Lovecraft? Can it be done?

[thepanda]

I was watching the scifi channel this week and saw a commercial for a movie scifi is airing this week called Dagon. Its based of a Lovecraft story as I'm sure you've realised by now.

So the question I propose is this; Can Lovecraft be translated onto the small screen and still BE Lovecraft?

Personally, I'm going to watch and see just how bad it will be. I have no hope of it retaining the Lovecratian feel.

Strange thing was, I spotted it for a Lovecraftian story before the commercial said anything.

Hm. On second thought, there may be some hope for it yet.

Opinions?

[Ebiris]

I can't see it working since so many of the horrors in Lovecraft's stories are described as being indescribable, so you generally have no idea what it looks like except it's really scary.

A guy in a rubber suit or CG monster just wouldn't do it justice.

[kpjam]

Depends on who's putting it together.  If they stay true to Lovecraft it can be done to a decent extent.  
If they go for theatrics....
I have little hope that anyone in the business would do it justice, because his works aren't typical screen horror.

[Dracos]

His works would require a truly obsessive lovecraft fan to really put it into play, and even then it would be missed as the power of his prose conveyed a lot of the effect.

Fearless Leader

[thepanda]

Not to mention the caliber of 'actors' (feel the sarcasm!) that scifi tends to use in its original movies.

Damnit, why'd I leave my Lovecraft back home? >_<

Stupid theology class pissing me off. I could sure use another serving of The color From( or was it of?) Outer Space.

[Dracos]

Ah yes...

The Color from Outer Space...  True classic horror fiction at it's best.  Or the Mountains of Madness...

Today shall we take a trip...  to the lands of the ice and snow...

to see what we can learn? *smiles evilly*

Fearless Leader

[thepanda]

* thepanda grins.

Color was my favorite, followed closely by Dunwich Horror.

'Eh-y-ya-ya-yahaah - e'yayayaaaa... ngh'aaaaa... ngh'aaa... h'yuh... h'yuh... HELP! HELP! ...ff - ff - ff - FATHER! FATHER! YOG-SOTHOTH!...'

Yep, that there is the good stuff. ^_^

[edit]

And The Festival is still one of the creepiest damned stories I have ever read.

[Dracos]

I still curse the losing of my annotated anthology down in a mockup in University of Miami.  Never did get it back -.-.

Fearless Leader

[thepanda]

Well, they have a Lovecraft library on the net where a good bit of his stories are posted.

[thepanda]

Wow.

That movie was... bad. Really, REALLY bad. I mean, I've seen some bad book-to-movie adaptations in my time, but this was by far the one that hurt most.

Drac, they murdered the storyline. I mean complete and utter destruction of it. If I was (un)fortunate enough to know necromancy I'd bring Lovecraft back for revenge for releasing this travesty.

Let's see, they took several of the stories dealing with Innsmouth (I think that's the name), pulled an editing job that would make the producers of Robotech blanch in horror, and suddenly threw in tons of crap that not only WAS not in Lovecraft's storylines, they couldn't possibly BE in Lovecraft's storylines.

Hell, the hurting began at the beginning of the show. They did away with the first person perspective which could actually have been done. I've seen it done well in enough movies that I know that wasn't a necessary cut.
Next, It doesn't take place in Innsmouth. It didn't take place in new England. Hell, it didn't take place on this side of the world. Where did it take place then, you ask?It takes place off the coast of Spain.

Yes, about this time I realised I was in for some deep hurting. Sadly, the producers didn't disappoint.

After the opening dream sequence we're introduced to our couple. They're on vacation in a yacht off the coast of Spain. Yes, Spain. And I'll keep pointing that out as it pisses me off in more ways than one. We're shown an argument between them in which several things become aparent.

1) The hacks who wrote the script form of the movie have no clue what 'character development' or 'pacing' mean, and would probably rape them if given half a change.

Oh wait, they already did. -_-

2) They also failed to realise that the gimmick of a Lovecraftian tale is the tale itself. They tried to make the male lead memorable by giving him this 'Life is binary. You have two choices' crap that was utterly pointless but shows up A LOT in the movie.

But to be fair I had two choices too: turn the channel and never look back or watch this piece of crap  bastardization of a classic. Why oh why didn't I pick the other pill?

3) They (the characters) are apparently rich from playing the stockmarket which adds nothing to the sory except it magnifies the next screw up which is...

4) ... The argument is over a laptop. Would it have been so much to ask that they get the time period right at least? Oh, but that would take effort. Something this film seriously lacks. The laptop is almost as bad as...

5) Spain, it takes place in fucking Spain.

And this is all of, what?, ten minutes into the movie? And it just keeps getting worse.

A few more highlight, as explaining the whole thing would be too much for me alone at the moment.

The 'actors' were bad. I mean, I'd rather have seen the muppets do this movie than these idiots. The male lead reminds me of an older Shinji, only without the nifty mental trama and even more nerdy.
As they're in Spain (Spain!?!) and the nerdy male lead is an American he cannot speak the language. So half the movie is in Spanish without subtitles, the bits that are in English are horribly garbled, and the chanting of the people of Innsmouth (or whatever the hell they named the Spanish town) can be completely missed and written off as Spanish. I shit you not. It took me a few moments to realise whatthey were saying and I'm familiar with the damned story!

* thepanda takes the time to murder everyone even remotely associated with this film.

And the worst, absolute worst, thing they did (Even worse than S-P-Fucking-AIN!) was SHOW a Deep One!!

<Sarcasm> It was horrible beyond reconning. The CG, that is.<sarcasm>

Damn, that one macro would look so good here.

Oh yes, let me not forget that the movie is called Dagon, but for the most part is based off The Shadow Over Innsmouth, a much longer work indeed. In fact, there is little to NOTHING to link the Movie Dagon to the story by the same name.

I mean the list of things wrong with this movie just keeps going.

If anyone wants to here more about this just say so. This is somewhat cathartic.

* thepanda shakes his head. "Spain!?!"

[Yuthirin]

I dunno...I rather liked it.

It was deranged, and I really didn't expect a perfect interpretation of Lovecraft.

Honestly, if you watch a Lovecraftian movie expecting to get the book translated to movie with anything resembling perfection, go jump in a lake. It just can't be done. Not with Lovecraft.

That said, go watch the movie again with this in mind. ^_^

[thepanda]

I'm sorry, were we watching the same movie?

Even If I step- back from my smashed hopes the movie itself sucks ass. This is on the level of the Carnivor movies.