In honor of the annual H.P Lovecraft Film Festival taking
place in Portland Oregon, I’m dedicating the next batch of reviews on movies
adapted from or inspired by the written works of Lovecraft. I’ve been to the
festival eight different years and I’m sad that I’m unable to go this time. The
festival offers an array of both professional and amateur films. Not all of the
movies shown are inspired directly from Lovecraft; any material that is similar
in nature is considered and I cannot tell you how many different variations of
Poe’s “The Raven” I’ve seen over the years. The number one problem with movies
based on Lovecraft’s work is that too many film makers don’t take the material
very seriously. For every one solid movie, two horrible ones are made as well;
from terrible acting, horrendous scripts, sloppy editing, and so on. Luckily
the festival avoids these most of the time or when they do happen to land on
the schedule, it’s to serve a purpose.
H.P. Lovecraft wrote most of his stories during the 1920’s
and 1930’s. Because his stories took place so long ago, I feel that the simple
matter of updating his works to take place in modern day is half of the problem
of the films. Another obstacle is that most of the stories were written in the
first person, typically by someone who has witnessed something so horrible that
he can’t repeat what it was. This character is also usually highly educated,
arrogant, and has some dark family history. This type of character is hard to
relate with on film while in a book, it’s ok.
The films I’m going to review include samples of both the
great movies made as well as ones that should never be rented or watched ever
again.
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