Cthulhu the Movie starring Tori Spelling...The Horror...

Thoth Aw C'mon

Mongoose
Egads. Check it out. Hope HPL is truly dead and not floating around somewhere looking down (or up) at this trainwreck in the making... I mean, Tori Spelling? :roll: Good gravy... Anyhoo, heres their site:

http://www.cthulhuthemovie.com/

They have a trailor on the site, which didnt do anything to alay my fears of impending crappiness. I dont know. MAYBE it'll be good. Maybe... I'm gonna see it no matter what, probably. But I'm just not hopeful at this point...

On the lighter side, I recently bought the DVD of the Movie "The Call of Cthulhu" made by the HPL Historical Society. Its a black and white Silent Film, and its remarkably good. They also have some trailors available online to check out. I really enjoyed this flick. I have to say making a silent film, and that fact that its in black and white, really adds to the effect of the film. A lot of HPL flicks suck, lets face it. His stories are pretty introspective, with characters struggling with their sanity as they piece together clues about the Mythos, and perhaps this doesnt lend itself to a lot of dialogue, which is needed in a "talky" to provide the exposition to move the story along. Here the story is moved along with (fairly) terse written statements on the screen in between the acting scenes. And the musical score that plays is a lot of fun. The DVD comes with extras as well, such as deleted scenes (the ones with ol' tentacle face himself moving around are a lot of fun to see. The big "C" is onscreen quite a bit in this movie, and he looks great! Good to see him getting work. :) ) And the extras showing how they did their really innovative and creative special effects are cool, too. All in all it really is worth the asking price. Another cool aspect to it is its like a soundtrack and movie in one, as you can just listen to the movie and not even watch the tv and all you hear is the music, as again its a silent flick. Humorously enough they do offer a soundtrack for sale on their site. Oh by the way their site is:

http://www.cthulhulives.org/toc.html

They have a lot of other things for sale, which I imagine would be real treasures to a Cthulhu LARP group. Anyhoo, check it out.

On another Mythos related point, my brother and I just had a great Week O' Gaming where we both took a week off work and (as the moniker for the week implies) played a helluva lot of games :D including an effing GREAT Conan the RPG adventure I'll be posting about here shortly. But we also played a boardgame called "The Arkham Horror," by Fantasy Flight Games, which we enjoyed a lot. They're also the company behind Runebound, which we also played during our awesome Week O' Gaming, and we really loved Runebound as well. Both games are a helluva lot of fun. We played Arkham Horror four times, and had a great time being sent to the nut house, the hospital or being lost in time and space innumerable times. Its a hard game, and we were able to defeat the Ancient Ones only once. Although in another game we just needed to make one roll to close the last gate and we would have won. After two turns (and therefore two missed rolls) to close the gate, we still could not do so. And soon more gates opened up spewing out all manner of foul monstrosities, and we eventually lost the game. But we found it to be a really fun and challenging game, and although at first the rules can be a bit confusing at times, the game is great, IMHO. Also it really has a high production value, with beautiful tokens, cards, markers, and the board itself, depicting Arkham itself, is really big and beautifully done. They are soon coming out with a Dark Pharoah expansion, and huge Dunwich Horror supplement, which comes with a whole new board, so the game is only going to get bigger, literally, and I hope even better. :) But we found it to be really fun. 8) Here's its main page:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/arkhamhorror.html
 
Thanks for the link on the new Cthulhu movie - the trailer is typical horror movie fare - except it wasn't scary. Not a good sign. But I'm with you - I'll definitely check it out. I loved the silent black and white film "Call of Cthulhu" - probably the best HP movie yet made. "Dagon" is one of the better ones too.

Arkham Horror is a great game and worth the coin for sure. The expansions should be sweet. Runebound is also cool - mayhap Mongoose will put out a Conan board game with the FF quality of those two games...
Or a tweak of Runebound with Conan rules might work...

Let us know about the Conan adventure Thoth. Week 'O Gaming? That's wicked sweet! 8)
 
I think the best Lovecraftian movie ever made is "The Resurrected" from 1992. Not as much success as Herbert West but very faithful to the novel.
 
The Resurrected is awesome. I stumbled over it when I was working at a video store back in high school and me and my fellow HPLers loved it.

I am also a big fan of Dagon. I have the silent COC but have not seen it yet. Am waiting for my nerdy friends to come over and we cna see it together, along with "Dreams of the Witch House." Y'know I might just watch the films without them. How long can one man be expected to wait.

I love "In the Mouth of Madness." It was in theatres for one fricking week. Poor John Carpenter, only has hits on video.

Oh, and the new movie CTHULHU, I believe is just another "Cthulhu Mansion" (shudder), using the name without much reason. What a shame.

Also, I have a copy of Arkham Horror and It is a blast. My wife and I will play it two player with two characters each. We love kicking GOO arse!
 
The King said:
I think the best Lovecraftian movie ever made is "The Resurrected" from 1992. Not as much success as Herbert West but very faithful to the novel.

My favorite Lovecraftian movie is "The Haunted Palace" with Vincent Price, based on the Charles Dexter Ward story.
 
Vincent Price is the man. I'm of the firm belief that he could make My Little Pony creepy, if he wanted to.
 
The particular atavistic, existential dread that Lovecraft wrote was partly specific to his psyche and his time. Modern adapters, treating his work as abusable fodder rather than respecting its integrity, haphazardly modernized settings without similarly changing the horrific content -- as well as engaging with it too superficially to transfer it to cinema with success. No wonder most Lovecraft adaptations have been bad and the HPL Historical Society Call of Cthulhu is not. What matters about Lovecraft's work is not in its plots or trappings.
 
VincentDarlage said:
My favorite Lovecraftian movie is "The Haunted Palace" with Vincent Price, based on the Charles Dexter Ward story.
I also saw this one but it lacks the ambience a la Dracula IMO (with Christopher Lee), though the end isn't unpleasant.
The resurrected with Chris Sarandon (Princess Bride) is also based on the same novel. Though the events occurs in the 90's rather than in the 20's and thus with some modifications to the original story, it is nonetheless impressive and the atmosphere sometimes oppressive and few gory effects (just the necessary).
 
The King said:
I also saw this one but it lacks the ambience IMO (with Christopher Lee), though the end isn't unpleasant.

Christopher Lee wasn't in The Haunted Palace. Vincent Price & Lon Chaney Jr. (from the Wolfman movies) were in it.
 
VincentDarlage said:
Christopher Lee wasn't in The Haunted Palace. Vincent Price & Lon Chaney Jr. (from the Wolfman movies) were in it.
I know, some words were just omitted (ambience a la Dracula was meant). I just edited my sentence.
 
Ah well, that makes a difference! I love the ambiance of the Hammer horror films, especially those with Christopher Lee and/or Peter Cushing.
 
Strom said:
Thanks for the link on the new Cthulhu movie - the trailer is typical horror movie fare - except it wasn't scary. Not a good sign. But I'm with you - I'll definitely check it out. I loved the silent black and white film "Call of Cthulhu" - probably the best HP movie yet made. "Dagon" is one of the better ones too.

Arkham Horror is a great game and worth the coin for sure. The expansions should be sweet. Runebound is also cool - mayhap Mongoose will put out a Conan board game with the FF quality of those two games...
Or a tweak of Runebound with Conan rules might work...

Let us know about the Conan adventure Thoth. Week 'O Gaming? That's wicked sweet! 8)

Yeah the trailor is pretty crummy. And apart from the brief glimpse of Tori Spelling's goofy face, its not very frightening. Haw haw! :p
 
The King said:
I think the best Lovecraftian movie ever made is "The Resurrected" from 1992. Not as much success as Herbert West but very faithful to the novel.

Cool, I have havent seen The Resurected. Thanks TK, I'll have to hunt down a copy and check it out! 8)
 
Damien said:
Vincent Price is the man. I'm of the firm belief that he could make My Little Pony creepy, if he wanted to.

Haw haw! Yeah, I love VP, too. I once saw a flick of his as a kid where he was this artist who was possessed or something, and his eyes would turn a piercing blue and he would become this murderous psychopath. He would cut peoples heads off and cover their heads in wax, ala the Wax Museum horrors flicks. If anyone knows the name of this one lemme know. Anyways it scared me as a kid. I'm sure if I saw it now I'd be able to watch it with (most of) the lights off. :)

VincentDarlage said:
My favorite Lovecraftian movie is "The Haunted Palace" with Vincent Price, based on the Charles Dexter Ward story.

Cool, thanks Vincent. Thats another one I'll have to check out. I remember reading that book years ago when I was in Germany visiting relatives. I found a bookstore and fortunately they had some HPL books in English, and one of them was The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. So it'll be interesting to see how they've adapted it. 8)
 
Faraer said:
The particular atavistic, existential dread that Lovecraft wrote was partly specific to his psyche and his time. Modern adapters, treating his work as abusable fodder rather than respecting its integrity, haphazardly modernized settings without similarly changing the horrific content -- as well as engaging with it too superficially to transfer it to cinema with success. No wonder most Lovecraft adaptations have been bad and the HPL Historical Society Call of Cthulhu is not. What matters about Lovecraft's work is not in its plots or trappings.

Interesting theory, Faraer. I have to say though that I'm not sure I agree with the notion that HPL's stories cannot be upgraded to modern times without a correlating drop off in quality. And I agree that the plot or its trappings are not whats especially important in an HPL story, and that its rather the atomosphere of his stories that make them enjoyable as fiction. But I dont see why in a modern setting this cannot be done without doing damage to the concept. What causes so many Mythos flicks to suck is they're often, as you say, superficially and haphazardly done. The 1920s and 30s are not that far removed from todays sensibilities that modernizing the story becomes a problem on film. I think as long as the story is in the age of reason to contrast with the horrifying nature of the Mythos, then HPL stories work. Thats the whole conflict that makes so many of his protagonists totally lose it. They cant believe the things that are transpiring are actually happening to them, because they're reasonable people living in an age of reason. An HPL story about cavemen wandering out and uncovering a nest of Mi-Gos holding brain cylinders wont have the same punch as a professor in 1929 or 2006 discovering such monstrosities in some remote Vermont town.

The problem is that film-makers arent able to shoe-horn HPLs style of storytelling, which I mentioned before doesnt lend itself to protracted dialogue- 'cause its usually rather introverted in the way the story unfolds. I dont know, maybe I'm wrong on that score. Another problem is with the Mythos creatues themselves: a tentacled horror can too easily become just a big rubbery set prop that flops around when its shown on the big screen. But certainly these are problems that clever movie-makers can overcome, as evidenced by the flicks mentioned in previous posts.
 
VincentDarlage said:
Ah well, that makes a difference! I love the ambiance of the Hammer horror films, especially those with Christopher Lee and/or Peter Cushing.
What do you mean with Hammer horror films?

I usually dislike older movies (everything being relative of course) because camera technics weren't mastered as they are today (this is part of experience and improvement) but Lee and Cushing are truly great. Too bad there were so many sequels. (The same is true with Frankenstein by the way).
Bram Stroker's Dracula from Coppola isn't bad but too long for what it offers.
In fact if I were a modern movie maker I would do something based on the I6 Adventure (Ravenloft) because there is so much to do (a visit in a big "empty" mansion).

Curiously I happen to like very much some comedy movies with horror themes too because the subject is excellently treated (between laughter and suspense) and there Herbert West reanimator and Polanski's Fearless Vampire Killers are also great.
 
Thoth Aw C'mon said:
The King said:
I think the best Lovecraftian movie ever made is "The Resurrected" from 1992. Not as much success as Herbert West but very faithful to the novel.

Cool, I have havent seen The Resurected. Thanks TK, I'll have to hunt down a copy and check it out! 8)
Don't forget to tell me what you think about it. I saw it quite recently and I don't remember it had much success when it was released. What a pity.

BTW I also highly recommand "the legend of Hell House". It's an excellent British movie of old based on Richard Matheson's novel.
 
I would love to see a movie made on Dunwich village, I mean the description of the city itself, the decadence that strangers can both smell and feel when they arrive there. The houses, the hills, etc.. 8)
 
Thoth Aw C'mon said:
On the lighter side, I recently bought the DVD of the Movie "The Call of Cthulhu" made by the HPL Historical Society. Its a black and white Silent Film, and its remarkably good.
I just saw it and I like it; it's very intense and I love the way it is dealt with the non euclidian geometry on the island. It's a great movie.
 
I saw "She-Creature" as recommended by Thoth and I second his review. Despite the awful name it has a very Lovecraftian feel. An ancient evil with no trace of human compassion and unknowable by human minds, protagnoists that lose SAN and lives, very good period costumes and sets including a crumbling manor and old time sailing vessel, good performances by all the actors, a crumbling tome that possesses knowledge that drives the reader closer to madnes, disturbing dreams and visions, an uncharted isle of horrors and a throughly Lovecraftian series of endings. The movie's versions of 'mermaids' would make an ideal alternate to Deep Ones for a Keeper who wants to surprise those already familiar to the Mythos. Although set in 1905 it'd make a lovely 1890's campaign for those who put a little work into it.

In addition Chaosium's new adventure Tatters of the King is highly recommended too. Now if I can only get ahold of the Call of Cthulhu DVD....
 
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