Cthulhu (2000)
No, not that movie… Tori Spelling does not appear in this one, for which we may thank the Elder Gods.
Rather, this is a low-budget Australian movie that starts out with the noble intention of adapting a Lovecraft story faithfully… and ends up switching stories in mid-film. To make things worse, they went from one of Lovecraft’s most direct and managable tales to one the budget simply couldn’t handle.
I guess when you’re dealing with the Old Ones, you get used to biting off more than you can chew.
#1 by Mark on February 8, 2011 - 2:22 am
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The one with Tori Spelling is actually quite decent IMO. Obviously flawed, but some nice ideas and I thought the gay angle works surprisingly well.
#2 by Braineater on February 8, 2011 - 7:23 am
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Overall I agree, as I mention in an aside at the beginning of the review. I just wanted to reassure everybody bracing for Stark Lovecraftian Horror that Tori Spelling does not appear in this movie.
UPDATE: I’ve amended the intro to read a little more clearly.
#3 by Jen S on February 10, 2011 - 12:02 am
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I actually know and have done some scenes with the guy playing the lead, and he’s a very good actor. Ahh, the thespian’s life; you never know when you’ll be starring opposite Cthulu and Tori Spelling.
#4 by Blake on February 8, 2011 - 9:31 am
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Nice review. I really need to watch more Lovecraftian films, which I’ve seen almost none of.
#5 by The Rev. on February 8, 2011 - 1:48 pm
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How’d you manage to steal this one from Ms. Kingsley, Will? I realize you’re the king of international films around here, but I’d think she’d be all over a local movie.
#6 by Ed on February 8, 2011 - 1:59 pm
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In the Mouth of Madness is a great riff on the author’s general themes. From Beyond is also quite good.
#7 by lyzard on February 8, 2011 - 2:02 pm
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C’mon, Rev – you should know me better than that by now. How am I picking my film(s) for this? How do I pick everything for everything?? You should be able to work it out. 🙂
I really wanted to go to the University of Woolloomooloo, but I ended up at Goonoogoonoo State. You know, the one outside Cleveland.
#8 by Braineater on February 8, 2011 - 2:18 pm
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Goonoogoonoo? You ARE the walrus.
I went to Miskanthropic, myself. We’re known for our rivalry with Vodkatonic — when those two meet, it’s murder…
#9 by The Rev. on February 8, 2011 - 6:42 pm
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It’s something to do with flasks filled with mysterious colored fluids, right?
Hey, I can comment on the review now!
Man, that thing sounds like a jumbled mess. I figured from the title what one of the components would be, and your intro revealed the second…but the third one just comes out of nowhere.
I’ve always wondered how “The Thing on the Doorstep” has never gotten filmed; not only is it one of HPL’s better stories, it doesn’t even require fancy monster effects. Seems like it’d be a relative cinch. An anthology of shorts based on this, “Charles Dexter Ward,” and “The Outsider” would seem to be not too difficult to pull off, and they’re also good stories.
I’ve wanted to see someone try “The Haunter in the Dark” but I don’t know how well it’d work. I just have a fondness for that one.
#10 by Ken on February 14, 2011 - 4:32 pm
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I can think of ways to do a reasonable “Haunter”, but I can think of a lot more ways to do a really bad one, most of them involving CGI. The best hope, I think, is for a small-budget movie that decides to spend everything on getting the period costumes right, and keeps the “monster” unseen.
#11 by The Rev. on February 15, 2011 - 10:06 am
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Yeah, the monster’d be the pass/fail for the story I think. There was an illustration of it in one of the CoC rulebooks that I really liked. If they could make it look like that, keep it offscreen until the very end, and use the advantage of the darkness inherent in the story to mask the effects a bit, I think it’d be dandy.
Maybe the HPLHS will do it someday. I bet they’d do it right.
#12 by Thomas on February 9, 2011 - 1:06 am
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You could probably make a pretty decent animated film or series out of “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”, without having to screw around with it too much. To be honest, I’m kind of surprised the Japanese haven’t done it already.
Then again I also think “The Shadow Out of Time” would make a great film, provided you kept it short and fiddled with the plot a little, so I’m probably not the best judge of these things.
Anyway, this was a very interesting review of a film that sounds pretty terrible, and yet which I can’t help wanting to see.
#13 by Braineater on February 9, 2011 - 7:44 am
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You know, it’s a little heartbreaking that it turned into such a mess, because you get the idea it was made by a writer/director/producer who really appreciated his source material. He could have got away with the inadequate budget if he’d spent a little more time working on his technique. If I seemed harsh on the film, it’s because I can see how much better it could have been if he’d reined in his ambition a little.
(Still, how often do you find a movie like this that fails by being TOO ambitious? That alone makes me like it more than I should.)
#14 by Dr. Shoggoth on February 10, 2011 - 2:04 am
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There is a Dream-Quest animated movie; I’ve got the DVD sitting in my desk. It’s an adaptation of an indie comic version of the story, and the animation is exceedingly limited; mostly just pans over the (admittedly very nice) art.
But yeah, an animated version of the Dream-Quest with an actual budget… a man can dream.
#15 by supersonic on February 11, 2011 - 2:32 am
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eh… to me Dream Quest is Lovecraft’s single most boring work.
#16 by Blake on February 10, 2011 - 8:15 pm
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The people who did CALL OF CTHULHU and WHISPERER IN THE DARKNESS mentioned years ago in a Stomp Tokyo podcast that they wanted to do a full-blown stop-motion version of Dream-Quest, although I don’t know what became of it.
#17 by craig york on February 11, 2011 - 3:59 pm
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Dream Quest would certainly make an interesting animated film, and I’d like to hear more about the comic adaptation. I’m looking forward to
seeing more of these reviews, in any event. I’ve avoided
many of the ‘adaptations’ that have appeared over the years, after sitting down with such high hopes for
The Unnameable years ago. Any plans to review
the Dreams In The Witch House that came out
in the “masters of horror” series?
And if you like Lovecraft, you should really check out
ARKHAM TALES, created by that great old fellow…
Shu-Mhate…
http://arkhamtales.leucrotapress.com/
#18 by Braineater on February 11, 2011 - 4:31 pm
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Oh, yes… I’ve heard of Shu-Mhate, that ol’ Goat with a Thousand Young. (And while we’re on the subject, have you read his other nefandous tome, “The Golden Age of Crap”? It’s considerably less difficult to find than the “Necronomicon”… yet the movies reviewed within will have the same basic effect on your sanity. Makes a great St. Tsathoggua’s Day present, too!)
#19 by Nathan Shumate on February 23, 2011 - 4:05 pm
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Too, too kind, sir.