Last night I saw
Dagon,
Stuart Gordon's latest
H. P. Lovecraft adaptation.
I've always, for as long as I can remember, been a huge fan of horror -- in all shapes and guises: Books, comics, haunted houses, movies...you name it, I jump. I'm a sucker for anything and everything goosebump-inducing. Part of it is because I get easily scared -- I have a disturbingly vivid imagination -- and it's not very hard for me to imagine that some things
do go bump in the night. Heck, I'm frightened to death of plain, old darkness. Especially if I'm alone. At night. In the woods. Far away from other people.
Ack. I get the shivers just thinking about it.
So, yup, part of it is the sheer tummy-wrenching effect horror-stories have on me. But the other reason for my fascination with horror is probably a little more banal:
Horror is forbidden.
At least, horror
movies are -- were -- forbidden.
My parents, quite wisely, refused to let me see scary movies. I did catch the odd fright-flick, mostly by accident, but being denied (and not having access to; we didn't have a VCR until I was 14, and even then I couldn't get my greedy hands on any proper horror movies for years) those morbid pleasures made me crave them even more. I saw
King Kong,
Frankenstein,
Dracula,
The Mummy --
Universal's classic 1930s
monster movies -- on TV...until, that is, my parents put their collective foot down and said "nope". Keep in mind, this was the
1970s. You'd think that forty-year old black-and-white pictures with nary a drop of blood and absolutely no nudity would be okay, but...no. They didn't want me to see scary stuff, and they didn't want me to see "grown-up" movies (ironically enough; who'd ever consider
Boris Karloff's Mummy to be too adult?). So I was left with the burning desire to see horror movies, partly sated by reading
Fangoria, and partly sated by an unrestricted supply of horror literature.
I devoured all kinds of books from a very, very early age. My Dad used to take me to the library once a week, where (li'l ole me being the librarian's favourite) I was allowed to check out more books than anyone else my age. I remember reading
Lord of the Flies waaay too early, and being completely and totally
freaked out. I remember reading
Edgar Allen Poe. I remember reading Stephen King the first time (I think it was Cujo, but I'm not sure). And I remember reading
H. P. Lovecraft.
Lovecraft stuck. Maybe it was because of the powerful imagery in his stories, imagery that conjured up the worst horrors from the best source there ever was: your own imagination. And my imagination, and nightmares, were pretty damn monstrous, let me tell you. When Lovecraft's protagonists saw things they were unable to describe, they were right there, in my mind's eye, and I knew
exactly what his poor victims were going through.
With my fascination for both Lovecraft and horror movies , it was no wonder that I always wanted to see one of Lovecraft's stories done justice on the silver screen. And whenever someone did attempt to
adapt one of his stories, or his rich mythology, I was hopeful and expectant. A Lovecraft movie done well had -- still has -- the potential to be a masterpiece.
It hasn't happened yet.
The best "Lovecraft movies" ever made are
not based on any of Lovecraft's work:
Evil Dead,
Evil Dead II,
The Thing,
Alien -- these are movies that
feel like Lovecraft movies, in the true spirit of the author, even though they're not, while the movies that
are based on Lovecraft's work -- like
Re-Animator, and now Dagon (both from
Stuart Gordon) -- do not. Why is that?
Re-Animator was, still is, a fun littleflick. It's a great horror movie; funny, gory, sexy, and dark. But though it's based on one of his stories, it's most certainly not a Lovecraft movie. It doesn't even try to be. Not really. It tries to be exactly what it is; a low-budget, wacky, bloody, slightly exploitative but still intelligent 80s gorefest.
Dagon tries, however. It tries hard. It's more faithfully Lovecraftian. It combines a couple of stories --
Dagon and
The Shadow Over Innsmouth -- into one, and attempts to be a scary, atmospheric, grotesque, and (somewhat) faithful adaptation.
It fails. It's all right. It's a solid 98 minutes of decent entertainment. It's got its moments. There are scares. There's nudity. There's big teeth and tentacles. There's a few good scares. But I expected
so much more.
Correction: I'd
hoped for so much more.
Lovecraft still hasn't been done well on film (unless you count the non-Lovecraft Lovecraftian flicks listed above), but there's still hope. Oh, yes, there's still hope. In 2004,
Guillermo del Toro brings us
Hellboy. And then (fingers crossed!) he'll make
At the Mountains of Madness.
If that flick doesn't get it right, then, shucks, I guess
I will have to take a crack at it. No, really. I will. Swear to God.
Someone's got to do it.
And I have a few Good Ideas. Eek.
