| Author | Message | ||
     John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.147 |
Has anyone else seen this? It's a tiny budgeted (apparently around one million) attempt to adapt HPL’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth with a gay central character and no icky monsters. It’s nicely shot with an atmosphere of unrelenting bleakness and a background ‘end of days’ ambience that’s realised very nicely at the climax of the film. Definitely worth watching by all the horror prospectors on this board, who if nothing else will be rewarded by the most utterly brilliant nightmarish aerial shot of the Old Ones rising out of the waves at the end that chilled me as it pretty much reproduced one of my very few recurring nightmares. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
I've heard great things about this film. I've tried to see it at the National Media Museum twice - and both times something's come up and I haven't been able to go. Where have you seen it, John? Is it on DVD? I just fancied seeing it on the big screen somewhere, but maybe I'll just have to go for small screen if I'm ever to get to see it .. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.179.61.66 |
Yep, saw this last year - the car crash at the start was effective, the mood throughout wonderful, and that ending is really something. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'The Shadow Over Innsmouth' is probably my all-time favourite short horror story but I can't see how it could be filmed without the fish-things and why is it titled 'Cthulhu'? One to look out for nevertheless... | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Caroline it's on the 'here!' label on Region 1, which I think is devoted to gay & lesbian TV & film rather than horror (there's an advert for their TV channel at the start). There's also a trailer for a new version of Poe's House of Usher. While I thought Cthulhu actually worked very well with its gay central character I see the director of House of Usher is David DeCoteau who used to make movies with ad lines like 'Big Movie, Big Production, Big Girls' so I suspect things may be handled rather less sensitively | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Ah, I only have a cheapo Region 2 player anyway - I'm not much into DVDs. I'm sure it'll turn up at the National Media Museum or Hyde Park Picture House again some time - and next time, I'm going to get there if it kills me!  I'm a bit funny about my film viewing - I prefer seeing things on the big screen if at all possible. Anybody else like that, or do DVDs do for all of you? | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
I prefer big screen but audiences can be such a bloody nuisance (I had to tell two old ladies to shut up during Dorian Gray recently) that the screening room at Probert Towers is often the best way. Even at FrightFest Lady P & I were bothered by some arse behind us who kept making 'funny' comments during the screening of 'Shadow' | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
DVDs are fine (I've hundreds of the things lol) but I'm also a perfectionist when it comes to watching BIG spectacular movies. If I haven't seen them on the big screen I feel I haven't seen them properly. I go to the cinema at least once every week and sometimes two or three times. I'm also lucky in that the Queens Film Theatre round the corner from me regularly show classic movies. I'm still getting goosebumps after seeing 'Once Upon A Time In The West' there the other week. Certain smaller movies, however, lose very little in the transition to the small screen and are no worse for that. Take the works of Ken Loach (a personal hero) for example. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
And I'm off to see Dracula AD 1972 on the big screen on Friday  !!!!! | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Saw three Hammers in the cinema last year: 'Dracula', 'The Mummy' & 'The Man Who Could Cheat Death'. They looked gorgeous on the big screen! | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
Is it my imagination or is CGI less conving on a small screen than it is in the cinema? | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I think you're right Weber. I've noticed that especially with Peter Jackson's recent epics. I have a horrible feeling that history will not be kind to the 'Lord Of The Rings' movies while his version of 'King Kong' quickly lost its lustre for me. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
I think Jackson's Kong holds up fairly well, but LOTR:ROTK has sequences which really don't. I remember in the cinema, the scene where Legolas killed the Oliphant got a round of applause from the audience and a huge laugh when Gimli chipped in with "That still only counts as one!" On the small screen Legolas just looked superimposed and it really didn't work very well. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
That's my problem with CGI generally. I think it always looks superimposed and painfully unconvincing even when used relatively subtly e.g. the cats sequence in 'Let The Right One In'. In a few years the special effects of recent movies will look even more painfully dated than any of the animatronic effects of the 80s or even the stop-motion of O'Brien or Harryhausen. The monsters in those films at least looked solid and cast real shadows. CGI is flat and lifeless in my opinion... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.1.67 |
I'm feeling more and more vindicated, about not even finishing the Jackson LOTR series - never saw ROTK. And, yes, sure, I was a slobbering Tolkien fan back in the day. I've always maintained that the LOTR series were too... "self-aware" is the only way I can put it, and it is their major flaw - a flaw of a higher order, but a flaw all the same. Compare it to another Jackson film, HEAVENLY CREATURES - a film not "self-aware," and to date, Jackson's very best film, a brilliant piece of cinema. I think time will still judge Boorman's EXCALIBUR as the top of the heap, in this very specific subgenre of fantasy films. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
Can I just reiterate that on the big screen, Legolas killing the Oliphant was so effective the audience gave a round of applause. One of the only times I've ever seen that in the cinema. It was only the small screen that sharpened the CGI images to the point where it became unconving. The film is still fantastic (although he really needed to trim at least 3 of the endings out of it). | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.1.67 |
The film is still fantastic (although he really needed to trim at least 3 of the endings out of it). Ha! What an odd encomium.... | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
>>And I'm off to see Dracula AD 1972 on the big screen on Friday !!!!!>> You'll love that, John. Hammers, Amicus (Amicuses?!), etc on the big screen are something else! | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.1.67 |
They've done these "homage" movies of late - you know, like FAR FROM HEAVEN, an homage to 50's melodramas (excellent flick!), and PSYCHO BEACH PARTY and VIVA and so on... but has anyone yet done a true homage Hammer horror film?... it's so obvious a choice, I feel it might have been made, and I missed it.... | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
"House of the Long Shadows" (1980 - I think, off the top of my head?) was a homage to the Hammer/Amicus type of film - a reunion of the "big three": Cushing, Lee and Price. But recently, I'm not sure. With Hammer's planned internet comback (did that ever happen?), they might not have done one yet. I haven't watched a new film in ages - I'm still stuck on the old ones! - so I'm not the best person to answer that. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
The best Hammer homage I've seen is 'Dorian Gray'. Seriously - it's great, right down to the non-period hairstyles and jewellery. 'House of the Long Shadows' was Golan-Globus' attempt to do a Hammer film with a director known for his reactionary films against that style of movie. I've not seen it for ages but I remember it had more Pete Walker moments (eg Louise English's face dissolving in acid) that Hammer ones | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.248.175 |
Just seen Cthuhu and I'm impressed in general cinematic terms, if less so in Lovecraftian terms. This is a highly effective work of cross-genre queer cinema... just not a horror film. Fascinating but by no means scary. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 213.158.199.67 |
Caroline - House of the Long Shadows didn't boast the big three, it also had Carradine Senior. Wasn't he, among the multitude of films he made, once a B movie Dracula after Lugosi? | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.192.180 |
I remember seeing House of the Long Shadows when it came out and thinking it was pretty tongue-in-cheek (I'd like to see it again to see what I think of it now). It was Pete Walker's last film, I believe. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.131.110.25 |
Joel - does your horror have to be scary or you to like it? I ask because for me it only has to be a bit spooky, have an 'atmosphere'. I was agonising last night about putting The Ghost and Mrs Muir on my horror shelf because it had a ghost in it; in the end I did, but it didn't sit quite right with me. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.140.113 |
Tony, a film doesn't have to be scary for me to like it, but it has to be scary for me both to like it and to view it as horror. Categories don't matter that much, of course, but the kind of experience is different. For example, I love Truly, Madly, Deeply as a film, but it doesn't scare me (nor is it meant to) and it's not a genre film in the way that The Haunting (original version) is a genre film. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Frank, Huw - yes, re House of the Long Shadows, it was intended to be tongue-in-cheek I believe, and John Carradine was also in it, of course. The thing I like about that film is that they all look like they really enjoyed it. It just looks like they were having one big, final "horror party"-style get-together! As for whether Carradine played Dracula at some point, you're probably right, but I can't recall when or where off the top of my head. | ||
| Martin Roberts (Martin_roberts) Username: Martin_roberts Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.5.239.91 |
Carradine played Dracula in House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, Billy the Kid vs Dracula, a TV adaptation on a show called Matinee Theatre, and Nocturna: Granddaughter of Dracula. He also played a vampire in the TV show McCloud - McCloud Meets Dracula, in which clips from the early Universal movies are used. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Joel - I'm glad you liked Cthulhu. I agree it's perhaps lacking in Lovecraftian terms, but I'd still count it as horror, especialy as the last scene did scare me very satisfyingly indeed | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
I felt that by the end, the subtext (family secrets, small-town prejudice, the way you can reject your background but be unable to leave it behind) had become the text, and the supernatural horror component had rather faded out. Maybe I just connected so strongly with the former that the latter didn't register. The closing scene felt melancholic rather than weird. That's OK though. Melancholic is good. |