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Miniatures Adventure => Call of Cthulhu => Strange Aeons => Topic started by: zobo1942 on June 14, 2011, 01:38:19 AM
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Hello,
Well, the subject line pretty much says is all.
According to the 'Whisperer in Darkness' Facebook page, 'The Whisperer in Darkness' will be screening at the Calgary International Film Festival in September.
These folks made the amazing 'Call of Cthulhu' film - and this one looks like it will be even better. Here's the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_ee9K9hXtw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_ee9K9hXtw)
I've been looking forward to seeing this film for ages!!
Enjoy!!
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Woohoo! Barring dismemberment or death, I shall be there. Heck, I'd probably even show up in spite of said ailments, considering the subject matter. ;D
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I am truly jealous of anyone who gets to see this. The HPLHS are personal heroes of mine and consistently produce high quality work.
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Wow.... giving me chills. I'm glad it's not a silent film this time, though I admired the nuance of it in CoC. LidlessEye, please let us know how this thing goes down if and when you see it! Wow!
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Awesome! Will have to round up all the mythos weirdos and head over for that. This film looks great!
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YAY! Glad to see this is finally making it out there. Can't wait to see it.
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The work these guys do is amazing - you can really see the passion they have for their work.
Luckily, for those of us not in Calgary, they're hoping to get the DVD available for purchase by October 1st.
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For those in other necks of the woods, it's also screening at the following upcoming festivals (snatched from the HPLHS website):
mid June we'll screen at the Southside Film Festival in Pennsylvania. Things turn international again in July with screenings at Fantasia in Montreál, Canada; Fantaspoa in Porto Alegre, Brazil; PiFan in Puchon, Korea; and RioFan in Rio de Janero, Brazil. We have more festivals later in the year in Warsaw, Reno, Buffalo, and of course the HP Lovecraft Film Festival.
Glad to hear the DVD is coming so soon. They were pretty non-committal about a release date, and I was expecting something closer to Christmas. As usual, I'll probably buy whatever deluxe bundle of goodies they cook up :D
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Thanks for the follow up, I think I might be attending the HPL Film Festival in L.A., too bad its not in Portland this year though, but if its any fun at all (and how could it not be?) I'll have to check it out next year too.
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My wife and I went to the HPL Filmfest in Portland four years ago.
As far as I can remember, there was only one vendor selling gaming-related merchandise... perhaps there's an opportunity to introduce Strange Aeons to even more people!
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For those in the Calgary area, screenings are now officially scheduled:
Friday, Sept. 23: 9:30PM, Globe Theatre
Sunday, Sept. 25: 4:15PM, Plaza Theatre
Tickets can be purchased in advance at www.calgaryfilm.com, or at the door. Already have mine for the Friday night showing :D
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LUCKY!
I expect a full (though spoiler-free) review soon afterwards.
Enjoy yourself!!
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AND?
How was it?
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Let me start this off by stating that I've loved everything HPLHS has produced through the years. Their radio dramas have been generally excellent, the silent Call of Cthulhu was brilliant. Heck, I even own a set of tentacle pint glasses and listen to their albums of spoof Christmas carols every year. So I'm a fan. Which makes this even more painful.
The Whisperer in Darkness sucked.
Well, the 35 minutes or so in the middle were alright, good at times even. And that was the bit that actually told Lovecraft's story, with reasonable proficiency. The first half hour meandered about, setting up a heap of unnecessary back story, partly in order to shoehorn Charles Fort into the story as a character. And I like Charles Fort - I'm a Fortean Times subscriber - but what the heck is the man doing in Whisperer? Then the Lovecrafty bits briefly intruded, yielding some satisfying creepy moments in Wilmarth's conversation with 'Akeley'. Then there was about forty minutes of running around, chasing, saving children and aerial combat (seriously, I'm not making those last two up). And to add insult to injury, the Mi-Go didn't even look cool.
I could go on at length (as Mike and I did post-screening), but you'd all be either bored to tears or pummeled into depressive insanity by the time you finished reading my rant. To put things in a nutshell: after a series of excellent productions that demonstrated a true sense of love and respect for Lovecraft's work, HPLHS has put out a feature-length film that feels like an amateur fanboy production, possessed of no real sense of atmosphere or cosmic terror, and instead populated with "wouldn't it be cool if this happened?" moments that I expect will leave most Lovecraft fans groaning in their seats.
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Wow. This is unexpected - and, the first negative review I've read anywhere.
I do expect some (or MORE than some) 'modification' - after all, as good as 'The Call of Cthulhu' was (I own a copy, and love it) - it wasn't a movie, it was just a visual accompaniment to the HPL story, like an animated storybook. Most HPL stories, if they were translated to the screen 100% faithfully, would be terrible.
I'll admit to being a HPLHS fan of the radio dramas, and their other work. I'm also a huge Lovecraft fan - I've read all the stories (and lots of 'inspired' works), seen virtually all film and television adaptions, been to the HPL film festival, written a lovecraft-inspired screenplay, and self-published thirteen novels which were compilations of short fiction containing (for the most part) Lovecraftian themes. I'm also interested in a certain Lovecraft-inspired tabletop game... ;) The one thing that I've seen as a commonality between all these different and varied forms of expression is that it seems most people interpret Lovecraftian themes in different ways - some people express them in an 'empty and melancholy' fashion, others focus on the 'alien invasion' aspects and others still on the 'dream world' plots. What I take from that is that people internalize the ideas, process them, and then re-invent those ideas as they express them in a way that relates to their own experience.
<cough> Does that make any sense at all? <cough>
Regardless, I still can't wait to see it - including any modification or 're-invention'... partly to support the effort they've put into it, but also just to see what they've come up with. Now that I know how the 'Strange Aeons' staff feel about it, I'm curious to see how my own opinions of what constitutes a 'good Lovecraftian adaption' compare.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
EDIT: Apparently, there was also a Q&A with Sean Branney. Did you attend?
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Alright, I've had a week to think about it and I still hated it...now, onto why.
Let me first begin by saying that 'The Call Of Cthulhu' is (imho) one of (if not the) best Lovecraftian adaptations out there. The lack of dialogue and a non-linear story coupled with the clunky claymation effects really make this movie fantastic.
'The Whisperer' seems to be this formula working in reverse; an absolutely dreadful linear plot with a tacked on first and last 20 minutes, some of the worst written and poorly delivered dialogue I've ever heard and the effects...well they just made me mad. A combination of claymation/stopmotion and really, really awful cg, the mix will leave you wondering things like, "Why?" and "How could they!". Not to mention that the Mi-Go look different nearly each time they are rendered.
But, these aren't the real reason I disliked this flick. Here is my 'Z' list of why this movie sucked:
1. Never, ever call a movie a title of a book if you plan on changing the hell out of it. For example, making Charles Fort into a character or adding a bi-plane chase scene into you film. This will infuriate fans of the book and prove you have less sense than the guys who made 'The Curse' or 'Die Monster Die' at least they had the decency to change the title.
2. Getting your friends to act in your films is o.k. but if the director is going to do a cameo do not make him a glowing, floating, talking head. Which leads to #3...
3. Mi-Go brain canisters do not show the face of the person that the brain used to be inside...that is just silly. I guess visual cues are required to help the audience "figure it out".
4. Adding several extra characters to make the movie seem longer/more complex is a bad idea...especially if they are going to be arc types such as little girl or misguided yet brave hillbilly.
There are many more but I'll stop here with the big 4. Really, I was expecting a fantastic adaptation and got a sub-par piece of dreck. I haven't been this disappointed for a good long time and now so can you thanks to 'The Whisperer In Drekness'.
If you only listen to one thing I say this year don't see this movie.
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Well, this little gem was a short that I read was shown at the H.P.L. fest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3gNQ2KYCb4
Hopefully it makes up for the bad Whisperer experience. :D
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'Late Bloomer'. Wow. That was intense. And funny. I think I may have felt that way when I was his age... :-)
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A review:
http://www.pressplus1.com/ciff-2011/ciff-2011-review-the-whisperer-in-darkness
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No doubt it was very proficiently made from a technical perspective. My issues lie with the adaptation, which went way further off track than it needed to. As to the post-film Q&A, Mike and I were so shell-shocked (and frankly a bit embarrassed) that we snuck out before the lights came up.
Despite my lack of enjoyment, I think HPLHS has constructed a good Lovecraft "gateway" that will appeal to general audiences rather than just us tentacle freaks.