DVD for Lovecraft Fans

[Shannafey]

http://movies.consumerelectronicsnet...e.jsp?id=35140

This sounds interesting! I've not read any of his stuff, but have watched the other adaptations and know there are a lot of fans here.

[Paff]

At this year's Fangoria convention, there were these folks selling 2 DVDs of Lovecraft adaptations (short stories). There were various filmmakers on the project, ranging from cheap video to shot-on-film. $20 was a little too much to take a gamble, but I'm sure if you Google around, you can find it somewhere.

[mcchrist]

I've seen the trailer for Call of Cthulhu and it looks fantastic, like a Guy Maddin take on it.

Another great adaptation is Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath by Edward Martin III. Minimalistic animation, but very atmospheric and ambitious, with a nice soundtrack too.

[indiephantom]

I still need to find Stuart Gordon's "Pit and the Pendulum" DVD

[bigdaddyhorse]

Originally Posted by indiephantom

I still need to find Stuart Gordon's "Pit and the Pendulum" DVD

Good luck on that, it's OOP and probably had a print run of about 2 dozen to begin with.
Don't forget Nerconomicon, another great low budget adaptation of Lovecraft's work starring Jeffery Combs (who's in almost every one of the Lovecraft movies), this time as Lovecraft. There's a Brazilian dvd that's region free NTSC, not sure how easy that is to get nowadays. I got one off ebay a couple years ago.

[indiephantom]

Originally Posted by bigdaddyhorse

Good luck on that, it's OOP and probably had a print run of about 2 dozen to begin with.
Don't forget Nerconomicon, another great low budget adaptation of Lovecraft's work starring Jeffery Combs (who's in almost every one of the Lovecraft movies), this time as Lovecraft. There's a Brazilian dvd that's region free NTSC, not sure how easy that is to get nowadays. I got one off ebay a couple years ago.

Yeah, Necronomicon was a great little film. I didn't realize so few P&P were produced, but that explains why I've never seen it around.

[bigdaddyhorse]

Originally Posted by indiephantom

Yeah, Necronomicon was a great little film. I didn't realize so few P&P were produced, but that explains why I've never seen it around.

I'm only guessing (and cutting way low ) on the print run. I do know I've seen it in stores a grand total of once (thankfully I bought it), and that was at Borders. Not sure what the real numbers are, but I'd be willing to bet it's less than many Limited Editions. Try ebay, I doubt the prices will be too high since the movie is so unknown.

They really need to get Gordon's Pit and the Pendulum released as well as Yuzna's Necronomicon. Funny, a while back I did a search for both of these and was under the impression neither one had been released to DVD yet. I don't know how old the OOP for P&P is but suddenly gives me a glimmer of hope. Was that release an R1? Think I'll search it out again. Oh, and speaking of Stuart Gordon, what ever happened to the release of From Beyond? I was so looking forward to that and they seemingly pulled the plug, or something...

[bigdaddyhorse]

Pit was a region 1 dvd from Full Moon.
I think they're still working on From Beyond. You did hear about all the cut footage that was found right? Last I heard Stuart was working on restoring a director's cut with all the stuff that was found (that Stu thought was lost forever!). Hopefully Sony buying MGM didn't kill that, I haven't heard any news since that happened.

Oh, well then it's all worth the wait. I don't recall hearing about the cut footage, so I'm even more estatic! Great news, considering its still a go since the Sony buy-out.

[X-human]

Not sure if the article links to the official website but I knew I had it, and organizing my bookmarks today I found it:

http://www.cthulhulives.org/cocmovie/index.html

Looks very interesting, I wanted to do a Lovecraft tale much in the same way, it looks like they did a real good job of it too.

I am a big fan of the fan-made/low budget Lovecraft films, so I buy anything I can get my hands on! So I'll say a little bit about what I've tracked down:

-Call of Cthulhu
This is a fantastic adaptation, done in the style of a black & white silent movie. Because of the photography the sets look a lot better than they should have. There is a lengthy interview with everyone involved where they shed some light on how they built the sets, etc. I was honestly a bit surprised by how low budget everything was considering what the final product looks like. The score is great, and the finale is just about as good as you can get in a film adaptation of the story. There is some crude stop motion but it actually isn't that bad if you like stop motion. Not even close to the quality of The Gate, but definitely better than Basket Case. I really loved this movie.

-Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
Another fantastic adaptation, this time of one of Lovecraft's more fantasy-themed stories. This is very crude animation, a little bit better than your average Reading Rainbow episode. Mostly shifting cels and images with special effects. There are some very effectively animated scenes though. The artwork throughout the movie is extremely stunning... mostly black and white with some colors here and there. The soundtrack is unbelievable. It's creepy and awesome and is just perfect for the story (and was in fact written specifically for the movie). I wouldn't want anything else in there. It has a soundtrack-only audio track and for the first time ever it's a feature I can really appreciate.

-H.P. Lovecraft Collection Vol 1: Cool Air
This is a collection of several short films. The first, Cool Air, is extremely well-done. The acting is pretty much top-notch, but it suffers (imo) only because the original story it is based on isn't great... it's more EC Comics/Tales from the Crypt than it is Lovecraft in my opinion.
Nyarlathotep is a great little film based on a very short story. The soundtrack and acting are both pretty impressive, but the special effects at the end are a little bit of a letdown. I really like this one for some reason.
The Hound is another nice one. Acting is... decent I guess. But it's really a creepy story and it manages to maintain that for the duration of the film.
An Imperfect Solution and The Hapless Antiquarian didn't interest me very much.

-H.P. Lovecraft Collection Vol 2: Rough Magik
The titular film, Rough Magik, is actually a pilot episode for a series that never went into production in England. It's basically X-Files based on (not loosely) Lovecraft. It's actually very good, though there is some really poor CG later on.
The Terrible Old Man suffers from poor acting but is a great little short that is faithful to the story.
From Beyond has some really outstanding acting and is also faithful to the story. However, because it is so faithful, much of the short film is two guys sitting in an attic talking. I have a feeling that this one won't interest anyone who hasn't already read the story and is a fan of Lovecraft.
There are then some music videos from a Lovecraft-inspired band that didn't interest me at all.

-H.P. Lovecraft Collection Vol 3: Out of Mind
This is possibly the best of all three volumes.
Out of Mind is just great. The guy who plays Lovecraft is pretty brilliant, and the story is clever in how it creates a new story by piecing together aspects of Lovecraft's fiction together. It's a little too "inside-jokey" but on the other hand, my friend who has never read a Lovecraft story in his life loved this short film. This is actually a great introduction to Lovecraft's work.
The Music of Erich Zann is perhaps one of the best adaptations of Lovecraft's stories ever. It's very faithful to the story and is beautifully shot and well-acted. I can't say enough good things about this great adapation of a great story.
The Outsider is a very strange but entertaining and fascinating short movie. I really enjoyed it.