emanating from a cyclopean building in a nearby swamp that everyone assumes to be an ancient sauna.

"Beyond the Black Rainbow" is about a teenage girl being held captive an a weird sci-fi lab complex, by a psychiatrist who's trying to awaken reality-warping psychic powers.

Both are very surreal and only half-there plot wise, but are very strong atmospherically. They aren't good movies per-se (some very hipstery people out there will try to tell you BtBR is a masterpiece, when it's really more of a "nice first try, needs more cowbell"), but they are engaging to watch as studies in mood and setting.

...Oh, and while on the subject of "movies that are great atmospherically, but a bit half-there on the plot", I might as well mention an old favorite in "The Keep". Like the above, great atmosphere, compelling setting, just don't expect to be satisfied with the story. Go in wanting good strong dream-horror instead of plot, and you'll be happy.

[Connectamabob]

Oooh, more explicitly Lovecraftian: "Dark Waters", about a woman who goes to visit an island convent, and discovers that the nuns there in fact may be worshiping... something else.

[tomcat51]

[quote author

...Oh, and while on the subject of "movies that are great atmospherically, but a bit half-there on the plot", I might as well mention an old favorite in "The Keep". Like the above, great atmosphere, compelling setting, just don't expect to be satisfied with the story. Go in wanting good strong dream-horror instead of plot, and you'll be happy.
[/quote]

The Keep is great, not quite Lovecraftian as it deals with Good and Evil, but it does have an ancient horror awakened by unwitting humans vibe. The soundtrack is probably the best thing about it. Its like Tangerine Dream did actually see the movie before they wrote the score, it often doesn't match up with what's going on, but it just works. The scene where the Grenadier steels the crucifix and awaken the evil entity is my favourite bit. Dreamily shot with intense music that shouldn't work, but does. Michael Mann went on to direct Heat, one of the best films ever made, and in no way Lovecraftian.

[Connectamabob]

The Keep is great, not quite Lovecraftian as it deals with Good and Evil, but it does have an ancient horror awakened by unwitting humans vibe. The soundtrack is probably the best thing about it. Its like Tangerine Dream did actually see the movie before they wrote the score, it often doesn't match up with what's going on, but it just works. The scene where the Grenadier steels the crucifix and awaken the evil entity is my favourite bit. Dreamily shot with intense music that shouldn't work, but does. Michael Mann went on to direct Heat, one of the best films ever made, and in no way Lovecraftian.

That's my favorite scene too. It's a distilled microcosm of all the best things about the movie.

I mention The Keep in a Lovecraft thread because I love the the look and feel of the physical setting, and feel like it's a good example of the vibe Lovecraftian ancient ruins should have (like the underground parts of the dreamlands, or the cavern city in "The Rats in the Walls"). It's this big stone fortress that's constructed almost like a copper age dolmen, and it's incredibly creepy and otherworldly in a "less is more" sort of way. The music is indeed a huge part of what's good in the movie (as you say, it feels like it shouldn't work, but it really does), but the look of the keep and the cavern beneath it are my favorite things about the movie.

[tomcat51]

The Keep definitely belongs in this thread. F Paul Wilson was a big Lovecraft fan, but Lovecraft himself wouldn't have gone in for silly things like good actually triumphing over evil IN terms of tone, atmosphere and some of the themes it is very much Lovecraft, or maybe Robert E Howard, inspired. Howard was in the Lovecraft circle and even wrote a few Mythos stories too.

[tomcat51]

Saw this just recently. Thought is was a pretty decent B movie. Very good visuals and atmosphere. VERY Lovecraft influenced, and IMO a better source of reference/inspiration than many actual Lovecraft movies.

But, and this will sound weird if you haven't seen the movie, it also works ESPECIALLY well as an unofficial distant WH40K prequel, sort of like how some fans view the movie "Event Horizon". The thought occurred to me about halfway through the film, and I was surprised not only at how well it clicked, but also by how the stuff that would otherwise be too muddled or vague gets explained perfectly if you project 40K lore behind it in your head.

I'm intrigued as to how you view it as a 40K prequel. Do you see the world they end up in at the end as the Imaterium?

[tomcat51]

I forgot about the Howard the Duck movie. That's definitely a Lovecraftian flick

[Connectamabob]

I'm intrigued as to how you view it as a 40K prequel. Do you see the world they end up in at the end as the Imaterium?

Yes. Sort of.

My first thought was they sorta got warpgated to another planet, but that's mostly because my impression of the warp is that it's a place with no physical aspect to it. It's just space and energy with a dimensional structure that makes the existence of matter as we know it impossible without something like a Gellar field.

The closest thing I can remember seeing in a movie to how I imagine the Immaterium is the purgatory/limbo dimension seen in Poltergeist II. Or hyperspace in Babylon 5. Really though, I don't think it "looks" like anything, because eyes and light have no physical context there. You'd perceive it through senses that have no context in our reality.

It would make more sense on a thematic level if that was the Immaterium though. And given that they were both healed, and that the flashes/hallucinations throughout the film depicted that place, I think that is the Immaterium, just represented in a visually symbolic rather than literal way.