- Directed by Andrew Leman
- Written by H.P. Lovecraft, Sean Branney
- Stars Matt Foyer, John Bolen, Ralph Lucas
- Run Time: 47 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6vTI7aDIHc
- Buy it: https://amzn.to/3ETYIEg
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This version was like a trip to the old days of silent films. It’s black and white interspaced with speech panels instead of dialogue, with a music soundtrack. They did capture and look and feel of a movie from the 20s, though the film speed and quality didn’t quite match how it used to be. It’s a pretty good telling of the story, it’s short, and it’s worth checking out.
Spoilery Synopsis
Two men talk about one of their great-uncle’s life work. The man wants the other man to burn the stories. He tells us that he was the executor of the old man’s estate, including a locked box full of folders and news clippings.
It tells the story of Henry Wilcox, who has a new wood carving of something he saw in a dream last night and takes it to the narrator’s great uncle. He felt the earthquake last night very strongly. All through his dream last night, something was calling to him with a name he couldn’t pronounce.
The doctor asks Wilcox to start writing down his dreams. He does this, along with many pictures, which greatly upsets him. He continues to show the great-uncle what he’s seen. Henry falls into a fever, and the old man tries to care for him, but once the fever broke, he didn’t get any more visions, nor could he remember the old ones.
We cut to the American Archaeological Society, where a detective talks to a professor. He shows them an object, and one man there recognizes it. We get a flashback to a tribe that worshipped a god named Cthulhu. That’s where the man lost his eye. The inspector tells the men his tale from last year, when he investigated some disappearances in the New Orleans swamp. “This ain’t just some Voodoo cult, this is the devil hisself,” says one witness. The cultists were chanting the Cthulhu ritual as the policemen watched. Forty-seven cultists were arrested, and one explains that they worship the Great Old Ones, who sleep now, but will reclaim their world soon. Great Cthulhu lies sleeping in R’yLeh, and he’ll awaken soon.
Back in the present, the nephew starts getting strange deams. Anyone he asked about the cult either knew nothing or was dead. He reads a new article about the Emma, a ship that ran into a storm at sea and started to sink. They all boarded the Alert, an abandoned fishing vessel. The log says the crew went ashore on an island three days ago, but there’s nothing on the map. They found a strange tentacled idol and soon the whole crew was lost except for one man who went mad.
The nephew starts putting his dates and facts together, and it’s all very terrifying. He tracks down the idol at a museum and follows the sole survivor of the Alert to Oslo. The man was dead by the time he arrived, but the nephew managed to read the man’s logbook and learned what really happened on the island.
The island was covered with jagged peaks and terrifying statuary. One man falls off a tower and dies, and immediately after, there’s an earthquake, and Cthulhu himself shows up. Everyone runs, but only two men make it to the boat. The one who got a good look at the monster goes mad, bleeds from the eyes, and dies. The other is the one man who escaped with the log.
The nephew tells all this to his psychiatrist, and we’re back at the beginning, when he told the man to burn all the notebooks. Cthulhu is still out there, waiting to rise. The doctor, naturally, doesn’t burn them, he starts reading…
Brian’s Commentary
It’s a black-and-white silent film, done in the style of a movie from Lovecraft’s day, the 1920s and 30s. It’s done in the style of the old German Expressionist films, and it looks pretty good considering. It was released through the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, essentially a fan film. The story, probably Lovecraft’s most famous, has long been considered unfilmable, so this is a good attempt.
Kevin’s Commentary
This was an interesting novelty, and it was worth seeing it for that. It’s short, which is a plus, so we got through it before that novelty wore off. I thought it was well done overall, and it does tell the story.
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