Από τους δημιουργούς του εκπληκτικού The Call of Cthulhu (2005), η νέα ταινία The Whisperer in Darkness είναι έτοιμη και κυκλοφορεί επιτέλους σε συλλεκτική κασετίνα των δύο DVD.
Από τον επίσημο ιστότοπο των παραγωγών, διαβάζουμε τα εξής...
Written in 1931, H.P. Lovecraft's iconic genre-bending tale of suspense and alien terrors is brought to life in the style of the classic horror films of the 1930s like Frankenstein, Dracula and King Kong. Using its Mythoscope process -a mix of vintage and modern techniques- the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society expands on Lovecraft's original tale while still bringing you unparalleled authenticity.
Horror and science fiction collide in the adventure of Albert Wilmarth, a folklore professor at Miskatonic University, as he investigates legends of strange creatures rumored to dwell in the most remote mountains of Vermont. Wilmarth’s investigation leads him to a discovery of horrors quite beyond anything he ever imagined, and ends in a desperate attempt to escape the remote New England hills with his life and sanity intact.
The studio that brought you The Call of Cthulhu now presents one of Lovecraft's weirdest tales as a feature-length talkie starring Matt Foyer as the intrepid folklorist, Albert Wilmarth. Celebrated television and stage star Barry Lynch plays Henry Akeley, supported by an ensemble of outstanding actors. Shot on location in New England and in Hollywood, The Whisperer in Darkness brings Lovecraft's intense imagination to vivid life in the style of the 1930s.
This Deluxe Two Disc DVD set includes
• The Whisperer in Darkness (103 minutes, black and white) with 5.1 surround sound
• subtitles in twenty three languages
• a replica prop newspaper clipping about the Vermont flooding
Disc Two features:
• a delightful and revealing 47 minute Behind the Scenes documentary
• seven documentary featurettes showcasing special effects and filmmaking techniques
• numerous deleted and/or extended scenes
• strange bonus features we cannot even describe
• all Whisperer in Darkness trailers
• this disc features over two and a half hours of additional Lovecraftian fun
As Lovecraft fans span the globe, The Whisperer in Darkness is subtitled in: Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Euskera, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal and Brazilian), Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish.
Format: NTSC, Region 0 (region free), Black & White (special features in color with sound), widescreen enhanced for 16:9 televisions; feature film in Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound.
Για περισσότερες πληροφορίες και παραγγελίες, δείτε εδώ.
Dark Paradox explores the idea that this myth was not only partially true but also partially inaccurate in suggesting the cult activity was "Satanic" when in fact it was based on the worship of ancient extraterrestrial "elder gods" in the vein of H.P. Lovecraft's fiction. Many urban legends of Victoria are written into the story, including occult rituals and the long-rumored "hidden tunnels" beneath the city. Unlike The Dead Inside, Dark Paradox is both more action-oriented and more cerebral. The film contains more on-screen monsters, and at the same time delves into the idea that the main character, as a reflection of the movie's director, is himself responsible for the awful things he chooses to see in his daily life, mirrored in his horror fiction writing. The movie recreates 1940's period scenes (including Canadian and German soldiers in World War II), showcases grotesque inter-dimensional creatures, and features a main character slowly losing his grip on reality, all shot with skill and heart on a minuscule budget. Για περισσότερες πληροφορίες, επισκεφτείτε το επίσημο site.
Dark Paradox
Front Line Films, 2007
Σκηνοθεσία: Brian Clement
Dark Paradox follows a writer's unwitting discovery of the history and secret efforts of a cult in Victoria, Canada that has been engaged in a 60 year effort to open a portal between our world and another, letting in a host of vicious inter-dimensional beings. Director's Statement:
Dark Paradox, like The Dead Inside before it, takes an H.P. Lovecraft-influenced story and puts it in a Canadian setting, partially taking place in the late 1940's. The city of Victoria was rumored in the 1980's to be the second worldwide "capital of Satanism" after Geneva, Switzerland.
Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown
Παραγωγή: Wyrd LLC
Σκηνοθεσία: Frank Woodward
Συμμετέχουν: Neil Gaiman, Guillermo Del Toro, John Carpenter, Peter Straub, Ramsey Campbell, Stuart Gordon
Η κριτική που ακολουθεί είναι του Johnny Butane
It’s pretty amazing, when you stop and think about it, how greatly the work of a strange and lonely man from Providence, RI has influenced so much of our genre. Especially in the last decade or so, the reach of H.P. Lovecraft’s sway on horror has expanded to nearly every facet imaginable, and yet there’s still a multitude of fans that know very little about the man himself.
Enter Frank Woodward and his Wyrd Productions, who set out to make the definitive documentary about the life of the Son of Providence, with thoughts and examinations of his cannon offered up by some of the most respected names in horror and fantasy. Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown is that documentary, and it does its job admirably.
Lovecraft was a very lonely child, sheltered by his over protective, under affectionate mother. He spent much of his youth alone, unable to really make friends due to a lack of real social skills. He never really went to school, it not being mandatory back in his day, so he had a lot of time to foster his imagination.
Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown reviewWhat Woodward and crew do right, first and foremost, is not just gloss over this important time in Lovecraft’s development in order to get to “the good stuff”, as it were. They also make sure those on-camera discussing this time of the author’s life have intelligent, insightful contributions to make to the discussion; they’re not just putting Neil Gaiman on screen, for example, to give him more face time, but rather because what’s he has to say is relevant and moves the doc along.
Too often I’ve seen documentaries that seem lacking in coherent structure, jarringly leaping from one point of the subject’s life to another, but Fear of the Unknown moves along smoothly and naturally. This is helped immensely by the narration of Robin Atkin Downes, who does both standard narration and the voice of Lovecraft when portions of his prolific correspondences with peers are quoted. Downes is really the perfect choice for a documentary like this, his voice just moody enough to set the tone of Lovecraft’s life precisely.
As Lovecraft grew up he eventually found and married, moved from Providence to New York, and found steady work submitting his tales of the weird and unnatural to magazines like Weird Tales. Now, though the documentary spends plenty of time on his pre-Cthulhu years, it really hits a whole new level when Lovecraft writes his first tale featuring the Old Ones, in terms of both narration and contribution by the interviewees. Everyone’s got their own thoughts on the Cthulhu mythos and its meanings, of course, and none of them are shy about giving their thoughts.
Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown review though there’s really not a weak one among them, I have to say the insights and conjectures put forth by Guillermo Del Toro are certainly some of the most interesting, but then the man has an amazing mind and incredible imagination so I’m not surprised. I hate to single out really any one particular interview subject because as I say they’re all good, but he’s the one who stood out the most for me.
Even the somewhat taboo subject of Lovecraft’s racism is handled well, something I wasn’t sure how they’d address if they did at all. But it’s tackled head-on by most of the interviewees, who all make it clear that they find it hard to fault someone’s views who grew up in a time so far removed from out own with a life that most of us can’t understand. It doesn’t make his viewpoints right or any less frustrating to hear, but it does make them a bit easier to digest.
On the whole Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown is a solid documentary that’s sure to appeal to everyone from casual Lovecraft readers to the most hardcore of his fans; there’s something here for everyone.
Cthulhu
Here! Films
The Oregon coast is a wild, rugged place of beauty and danger--and the unsettling backdrop for the film version of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu. Creepy and unsettling things lie just beyond view in the picturesque fictional town of Rivermouth (actually Astoria, where the film was shot entirely on location). For those who take solace in visiting the seaside, the film is even more unsettling. The story is based on Lovecraft's novella The Shadow Over Innsmouth, though the script takes a few liberties, including making the lead character, Russ (Jason Cottle) gay--which in a small insular town can be a quiet horror show of its own. Russ is called back from the big city to Rivermouth after the death of his mother to be executor of her estate. While there he meets up with his best friend from school, and sparks fly. But there's a dark thread running through the reunion, as Russ learns he's but the latest to be affected by a particularly gruesome form of a family curse. "My son," Russ's father intones--and not in that good way, "this is your rightful place." The film is uniformly well acted (including Tori Spelling as a townie with a really perverted side; when she says, "I'm not going to die without you," you might want to start running), and the scares and shocks more than a little unnerving. Cthulhu takes its rightful place alongside Jaws as the film that won't make you feel safe to go back in the ocean. --A.T. Hurley
Περισσότερα σχόλια δείτε εδώ, εδώ αλλά και εδώ.
The Eldritch Influence: The Life, Vision and Phenomenon of H.P. Lovecraft
Ηermetic productions
Έχω παρατηρήσει πως τα τελευταία χρόνια ολοένα και περισσότερο ο mainstream κινηματογράφος αναζητά ιδέες σε παλιά κλασικά βιβλία του φανταστικού. Από τον Philip Dick μέχρι και τον Richard Matheson του I Am Legend, σπουδαίοι δημιουργοί εμπνέουν σενάρια για ταινίες τρόμου και περιπέτειας. Πιστεύω λοιπόν πως είναι θέμα χρόνου να έρθει στο προσκήνιο και η φαντασία του Χ. Φ. Λάβκραφτ. Ήδη στην Αμερική τα τελευταία πέντε χρόνια πραγματοποιούνται ετήσια φεστιβάλ όπου προβάλλονται ταινίες μικρού μήκους εμπνευσμένες όλες από το έργο του Λάβκραφτ! Οι ίδιοι αυτοί άνθρωποι χρηματοδότησαν και το πρώτο ντοκιμαντέρ για τη ζωή του μεγάλου συγγραφέα. Στο The Eldritch Influence μιλάνε στην κάμερα για τον Χάουαρντ και την επίδρασή του στη σύγχρονη λογοτεχνία σπουδαία ονόματα όπως οι Neil Geiman και Brian Lumley, σκηνοθέτες όπως ο Stuart Gordon και φυσικά ο ερευνητής S.T. Joshi. Το ντοκιμαντέρ διαρκεί 82 λεπτά και μπορείτε να το προμηθευτείτε από το www.arkhambazaar.com.
The Mindscape of Allan Moore
Shadowsnake Films
Ο Allan Moore είναι αυτή τη στιγμή ο διασημότερος συγγραφέας και σχεδιαστής κόμικς στον κόσμο. Παράλληλα είναι μάγος και φιλόσοφος και μέσα από το ντοκιμαντέρ The Mindscape of Allan Moore μας ταξιδεύει ο ίδιος στον προσωπικό του κόσμο, στη δύσκολη παιδική του ηλικία, στα χρόνια της δημιουργίας, αλλά και στην ανακάλυψη της υψηλής μαγείας. Πρόκειται για ένα πρωτότυπο ντοκιμαντέρ για τη ζωή και το έργο του μεγάλου καλλιτέχνη, για μια μεγαλοφυή περιήγηση του σύμπαντος του Allan Moore, όπου τέχνη, μαγεία και επιστήμη συνθέτουν μια ενότητα.
Η διάρκεια του ντοκιμαντέρ είναι 78 λεπτά, ενώ στο διπλό, συλλεκτικό DVD θα βρείτε πολλές ακόμη συνεντεύξεις γνωστών συνεργατών του Moore που μιλάνε για τη σχέση τους μαζί του αλλά και για το μυστικό νόημα των κόμικς και των ταινιών του.
Η Έρευνα
Ο δεύτερος τόμος κυκλοφορεί σε όλα τα βιβλιοπωλεία. Για παραγγελίες πατήστε πάνω στην εικόνα.