A scary thing happened on the way to the Movie Forums - Horrorcrammers

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Something In The Dirt, 2022 (A)


Latest by Benson and Moorhead. Least horrory of them, but thought it worth mentioning here.


The plot centers about these two guys who meet by happenstance in an apartment in LA. There, a shiny rock grabs their attention and leads them both down a rabbit hole of esoteric theorizing and some conspiracy-theorizing. But the fun, light sort of conspiracies, about patterns, and all.


The movie is snappy and sharp and has light touches of it being a documentary, but that framing doesn't occupy a terribly large portion of the movie. Are the guys on to something? Are they cracked? Are they making it up for attention? That much is never made clear. It has only the lightest touch of horror, focusing more on the two characters and what they find and interpret.



Maybe most notably it's very not-Lovecraftian, which is unusual for them. It's on the lighter side as well, with a measured amount of comedy that doesn't overshadow the rest of the effort. All in all, I'm comfortable saying it's their best movie yet.



BONES AND ALL

A solid conflation of Raw and Near Dark. Manages to revolve around their level of quality without ever quite matching it. Still, very well crafted art horror.

4/5



BONES AND ALL

A solid conflation of Raw and Near Dark. Manages to revolve around their level of quality without ever quite matching it. Still, very well crafted art horror.

4/5

New release?



Yes. Newest from Luca Guadagnino. Amusing that he'd reteam with Chalamet in a movie about cannibalism when their last film was with Armie Hammer.



Yes. Newest from Luca Guadagnino. Amusing that he'd reteam with Chalamet in a movie about cannibalism when their last film was with Armie Hammer.

I meant to link to it in the thread about books people would like to see adapted into movies, but the most recent episode of Filmspotting has an interview with the screenwriter, David Kajganich (who worked with Guadagnino for adapting Suspiria and A Bigger Splash as well) and they talk about what's involved with adapting material.


https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000587301964



It's an atypical episode in terms of no real movie reviews on this one, but was interesting, and amusingly pertinent to the book/adaptation thread discussion.
(Including talking about the question of, if you're going to watch a movie based on the book, do you read the book first before watching the movie, or do you watch the movie first and then read the book).



Do you wanna party? Its party time!
I'll have to see Bones and All. I recently watched The Menu and liked it, but didn't love it. Still that movie gave me some thoughts to um, chew on. Maybe digest a little, perhaps? This post could use more seasoning I suppose.



I'll show myself out.
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I'll have to see Bones and All. I recently watched The Menu and liked it, but didn't love it. Still that movie gave me some thoughts to um, chew on. Maybe digest a little, perhaps? This post could use more seasoning I suppose.



I'll show myself out.
Maybe should have followed it up with another film, might have worked better as an appetizer.



The Color out of Space was pretty underwhelming. It's a regular horror film that happens to be based on a Lovecraft story. There's very little atmosphere for a Lovecraft movie. It just goes from relatively ordinary scene to horror scenes without building much of anything. The family scenes just take up too much space and kill the vibe every time. Nicolas Cage also starts out well enough, but eventually just turns into himself.


Very much not a fan of another supposed Lovecraftian movie that only goes for body horror and tentacles, but that's not the worst thing about it anyway.



Semi-genuine question: has any Lovecraft adaptation really worked? If not, do we think it's just because "the thing was so horrible it can't be explained with words!" is inherently impossible to depict?



Semi-genuine question: has any Lovecraft adaptation really worked? If not, do we think it's just because "the thing was so horrible it can't be explained with words!" is inherently impossible to depict?

I don't remember much about it, but there's a (German?) adaptation of The Color Out of Space that sort of goes around the issue of the indescribable nature of the color by being a black and white movie and making the color pink.


I haven't seen a movie be successful by straight up adapting one of his stories and presenting the themes properly, but movies like The Endless or Possession (1981) do good job of just hinting at something, without insisting so much about the horror of the thing.


There is a good adaptation of Call of Cthulhu, however, from 2005. It's done in the manner of a silent film, it's only about 45 minutes long, and it's quite nice.



Victim of The Night
Semi-genuine question: has any Lovecraft adaptation really worked? If not, do we think it's just because "the thing was so horrible it can't be explained with words!" is inherently impossible to depict?
Absolutely.
I'm a huge Lovecraft fan, I've read every story and most of them 2, 3, even 4 or 5 times. I think Call Of Cthulhu was really cool for the approach they took, 1991's The Resurrected is a really nice contemporized adaptation of The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward, From Beyond works well for me in capturing the spirit, Dagon and Messiah Of Evil are pretty good adaptations of The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and I recently mentioned that Carpenter's In The Mouth Of Madness deserves to be considered a Lovecraft film and a good one.



Thanks, I've only seen a couple of those, but I'll have a look at some of the others.

I've always really liked In The Mouth Of Madness, though I'm a little afraid to watch it again now because I have a strong suspicion I'll find it silly rather than terrifying, like I did when I was younger (the distant shot of the creature in that little breakfast nook, from the outside, stayed with me for a long time).

Still, as much as I like(d?) ItMoM, I'm not sure I'd say it really squares that particular circle.



Victim of The Night
Thanks, I've only seen a couple of those, but I'll have a look at some of the others.

I've always really liked In The Mouth Of Madness, though I'm a little afraid to watch it again now because I have a strong suspicion I'll find it silly rather than terrifying, like I did when I was younger (the distant shot of the creature in that little breakfast nook, from the outside, stayed with me for a long time).

Still, as much as I like(d?) ItMoM, I'm not sure I'd say it really squares that particular circle.
I just re-watched itMoM and I think it holds up really well. I definitely like it more than I did the first few times I saw it, now that I am more fluent in both Horror films and Lovecraft.



Hellbender, 2021 (A-)


A good, slightly funny, slightly corny movie about a witch mother and her daughter finding things out about herself.


A very little budget that shows, but a good soul that lives out of reach of bad special effects and all those silly limitations. The writing, as mentioned, is a bit corny, but there's a nice mother/daughter relationship that anchors the whole thing well enough to not make that a problem. The central duo is played by an actual mother and daughter pair, who, along with the father, from what I gathered, made basically everything.


The central conflict begins when the daughter, isolated by her mother in a house in the mountains, although not by malice, meets a hiker who talks about his niece living not too far, and starts wondering about what else is there. The script is interesting and goes into unpredictable directions. The soundtrack, partially provided by the leading ladies' home rock band, is surprisingly good, and a bunch of nice, artsy shots help elevate the whole above its budget. Would recommend.



Semi-genuine question: has any Lovecraft adaptation really worked? If not, do we think it's just because "the thing was so horrible it can't be explained with words!" is inherently impossible to depict?
Lovecraft adaptation or Lovecraftian?
I think in terms of Lovecraft adaptations, I remember being content with The Call of Cthulhu adaptation that was already mentioned. The Lovecraft Society something did that. They've also put out an adaptation of The Whisperer in the Darkness in 2011 that I haven't seen, but might be decent.

Wooley mentioned In the Mouth of Madness and Messiah of Evil. Neither are Lovecraft adaptations. The former is consciously trying to be Lovecraftian, the latter just kind of is without trying to be that; it's also probably the most Lovecraftian movie that I can think of.

ETA: And I'll concur with Wooley. In the Mouth of Madness actually holds up pretty well.



The Color out of Space was pretty underwhelming. It's a regular horror film that happens to be based on a Lovecraft story. There's very little atmosphere for a Lovecraft movie. It just goes from relatively ordinary scene to horror scenes without building much of anything. The family scenes just take up too much space and kill the vibe every time. Nicolas Cage also starts out well enough, but eventually just turns into himself.


Very much not a fan of another supposed Lovecraftian movie that only goes for body horror and tentacles, but that's not the worst thing about it anyway.
Oddly enough the film that I think best captures the feelings I had reading the Color out of Space is an adaptation of a completely different book, that being Annihilation. The world inside the shimmer feels like the sort of weirdness I was hoping for from a Color adaptation.



Victim of The Night
Since there's a lot of talk about lists lately, I thought I would include one more, RogerEbert.com's Best Horror Movies Of The 2010s:

https://www.rogerebert.com/collectio...s-of-the-2010s



The Resurrected, 1991 (B+)

Good progression, good mystery, but an ending that is the old school equivalent of the more recent CGI-laden climax of some horror films.

In The Mouth of Madness, 2nd view (A+)

Top shelf stuff right there. The stop motion stuff is just present enough to create a danger to go along with the story, and the story is even better than I remembered. It's interesting how Sutter Cane is analogous to Lovecraft's Abdul Alhazred on top of, obviously, being a reference to Lovecraft, the way he got his inspiration. Powerful adaptation of H.P's themes, and less tentacular than I remembered, which I was very happy about.



Victim of The Night
The Resurrected, 1991 (B+)

Good progression, good mystery, but an ending that is the old school equivalent of the more recent CGI-laden climax of some horror films.

In The Mouth of Madness, 2nd view (A+)

Top shelf stuff right there. The stop motion stuff is just present enough to create a danger to go along with the story, and the story is even better than I remembered. It's interesting how Sutter Cane is analogous to Lovecraft's Abdul Alhazred on top of, obviously, being a reference to Lovecraft, the way he got his inspiration. Powerful adaptation of H.P's themes, and less tentacular than I remembered, which I was very happy about.
Agreed and I thought it was interesting how they use the name Sutter Kane, which is obviously a reference to Stephen King, but then say he's bigger than Stephen King in the movie. Because the movie seems to be talking about Stephen King basically going so far into horror that he becomes an Abdul Alhazred, while also being Lovecraft, and then they wink at Stephen King in the movie.
I really like that movie, they really did some very nice things.