[OT] Movies, Cthulhu and D&D

[Karl Green]

Last year I went to the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland OR and two that I saw that were REALLY good were...

Out of Mind
Rough Magick (which was a pilot for a BBC show that never took off)

I am pretty sure you can find them on DVD as a friend of my got Rough Magick and we watch it every now and again... GREAT movies and very creepy.

Out of Mind is a weird one about a guy who gets a book from his great grandfather I think. He starts having dreams about H.P. Lovecraft (the actor who played HPL was great BTW) and demons. They talk about what is the dream and who is the dreamer. Weird things start happening to him and it turns out that his grandfather's spirit is trying to take over his body... weird.

Rough Magick starts off with a mother killing her kids at their birthday party and then making a Cthulhu idol and calling the cops over. It then moves to some British SAS troops in the Falkland islands who are sent to check out a farm house on one end of the island. Some of them go down into the basement and they all go crazy. Weird stuff happens all over the place and only one lives and is "changed" somehow. Back in England he seems to be able to sense that something is awakening and making people kill their families... I can't remember the ending though. I will have to watch it myself.

I think that the film festival happens every other year down in Portland, and they have a websigtht somewhere I will look around for it...

 

[ajanders]

COC Films

Event Horizon (though how you file off the space travel/FTL bits is beyond me)
But you're mostly better off looking in the half hour to hour TV drama segments. If the story runs long enough to make a movie, it's probably not really Lovecraftian: the protagonist should be dead.

 

[Angelsboi]

Hellraiser: Inferno. Now that was freaking AWESOME. I would like to say that it has some lovecraftian elemnts (hey im still a lovecraft virgin here)

 

[Old Fezziwig]

The Club Dumas

Siridar, the Johnny Depp film was The Ninth Gate

Based on the novel, The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, which is much better than the movie. Although I liked the movie until I realized that it wasn't going to go anywhere (lots of setup, very little payoff). I think that you might be able to take some interesting starting points out of the story from the book/movie, and a book hunter might be an interesting character or NPC to use in a CoC campaign as a counterpoint to the professorly types.

Best,
tKL

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Angelsboi!

1) Has anyone seen the Necronomicon? If so, is it good?

I have seen it and I thought it was excellent - If I recall correctly it has Bruce Payne (Damodar in the D&D Movie) in it.

I think the format of the film is three or four vignettes with another continuing story during the interim between the others.

I can only remember two of the stories offhand; the first has Bruce Payne vs. Cthulhu and the interim story (continued throughout the film) is about Lovecraft himself finding the Necronomicon.

Definately worth checking out!

Hope that helps!?

I have seen all the other Cthulhu inspired films mentioned so far. Its amazing there have been so few movies based on Lovecrafts work.

 

[Angelsboi]

the main guy who played Lovecraft in Necronomicon was in Dr Mordrid and the Reanimator. Jeffery Coombs

 

[Wicht]

Re: Re: [OT] Movies, Cthulhu and D&D

I have seen all the other Cthulhu inspired films mentioned so far. Its amazing there have been so few movies based on Lovecrafts work.

While it is true that there are not that many screen adaptations of his work, and even fewer quality ones, I believe as I stated above that Lovecraft's work has profoundly influenced many modern horror and even some modern action movies.

I agree for what it is worht with Kajamba Lion's sentiment about "Ninth Gate" - great buildup and excellent protagonist but it goes nowhere in the end.

Does anybody else remember the few Ghostbuster Cartoons that had Lovecraft stories?

 

[mtbdm]

Lovecraft on screen

I'd have to say most movies that TRY to have a lovecraftian feel fail miserably. One of the best I've seen is the short "the weird music of Erich Zann" from "the Lurker in the Lobby" collection.
I also think "the Ninth Gate" was AWESOME and quite Lovecraftian in feel--definitely had that pulp/weird tales thing going for it!
The first "Alien" movie is quite lovecraftian--especially the way the beast is always cloaked in shadow. In many other movies, the thing that kills the mood is some horrid special effect where the monster is revealed. Once it is fully revelaed, there's not as much suspense or terror. Half the time, the monsters in "Lovecraftian" films are little better than a big rubber octopus.
I'd also agree that "the Exorcist" had a somewhat Lovecraftian feel. "Exorcist III" was AWESOME. Brad Dourif makes a helluva good demon.
I honestly can't think of any other "Lovecraftian" horror movies off the top of my head. As I said, the majority of them are even worse than the average horror movie (which is pretty bad).

 

[Sulimo]

The Ninth Gate?
*Shiver*
I still remeber the agony of trying to sit through that movie. I've never played COC before,but I really hope its not built on a basis similiar to this movie.

Really. I loved that movie. Beyond the cthuluesqu stuff, it had another thing I love - the whole thing about old books and grand libraries.

 

[Walter_J]

Would you be referring to The Ressurected. That movie was also based on an HP lovecraft story -The strange case of Charles Dexter Ward.

The Ressurected -- awesome movie!

Someday I hope to see a few others mentioned in this thread (Mouth of Madness and Dunwhich Horror? Man, talk about a swiss cheese memory. I just read the posts and I can't remember the titles)