Probably the single greatest contribution to the genre of horror during the 20th century was H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. A cycle of short stories published largely in the 20s, the Cthulhu Mythos created a brand new cosmology populated by Elder Gods that were beyond the scope of comprehension for regular men. One of the most famous short stories from this cycle was The Call of Cthulhu, first published in 1928. It was long thought to be unfilmable. However, in 2005 director Andrew Leman did the impossible: he captured the tale for the silver screen. The film clocks in at around 47 minutes and was made to replicate old horror films from the 1920s. As such, it is a silent film in black and white. Leman obviously did his homework, as The Call of Cthulhu both takes great inspiration and pays homage to classic silent horror, in particular the works of German Expressionism. The film follows the original story very accurately, changing only a couple of very minor details. It recounts the discoveries of George Gammell Angell, a prominent Professor of Semitic languages at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. The story follows his discovery of a tribal ritual where crazed worshipers pray to an unknowable horror. Afterwards, he finds a manuscript written by a sailor whose entire crew was killed after accidentally discovering an unknown island in the Pacific and awakening a monster that slept there. Leman keeps the film short and to the point. If it had been any longer, it would have dragged itself down. As it stands, The Call of Cthulhu is a fascinating film and one of the very few ever made that genuinely does justice to the original Lovecraft story.
8/10
As you can see by now, I am surfing around your scary movies. I am an H.P. Lovecraft groupie, have read all of his works. I couldn't agree more about this movie. It was just done beautifully! It really looked like an old silent movie, and as you said, was one of, well maybe the ONLY, movie to really do justice to Lovecraft. I've seen several, but was disappointed in them. Is there another movie or two of Lovecraft that you liked? I may have missed it.
ReplyDeleteThere was only ONE other movie about Lovecraft that I really liked. It was John Carpenter's "In the Mouth of Madness." It didn't tell just one story by Lovecraft...it was kind of a compilation of bits and pieces from his different stories. But it was absolutely amazing! I even wrote about it on my Forgotten Classics blog! Here's the link:
ReplyDeletehttp://forgottenclassicsofyesteryear.blogspot.com/2010/06/in-mouth-of-madness.html