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Anonymous
Guest
The New Lovecraft Film Dagon seems to have gone straight to Video has anyone seen it? is it any good?
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FraterLibre
Guest
Direct
Is this direct-to-video? Should I be able to rent it?
Is this direct-to-video? Should I be able to rent it?
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Anonymous
Guest
I saw it in a video store I didn't rent it through.
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Anonymous
Guest
Video release..
I know that there is a new Lovecraft video I read the review in The Sunday Times which was very positive in the sense that the reviewer said it was warped,twisted,sick,violent,gory etc etc
So to the video shop then....:eek!!!!:
I know that there is a new Lovecraft video I read the review in The Sunday Times which was very positive in the sense that the reviewer said it was warped,twisted,sick,violent,gory etc etc
So to the video shop then....:eek!!!!:
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FraterLibre
Guest
Brits
LOL - Yes, you'd think the Brits would learn to speak their own language correctly, but NOOoooo....
LOL - Yes, you'd think the Brits would learn to speak their own language correctly, but NOOoooo....
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2002
- Messages
- 415
Why? What exactly is incorrect about using "Straight-to-video" rather than direct-to-video?
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FraterLibre
Guest
Just a Joke
I was merely joshing, pulling the British leg a bit.
However -- directly is more correct a usage because it deals better with abstracts, whereas straight tends to be more concrete. However, these are aesthetic considerations and don't apoly to average usages anyway.
Call me picky.
I was merely joshing, pulling the British leg a bit.
However -- directly is more correct a usage because it deals better with abstracts, whereas straight tends to be more concrete. However, these are aesthetic considerations and don't apoly to average usages anyway.
Call me picky.
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Anonymous
Guest
Re: Just a Joke
Then it should be straight-to-video, since a lump of concrete is usually what one of those turkeys usually most resembles...
FraterLibre said:
Then it should be straight-to-video, since a lump of concrete is usually what one of those turkeys usually most resembles...
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FraterLibre
Guest
Ah, But
"correct" not being a superlative, it can be modified, and indeed usages are more or less correct depending upon context, etc.
"correct" not being a superlative, it can be modified, and indeed usages are more or less correct depending upon context, etc.
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FraterLibre
Guest
Precision
I'm very precise and a bit anal retentive about language use. My stuff is the opposite of flowery, although I'm capable of that effect to the point that I have gotten A's on papers written for college courses without even knowing the topic. lol
Language is largely tone. Lovecraft would likely not be remembered had he not been so ornate in his sentences, so antiquarian in his avoidance of dialogue, and so archaic in his tone. It's part of the mystique and appeal, and as usual with such things, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Interestingly, I just got done reading the superb, quirky All Hallow's Eve by Charles Williams, which I can only describe as visionary esoterica. In some aspects it parallels Lovecraft, especially in its oblique references to scale shifts and other dimensions where strange creatures dwell. He links them to us, however -- we are the creatures, they are us, in different aspect. It's subtle, layered, and poetic.
His writing is simultaneously blunt and difficult. One must slow down, and often re-read this or that sentence or paragraph -- some a page or longer -- in order to grasp what all he's saying. As T. S. Eliot said in the introduction to the novel, it rewards re-readings, but even the first run-through is spectacular. And as with Lovecraft, a large part of it is the language, which forces the reader to cooperate in conjuring images and ideas that are both subtle and breathtaking.
Some of what HPL was getting at can't be stated baldly or bluntly. It must be presented indirectly, or it's vaporized -- just as one cannot grasp a snowflake without destroying it.
In any case, sorry to have offered any qualms.
I'm very precise and a bit anal retentive about language use. My stuff is the opposite of flowery, although I'm capable of that effect to the point that I have gotten A's on papers written for college courses without even knowing the topic. lol
Language is largely tone. Lovecraft would likely not be remembered had he not been so ornate in his sentences, so antiquarian in his avoidance of dialogue, and so archaic in his tone. It's part of the mystique and appeal, and as usual with such things, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Interestingly, I just got done reading the superb, quirky All Hallow's Eve by Charles Williams, which I can only describe as visionary esoterica. In some aspects it parallels Lovecraft, especially in its oblique references to scale shifts and other dimensions where strange creatures dwell. He links them to us, however -- we are the creatures, they are us, in different aspect. It's subtle, layered, and poetic.
His writing is simultaneously blunt and difficult. One must slow down, and often re-read this or that sentence or paragraph -- some a page or longer -- in order to grasp what all he's saying. As T. S. Eliot said in the introduction to the novel, it rewards re-readings, but even the first run-through is spectacular. And as with Lovecraft, a large part of it is the language, which forces the reader to cooperate in conjuring images and ideas that are both subtle and breathtaking.
Some of what HPL was getting at can't be stated baldly or bluntly. It must be presented indirectly, or it's vaporized -- just as one cannot grasp a snowflake without destroying it.
In any case, sorry to have offered any qualms.
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FraterLibre
Guest
Nah
Not at all, for several reasons. Of course I make mistakes. Also, what bugs me is largely random and always subjective, so while I might object to one usage every time, others slide by leaving me unperturbed.
I am a bit OCD, always was. Brain chemistry, I suppose.
The other thing is, I don't (often) bother dinging others for usages, unless my façade slips and the monster peeks out. Everyone knows that feeling.
So feel free to ding me for usage errors, misspellings, and whatnot. Shan't faze me. In fact, I'm grateful for the help. I do try, though, every time I put words into fixed form, to say what I think as clearly as I can.
Mileage varies.
Not at all, for several reasons. Of course I make mistakes. Also, what bugs me is largely random and always subjective, so while I might object to one usage every time, others slide by leaving me unperturbed.
I am a bit OCD, always was. Brain chemistry, I suppose.
The other thing is, I don't (often) bother dinging others for usages, unless my façade slips and the monster peeks out. Everyone knows that feeling.
So feel free to ding me for usage errors, misspellings, and whatnot. Shan't faze me. In fact, I'm grateful for the help. I do try, though, every time I put words into fixed form, to say what I think as clearly as I can.
Mileage varies.
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FraterLibre
Guest
Oh
pish tosh. I clearly was joking and even labeled it as a joke.
I'm not responsible for humorless literalism running rampant in Blighty.
lol
You try way too hard, man. Relax, you'll live longer.
As if THAT's a good thing, huh? whoa.
As a writer, you ought to know to think first, THEN write.
And the personal tone creeping in? Keep that, you'll need it later.
pish tosh. I clearly was joking and even labeled it as a joke.
I'm not responsible for humorless literalism running rampant in Blighty.
lol
You try way too hard, man. Relax, you'll live longer.
As if THAT's a good thing, huh? whoa.
As a writer, you ought to know to think first, THEN write.
And the personal tone creeping in? Keep that, you'll need it later.
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FraterLibre
Guest
HPL's Eldritch Style
Anyone else find Lovecraft's style verbose or flowery or over-the-top or even concise or well-suited to his topics and presentations?
If one looks at the many pastiches of Lovecraft, one sees how difficult it truly is to hit the Lovecraft tone smack on the nose. It's balanced, and part of it is indeed pulpy, from the Pulp Era, where payment by the word -- which still obtains, at the same pay levels incidentally, to this day -- caused many to pad and bloat their work shamelessly. I don't get the impression HPL did much of this, but I do think his style naturally lent itself to density.
Clark Ashton Smith was perhaps more concise, but also in love with big wild words and given to ornate expressions where simpler ones might have done. He was first and foremost an artist and poet, after all. Very good at both. His writing it thus more refined and less pulpy than Lovecraft's, but also less popular, probably due to being a bit less accessible to the average 12 year old male.
Anyone else find Lovecraft's style verbose or flowery or over-the-top or even concise or well-suited to his topics and presentations?
If one looks at the many pastiches of Lovecraft, one sees how difficult it truly is to hit the Lovecraft tone smack on the nose. It's balanced, and part of it is indeed pulpy, from the Pulp Era, where payment by the word -- which still obtains, at the same pay levels incidentally, to this day -- caused many to pad and bloat their work shamelessly. I don't get the impression HPL did much of this, but I do think his style naturally lent itself to density.
Clark Ashton Smith was perhaps more concise, but also in love with big wild words and given to ornate expressions where simpler ones might have done. He was first and foremost an artist and poet, after all. Very good at both. His writing it thus more refined and less pulpy than Lovecraft's, but also less popular, probably due to being a bit less accessible to the average 12 year old male.
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FraterLibre
Guest
Smith & Me
I discovered Smith concurrently with Lovecraft, more or less within the same couple months. Back then one had to be adept at following the tiniest hints, winks, and nudges in order to find more material similar to what one liked, and I probably saw mention of Smith in an introduction to a Lovecraft book and then hunted some down. Also, I read many anthologies and learned to pay attention to the names of the writers whose work struck me, and back then Anthony Boucher was publishing Smith now and then in F&SF.
I discovered Smith concurrently with Lovecraft, more or less within the same couple months. Back then one had to be adept at following the tiniest hints, winks, and nudges in order to find more material similar to what one liked, and I probably saw mention of Smith in an introduction to a Lovecraft book and then hunted some down. Also, I read many anthologies and learned to pay attention to the names of the writers whose work struck me, and back then Anthony Boucher was publishing Smith now and then in F&SF.
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Anonymous
Guest
Dagon movie
Just watched it. Its surprisingly its very effective in invoking Lovecraftian themes. Pretty girl i it who gets stripped ,strapped and sacrified to Dagon.Nice...:blah:
Just watched it. Its surprisingly its very effective in invoking Lovecraftian themes. Pretty girl i it who gets stripped ,strapped and sacrified to Dagon.Nice...:blah:
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FraterLibre
Guest
Nothing Better Than
...eldritch T & A.
Sounds rentable.
...eldritch T & A.
Sounds rentable.
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Anonymous
Guest
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by pi23
Alien? Er how is that Lovecraftian?
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Originally posted by ghost dog
careful now...you're leaving yourself wideopen to being proven wrong in some tenuous (spl?) copy and paste way.
Okay, sorry I didn't get round to answering this one sooner, but having just moved house it has taken me a while to get phone and internet access sorted once more.
The Lovecraftian influences on this film are two pronged and I can name them here without resorting to tenuous copy and paste :blah:
The influence on design comes from (and I am surprised that no-one mentioned this as I thought it was rather obvious) Hans Rudi Geiger, whose organic designs have always had a strong Lovecraftian basis (as well as psycho-sexual) to the extent that he published a collection of his work under the title of "The Necronomicon" (which in part led to all the polava and confusion about the authenticity of the fictional work in the first place)
The writer of the screenplay of Alien, Dan O'Bannon has such a strong passion for the work of Lovecraft that despite a string of high profile screenwriting hits in the 70's and 80's he chose instead to direct an adaption of "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" in the 1992 film "The Resurrected" so that he could capture the atmosphere correctly and stick more closely to the text than the previous adaption (Roger Corman's "The Haunted Palace")
Anyway, it turns out that the book I was referring to, "The Lurker in the Lobby" actually has its own website with a collection of the reviews and analysis I previously mentioned as well as upcoming news on Lovecraft works in development. You can find it at http://www.thelurker.com/index.htm
Just want to close by saying I found Dagon to be rather good. Admittedly almost pure atmosphere, but visceral and evocative in the fear it induced. It also rained alot.
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Anonymous
Guest
Yeah,after a few days since seeing it, Dagon is without a shadow of a doubt rather decent. It's well worth renting. It's on a par,in my view with, In The Mouth Of Madness.
Dagon couldn't be more Lovecraft a movie.....
Dagon couldn't be more Lovecraft a movie.....
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Anonymous
Guest
SANCTUM: U.S.S NEBRASKA
Forgot to mention that Humaniod publishing (French and other European comic books translated) released a Hard back Graphic novel called above, which is very very Lovecraft, its set present day maybe a few years from now and deals with WW2, conspiricies and Lovecraft stuff ahoy. It reads and looks like a James Cameron movie. Highly recommended
Isbn 1-930652-79-8
most comic shops will know of it.
Forgot to mention that Humaniod publishing (French and other European comic books translated) released a Hard back Graphic novel called above, which is very very Lovecraft, its set present day maybe a few years from now and deals with WW2, conspiricies and Lovecraft stuff ahoy. It reads and looks like a James Cameron movie. Highly recommended
Isbn 1-930652-79-8
most comic shops will know of it.
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Anonymous
Guest
Do you not find it ironic that, despite the vast majority of HPL stories chiefly consisting of people sitting around in chairs being mental, the only film versions that really work are the action-heavy ones?
'From Beyond' and 'Reanimator' being cases in point.
'From Beyond' and 'Reanimator' being cases in point.
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FraterLibre
Guest
Why Ironic? Variations on Lovecraft in Movies and Other Wri
Ghost Dog - Why is it ironic that the action-oriented stories work better on film, which is an action that traditionally shows action rather than revealing much thought or inner life of the characters, especially as Hollywood does it?
All film emphasizes action -- motion pictures and all that. The motion part being the action.
Keep in mind, however, that the static monologues Lovecraft enjoyed so well can be translated to action by simply showing some of what his narrator, on the page, tells about.
An interesting glimpse of the kind of variation that can be rung upon Lovecraft's theme is Mr. X by Peter Straub, an updated, and totally transformed, take on "The Dunwich Horror". It could easily be a gripping movie -- yet only echo Lovecraft for those who get it. It is a dense, overly iterary read that tries way too hard, in my opinion, but the best parts are exactly when he uses the Lovecraft story as a jumping off point for action scenes. People doing things.
Here's what Publisher's Weekly had to say, as posted on bn.com --
_
Since the publication of Koko in 1988, Straub has specialized in macabre mysteries dense with the details of small-town life and cast with ordinary people who find that the extraordinary crimes they investigate raise doubts about their own moral integrity. In this bravura new outing, he returns to his horror roots, lacing an ingenious whodunit with an intoxicating shot of the supernatural. From childhood, Ned Dunstan has experienced precognitive visions, a recurring dream of being tethered to a shadow and "the sense that something crucially significant, something without which I could never be whole, was missing." Summoned home to Edgerton, Ill., by a premonition of his mother's death on the eve of his 35th birthday, Ned finds himself implicated in a tangle of felonies and murders, all of which point to someone strenuously manipulating events to frame him. Digging into local history, he finds reason to believe that the mysterious father he never knew, or possibly a malignant doppelg nger, are pulling the strings. Meanwhile, Mr. X, a homicidal misanthrope who reads H.P. Lovecraft's otherworldly horror fiction as gospel, cuts a swath of supernatural destruction across the country, en route to a showdown with his son, the "shadow-self" whom he must annihilate. Discerning readers will recognize this surprise-filled tale of tortuous family relationships as a modern variation on Lovecraft's classic shocker "The Dunwich Horror." But Straub turns his pulp model inside out, transforming its vast cosmic mystery into an ingrown odyssey of self-discovery and a probing study of human nature. His evocative prose, a seamless splice of clipped hard-boiled banter and poetic reflection, contributes to the thick atmosphere of apprehension that makes this one of the most invigorating horror reads of the year. BOMC main selection. (Aug.) FYI: This spring, Subterranean Press published a chapbook, Peter and PTR: Two Discarded Prefaces and an Introduction, that includes framing material that Straub wrote for, and then cut from, Mr. X.
Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Ghost Dog - Why is it ironic that the action-oriented stories work better on film, which is an action that traditionally shows action rather than revealing much thought or inner life of the characters, especially as Hollywood does it?
All film emphasizes action -- motion pictures and all that. The motion part being the action.
Keep in mind, however, that the static monologues Lovecraft enjoyed so well can be translated to action by simply showing some of what his narrator, on the page, tells about.
An interesting glimpse of the kind of variation that can be rung upon Lovecraft's theme is Mr. X by Peter Straub, an updated, and totally transformed, take on "The Dunwich Horror". It could easily be a gripping movie -- yet only echo Lovecraft for those who get it. It is a dense, overly iterary read that tries way too hard, in my opinion, but the best parts are exactly when he uses the Lovecraft story as a jumping off point for action scenes. People doing things.
Here's what Publisher's Weekly had to say, as posted on bn.com --
_
Since the publication of Koko in 1988, Straub has specialized in macabre mysteries dense with the details of small-town life and cast with ordinary people who find that the extraordinary crimes they investigate raise doubts about their own moral integrity. In this bravura new outing, he returns to his horror roots, lacing an ingenious whodunit with an intoxicating shot of the supernatural. From childhood, Ned Dunstan has experienced precognitive visions, a recurring dream of being tethered to a shadow and "the sense that something crucially significant, something without which I could never be whole, was missing." Summoned home to Edgerton, Ill., by a premonition of his mother's death on the eve of his 35th birthday, Ned finds himself implicated in a tangle of felonies and murders, all of which point to someone strenuously manipulating events to frame him. Digging into local history, he finds reason to believe that the mysterious father he never knew, or possibly a malignant doppelg nger, are pulling the strings. Meanwhile, Mr. X, a homicidal misanthrope who reads H.P. Lovecraft's otherworldly horror fiction as gospel, cuts a swath of supernatural destruction across the country, en route to a showdown with his son, the "shadow-self" whom he must annihilate. Discerning readers will recognize this surprise-filled tale of tortuous family relationships as a modern variation on Lovecraft's classic shocker "The Dunwich Horror." But Straub turns his pulp model inside out, transforming its vast cosmic mystery into an ingrown odyssey of self-discovery and a probing study of human nature. His evocative prose, a seamless splice of clipped hard-boiled banter and poetic reflection, contributes to the thick atmosphere of apprehension that makes this one of the most invigorating horror reads of the year. BOMC main selection. (Aug.) FYI: This spring, Subterranean Press published a chapbook, Peter and PTR: Two Discarded Prefaces and an Introduction, that includes framing material that Straub wrote for, and then cut from, Mr. X.
Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
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Anonymous
Guest
Dagon Knackers Of Quim
Wouldn't it be a laugh if the submerged ruins west of Cuba, turned out to be the haunt of eldritch horrors, from the spaces between the stars.
An ancient city whose, once human, inhabitants have become the noisesome, multi-tentacled, flesh ripping/eating, servants of some elder god, or other. All slithering around in the silt and darkness, awaiting the ancient city's rise once more from beneath the waves (pace Edgar Cayce).
That would be an interesting departure for Tony Robinson and the Time Team on Discovery.
Wouldn't it be a laugh if the submerged ruins west of Cuba, turned out to be the haunt of eldritch horrors, from the spaces between the stars.
An ancient city whose, once human, inhabitants have become the noisesome, multi-tentacled, flesh ripping/eating, servants of some elder god, or other. All slithering around in the silt and darkness, awaiting the ancient city's rise once more from beneath the waves (pace Edgar Cayce).
That would be an interesting departure for Tony Robinson and the Time Team on Discovery.
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FraterLibre
Guest
And...
...Fidel's last words are: "Ftgn! Aaaiii! Tekeli-li -- R'lyeh, Kennedy, Cthulhu!"
Which could then become a catchy dance tune for a revamped Menudo!
...Fidel's last words are: "Ftgn! Aaaiii! Tekeli-li -- R'lyeh, Kennedy, Cthulhu!"
Which could then become a catchy dance tune for a revamped Menudo!
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FraterLibre
Guest
Misattribution, Sorry
Sorry, Ghost Dog, for the misattribution; I did know you're an animation director and meant to address Mr. Hyde. My brain must be experiencing eldritch time-slips or something.
MrHyde said:
Sorry, Ghost Dog, for the misattribution; I did know you're an animation director and meant to address Mr. Hyde. My brain must be experiencing eldritch time-slips or something.
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FraterLibre
Guest
That's It
Yes, you're right, and I continue to be dreadfully sorry to have walked in on you two...
Yes, you're right, and I continue to be dreadfully sorry to have walked in on you two...
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Anonymous
Guest
ghost dog said:
Just one of those lovely literary references/author's jokes that I have just discovered upon flicking through my copy of Encyclopedia Cthulhiana:-
The bracketed references are the books and authors (as opposed to the mythos) from which the references originate.
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FraterLibre
Guest
Funny Stuff
It's amazing such funny stuff, which is also fairly obvious, is actually taken serioiusly by some. HPL and CAS must be laughing in their graves.
As must Poe, incidentally. As anyone who has actually read his collected works knows, most of what he wrote was ironic and funny, yet he's known mainly for his horror, which was simply the senstionalistic gothic-revival Romanticism of his time done very well.
Carnacki - Nice reference-finding.
It's amazing such funny stuff, which is also fairly obvious, is actually taken serioiusly by some. HPL and CAS must be laughing in their graves.
As must Poe, incidentally. As anyone who has actually read his collected works knows, most of what he wrote was ironic and funny, yet he's known mainly for his horror, which was simply the senstionalistic gothic-revival Romanticism of his time done very well.
Carnacki - Nice reference-finding.
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Anonymous
Guest
HP Lovecraft
Sorry guys
Mr Lovecraft invented a mythos as he did not want to introduce anymore paronia than was allready so popular.
But if you want to make it real: just recite that stuff into a mirrior, and when your only able to dribble slime you will have succeeded.
Alternativly you could try finding whats really going on
Sorry guys
Mr Lovecraft invented a mythos as he did not want to introduce anymore paronia than was allready so popular.
But if you want to make it real: just recite that stuff into a mirrior, and when your only able to dribble slime you will have succeeded.
Alternativly you could try finding whats really going on
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FraterLibre
Guest
Mirror, Mirror, On the Ball
Stars - rofl! Good one.
Man, us slime beings can TYPE, too.
Stars - rofl! Good one.
Man, us slime beings can TYPE, too.