Happy Halloween!

 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

from all of us at Unfilmable.com!

How will you celebrate Halloween...

How are you going to celebrate Halloween, a time when old ones and elder things feel right at home...

...I (Craig Mullins, founder and webmaster of Unfilmable.com) celebrated by attending a performance of Evil Dead the Musical performed in Drumright, Oklahoma! Everyone involved with the production did a great job and the audience had a great time! If there is a performance in your neck of the woods (hehe), I would highly recommend that you check it out...

The following clip contains actual Oklahoma performances...

(Thanks to evildeadok.com)

H.P. Lovecraft's The Silver Key...

Grim Magus Productions, a fledgling company with a love for Lovecraft, have completed their first in a planned series of Lovecraft adaptations, H.P. Lovecraft's The Silver Key! Shot on Super-8 film, the 12-minute black and white film was directed by Philip Tolin, with music provided by Lovecraftian veteran Chaoticum. The Silver Key was filmed on location throughout November/December of 2009...

Check it out below...

(Thanks to Dann Kriss)

New Lovecraftian Thesis Film Needs Your Help...

From our forum...

Hello,

My name is Mac Smullen and I'm currently in pre-production on a film entitled DYNASTY (or: Yog-Sothoth's Cautionary Tales for Young Adults). The story is told in three vignettes, each utilizing Lovecraftian horror to act as parables for the major decisions we must make in life (finding a lover, finding a career, settling down, etc.). While it's not directly based off of any one Lovecraft work, it is very much true to the themes and tone of Lovecraft at his best and most personal, and those familiar with the mythos and his other work will spot plenty of references.

I am the writer/director of this 60-minute horror/drama, and I am a die-hard Lovecraft fan. However, the production is in dire need of help, and we are passing the hat around. The hat has been passed to you, fellow Lovecraft fans. For a minimal donation you can get all kinds of cool promotional stuff from the movie, including t-shirts, posters, and special thanks in the credits of the film! Simply go to kickstarter.com to check out the film, see what we're all about, and feel free to donate anything, even a dollar! If not, just keep an eye out for us in the future! Our goal is not to make money. It is simply to make a film we can all be proud of.

Thanks for your time!

Mac Smullen 

Kickstarter flick. from Mac Smullen on Vimeo.

(Thanks to Mac Smullen)

H.P. Lovecraft's Cool Air...

Produced and directed by Amy Dee, the following videos (parts one and two) are an adaptation of Cool Air that was produced for a 48 Hour Film Contest. The film stars Dana Murphy (as the Narrator), Nick Bastean (as Dr. Muñoz), Jake Kindwall (as the Reporter) and Judy Meinen (as the Landlady). Akira Shimada, Jeff Guokas, Alex Bade, Dan Keidl, Liz Bastean, Erich Henniger, Stephanie Dee, Tyler Schug, Emily Harris, Terry Meinen and Katja Nemzek also star...

(Thanks to OldLineCinema48)

At the Mountains of Madness gets a start date...

According to screenrant.com, Guillermo del Toro's At the Mountains of Madness has been given a production start date of July 2011, with the release date set for 2013. They also talk about the revised script a bit, so if you are into spoilers, hit the link below...

(Thanks to screenrant.com)

Roger Coman's Humanoids from the Deep the comic...

Based on the 1980 classic, Roger Coman's Humanoids from the Deep was released Wednesday by Bluewater Comics! Written and illustrated by Benjamin Hall, the comic revolves around blood-crazed, mutant fish-men who crash an island high school graduation party, and it's all Ann, and her best friend Cindy, can do to survive. Retail is $3.99...

Head over to bloody-disgusting.com for a 5-page preview...

(Thanks to bloody-disgusting.com)

Kaare Andrews talks Altitude...

Comic artist/filmmaker Kaare Andrews spoke with Newsarama recently about how Altitude (available now) went from what was intended to be a $100,000 micro-budget film (that was to be shot in a warehouse using smoke and fans) to a multi-million dollar production (shot in front of a green screen with a CG storm) with a name cast...

Check out one of the creature concepts below, and click here for more...

"They're just straight-up tentacles. Lovecraft was a visual touchstone, but as far as storytelling, we leaned more toward old-school Twilight Zone or Amazing Stories or more in line with that genre. But the Lovecraft stuff was definitely in the back of my mind when I designed the look of the creature, and the tentacles."

- Kaare Andrews

 (Thanks to newsarama.com)

Updated: South Park unleashes Cthulhu...

Lovecraft seems to be all over TV of late, with references in the last weeks episode of Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated and in the Comedy Central show Ugly Americans (not to mention random necronomicon appearances in Nickelodeon's Fanboy & Chum Chum)...

Lovecraft's latest TV appearance (in the form of Cthulhu and his minions) was, in of all places, Comedy Central's South Park in the episode Coon 2: Hindsight, in which DP (formerly known as BP) opens a portal to another dimension while drilling for oil in the Gulf...

Check out a clip below, and click here for the full episode...

Update: Looks like the clip has been removed, but you can still watch the full episode at the link above...

(Thanks to Nathan Fisher)

The Valdemar Legacy seeks distribution...

Shocktillyoudrop.com reports that Imagina International Sales are taking The Valdemar Legacy, Jose Luis Aleman's Lovecraft inspired chiller, to the American Film Market to find U.S. distribution! The film stars horror legend Paul Naschy, and just might feature an appearance by the great god Cthulhu (or so they were told)...

Check out the Spanish trailer below, and head over to the official site here...

(Thanks to Shawn Francis and shocktillyoudrop.com)

Who's Really Afraid of H. P. Lovecraft Anyway?

Stunt Kitty Films have released a teaser trailer for their short film A Fish Called Martha or Who's Really Afraid of H. P. Lovecraft Anyway?. The short was written by Rob Robinson, directed by Debora Roventini and stars Ken MacFarlane (as George), Debora Roventini (as Martha), William Bertrand (as H. P.) and Lyle Palaski (as Honey)...

About the film: It's out of the frying pan and into George and Martha's rumpus room for a night of supernatural mambo jumbo when young H.P. and his slim-hipped wife, fleeing a monster of cosmic proportions, seek refuge on the campus of the infamous Miskatonic University in this outrageous parody of things Lovecraft and Hollywood...

 

(Thanks to Poelzig)

Aaron Vanek's HPLFF LA wrap-up...

After attending 13 of the 15 Lovecraft festivals in Portland, Oregon, I know how much work it takes to put one on. The slog was slightly easier for the first one in Los Angeles (San Pedro) because it was only for one day, only six films screened. Still, it's a full time job, and one that I am going to repeat for 2011.

I have been talking to various Lovecraft filmmakers and the founder of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival®, Andrew Migliore, for years about a holding a satellite HPLFF in LA. One night, after a few cocktails during a sci-fi themed burlesque show at the Bordello Bar, Frank Woodward, director of the great documentary Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown, said "We should do one here." Maybe it was the booze, maybe it was the stripping Tank Girl on stage, but I said I committed.

That was July 8, 2009. Fourteen months and three days later, on September 11, 2010, the Los Angeles H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival opened. In between those dates were many phone calls and emails to get sponsors (came up empty), vendors (we had Behind the Scenes Costumes, SighCo/Arkham Bazaar, the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, and Perilous Press/Mike Dubisch), press (stories in the Los Angeles Times, the LA Weekly, the Daily Breeze South Bay paper, io9 website, She Never Slept and a few other blogs), live entertainment at intermission (Astra Dance), poster artwork (from Paul Carrick), a venue for the after party (Whale & Ale pub), a band for the after party (Theloious Dub, recommended by Frank Woodward), volunteers (Kirsten Hageleit, David King, Christine Thompson, Rafael Nieto, Renee Hammer), a photographer (Amanda Mielke), films (Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown by Frank Woodward; Cool Air by Bryan Moore; AM 1200 by David Prior; The Music of Erich Zann by John Strysik; The Call of Cthulhu by Sean Branney & Andrew Leman; and Re-Animator by Stuart Gordon), filmmakers (the above folks, plus cast and crew like Eric Lange (AM 1200) and Jack Donner (Cool Air), a ticketing agency (Brown Paper Tickets), and of course, the splendid Warner Grand Theater, built in 1931 by Jack Warner (a Warner Bros.) in the historic district of San Pedro, the blue-collar town near Los Angeles Harbor. San Pedro is technically part of Los Angeles, held so the big city can continue to collect tax revenues on the port, but really, San Pedro could be its own town.

I looked at many different theaters and venues, from a tiki-themed drive-in in Montclair to the Million Dollar Theater downtown. There were pros and cons to all, including the Warner. However, the ambiance and feel of the Warner reminded me of Portland, and I am very interested in making the L.A. fest feel like the Portland one. The proximity of pubs, pizza parlors, antique stores and vintage costume sellers in the vicinity were strong plusses. The biggest perk for booking the Warner is that the next-door coffee shop, Sacred Grounds, can sell beer and wine at the concession stand, and patrons can bring them into the theater. Drinking a beer while watching Lovecraft films? Sign me up!

I booked the Warner Grand for the festival from 2pm to 10pm, thinking I had to be out early so the Rocky Horror Picture Show could set up around 11pm. They stopped coming to the WGT, yet I decided not to change the time of the festival. That was a mistake that will be corrected in subsequent fests.

Parking is always an issue in Los Angeles, as it was for the LA fest. However, I spotted a lot very close to the theater, with the unbelievably cheap price of fifty-cents an hour for parking, and free after 6pm. If people arrived at 2pm, they would only have to pay $2 for the day. However, as I was setting up at 1pm, I noticed a band on stage in the parking lot we were going to use—a day fair that I was unaware of. This meant people had to park on the street, which was fine, the price was the same, but the meters were only for two hours, so people had to reanimate their parking meters with quarters every few hours (at least until 6pm).

Some of the other hiccups at the LA-fest: 

- I didn't give vendors enough time to set up. An hour doesn't cut it. They'll have more time for future fests.

- Parking, as noted above.

- Running time: we need to start the fest later and end later. That will be the norm for a while starting in 2011.
 

Technical issues – this was the biggest oopsie; notably because I wasn't able to have a true tech rehearsal before the show. When I showed up on Friday for the tech check, the projectionist wasn't present, and the theater's video projector was not working. So I couldn't see if the beta deck (rented) worked, nor the DVDs. I should have done this Saturday morning, but was told by management that it wasn't necessary. It was.
 

What happened is that Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown wouldn't play, and we had to screen Cool Air first, off the beta deck. It was set so the timecode displayed, and we couldn't figure out how to get rid of it. Turns out the directions are on the first page of the manual, which we had to find and read in the dark…while the movie played. The audience seemed to enjoy the snafu, but it set everything back a half hour. After Cool Air, we ran AM 1200, and then, finally, a newly-burned Fear of the Unknown DVD that the producer rushed to us. The aspect ratio was off, however, another problem with the projector. During the intermission, we checked everything to make sure it worked and would play correctly. It was. So for the second part, everything played right, though there was a bit too much time in between screenings. All of this will be corrected for the next fest. There might be new technical problems, but at least the old ones will be solved.

The program book was supposed to be printed on newspaper, but a local vendor (Columbia Printing on Wilshire), lied when they said they could print the program on newsprint. The biggest shock was being told the programs would be ready by 2-3pm on Friday, just in time to bring to the theater before the tech rehearsal at 4pm, and walking into the shop at 3:15 to see the program just starting to come off the machines. The owner started the job at 3pm, not finished it. I had to swing back around that night to pick them up, adding more stress and time to an already long day. Needless to say, they won't be used again, and I don't recommend ever hiring Columbia Printing on Wilshire.

The good things:

- The sound and picture quality on some flicks, notably Music of Erich Zann, was really good, about as ideal as we could get.

- Seeing a sneak preview scene and first glimpse of the trailer for Whisperer in the Darkness on the big screen.

- Meeting attendees from Las Vegas and San Diego, pleased to have the fest closer to home for them.

- The graciousness and patience of the filmmakers.

- The joy of the audience.

- The kindness of the vendors to give us great items to raffle away.

- Nearly breaking even (money-wise) for a first-time festival. I lost only a few hundred dollars. We had about 135 attendees, with another 30 or so guests. That number will rise, I'm convinced.

- It was great to see HPLFF founder Andrew Migliore not worrying about anything and being able to sit back and watch movies with his friends again, something he hasn't been able to do in years.

- The live perfs were awesome, and I was really happy to get Astra Dance and Thelonious Dub.

- The enthusiasm of the volunteers was invigorating.

- The theater is awesome. It just feels good to be in there. And if I may geek out for a bit, Lovecraft was alive when this art-deco theater was built (1931). Plus, the Warner Grand has at least double the urinals and stalls as Portland's theater.

- Hanging out at the Whale & Ale was great, eating sticky toffee pudding and sipping a sweet Speyside Scotch with the Lovecraft crowd.

- And of course, the audience loved all the movies. Kudos to the makers for creating them.

It looks like I'll be doing it again in 2011. I've booked the Warner Grand again, this time over the September 23-24 weekend. There are a few decisions I need to make, such as a two-day or a one-day festival? Should I save some time and space for Lovecraft games and guest authors on panels and readings, or just show movies? But these are all great problems to have. The fact that there will be another festival, undoubtedly bigger and better than this trial run, is thrilling. I hope you'll join us.

If you have any questions or comments, about this festival or what to do for the next, feel free to email me. I may have already thought of your suggestion, but it would be great to hear from another perspective. This is YOUR festival as much as mine (and Andrew's, who has a BIG say in what happens in L.A.). 

Photos are here...

More coverage here...

Aaron Vanek

Los Angeles Cocktails Examiner

Writer

Filmmaker

Interactive Live Game Designer

H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival® - Los Angeles Organizer

(Thanks to Aaron Vanek)

Fantasy Flight Publishing Arkham Horror Novel

Fantasy Flight Games is announcing the first novel in a trilogy by Graham McNeill, 'Ghouls of the Miskatonic'. The cast will largely be of characters form the game itself.

Don Dies at the End...

"John Dies at the End is like an H.P. Lovecraft tale if Lovecraft were into poop and fart jokes."

That's how Fangoria described David Wong's infectious debut novel John Dies at the End. Starting off as a short, scary "campfire" story on Halloween (in 2001), it would be almost five years before Wong (a pseudonym for writer Jason Pargin) finished the novel. Once finished, the novel was first posted on the web for free, then self-published (by Wong), then released as a limited edition paperback by Permuted Press, before finally being re-released in hardcover by St. Martin’s Press...

In 2008 it was announced that cult filmmaker Don Coscarelli, he of Phantasm and Bubba Ho-Tep fame, had optioned the film rights to the novel. Then just the other day, Ain't It Cool News revealed that Coscarelli, who had been leaving cryptic hints on his twitter account, has been secretly filming John Dies at the End, with Paul Giamatti producing! The film stars newcomers Chase Williamson and Rob Mayes as John and Dave (or possibly Dave and John), Paul Giamatti as reporter Arnie Blondestone, Clancy Brown as Dr. Albert Marconi (an expert in the supernatural) and longtime Coscarelli collaborator Angus Scrimm...

Click here for Ain't It Cool's coverage of the film, and as always, watch this space for more...

About the book: It's a drug that promises an out-of-body experience with each hit. On the street they call it Soy Sauce, and users drift across time and dimensions. But some who come back are no longer human. Suddenly a silent otherworldly invasion is underway, and mankind needs a hero. What it gets instead is John and David, a pair of college dropouts who can barely hold down jobs. Can these two stop the oncoming horror in time to save humanity? No. No, they can't...

(Thanks to aintitcool.com)

Project Space Squid, the films...

The students at the Vancouver Film School have made available the five short films they adapted for their Interactive Lovecraft project (since re-titled Compendium Volume 1, H.P. Lovecraft). The finished project will be an innovative digital publication containing games, films and other interactive media, that will be made available for tablet devices in the coming months...

Watch all five films below...

(Thanks to the VFS)

Lovecraft Sighting

I'm unsure how many of you are devoted to web comics, but the PVP comic has it's newest storyline devoted to Skull the Troll telling the "Adventures of Brendolph Carter".

Ghost Train

Ghost Train (click on the link for trailer) aka "Otoshimono" will be the first of several films I review that, while not part of the Mythos, occasionally refer to it, or would be possibly tempting to fans of Cosmic Horror. In the case of Ghost Train there is supposed to be a reference to a girl looking forward to going to Miskatonic University, and a few carved reliefs in the subway tunnels. I personally didn't notice the MU reference when I watched but I got to see a dubbed copy, and quite frankly the dubbing was awful as usual. Watch it with the subtitles on.

It begins like most typical Yurei films, Yurei being the Japanese term for a specific type of Ghost (usually then sub divided into other categories). Someone who has died suddenly and violently such as murder or suicide, and who hasn't therefore received the proper funerary rites. They can bridge the gap between the afterlife and our world to return for revenge on the living. In practice their revenge consists of slaughtering whatever is in their path, and until you give them what they want they wont go away. The problem arises when what they want is impossible to have, and they just refuse to die in spite.


Basically a ghost is haunting a train platform, and anyone who finds her boarding pass (or other possessions) is fated to die by her hand, and roam the station as a ghost as well. Typical Yurei fare. What follows is a mystery of what exactly the ghost wants so it can be put down, and in the process find some sort of cover up of something from when the train was built. Some awful unknown evil. I won't spoil what follows, but it's fairly Lovecraftian in it's way.

Ghost train isn't necessarily the greatest film out there. It shares the annoying habit of jumping back and forth in the timeline to tell stories in flashbacks or forwards, and splits the characters so you follow their stories individually, so there are some who will be confused by it. But modern Yurei films do have a bit in common with Cosmic Horror, and some of the better ones should be seen more widely. Please note that this one was published by ADV films, which has now split into several different entities, and I'm unsure which if any of them has the rights to it. I know you can still rent it via Netflix, and buy it online.

Doctor Glamour steams along...

Having mastered the Cyberpunk sub-genre (and a whole lot more) with his award winning short film Frank DanCoolo: Paranormal Drug Dealer, filmmaker Andrew W. Jones is tackling Steampunk with his latest effort, Doctor Glamour! According to the Never Knows Best blog, the first act of the film takes place in an alternate history, Steampunk version of Arkham, Massachusetts (check out the video here), created by Robert and James Dastoli...

Doctor Glamour, from information culled from the blog, will be an action-adventure (glam rock musical) re-telling of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dreams in the Witchhouse", with inspiration drawn from a variety of sources, including Steve Ditko's run of Doctor Strange. You really have to read this post, to get a feel for the scope of the project, which includes another VFX test showing Ditko's influence...

The rest of the film is being kept under wraps, at least for now, but frequent visits to the blog, as well as checking out the images below, will give you some idea of what Doctor Glamour has in store for us...

Walter Gilman's flat...

Modeling a steam-punk Arkham, Mass...

Miskatonic Library set...

More from the Miskatonic Library set...

(Thanks to Andrew W. Jones)

Updated: H.P. Lovecraft and Scooby Doo, together at last...

For over 20 years I have waited for Scooby Doo and H.P. Lovecraft to appear on the small screen together, and finally, last night, it happened! Sort of...

Voiced by Jeffrey Combs (no stranger to playing Lovecraft on screen), H.P. Hatecraft and Harlan Ellison (voiced by Harlan himself!) appeared in Shrieking Madness, the latest episode of Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated on Cartoon Network...

About the show: With Mystery Inc. broken up, the gang decides to check out life after High School and spend a weekend at DARROW COLLEGE. But things don’t go as planned when a creature called CHAR GAR GOTHAKON begins terrorizing the campus. Turns out this beast is a fictional character come to life. A creation of the author H.P. HATECRAFT who is a professor at the school. Although one of the other professors, HARLAN ELLISON, claims Hatecraft is a fraud, the creature is definitely real. And when it attacks and carries off Hatecraft to his doom, the gang realizes it has to come together once again to solve this mystery and save Hatecraft’s life...

 
Check out some clips below, and look for Shrieking Madness in reruns...

Update: Added new clips, but they may be removed at some point due to copyright violations. Watch the full episode here...

(Thanks to bleedingcool.com and blogs.evtrib.com)

The 9 Lives of Cthulhu...

Dana Hayes and John Alsedek, founders of Blue Hours Productions, have several projects in the works, one of which is 9 Lives, the story of a 1950's cat burglar who finds herself as Earth's only hope against the interstellar horror known as Cthulhu! The project is intended to be a one-hour series, and test footage will be shot over the next month. Look for a trailer towards the end of the year...

About the series: When striptease artist/jewel thief La Chat steals the wrong gem at the wrong time, she ends up with the fate of mankind in her hands, as she is the only thing standing in the way of the Great Old One Cthulhu...

(Thanks to Dana Hayes and John Alsedek)

Colour from the Dark in 3D...

Fans of Italian Horror, H.P. Lovecraft and filmmaker Ivan Zuccon take note, Vanguard Cinema have revealed their intentions to release Colour from the Dark, Ivan's adaptation of The Colour Out of Space, in 3D! The film has already been sent to Switzerland for conversion, so watch this space for more...

(Thanks to Ivan Zuccon)

Please help support Double Feature Press...

There are only two weeks left to help Sarah L. Covert launch her wonderful new endeavor Double Feature Press, a small indie press that will release books based around the concept of old double feature drive-in flicks! Each book will contain two authors, with each author contributing either short stories, poems, or novellas to make up their half of the book. Each book will be limited edition, the first of which is due out in 2011. Joe Pulver, Robin Spriggs, Tara Vanflower and The Unquiet Void are already hard at work on the first Double Feature Press publication...

Please visit the Double Feature Press website to see how you can help...

(Thanks to Sarah L. Covert)

A Midsummer Night's Dream...

The Tokyo International Players, who are in their 114th year, are starting off with the odd pairing of William Shakespeare and H.P. Lovecraft with their adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream! According to director Jonah Hagans, "[Midsummer] evokes images of lovers' folly and bumbling actors running amok in a forest peopled with diaphanous fairies. Not this time. Set in and around the fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts, in the late 1920s, our cast run to the forest only to find it throbbing with dark magic and haunted by creatures from their darkest nightmares. Drawing on the works of Lovecraft, the production design grabs characters from several novels, filling out the entourages of both Oberon and Titania. And Puck has an agenda all his own." Surprisingly, this isn't the first time Shakespeare and Lovecraft have been paired (see: The Transition of Juliet and Romeo)...

The Tokyo International Players will perform the play this coming weekend at the Sun Mall Theatre in Shinjuku, Japan...

About the play: Follow the adventures of four young lovers and a group of amateur actors as they interact with dukes, queens, and fairies of the forest. Based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft, this dark interpretation of the classic Shakespeare play is sure to be unlike any production you have ever seen...

Click here for further details...

(Thanks to tokyoplayers.org and japantoday.com)

Updated: New Altitude clip...

Head over to Dread Central for another exclusive clip from the forthcoming Altitude DVD. Anchor Bay will release the DVD October 26th, just in time for Halloween...

Update: Check out Dread Central's review here...

 (Thanks to Dread Central)

Do we really need a hipper Creature...

Bloody-Disgusting.com spoke with producer Marc Abraham about the long in-the-works remake of The Creature from the Black Lagoon...

"We've gone through a bunch of different incarnations of scripts, and none that me and my partner were satisfied with. Gary Ross is involved with us as a producer [along with] his wife, Allison [Thomas]. None of us have been satisfied. I think we have a really cool take on the movie now – [a] much hipper, [more] interesting version of it, and we're looking for a new writer who's after that. And, in fact, I just had breakfast and I was writing down my notes about it, about how I think it should go. I think we have a really cool take on it. Still set in South America, really a more 'not-a-guy-in-a-rubber-suit'…[it's a] much more psychological transformation, more literary transformation. I think a really interesting idea."

Click here for more...

(Thanks to Dread Central)

New short film will leave you Sleepless...

Recently uploaded to YouTube, Sleepless is a silent short film intended as an exercise in shot types for filmmaker EvilIggy. The short stars Shaunté Tabb, with music and sound effects by Than van Nispen and Paddy Uglow...

(Thanks to EvilIggy)

Gordon and Combs talk Poe...

Click here for FEARnet's recent interview with long time collaborators Stuart Gordon and Jeffrey Combs, where they discuss, among other things, the possibility of a Nevermore film adaptation...

"Yeah, absolutely. I would love to make a movie based on Nevermore. It'd be great. We've been talking about doing more Poe projects."

-Stuart Gordon

(Thanks to fearnet.com)

Die Farbe premiere announced...

Huan Vu's Die Farbe, an adaptation of The Colour Out of Space, will premiere Saturday, October 30th at the Delphi cinema theater in Stuttgart, Germany...

Contact Huan through die-farbe.com for details...

(Thanks to Huan Vu)

The Lovecraft Chronicles...

Novelist Matt Warner and filmmaker John Johnson have teamed up on a three-movie anthology called The Lovecraft Chronicles: Vol. 1 that will be available exclusively through Darkstone Entertainment. Warner wrote the segments Dumas and Leviathan, and a tie-in short story called The Lovecraft Chronicles: Raven that will be included as an insert in the collection...

The Lovecraft Chronicles stars Mariah Smith as Harriet Lovecraft, an illegitimate descendant of the pulp writer H.P. Lovecraft, who joins a group of descendants of other famed writers to hunt down rampaging monsters...

Check out the segment Juggernaut below (please note: contains nudity)...

Juggernaut from Darkstone Entertainment on Vimeo.

(Thanks to augustafreepress.com, matthewwarner.com and darkstone-ent.com)

Seattle's Open Circle Theater Does it Again

Since 2002 Seattle’s Open Circle Theater has made their fall season something for any well-read horror fan to look forward to. Every year, from mid-October to mid-November they adapt a story by master-of-weird-horror H.P. Lovecraft and perform it on stage at their Belltown location. I only learned of the tradition two years ago and by that time the shows were selling out well in advance. To be honest, given the region’s predisposition to sneer at the genre, I have been surprised at the warm reception the productions receive. Despite the fact that I am just another horror fan in the area I’m quite proud of their work.

So when I was asked to help spread the word for this year’s show I leaped at the chance. Then they told me what they were doing and I deflated. Pickman's Model.

Really? That? As any fan of Lovecraftian movies can tell you, it's a story that's been committed to film and digital storage more times than possible to count. Ok, so it is possible but it's a lot of work and suffice it to say, there are a lot of versions out there.

So I really wasn't sure what to expect and was not exactly looking forward to sitting through yet another rendition of the same story. But I had faith. In the past they had delivered and so I would give them a chance. I am very glad I did.

John McKenna's vision of Lovecraft's classic tale is revisioned in a stunningly original and fresh way. The play opens in a modern Seattle gallery where Richard Upton Pickman (played by Simon Astor) is set to unveil his latest piece of work, Ghoul Feeding. Main characters Vivian (Marianna De Fazio) and Eliot (Kenna Kettrick) scramble, each in their own way, to ensure that Pickman’s vision goes off as planned -complete with an elaborate performance art piece- in spite of a frazzled curator (Jennifer Pratt) and the dire warnings of Eliot’s conspiracy-theorist ex-boyfriend, Adam (Colin Scheirber). However, no amount of planning could help overcome the unexpected death of a dancer at the finale of The Music of Eric Zann (a word for word recounting and performance, expertly woven in to the play that adds depth and flavor to a deepening plot; executed by the talented Liz Cortez and Cassandra Moselle) or the crimes that seem to follow Pickman’s colleague, the offensive Dr. Reed (Don MacEllis), around like a polluted halo. As Vivian and Eliot pry further into the mysteries surrounding the night they uncover hidden histories of the city, long repressed, visions best left unseen, and find themselves trapped within a danger greater than they ever could have imagined.

Due to the unique set up of the theater’s seating I actually did find myself quite frightened during the play’s harrowing climax (it should be noted that I ENJOY being scared) and while the friend who accompanied me to the rehearsal was disappointed that there wasn’t as big a pay off at the end scare wise, I’m not sure that I could have personally handled one. (Ok, I could have and would have loved it but I would have shrieked loud enough to embarrass myself and I am NOT ok with that) It was plenty scary to me.

My only real complaint is that I felt as though the plot could have explored a lot more, given us more time to savor the mysteries and experience the fear the two women feel as they uncover more and more connections leading from their former employer to a terrible brutality that spread up and down the west coast. But to pull that off the play would have ended up being twice as long and it was wonderful just the way it was. The writers (Dustin Engstrom, Vince Kovar, John McKenna and Ron Sandahl) took a story we’ve seen brought to life numerous times and showed us something so new that I can’t wait to go see it a second time! As a paying customer no less! And that is really saying something.

Plushies apparently popular

As reported here in the Yehuda blog, Cthulhu plushies seem to be quite popular, and there are a large variety of them, including the new Midnight Reaver Nyarlathotep and several other items here at Toy Vault.

Cthulhu even seems to be popular with the lego crowd as seen in the following:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=166054
http://gnomesteadstump.blogspot.com/2008/07/boys-and-their-toys.html
http://infocult.typepad.com/infocult/2006/02/lego_cthulhu_pa.html
http://www.brothers-brick.com/2006/04/25/more-lovecraftian-lego-from-mark-stafford/

And of course there are the somewhat famous Action Figures by SOTA.

Hard to believe there's so much cutesy Lovecraft inspired stuff.

With luck this weekend I'll have that first movie review I've been promising...

Updated: New Whisperer in Darkness trailer...

Check out the new trailer for the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society's The Whisperer in Darkness, their highly anticipated follow-up to The Call of Cthulhu...

Update: Sean Branney tells Unfilmable.com that YouTube altered the aspect ratio, so he removed the trailer. He is currently compressing a new version and will post it soon...

Update: The trailer for The Whisperer in Darkness has returned! Check it out below...

(Thanks to Sean Branney and Shawn Francis)

Edgar Allan Poe remembered...

Edgar Allan Poe died on this day in 1849, at the age of 40...

(Thanks to Mark Redfield and Chris Perridas)

Re-Animator: The Musical...

Coming soon to the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood, California, Re-Animator: The Musical is Stuart Gordon's return to the material that started it all! Written by Stuart Gordon, Dennis Paoli and William J Norris, with music by Mark Nutter, the musical stars Chris NcKenna, Sarah Glendening, William Atherton and Graham Skipper...

A stage reading of "She's Dead Dan, and Dead is Dead!" recorded live at the Steve Allen Theater screened at this past weekends H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, Oregon...

More as it becomes available...

 (Thanks to reanimatorthemusical.com)

Double Feature Press...

Sarah L. Covert has announced the launch of Double Feature Press, a small indie press that will release books based around the concept of old double feature drive-in flicks! Each book will contain two authors, with each author contributing either short stories, poems, or novellas to make up their half of the book. Each book will be limited edition, the first of which is due out in 2011. Joe Pulver and Robin Spriggs (see below) are already hard at work on the first Double Feature Press publication...

Head over to the DFP Kickstarter page for more information...

Robin Spriggs - The Untold Tales of Ozman Droom

The Untold Tales of Ozman Droom, according to arcane legend, is a collection of stories and poems about a collection of stories and poems by (if titles can be trusted) a certain Ozman Droom. But who is Ozman Droom? Or what is Ozman Droom? And when, where, why, and how is Ozman Droom? The answers to these and countless other questions of equally perilous rank await the curious seeker within the collection itself...provided such a book does indeed exist. And perhaps even if not. Caveat lector.

Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. - Night Begets

Night burns and burrows, vast as any idea it declares its bottomless truth -- Terminus. The players and observers come, absorb and discard atoms, fill moments with ripples they call magic, or love, or chance, heartache, and fate. For knowledge and pleasure they steal editions, wait for, or take, more. Night loves nothing...and, finally, it takes all.

Joe Pulver's, Night Begets, is a collection of tales and poetic texts about lovelorn ghouls and other night-bound creatures as they discover sin and ashes bloom and echo in the noir labyrinths and pitch black, dungeon skirts of Night. It is a work that provokes and will leave an indelible mark on anyone who picks it up and comes through on the other side, painting a world that is as much brutal as it is beautiful and imploring readers to reconcile these seemingly antagonistic aspects of existence.

(Thanks to Sarah L. Covert)