The Return of the Film Festival pt.2

 Four years ago I wrote a quick blurb about attending the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival held in Portland, Oregon. I've been attending this festival on and off since 2000, where the headline film was "The Thing". I was living in Seattle then, and I looked forward to the annual trip to Portland the festival when I could afford it. I moved to Portland several years ago and I've been lucky enough to go every year since. This year looks amazing and I can't wait to see the variety of professional and amateur, full length and short, films that will be offered.

To celebrate, here is another list of some of the fantastic cosmic horror films to ever grace the screen at the HPLFF. Happy 29th anniversary!

Dark Waters

Housewife

Nina of the Woods

Await the Dawn

The Return

The Fall of Usher

Suitable Flesh

 

Castle Freak (1995) #411

Director Stuart Gordon returns to familiar ground with his 1995 film "Castle Freak", which is inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's short story "The Outsider". "Castle Freak" sees the return of Jefferey Combs, as the character John Reilly, and Barbara Crampton as his wife Susan. All three professionals seem more mature and laid back in this film when compared to their earlier work such as "Re-Animator" and "From Beyond"; "Castle Freak" is a darker, has a a steady build of tension, and deals with themes more adult, such as the dealing with the accidental death of a child and alcoholism. Although the movie is only loosely based on Lovecraft's short story, the movie feels very much like a story he would have written. It follows themes that Lovecraft used several times including a lead character having a mysterious family past.

While the story is and performances are solid, the film quality of the movie is lacking, which is evident since this film went straight to the video shelf. My other complaint is the overly energetic score by composer Richard Band. His work for the "Re-Animator" series was perfect, matching the chaotic nature of the Dr. Herbert West and his ungodly creations, but in this film it stands out as a stark opposite of everything that is occurring on screen.

John Reilly, his wife Susan and his daughter Rebecca, arrive in Italy to take over an old family estate that he has inherited from an unknown duchess that he was related to. There is an immense amount of strain between John and Susan ever since he was responsible for a car accident in which their son was killed and Rebecca was left blind. As the family goes about their business of settling in and deciding what to do with the estate, the unknown and deformed inhabitant in the basement escapes and begins to watch the family. This "castle freak" begins to kill the locals and the deaths are blamed on John. As John tries to clear his name and prove his innocence, the freak sets his sights on Rebecca, resulting in a climatic fight with John on top of the roof in a rain storm.

Uzumaki (2000)

"Uzumaki" or "Spiral", is easily one of the most confusing and yet entertaining films I've ever seen. I was first introduced to this amazing piece of work when it was showcased as one of the major films at the H.P Lovecraft film festival in Portland, Oregon one year. It was a perfect addition to the line up just because it's so odd and other worldly. It was adapted from a popular manga of the same name and includes several of the story lines into the film. It's because the movie touches on several story lines that there isn't one completely clear focus. The other issue that most people have is the weird ending that doesn't make any sense; like most cartoons or movies adapted from a manga, the manga wasn't yet finished and the ending was left up to the director and his creative team to figure out what would work for the film. If anything, this approach makes me want to read the manga that much more and see what the real ending could have been. What I really appreciate are the translated, subtitled director comments that you can turn on if you have the DVD. These comments help fill in some gaps that are missing in the film.


Kirie is a high school student whose small town develops an unhealthy obsession with spirals. Spirals are seen all over and have different effects on the various characters that are introduced. Shuichi, Kirie's boyfriend, is the first to notice something is odd when his dad begins filming snails and collects any and all objects with a spiral on them. Shuchci's father eventually kills himself when he tries to record from inside a washing machine. Kirie's classmates begin to be influenced by the spirals as some turn into giant snails while the "popular" girl in school is turned into a medusa-like host for her wild, spiraling hair. As Kirie and Shuichi try to figure out what is going on, their loved ones and friends continue to fall under the mystical influence, that has something to do with the nearby pond, and even Shuichi himself will find it hard to resist for long!


Favorite moment - I love how the director and crew try to add as many moments and screen shots with a spiral throughout the film.

Dreams in the Witch House (2005)

"Dreams in the Witch House" aired during the first season of "Masters of Horror"; adapted by Stuart Gordon from the short story written by H.P Lovecraft. Gordon, who gave us the wonderful film adaptions of Lovecraft stories such as "The Re-Animator", "From Beyond", and "Dagon" works his magic again by modernizing this intricate tale and casting "Dagon" star Ezra Godden as Walter Gilman. This adaption takes the strongest beats from the story while ignoring others due to the 55 minute time limit. The changes and story is a great fit for the "Master of Horror" series and is one of my personal favorites.

Walter Gilman is a grad student writing his thesis on string theory. He finds the perfect place to rent a room while finishing his work. There he meets Francis Elwood and her infant son Danny as well as an elderly neighbor named Mr. Masurewicz. While studying one night, Walter is stunned that the walls in one corner of his room are just like those that he's working on, with slants and intersections that might make inter-dimensional travel possible. The next day Francis asks Walter to watch Danny while she goes to an interview; Walter agrees to but is visited by a naked woman who looks like Francis who seduces him and scratches a pentagram on his back. Walter discovers, all too late, that a witch lives in the space behind the walls and makes the men who live in that room do her bidding...which is to kill and sacrifice young children. Walter even wakes up at the university with the Necronomicon opened to a page on sacrifice! Walter now must do all that he can to resist the spells of the witch and save Danny and Frances as well as himself!

In the Mouth of Madness (1995)

Another one of all-time favorite movies, “In the Mouth of Madness” is a wonderful tribute to horror great H.P. Lovecraft by John Carpenter. While it doesn’t play on any particular Lovecraft story, the feeling of the film and the themes it explores are mistakenly Lovecraft in nature and style. It is also without a doubt a John Carpenter movie and is currently his last great film as a director.

Sutter Cane is missing and John Trent is hired to figure out where he is. Cane is a huge writer, more popular that Stephen King, and his publishers are waiting anxiously for his newest book, “In the Mouth of Madness”. Trent isn’t a big fan of horror, but as he begins to read Kane’s previous works, Trent starts to have dreams within dreams about the type of characters found in the stories. By luck, Trent discovers that the book covers are pieces of a map and when they are carefully pieced together, it shows where the fictional town of Hobb’s End is, the town that is in all of Cane’s stories. Trent and Cane’s editor, Linda Styles, go for a road trip to see if Hobb’s End exists, at least under a different name. They find the town and realize that they know all of the little details about it from the stories that Cane has written. Trent is under the impression that this is all a huge publicity stunt even though Styles swears that it isn’t. But the longer that they stay in Hobb’s End, the more reality seems to be bending at the seams and everyone in town, including Styles, begin to fall under the influence of Sutter Cane. Eventually Trent admits that something is wrong and that he is playing a part in the apocalypse of the world as we know it.

Favorite moment – It’s impossible to pick one moment in this film that is my favorite. Nothing stands out more than the rest because the film, in my opinion, is running on all cylinders the entire time.

Perhaps John Trent is beginning to believe? Or not.

 John Trent missed the apocalypse!

 Sutter Cane's agent wants lunch too!

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Beyond Re-Animator (2003)

Jeffrey Combs is back as my personal favorite mad scientist of all time, Dr. Herbert West! “Beyond Re-Animator” is the third movie involving this arrogant but brilliant “Frankenstein” style scientist, this time serving time in prison for his crimes against humanity, but dead and alive. Directed by Brian Yuzna, it comes at no surprise that the movie was filmed and produced in Spain, including a cast of supporting local actors. I was lucky enough to first see this movie at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in 2003, and I was one of many who loved how Dr. Herbert’s new assistant was lovingly named Dr. Howard Phillips. Like “Dagon”, this was the perfect place to see this movie, surrounded by fans who loved every Lovecraft reference and forgave every cheesy moment.

Young Howie watches his sister get killed by a runaway corpse that wandered away from a local cemetery after being reanimated by Dr. Herbert West. Finding a single syringe of Dr. West’s reanimation solution, Howie internally decides to dedicate his life into becoming Dr. Herbert’s assistant. Thirteen years later Howie is now a young physician and is now called Dr. Phillips. He becomes the resident physician at the prison that Dr. West is serving time in. Howie meets Dr. West when one of the inmates has a heart attack; Howie gives West his old syringe and they try the 13 year old solution on the dead inmate. It works and he comes back but not before wounding a guard and attracting the attention of the Warden. Howie also attracts the attention of a visiting reporter, Laura Olney.

During his time in prison, Dr. West has continued his research and has developed a way to extract “NPE” (Nano-Plasmic-Energy) from the living. With this energy and the solution, the dead that are brought back appear normal and retain their memories and regular motor functions. This of course only causes more problems when chaos breaks out in the prison, including the death of the Warden who has the “NPE” of a rat infused into him. The colorful cast of inmates take full advantage of the chaos and reanimation solution, and the ending is a fun chaotic mess. During the buildup to the big climax, Laura is killed (for a second time), Howie goes insane, and Dr. West escapes into the world to continue his research (aka cause trouble) once again.

Favorite moment – One of the inmates reminds me of Tom Savini and after he dies and is brought back, he runs around the prison missing his lower half. He hates Dr. West for killing his pet rat and tries to get his revenge. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un02Tpqwy5U

The Attic Expeditions (2001)

“The Attic Expeditions” was one of the films that graced the screens of the H.P. Lovecraft Festival during one of the years that I decided to skip. Knowing what I know now, I wish I had gone and was a part of the collective audience and that fantastic energy that flows throughout that theater. It’s a perfect movie for that festival besides the fact that Jeffery Combs is one of the stars. It deals with magic tomes, false identities (like “The Thing in the Doorstep” style), and magic rituals gone astray.

I don’t want to spoil the movie so I’ll keep the outline simple.

Trevor and his girlfriend are really into magic and spells and during a ritual he kills her as a sacrifice. He doesn’t remember this or much of anything after he wakes up and finds himself in a hospital of some kind. He is then placed in a home for troubled young adults where he is quickly befriended by Douglas (played by Seth Green). The house is under surveillance by Dr. Ek (played by Jeffrey Combs), and Dr. Ek is delighted to share his technique and philosophies to Dr. Coffee (played by Ted Raimi). Ultimately, Dr. Ek wants the book that Trevor used and will resort to some very unethical means to get want he wants

Favorite moment – As always, Seth Green is a hoot to watch and you can tell that he is having a lot of fun with his role in this film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSkNYyd_WyI

Dagon (2001)

“Dagon” was the feature film at the Lovecraft Film Festival in 2001. I loved watching it on the big screen for the first time and then realizing the joy that I was about to see it again on the Sci-Fi channel a week later. “Dagon” is a fun but loose adaptation of one of Lovecraft’s best known stories, “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”. It was directed by the one and only Gordon Stuart, produced by Brian Yuzna, and introduces Lovecraft movie fans to actor Ezra Godden, who would end up working with Stuart again in the production of “Dreams in the Witch House”. Just like “From Beyond”, “Dagon” was filmed and produced in Spain in order to make most of their budget.

Paul and his girlfriend Barbara are out boating with another couple when the boat hits a reef and becomes stuck far off shore. Paul and Barbara take a life raft to find help at a small fishing village within sight. When they arrive, they find that the town is empty but eventually find help at the local church. Barbara stays behind to find more help while Paul returns to the boat with two fishermen. His two friends are gone so Paul returns to the fishing village but is unable to find Barbara. He rents a room in the rundown hotel. Paul is woken up from a fitful sleep by a mob of odd looking villagers in the middle of the night. This mob enters the hotel and Paul barely escapes and realizes that these fish-like people are hunting him down, for whatever reason. He eventually finds the local crazy drunkard who tells him what has happened to the little fishing village and the evil that has come. Paul is now faced with trying to find his way out before it’s too late….

Favorite moment – The mob attacking Paul in the hotel. It’s intense and well paced and watching the actor play Paul, you can see how he is a lot like a young Jeffrey Combs while being himself. 

Colour From The Dark (2008)

“Colour From the Dark” is an interesting take on Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space”. It is an independent film that took top honors at the Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland Oregon in 2009. Filmed in Italy but in English, this low budget feature has a few differences from the original story while presenting the main themes that Lovecraft tried to convey. In this story, he wanted to write about a truly alien entity and the effects it has upon a small farming family.

In Italy during World War Two, there is a family on a farm who has a mysterious evil in the bottom of their well. Pietro releases the evil while attempting to retrieve a bucket that was knocked in but doesn’t think much about the smoke and odd smell that comes rising up. That night, Pietro and his wife Lucia and her sister Alice all drink the water from the well. At first everything seems great as the crops suddenly grow large and plentiful and Pietro’s bad knee is healed and Alice begins to talk for the first time in years. But just as quickly as their luck came, it sours and everything goes downhill. Lucia goes crazy, Alice becomes weird, and Pietro thinks the trees in his field are glowing at night. The family suffers as the fruit rots and their very life is sucked out of them.

The Resurrected (1992)

“The Resurrected”, also known more recently as “Shatterbrain”, is a mostly faithful adaption of the Lovecraft story “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”. Because the story is about a family member from the 1700’s interacting with a future relative, the story is able to be updated to take place in 1990 without a problem. The only problem I had with this film is that I didn’t find it very entertaining. The slow pacing and uninteresting actors are to blame; even Chris Sarandon didn’t seem to be giving this project much effort even though he was the main character. Unlike many other Lovecraft themed movies, this one avoids any attempts at adding any humor and tries to stay true to Lovecraft’s style of exploring the unknown.

 A P.I. is hired by Mr. Ward’s wife after he is questioned by police about the weird smell around his farmhouse. She wants to know what he is doing in there with another doctor that she doesn’t trust. Mr. Ward had begun acting strangely ever since he inherited the farmhouse and found belongings from a long distant relative. Eventually the P.I uncovers the truth that Ward and his past relative are working on ways to bring back the dead and that somebody isn’t who they seem to be.

Favorite moment – I don’t have one. I found this movie dull and not very entertaining. It took effort not to turn it off and watch something, anything else instead.

From Beyond (1986)

“From Beyond” holds a special place for me for a couple of reasons. One reason is because the first time I saw it was on the big screen at the Lovecraft Film Festival around 2007. Seeing a movie like this surrounded by die hard Lovecraft fans allows you to appreciate all of the fun and over the top moments that you might otherwise judge as silly if you saw it by yourself. People cheer when Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton first appear on the screen and they cheer even louder with every gruesome death that takes place. The other reason why I’m fond of this movie is because I was able to meet Barbara at this showing! She gave a wonderful 30 minute Q&A session during the festival, talking about this film as well as the “Re-Animator”. She is every bit as wonderful and gracious as you could hope.

“From Beyond” is essentially a sequel to the original Lovecraft short story of the same name, picking up right before the story's climax. As I previously mentioned, this films stars Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton, who both starred in Mr. Stuart's "Re-Animator". Joining this stellar cast is another horror heavy weight, Ken Foree, best known for at the time for his role as Peter from "Dawn of the Dead". This film is an improvement upon the "Re-Animator", allowing each of the actors to grow and flesh out their characters. It's great to see Barbara's Dr. McMichaels as the lead, taking control and leading the narrative.

Dr. Pretorius has created a machine called the Resonator which stimulates the pineal gland and allows those near the machine to see creatures from other dimensions. During their first experiment, something comes and kills Dr. Pretorius and his assistant Crawford is blamed for his death. Psychiatrist Katherine McMichaels and police detective Bubba Brownlee take Crawford from the psychiatric ward that he is being kept and back to the house where the Dr. Pretorius died so they can recreate the murder scene and find out what really happened. The Resonator is rebuilt, and throughout the movie both Crawford and Katherine fall under its power and exhibit strange behaviors. The three end up fighting more dimensional monsters and the perverted beast that Dr. Pretorius has become.

Favorite moment - When Bubba is consumed by dimensional bees while saving Crawford and Katherine from the Resonator.

Re-Animator (1985)

“Re-Animator” is perhaps the most famous Lovecraft film to grace the screen to date. Jeffrey Combs portrayal of Herbert West is one of the most entertaining and honest interpretations of a Lovecraft character in my opinion. He has the arrogance, stubbornness, and ambition of the Herbert West found with the original story. Mr. Combs and director Gordon Stuart are able to insert some dark humor into an otherwise grisly tale without ruining the atmosphere. While there are plenty of extra characters added and the overall narrative does not follow the short stories, enough of the theme from Lovecraft’s work is found within the movie; Herbert West is essentially a modern day Dr. Frankenstein who creates more than his fair share of monsters.

The movie begins when Herbert West transfers from The University of Zurich to Miskatonic University after learning all that he could. He quickly gets on the wrong side of Dr. Hill after accusing him of stealing the work of his professor in Zurich. West quickly convinces his roommate, Dan Cain, to assist him in his experiments in reanimating the dead. Dan’s girlfriend Megan doesn’t trust West and by the end of the movie she can pretty much blame everything that goes wrong on him. And Dr. Hill. As West and Cain perform more experiments, they have more monsters to explain and handle until the movie finally ends in a messy gory mess, all in a very 80’s, mid-range budget special effects style of course.

Favorite moment – The opening scene and when West declares “I gave him life!”; it does a wonderful job of preparing the viewer as to what kind of movie they are about to watch.

The Dunwich Horror (1970)

This 1970’s version of “The Dunwich Horror” stays pretty close to the source material that was originally written in 1928. There are a few added characters that were not needed but helped flesh out the story. There is a psychedelic dream sequence about twenty minutes in that feels odd and really out of place. And it stars Dean Stockwell as Wilbur Whateley and Sandra Dee as one of the extra characters, in this case, Wilbur’s love interest. Enough of the main plot points are present in the film to forgive those that are left out or for those that occur differently than in the story. Watching this film now makes me appreciate the fact that I wasn’t seeing it for the first time in 1970. It’s not a bad little film, but wow, we’ve made a lot of progress since then!

The basic premise of “The Dunwich Horror” film is that Wilbur and his family are outcasts from town, with good reason. Wilbur’s great grandfather was hung by a town mob after trying to perform a ritual to call forth “The Old Ones”. Wilbur wants to attempt this ritual now and goes to the Miskatonic University to retrieve a copy of the Necronomicon. He meets Nancy, who is nice enough to drive him back to Dunwich where he lives. When she doesn’t come home, her friend and Dr. Artimage go and try to find her. They discover that Wilbur had a twin sibling that was supposedly dead but in reality was locked away in Wilbur’s house. The movie ends with a busy and confusing ending with Wilbur’s brother, the “Horror”, killing a mob of town folk and Wilbur being struck by lightning as he was attempting to sacrifice Nancy and summon the Old Ones.

Author's Note - H.P. Lovecraft

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.