Delve Deeper

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Shameless Plug: Re-Animated States of America

Unfilmable's founder, Craig Mullins, recently released "Re-Animated States of America". The book takes Herbert West, and his companions, across a Kafkaesque hellscape of a Lovecraftian post-apocalyptic world.

The Kindle version is on sale for $2.99
The Paperback is on sale for $9.89

This book is not for the casual horror fan. This is not a light read filled with casual chills and shivers. This book is in your face, graphic, visceral, and cerebral horror that may well keep you up at night...reading more.

Even though recovering from surgery, I cannot put this book down. Go forth, get your copy and revel in the over the top darkness of the Re-Animated States.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Kickstarter launched for H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival & CthulhuCon 2014 Portland, OR

A Kickstarter campaign has been lauchned for the 2014 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival & Cthulhu Con 2014:


April 11-13, 2014: Three days of indie films, readings, panels, art, music, & vendors, in honor of the master of the Weird tale.
The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival & CthulhuCon was founded in 1995 by Andrew Migliore, and is the longest continuously running Lovecraftian event in the world. It is both a film festival and 3-day convention that brings together filmmakers, authors, artists, and other creators, for a meeting of minds that you won't find elsewhere. The 19th Annual festival takes place April 11-13 at Portland's historic Hollywood Theatre.
We discovered last year that all the unique rewards, experiences, and additions to the festival made it more fun for everyone, not just backers, so we're turning to Kickstarter again to help cover some of our upfront costs and raise the bar even higher. Theater and venue rental, film exhibition licenses, and hosting costs are all expenses we will have each year, but we know that with your support, we can continue to provide a place for our community to come together and lose sanity points while having a blast!
Want to attend? Pledge at any ATTEND, VIP, EXPERIENCE, or ALL ACCESS reward levels to the right. All of those come with festival entry (and exclusives you can't get if you buy regular tickets later).
Can't attend, but want to contribute? Get our main reward items shipped to you at the $100 SHADOW OUT OF TIME or $245 TRAVELER IN THE 4TH DIMENSION level. Reward levels between $10 and $85 also include various items shipped to you. 
Once we reach our initial funding goal, we'll be unveiling our stretch goals. Help us unlock these big plans by spreading the word about our Kickstarter!
(At the VIP level and above, you will receive the official 2014 festival poster, with art created by Mike Dubisch, the winner of the 2013 Pickman's Apprentice live art competition. )

2014 is THE YEAR OF THE WITCH

This year, the stars have aligned on one of our favorite Lovecraft stories, "The Dreams in The Witch House." We'll be showing 1968's "Curse of The Crimson Altar" which adapts the story (loosely, but still awesomely) and stars Christopher Lee and Boris Karloff. There will be a LIVE musical performance of selections from the new "Dreams in The Witch House: A Lovecraftian Rock Opera", with Mike Dalager, Doug Blair (from WASP), and Alaine Kashian (Broadway's "Cats")! Plus, there are a couple other things we're not ready to talk about yet, but when the time is right, we'll let you in on the fun.
Both Liv Rainey-Smith and A.S. Koi created special edition items for us that are inspired directly by the story, and artist Mike Dubisch created wonderful Witch House-themed poster artwork. We also took Azathoth and Nyarlathotep (the black man of the Witch-cult) as inspiration for the darkly Ancient Egypt style T-shirt, lapel pin, and commemorative tickets. This will also manifest in the exclusive music track by Mars Homeworld that will be included in the download pack.



The Awakening - 700 Steps of Deeper Slumber

Brian Callahan of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival) kindly provided us with information about Huan Vu's new project:

The Dreamlands”, the world’s first film adaption of H. P. Lovecraft's Dream Cycle, is a fantasy film project from Huan Vu, the director and writer of the multiple award winning Lovecraft adaption “Die Farbe” and a founding member of the filmmakers initiative “New German Genre Film”.
In order to realize the financing goals, the crowdfunding campaign will start on the 1st of March 2014.


Synopsis:
Roland, an orphaned boy with a troubled past is led into another world by a mysterious old man. A world that has been created by the great dreamers of mankind in their sleep during the preceding thousands of years. There the old man rules as a king and he wants to educate Roland to be his successor. But Roland is unable to overcome the dark shadow that weighs on him, and he must decide whether he wants to use his abilities to further expand the Dreamlands, or to destroy what others have built.


For more information please visit the homepage


Fragment 1890

Just in via e-mail from Sascha Renninger:

After the award winning “Shadow of the Unnamable”, here is the new short film from writer, director and producer Sascha Alexander Renninger: Fragment 1890 - a chilling vision of cosmic horror. It´s the second of three planned Lovecraft adaptations by Sascha and based on “The Thing in the Moonlight”. Most of the scenes have been successfully shot, and the first teaser and other content will soon be presented at: http://fragment1890.com 

Synopsis
New England in the late 1920ties.
Dr. Barlow is stunned when his young patient Morgan Derleth turns out to be psychic. Through her, he receives a cry for help from the writer Robert Blake.
It seems that Blake is trapped in a strange and terrible dreamworld, after a failed experiment with an exotic drug. Every night, he´s on the run from faceless alien creatures.
Can Blake be saved?

Lovecraftian movies currently on Netflix – January 27, 2014

via: http://lovecraftzine.com



As most of you know, I have a list of recommended Lovecraftian movies here at the website.  As of the time of this writing — January 27, 2014 — quite a few of them are available on Netflix streaming.
Here they are:
ABSENTIA [streamingDVD] Tricia’s husband has been missing for seven years. Her younger sister Callie comes to live with her as the pressure mounts to finally declare him ‘dead in absentia.’ As Tricia sifts through the wreckage and tries to move on with her life, Callie finds herself drawn to an ominous tunnel near the house. As she begins to link it to other mysterious disappearances, she comes to the realization that his presumed death might be anything but ‘natural.’ Soon it becomes clear that the ghostly force at work in the tunnel might have set its sights on Callie and Tricia too.




CABIN IN THE WOODS [streamingDVD] Five friends go for a break at a remote cabin in the woods, where they get more than they bargained for. Together, they must discover the truth behind the cabin in the woods.




THE CALL OF CTHULHU [streamingDVD] Written in 1926, just before the advent of “talking” pictures, The Call of Cthulhu is one of the most famous and influential tales of H.P. Lovecraft, the father of gothic horror. Now the story is brought richly to life in the style of a classic 1920s silent movie, with a haunting original symphonic score. Using the “Mythoscope” process – a mix of modern and vintage techniques, the HPLHS has worked to create the most authentic and faithful screen adaptation of a Lovecraft story yet attempted. From the cultists of the Louisana bayous to the man-eating non-euclidean geometry of R’lyeh, the HPLHS brings Cthulhu to the screen as it was meant to be seen. Eighteen months of production and a cast of more than 50 actors went into making this film a period spectacle that must seen to be believed. The DVD includes The Call of Cthulhu (47 minutes, black and white), the high-fidelity and “Mythophonic” soundtracks, a 25 minute “making-of” documentary featurette, two slide shows, deleted footage, a prop PDF of the Sydney Bulletin and more.




THE CORRIDOR [streamingDVD] Five friends spend a weekend in a cabin in the woods to catch up on old times.  Recently, one of them was released from a mental hospital.  Apparently, he and his mother saw and heard some strange things that started driving them crazy.  What happens in the woods that weekend is an example of a creature from another reality revealing itself to people in this one, and how it affects their mental stability.




EUROPA REPORT [streamingDVD] A unique blend of documentary, alternative history and science fiction thriller, EUROPA REPORT follows a contemporary mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa to investigate the possible existence of alien life within our solar system. When unmanned probes suggest that a hidden ocean could exist underneath Europa’s icy surface and may contain single-celled life, Europa Ventures, a privately funded space exploration company, sends six of the best astronauts from around the world to confirm the data and explore the revolutionary discoveries that may lie in the Europan ocean.




EVENT HORIZON [streamingDVD] The year is 2047. Years earlier, the pioneering research vessel Event Horizon vanished without a trace. Now a signal from it has been detected, and the United States Aerospace Command responds. Hurtling toward the signal’s source are a fearless captain (Laurence Fishburne), his elite crew and the lost ship’s designer (Sam Neill). Their mission: find and salvage the state-of-the-art spacecraft. What they find is state-of-the-art interstellar terror.




PONTYPOOL [streamingDVD] In the small town of Pontypool, Ontario, former shock jock turned radio announcer Grant Mazzy drives through a blizzard on his way to work. When poor visibility forces him to stop his car, an underdressed woman appears on the road, startling him. Grant calls out to her, but she disappears into the storm, ominously repeating his words and visibly disturbing him. Grant eventually arrives at the radio station, where he works with technical assistant Laurel-Ann Drummond and station manager Sydney Briar.  As the morning proceeds, they get a report from their weather and traffic helicopter reporter Ken Loney about a possible riot at the office of Doctor Mendez in Pontypool. He describes a scene of chaos and carnage that results in numerous deaths, immediately grabbing Grant’s attention. After Ken is unexpectedly cut off, the group tries to confirm his report, but their witnesses are disconnected before they can get them on the airwaves. Ken calls back and reports that he has found the “infected” son of a well-known Pontypool citizen nearby, mumbling to himself…




THE SHRINE [DVD] A blood-curdling tale of sacrificial cults, demonic possession and ancient evil. After a young American backpacker vanishes in Europe, three journalists trace his disappearance to a mysterious Polish village. They travel there hoping to get the story, but instead find a grotesque, fog-shrouded shrine and hostile locals hell-bent on serving up for their next ritualistic human sacrifice.




YELLOWBRICKROAD [streamingDVD] In the Fall of 1940, the entire population of Friar, NH abandoned their homes and walked up an ancient trail, never to be seen alive again. Their fates have remained a mystery for over 70 years, until a team of researchers discover the trailhead and attempt to track the path the doomedcitizens of Friar took. Yellowbrickroad is a return to the slow burn, character driven horror thrillers of the 1970s.




There are also several Lovecraftian movies currently on Netflix streaming that did not make my list: Reanimator, The Dunwich Horror, and John Dies at the End.
Enjoy the movies!

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

New Trailer: The Dreamlands (Die Traumlande)

The second trailer, "Storm in the Night", has hit the web. There are six weeks before the crowd-funding efforts for the film begin and, so far, this is shaping up to be a fantastic project. Find the trailer below, or on the official page. Be sure to visit http://www.the-dreamlands.com/ for all the current details on this project.





Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Shameless Plug!

Drifting in on the winds from R'lyeh, tentacled-eye pendants (as well as non-tentacled) have popped up on Etsy. For $20-30 these things are a steal, and going fast. Check them out!

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Online Viewing: The Wrath of Cthulhu


A fantastic VFX showreel by by effects artist Marco Tudini. See Cthulhu, then see how it is done.

Online Viewing: H P Lovecraft's The Shadow Out of Time


An adaption based on the novel "The ShadowOut of Time" by: H. P Lovecraft
Written by: Richard Svenssonand Daniel Lenneér
Director of live-action: Daniel Lenneér
Director of animation: Richard Svensson
Voice-over: John Hutch
Music composed and mixed by: Christopher Johansson

CAST:
Åke Rosén

...with supporting roles by;

Christopher Johansson
Thobias Ericsson
Daniel Lenneér
RichardSvensson

Greenscreen composition: Daniel Lenneér and Richard Svensson
Puppets and animations: RichardSvensson
Credits and Map animation: ChristopherJohansson
Hand actor: Owe Lenneér
Sound filters: ThobiasEricsson
Lettering: Charlotte Jolin
Assistant: David Gustavsson

Produced in unholy union between Millroad Film and The Lone Animator 2011-2012 in Sweden.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Announced: Call Girl of Cthulhu

“When a virgin artist falls in love with a call girl, she turns out to be the chosen bride of the alien god Cthulhu. To save her, he must stop an ancient cult from summoning their god and destroying mankind.”

More over at Fangoria

Wednesday, January 1, 2014