Unfilmable.com

Its Ho Ho Horror with Re-Santamator!

2011-12-18T14:42:00.000-06:00

Kodie actor/director Abel Berry passed along a video that is sure to become a Christmas tradition here at Unfilmable.com in the form of Re-Santamator, his holiday homage to HPL's Re-Animator! Directed by Berry, and starring Justin Powers and Jennifer Stone, Re-Santamator is the first of many Lovecraft themed videos in the works over at BSEntertainment...

If you like what you see, you can check out more of their work here...

(Thanks to Abel Berry)

SHADOW OF THE UNNAMABLE (2011)

2011-12-05T09:38:00.002-06:00

If you are a regular reader here at Unfilmable, you’ve probably seen our coverage of Shadow of the Unnamable. A product from Germany, the filmmakers have teased us over the last year or so with slick looking production stills and an eye-catching teaser trailer. Having premiered this past year at horror festivals worldwide, we were lucky enough to get an early peek at the project.

A straightforward adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s 1925 “The Unnamable” story, this short takes place in an atmospheric cemetery where fiction writer Randolph Carter (Robert Lyons) entertains his friend, Joel Manton (Jeff Motherhead), with stories of how he conceives his literary subjects. “My novels don’t come without thorough investigation,” he says to his doubting friend of all things terrible that inhabit his stories. Carter then tells the story of how the town and his ancestors battled a monster over a period of 200 years. This unspeakable horror, Carter reveals, left a number of victims in its wake (“none of them found in one piece”). The number of attacks dwindled over the years, but the odd author believes he has found the remains of the beast. Where? In the creepy cottage that lays just a few yards behind Manton, of course.

Originally published in an issue of Weird Tales, Lovecraft’s “The Unnamable” is a solid short story with one of horror literature’s great “it is right behind you” stings. The story previously provided the source for Jean-Paul Ouellette’s The Unnamable films and, while the first film does feature the characters and scenario from the short story, little is similar after that. Director-producer-writer Sascha Renninger gives the story its first proper adaptation as he brings the scenario to perfectly realized life nearly word by word. Renninger has taken great pains to give us a pure Lovecraft adaptation and his work is befitting the classic short story. Opening with an impressive animation unfolding over a lush score by Andreas Meyer, the 16-minute short is incredibly well made. All of the technical elements are top notch with superb cinematography by Wilfried Keil (the opening steadicam shot is killer) and some really clever editing by Renninger and Florian Eisner. Honestly, the production values are better than half the stuff littering the horror market right now. Like its literary inspiration, the film keeps the monster hidden in shadows and brief glances with the beast being created via CGI (there is a great scene of the monster gutting a victim with only shadows on the wall giving the audience a glimpse of the action).

Helping further back up the superior technical aspects is an astounding attention to period detail. Like the fine filmmakers at the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, Renninger and his crew are able to amazingly recreate 1920s New England on a budget that I’m sure wouldn’t get James Cameron to roll out of bed in the morning. Particularly impressive is the film’s coda which features vintage cars and dozens of extras in period costuming wandering around a vividly created Arkham Asylum. The acting is also very solid for an independent feature. Naturally, the film rests on the shoulders of its storyteller and Robert Lyons (not to be confused with veteran American character actor Robert F. Lyons) is quite good as the Lovecraft surrogate Randolph Carter. He definitely gives his performance the necessary creepy edge and he even bears a slight resemblance to the celebrated author.

This brings me to my lone complaint about the film. I was upset that this was only a short as such a handsomely mounted production is completely worthy of a feature length film. Alas, Renninger set about to just give the world a faithful adaptation of Lovecraft’s short story and he succeeded marvelously with Shadow of the Unnamable. With a perfect combination of behind-the-camera professionalism and reverence for the source material, it is no wonder this short recently won Best Short Lovecraft Adaptation at the 2011 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival.

Shadow of the Unnamable teaser:

A Lot of Evil...

2011-12-01T15:51:00.000-06:00

Writer/director Gary Lobstein, who previously worked on the Lovecraft inspired films Roe and The Picture in the House, has released his latest, a comedy/horror short titled A Lot of Evil! Written by Julie Lobstein and starring Jeff Gruhala, the film revolves around a H.P. Lovecraft fanboy who buys a book online that he thinks will help him summon a real Cthulhu monster...

Gary plans to submit the film to next years HPLFF, where both of his previous adaptations screened. Check out A Lot of Evil below...

(Thanks to Gary Lobstein)

New Rats in the Walls multimedia project...

2011-12-01T15:20:00.000-06:00

Inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, The Rats in the Walls is a multimedia project and thesis work from Petr Augustin, an artist from the Czech Republic. When finished, the project will consist of 15 hand drawn videos, with a new chapter released every week...

You can check out the first video below, and can catch later chapters here...

(Thanks to Petr Augustin)

The Whisperer in Darkness DVD is now available...

2011-12-01T14:52:00.000-06:00

Sean Branney announced today, via facebook, that the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society is taking orders for the Whisperer in Darkness on DVD! Based on HPL's 1931 tale, and brought to life using their patented Mythoscope™ process (a mix of vintage and modern techniques), The Whisperer in Darkness tells of Albert Wilmarth, a folklore professor at Miskatonic University, who 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 highly anticipated follow-up to their now classic The Call of Cthulhu stars Matt Foyer and Barry Lynch, and was shot on location in New England and in Hollywood...

The deluxe 2-disc DVD features:

- The Whisperer in Darkness (103 minutes, black and white) with 5.1 surround sound

- a commentary track with the film's producers

- 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

Retail is $24.50...

Click here for more...

(Thanks to Sean Branney)

Hell on Earth is coming to DVD...

2011-12-01T14:31:00.001-06:00

Hell on Earth is a film that I covered awhile back, based on an official site that described it as "Lovecraftian", and now according to Dread Central, it is finally coming to DVD courtesy of Elite Entertainment. From the producer of the cult classic The Deadly Spawn, Hell on Earth tells the story of seventeen year old Bobby, who plays with "imaginary friends" provided by the mysterious and ancient "Apocryphal Book of Tarkuhm" given to him by his eccentric and somewhat crazy Aunt Sadie. Little does he know that the monsters and demons are only biding their time until the planets are aligned and they can get him to read the passage freeing their master from the "Hell" of another universe...

The DVD features a director's commentary, still gallery and audition/casting footage, and will be released January 24th...

(Thanks to Dread Central)

Black Goat and beyond...

2011-11-27T17:41:00.001-06:00

If you've followed the career of filmmaker Joseph Nanni, you would know that his knowledge of H.P. Lovecraft is second only to his knowledge of filmmaking. Four projects in, and he's raised the bar each time. He recently shared with Unfilmable.com his upcoming production slate, and from the sound of things, we haven't seen anything yet!

His last project, the short film Black Goat (watch the film here), was merely a teaser for bigger things to come, and the feature length film (of the same name) is ramping up with script revisions and casting taking place over the next few months. Watch for more news on this one...

Among the other projects Joseph has in the works, is a new Lovecraftian comedy short entitled The Innsmouth Look which should show itself in early 2012, as well as two more features, which brings us to his forthcoming "Necronomicon Cycle"...

Beginning with Black Goat, Joseph's "Necronomicon Cycle", will include three features including It Got Out, based on HPL's From Beyond, but taking place in a contemporary, corporate setting, and a third film, tentatively called Black Seas, which he promises is "total sci-fi cosmic horror". Look for It Got Out production art in the months to come...

It's good to see that Joseph plans to inhabit the world of Lovecraftian cinema far into the future, and provide its fans with quality films which push the boundaries of independent cinema...

As always, watch this space for more, and be sure to check out Bad Advice for Good Times for information on Joseph's previous films...

(Thanks to Joseph Nanni)

Cthulhu invades in 2014...

2011-11-27T16:49:00.000-06:00

I don't have much on this one yet, but it sounds promising...

Written and directed by Helio Mira and co-written by Jesús Córdoba, Cthulhu Invasion is a 3D stereoscopic film from Lince Studios and Magic Gate Studios, scheduled for release late in 2014. As I said, more information is needed, but it looks as though the film may have been renamed Ages of Madness...

A short film, titled Helen, will be released in September of 2012 as a prelude to Cthulhu Invasion (Ages of Madness)...

About Cthulhu Invasion (Ages of Madness): The Cthulhu Mythos is a shared fictional universe created in the 1920s by American horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. Mythos stories tend to refer to the "Great Old Ones," a fearsome assortment of ancient, powerful deities who came from outer space and once ruled the Earth. They are presently quiescent, having fallen into a death-like sleep at some time in the distant past. The best-known of these beings is Cthulhu, who currently lies "dead [but] dreaming" in the submerged city of R’lyeh somewhere in the southeast Pacific Ocean. One day, "when the stars are right", the stones of R'lyeh will rise from beneath the sea, and Cthulhu will awaken and wreak havoc on the earth...

About Helen: Angelic Helen wakes up barely dressed and very confused after her first night at a hall of residence for female students during the Roaring Twenties. Her friend Elizabeth reminds her, mischievously, of the unbridled "petting party" celebrated in her room last night. Helen met other girls, new substances, adult games...However, the disappearance of a mysterious book may put them at a terrible risk...

(Information courtesy of the Ages of Madness facebook page)

New trailer, one-sheet for Jared Skolnick's The Earth Rejects Him...

2011-11-27T16:06:00.000-06:00

The Earth Rejects Him is an original horror short written and directed by Jared Skolnick (The Music of Erich Zann), and revolves around a young boy who discovers a corpse while biking in the woods, and the unexpected and macabre consequences he faces when he tries to bury it...

Check out the new teaser trailer and poster artwork below...

(Thanks to Jared Skolnick)

New promo poster for Shadow of the Unnamable...

2011-11-27T15:34:00.000-06:00

Fresh off two very successful screenings at the Sand Pedro and Portland H.P. Lovecraft Film Festivals, writer/director Sascha Renninger has revealed the latest (and final) Shadow of the Unnamable promotional poster, which can be seen below...

Look for a review of the film in these pages very soon...

(Thanks to Sascha Renninger)

Ah Pook The Destoyer: The Silver Key...

2011-11-27T15:00:00.000-06:00

I get a lot of interesting things in my inbox, but one that really caught my eye recently was news of the debut album from Ah Pook The Destroyer, which according to their facebook page is a musical collaboration between Matthew Broyles of the matthew show and Paul Shapera of Mocha Lab. The band's intent is to "musically represent pieces of iconic literature", and their first release is The Silver Key based on the story by H.P. Lovecraft. Song titles include The Logical Relations of Things, Earthly Shackles, Gods of Their Elders and Providence...

Visit the official site to listen to The Silver Key...

(Thanks to Matthew Broyles)

MIST Opportunity

2011-11-27T12:43:00.000-06:00

The following post originally appeared on Pete Von Sholly's VONSHOLLYWOOD blog, and is reprinted here with his kind permission. Examples of Pete's amazing Mist storyboards can be found here...

So, working on The Mist, for which I did the storyboards, I was also supposed to get to do some creature designs. This never happened for some reason... Frank??? Anyway if you know me at all I can't resist drawing a monster so here is a quick rough thing I did for the spiders... which I never even showed anyone. People like to keep you in the box they found you in I guess.

(Special thanks to Pete Von Sholly)

Updated: Toys For Tots - Horror Style: Horror creators and fans UNITE! !!

2011-11-26T18:12:00.005-06:00

Update: If any filmmakers, musicians or writers would like to donate DVDs, CDs or books to Toys For Tots ~ Horror Style, please contact us here at Unfilmable.com, or Toys For Tots through the contact information below, and thank you for supporting such a wonderful cause!

You give a child a toy. We'll give you a MONSTER-size library [over 3 dozen so far]!

What is Toys For Tots ~ HORROR style?

This is a group of writers/editors/publishers of Horror/Weird/Dark fantasy/etc. who want to do something nice for needy children this year. Each contributor will donate a signed book(s) of theirs [any book, chap, collection, HC, trade, mass market, novel, mag, edited by, etc.][sorry, no “eBooks” as we cannot be certain the winner will have a reading device] and *ONE WINNER* will win them all.

Folks post the pics [2 pics] of them donating to THIS page. One pic showing them holding the toy, one pic of the toy in the box. Sadly, there are a few who might try to cheat and not put the toy in the box, so we need to see the toy really was donated. Take a pic of you holding the toy, then take a 2nd pic of the toy in the box. The donated toy will need to have a price point of at least 5 dollars. I thought a lot of folks have cell phone cams so pics would be easy to take.

How do you enter?

Entrants will need to post a pic of them dropping a toy into a “Toys For Tots” donation box and when all is said and done, say the day after X-Mas, we’ll pick ONE WINNER. Kids get a bunch of toys and we do a little good for those in need in hard times. And someone out there gets a very happy new year! !!

Can a family enter?

YES! You donate a toy, you’re in. Your SO donates one, they’re in! But only one entry per person!

I picked TFT as it’s fairly common and most everywhere in the States. Sadly, due to postage, entrants must live in the States. I also picked this charity as I couldn’t think of another charity where we could be certain we’d be putting something “hard” under trees this year.

We’ll have a predetermined number to pick the winner, between 100 -200 it will be #?, 200-300 will be #?, 300-400, 400-500, 1,000+, etc., etc. [Yes, I hoping for a lot of entries! !!] Then I’ll post the winner’s name here (after X-Mas) and they can message me w/ their address. Then the books will start coming. Each contributor will be mailing the book(s) they’re donating to the winner, so they will not all come at the same time. Books will begin to be shipped after JAN 1st.

We are not a part of *any* group or affiliated w/ any organization. This is just a group of writers/editors/publishers who want to do something nice for children! !! We picked TFT as it will put REAL toys under trees this year!!

Please share this and help spread the word. If you have a blog please consider doing a blog post about this, Tweeting as well. Sharing means word gets out and that puts more toys under trees! !! I know there are no bigger hearts than those of the horror community, so let it bleed!! !

No dealers or booksellers please. This is not for profit in any way, shape, or form. If we find out an entrant is a seller that entry will be not be considered for the drawing.

I’ll be posting what books the winner will receive and adding to the list as I get word of new additions.

Note to any writers and editors and publishers I have not contacted, if you would like to be part of this, please message me here on FB. We would love to have you be part of this! !!

Toys For Tots ~ Horror Style can be contacted on Facebook, Twitter
or via e-mail (tfthorror@googlemail.com)

To all the current contributors, my deepest thanks! You make me very proud to be one of you! !!

All my bEastly BEST! !!

Joe Pulver

Uncle Kitty vs Santa Claus

2011-11-23T19:45:00.006-06:00

Today I will be reviewingRare Exports: A Christmas Tale.

You may wonder why I am reviewing a film about the Finnish version of Santa Claus on a forum usually reserved for darker subject material. Allow me to explain some background on the film and the legend it is based on (this will necessitate spoilers so quit reading here if you wish to avoid them).

One of the oldest Christmas traditions in Europe is the Yule Goat, or the Joulupukki as it's referred to in Finland. Originally a fairly dark figure that punished children it eventually merged with a more modern version of the Santa Claus myth. Except that Santa lives in the mountains at Korvatuntur1. Rare Exports plays off this, and is a prequel to the two short films it is based upon (both of which can easily be found on Google, and are amusing enough to be worth the look).

The film begins with an American mining company drilling on Korvatunturi in what is claimed to be an 'archaeological' dig, but which is obviously not, and the American liaison knows it. Moreover it's quite obvious he's looking for something, and knows what it is, and what rules need to be obeyed in it's presence to maintain safety. Nearby is an unsuspecting town of reindeer ranchers looking forward to their yearly culling. When the drill hits meters thick sawdust we are told through exposition that burying things in sawdust is an ancient way of keeping things cold. Simultaneously a local ranchers son, who is terrified the miners will awaken Santa reads up on old legends in books featuring a hairy goat horned man taller than the trees who eats children. Legend has it the tribes confronted it centuries ago on the ice but were unable to kill it, so when it's weight caused the ice to break they froze it and buried it in the mountain. Not long after the miners go missing, the reindeer herds are slaughtered, and children start to go missing, and of course no one believes the kid. The lone child who knows more than everyone else is an overused cliche in suspense films, but this time they don't seem to be to offensive with it (perhaps because the adults catch on pretty quickly).

Assuming wolves are responsible for the reindeer, the boys father sets spiked pit traps, and catches a frail old naked man covered in dirt. Marketing would have you believe this is the evil serial killer santa that is the focus of the film, but this is untrue. He's an elf, or a Father Christmas as they're referred to in the film. Father Christmases are apparently as strong as bears, can run for miles, and are primitive enough to have not seen a need for clothes (but adapt to tool and weapon use quickly enough). Temperatures don't bother them, they have an addiction to warm gingerbread, and they become homicidal when you violate certain rules in their presence and act 'naughty'. At which point you may have to put them down because once they develop a taste for human flesh after biting you in anger they wont eat anything else.

In a bizarre attempt at trying to get the town reimbursed for the loss of it's herds, the boy's father attempts to bribe the Americans only to learn they've unearthed a gigantic horned Santa, who has assumed mental control of the elves and commanded them to thaw him out of his prison and kidnap all the local kids for a snack. So on the one hand you have a traditional dark fairy tale involving Christmas and small kids, and on the other you have an ancient entity imprisoned in an isolated place because it couldn't be killed, that even in it's sleep has mental control over a servitor race of which it may be the progenitor (there appear to be no female elves). Sounds like familiar territory, especially with the inclusion of the 'goat' moniker.

The film may be better suited for Mythos fans than traditional horror fans. It was marketed as a film starring a demonic serial killer Santa Claus, somewhere between a horror movie and possibly an action film. It's neither. It's more of a comedy. Keeping in mind that Finn humor tends to be very dry and somewhat dark, it easily escapes the attention of most Western audiences who are used to less subtlety. The end scene where the town figures out what to do with the 'new' race of potentially homicidal anthropoids in their vicinity, and simultaneously find a way to save themselves financially inspires the films title, and is good for a chuckle. It would be like solving the Innsmouth problem by marketing the Deep Ones as pool boys. Traditional American horror fans will be disappointed as there is very little gore, and while nudity is common enough it's grumpy old man-elf nudity. Which is to say, not pretty. There are no women in this film (and I keep feeling there's a reason why, but I've somehow missed the joke).

Overall it's pretty good. The cgi isn't always as polished as it could be, and it focuses on story so it will feel slow moving to the impatient, but there's nothing else I've watched quite like it.

Also if you get the blu ray dvd, there's a hidden easter egg recipe for nummy ginger bread cookies. Make sure to look for it.

Arkham Studios presents: The Mad Arab Abdul al Hazred...

2011-11-13T19:54:00.004-06:00

Anyone with an interest in Lovecraftian cinema is probably aware of whom Bryan Moore is, or at the very least, is aware of his work which is released through the Arkham Studios banner. Bryan's Legrasse Cthulhu Idol can be seen in the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society's film, The Call of Cthulhu, and his Lovecraft statue has been handed out, as the Howie award, for years at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in both Portland, Oregon and San Pedro, California. His Lovecraft statue is, I think, the ultimate representation of H.P. Lovecraft, and I never tire of looking at the one that adorns my desk...

Bryan's other work includes statues of Edgar Allan Poe (check out the images of Jeffrey Combs and Stuart Gordon with the Edgar Allan Poe statue at a Nevermore performance in Los Angeles above and below), Brown Jenkin (also given out as an award at the HPLFF), Aleister Crowley, Anton Szandor LaVey and his latest work, the Mad Arab Abdul al Hazred...

Anyone interested in learning more about Bryan's work can visit the official Arkham Studios site here, and be sure to like Arkham Studios on facebook...

Order information for the Mad Arab Abdul al Hazred can be found below...

In 738: AD on the Yemen border, the legendary Mad Arab poet Abdul al Hazred was torn apart in broad daylight by invisible forces in front of a crowd of horrified onlookers.

His crime? Penning the dreaded and unspeakable tome, the Necronomicon.

One of HP Lovecraft's most enduring creations, Arkham Studios presents the Mad Arab himself nervously clutching the chained up Necronomicon and glancing over his shoulder in apprehension of the horrors to come.

The bust stands 10 inches tall and is finished in Arkham Studios traditional bronze rub over sturdy polymer resin.

Whether you put him on a bookshelf next to your own Lovecraft volumes, ritual chamber or next to our other Lovecraftian figures, this bust of the legendary poet of darkness will be sure to conjure up all things dark and dangerous………

Price: $200.00

Shipping: $20.00

Allow 6 to 8 weeks for delivery

(Thanks to Bryan Moore)

Dead Shadows creature comes out of hiding...

2011-11-13T14:10:00.001-06:00

Production has wrapped on David Cholewa's Dead Shadows and a new batch of images have hit the official facebook page, including the creature shot below! Click the link for more behind-the-scenes images and production stills...

About the film: Chris is a young man whose parents were brutally killed 11 years ago, on the same day Halley's Comet could be seen from earth. Tonight a new comet is going to appear, and everyone in his building is getting ready for a party to celebrate the event. There's even an apocalypse theory going around. As the night falls, Chris starts to discover that people are acting strange - and it seems to somehow be connected to the comet. People are becoming disoriented and violent, and it doesn't take long before they start mutating into something from beyond this world. In a fight for survival, Chris has to try to escape from his building with the help from some other tenants - but will they make it out alive?

(Thanks to Steve Hergina and Dread Central)

Contained Officially Released Online!

2011-11-13T10:31:00.001-06:00

For Immediate Release:

Contained, the award winning short film from director Woodruff Laputka, has officially been released online.

Shot and produced in 48 Hours, Contained is the story of, Hope, a young woman living in an inner-city apartment building who picks up the slack of her ailing superintendent father. Longing for a better life far away from the confines of the old apartment building, and from the idiosyncrasies of her oddly eccentric tenants, she befriends an old man who entrusts to her the delivery of a strange, mysterious box. Unsure of the box's contents, Hope needs only remember the old man’s one request: "The box must not be opened…"

To view the film, or for more information, click here.

(Thanks to Woodruff Laputka)

Lost Land Selected for 2011 Anchorage Int. Film Festival

2011-11-13T10:25:00.001-06:00

For Immediate Release:

Lost Land, the short film from director Woodruff Laputka, has been selected for competition in the Anchorage International Film Festival.

Lost Land follows, Carter, a bewildered asylum patient in the 1930's, who seeks the source of a mysterious call from his distant, long buried past. As Carter digs deeper and deeper, however, he discovers that some memories are best left buried.

Inspired by the work of H.P Lovecraft and Algernon Blackwood comes this tale of lost souls, eldritch powers and the madness of horrors long forgotten.

The Anchorage International Film Festival takes place December 2nd – December 11th in Anchorage, Alaska. More information regarding the festival can be found here.

You can also view Lost Land online by visiting the Laputka Films Production Portfolio's Narrative section.

(Thanks to Woodruff Laputka)

Monsterpalooza Magazine now available...

2011-11-03T09:28:00.002-05:00

For Immediate Release:

MONSTERPALOOZA MAGAZINE NOW AVAILABLE!

The premiere issue of Monsterpalooza Magazine, named after Eliot Brodsky's Monsterpalooza Convention held annually in Burbank, California, is now available and ready to order direct from the publisher! Monsterpalooza Magazine brings you the best of classic and modern horror, fantasy and science fiction, in film, literature, media, art, illustration, make-up and sculpture, in its glossy print pages! 96 glorious pages—advertisement free! All killer! NO filler!

WHAT: MONSTERPALOOZA MAGAZINE

No. 1, Autumn 2011. Published quarterly. $9.95 (plus S&H) Order direct from www.monsterpaloozamag.com

WHO: MONSTERPALOOZA MAGAZINE is published and edited by Michael Heisler and Mark Redfield. The cover art is by Jeff Preston. Writers in the premiere issue include Jeff Baham, Raymond Castile, Frank Dietz, Scott Essman, Pierre Fournier, David Gerrold, Daniel Griffith, Matt Lake, Sean Paul Murphy, Ted Newsom, Joe Nazzaro, Mark Redfield, Gary Don Rhodes, and Anthony Taylor.

WHAT'S INSIDE THE PREMIERE ISSUE: Packed inside its 96 ad-free pages is Pierre Fournier's story Dare You See It?, on the 80th Anniversary of the 1931 Frankenstein; David Gerrold (Star Trek, The Trouble With Tribbles) launches his regular column State of the Art; Anthony Taylor interviews sculptor Mike Hill; Ted Newsom contributed an in-depth career overview of the late Jimmy Sangster and his Hammer Film output; Joe Nazzaro honors the work of make-up maestro John Chambers; Jeff Baham (DoomBuggies) gives us the inside scoop on the creation of Disneyland's The Haunted Mansion; Raymond Castile takes us to St Louis for a report on the Vincentennial; Mark Redfield and Scott Essman pay tribute to Lon Chaney and Jack Pierce, respectively; and much, MUCH MORE!

THE STORY: MONSTERPALOOZA MAGAZINE launched in October, 2011 and is available now. Published and edited by Michael Heisler and Mark Redfield (through Redfield's company Damfino Media), Monsterpalooza Magazine is published quarterly, with the second issue out in January, 2012.

Named after the fabulous Monsterpalooza Convention held each Spring in Burbank, California produced by Eliot Brodsky, Heisler and Redfield, after considering several names for their new print 'zine, approached Brodsky with the idea of naming it after his convention, and a deal was struck, happily for all. Monsterpalooza Magazine captures the spirit of creation and creators in celebrating all things fantastic in the seven arts, and the magazine brings you the best of classic and modern horror, fantasy and science fiction, in film, literature, media, art, illustration, make-up and sculpture, in its glossy print pages.

Order your copy of Monsterpalooza Magazine #1—made with loving care—with in-depth writing and vibrant illustrations and photos—at www.monsterpaloozamag.com today!

(Thanks to Mark Redfield)

Ravings: Two Trios of Terror...

2011-10-23T11:32:00.000-05:00

For Immediate Release:

Ravings: Two Trios of Terror Dates: October 13, 14, 15, 21, 22, 27, 28, 29 at 8pm

A night of six horror stories by two of the best writers of the genre, H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allen Poe.

This presentation will mix readings, acted scenes, projected media, special effects and dance bringing together the talents of Art Director- David Butler; composer/sound designer-David Kane (both originators of the event) with director- Tim Newell and choreographer- Amy Taravella.

Ravings: Two Trios of Terror includes the following stories:

From the Beyond - The tale of a man returning to his desperate friend's attic laboratory where his mad machine rips open the veil between our world of reality and the world of terrible, dangerous and carnivorous things.

The Beast in the Cave - While touring an underground cavern a visitor wanders off and finds herself lost in total darkness, she soon senses the approach of something menacing and inhuman.

What the Moon Brings – This lush poetic narrative weaves a vivid vision of moonlit gardens, and the weird sea, below whose surface reveals an enticing ghastly city of the undead.

The Picture in the House - A genealogist exploring the back woods and farm lands of New England, finds himself taking shelter in a seemingly abandoned house full of strange literature and secrets beyond any horror he could imagine.

The Music of Erich Zann – A restless student of Metaphysics makes the acquaintance of a gaunt and queer viol player, and finds, to his horror, the purpose of the player's late night weird and increasingly intense music and its connection to the chill breeze and rattling shutters of the window.

The Cask of Amontillado – this classic tale of Poe, takes us through the slow and methodical revenge on Fortunato whose arrogance and love of wine leads him to his unforgettable and horrible demise.

Cast: Anthony Alcocer, Kay Kerimian, Nicholas Lama, Scott Malkovsky, Aaron Piepszny and Linda Stein.

Design team: Zach Serafin as Set Designer, Derek Heckler as Lighting Designer, Leigha Weeks as Costume Designer, and Seth Tyler Black as Media Designer. Puppet design & construction by David Butler.

Tickets:$16 for general admission and $12 for students, seniors and military.

Click here for more...

(Thanks to alttheatre.com)

The Rats in the Walls...

2011-10-21T20:02:00.001-05:00

For Immediate Release:

Join The Four Winds Collective as we explore and adapt an early short story by one of Gothic Horror's greatest writers: H. P. Lovecraft.

Using Samuel Stong's House built in 1855 at the historic Black Creek Pioneer Village, The Rats in the Walls is a sight specific experimentation of madness, familial bonds and the mystery of the unknown. As a man known only as de la Poer reclaims the seat of his ancestry he uncovers the hidden truths of what drove his family to abandon it in the first place.

The Rats in the Walls

Written by H. P. Lovecraft

Adapted for the stage and performed by Peter Counter and Andrew Gaboury

Directed by Carla Johnston

October 21st & 28th
7PM + 9PM

$10 at the door.

For ticket reservations please send a note with your name and the # of tickets desired to info@fourwindscollective.com

Black Creek Pioneer Village:
1000 Murray Ross Parkway
Toronto, ON

(Thanks to The Four Winds Collective and Joseph Nanni)

Aaron Vanek's epic H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival wrap-up...

2011-10-19T23:26:00.009-05:00

On September 17 of this year, the 2nd H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival® wrapped up in San Pedro, California. I was the organizer, and here are my thoughts on the event.

Innsmouth Free Press kindly interviewed me about the festival here. That link explains how the Lovecraft Festival started and my involvement. It also explains, I think, the motivation behind me starting the Los Angeles version.

Sometimes I say it's the San Pedro festival, sometimes Los Angeles. Officially, it's Los Angeles. San Pedro is an area within the Greater LA megapolis, and although SP sometimes acts as if it is a city, it's not. Secession efforts haven't gotten very far, though talk is cheap. San Pedro is part of the residential/commercial support to the giant Port of Los Angeles, which is the busiest container port in the U.S. Few Angelenos know where San Pedro is, much less visit. The exception being passengers on cruise liners and ferries to Catalina.

However, there is a lot of history to the area, which I have only just begun to plumb. The Warner Grand Theatre, home to HPLFF-LA, is a magnificent jewel that I don't think anyone with a shred of love for history will be able to resist admiring. It's a single screen theater with a large stage, a main floor and balcony that seats 1500. It is being lovingly restored, and I hear that it's haunted. Perfect for a Lovecraft festival!

I picked the theater for the surrounding community as well as the building itself. There are friendly pubs, art galleries, costume shops, and mom and pop restaurants nearby. It's Bohemian and reminds me of Portland. This year, the San Pedro community helped with the HPLFF. I was able to partner with the Grand Vision Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to restoration and promotion of the theatre, which allowed me to claim tax-exempt status for sponsor fundraising. They also gave me a great deal on their own annex space, which used to be a hardware store but now functions as a performance and exhibit area. This rental created one of the highlights of the HPLFF-LA—two receptions that book ended the festival.

The first was a VIP reception Friday night before the theater opened. We had food by Small Pleasures Catering and our sponsor, Bowen's Spirits, opened a bar to give everyone a sneak peek of their new whiskey, which should launch later this year or early 2012. Beer and wine was also available. Filmmakers, artists, vendors, authors, press, and anyone who paid for the VIP ticket could mingle together while viewing the amazing miniature set pieces, props, costumes, and other goodies from the movie The Whisperer in Darkness that the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society brought down from their shop in Burbank. The movie is playing around the world, and the DVD will be out soon (if it isn't by the time you read this), but only at the HPLFF-LA were you able to see so much exhibited with such loving detail and care while enjoying complimentary drinks and food. I also decided to show the Lovecraft art slideshow in an anteroom here instead of on screen in the theater, as Portland does. I did this because I wanted to encourage people to shop during our breaks instead of staying put and looking at slides. Artist Russ Lukich also added his life-size sculpture of H.P. Lovecraft near a tentacle-bent light post to the exhibit. It placed very well, with many photographs taken. VIPs were also treated to a swag bag with a Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, a taster bottle of Bowen's whiskey, an 11x17 2011 HPLFF-LA poster by David Milano, an Arkham Asylum badge from the HPLHS, and a Mythos lollipop from Cryptocurium.

The closing night reception was also here on Saturday, right after TWID played. We didn't have food—because catering is VERY expensive—but there was a cash bar; the Bowen's folks had to head home to Bakersfield on Saturday.

I plan on having more receptions at the annex at future festivals.

I also obtained some help in advertising at the very last minute from the San Pedro Business Improvement district, which allowed me to advertise on the Los Angeles Times online, plus Facebook and two indie papers, the LA Weekly and OC Weekly. With their help, I expect to spread the word of the fest wider next year.

The Whale & Ale Victorian-styled pub stayed open late for us on Friday night, and Williams Bookstore, which has been in business 100 years, hosted the Saturday afternoon Lovecraft author reading and discussion, with Cody Goodfellow, Ted E. Grau, Denise Dumars, Michael Tice, Jenna Pitman, and screenwriter C. Courtney Joyner. The space wasn't quite conducive to it, so we'll likely move it to the annex next year—I expect the authors will be pleased that there will be alcohol available at their event.

I was thrilled to see the San Pedro community turn out to enjoy the Festival and invite and encourage us back for next year.

Total attendance was 511, which exceeds my expectations. The festival was split over two days, Friday and Saturday, so we didn't have that full crowd both days. But we still have a ways to go before we sell out the place. There are pros and cons to using a one-screen theater: although I can't show as much material as the Portland HPLFF, I enjoy giving everyone a chance to see everything. Portland has grown so much that for the last four or five years, there was always some movie or panel that I could not make. I didn't book the Warner Grand because it was a single screen, but a side effect of having it is that everyone can enjoy the movies together. But...

I didn't have any wiggle room in the programming this year. The festival officially ran from 7pm to midnight on Friday, and 4pm to midnight on Saturday. That's 13 hours. I didn't want to start any sooner for two reasons: didn't want to pay theater staff overtime costs and didn't want to run into issues with parking. The meters around the theatre are two hours max, but free after 6pm. At worst, an attendee this year would pay for parking for two hours on Saturday (or longer if they go to the author reading), but wouldn't have to run out to feed the meter in the middle of the movie, something that happened in 2010.

To filling those thirteen hours, The Whisperer in Darkness was a definite yes, as was the shorts block, especially when Guillermo del Toro agreed to judge it, a nice consolation to his inability to attend (but I'll keep inviting him). HPLFF founder Andrew Migliore recommended HBO's Cast a Deadly Spell, 2011 being the movie's 20th anniversary. Additionally, screenwriter Joseph Dougherty and one of the actors, Peter Allas, were able to attend. Andrew also wanted to give the Howie award to Roger Corman for many years. Since I interned for Roger years ago, I contacted the office and invited him down. He agreed, but had to cancel at the last minute due to a troubled production. With Corman attached, I chose to screen The Haunted Palace, and we now had three features. I have long wanted to see Berkeley Square, the 1933 movie that Lovecraft watched multiple times and inspired him to write "The Shadow Out of Time". I'll explain how I got the print later, but once I booked it, more than half of the 13 hours were spoken for. I'm also a huge fan of the BBC short Whistle and I'll Come to You, based on the M.R. James tale. It was 45 minutes, so I wanted that one to play as well. Given breaks and Q&A times, raffles, awards, that only left about two hours, so I squeezed in La Sombra Prohibida, a new Lovecraft-ish movie from Spain. Sadly, that was the same slot that Die Farbe was slated to play, and I had the tragic duty of turning Die Farbe director Huan Vu to Portland. I had two reasons for doing this: first, I wanted a newer, more Hollywood movie in the docket, just to show the breadth of Lovecraft's influence (ironically, Universal Pictures distributed La Sombra Prohibida, the same studio that turned Guillermo del Toro down for At the Mountains of Madness), and second, I thought a Spanish language film would play better in Los Angeles than a German-language one. I am positive that there are people reading this that would have preferred to see Die Farbe, but I can't regret it. It's extremely difficult to select what plays and what doesn't, especially with 13 hours. One of the fiercest complaints I heard was that there wasn't enough time for socializing and shopping, so perhaps I shouldn't have shown either foreign film—but again, I want to show the global take on Lovecraft. I spent many hours looking at the programming options, but no clear solution presented itself to me.

The vendors were great, and my greatest worry—that someone would be upset that had to sell upstairs—never occurred (or I didn't hear about it). However, there is an upstairs problem: there are no doors to the balcony seats, so conversations would echo into the screening area. I spent a lot of time shushing people, which I didn't like doing, but I also heard a half-dozen complaints from attendees trying to watch the movies. That was probably the biggest problem we had next to a tight schedule.

The picture and sound for all the movies was, I felt, outstanding. We were leagues better than last year, and I can't imagine a better way to see and hear the Lovecraft movies than what we did at the festival, which was flawless (thanks Blake, Dave, Joe).

For the shorts block, there was also some shoving of pictures to get in. I relegated 90 minutes for shorts, but the fewer minutes I had, the more minutes I could put into breaks. There was one longer short I really liked and wanted to show, but lobbying from Migliore bumped my #1 pick to include my #2 and #3 picks. It balanced out, and I'm pleased with how it turned out. Going to my second and third choices for shorts instead of my first also meant I got another six minutes for a break. Whee!

Guillermo ended up picking two short films as winners: Static Aeons and The Raven. This screwed up my award-statuettes, because I only had three Brown Jenkins (crafted by Bryan Moore): one was going to be for best short, one for best feature, and one for best screenplay. It was too late to get another one, as Moore has relocated to Iowa and was still unpacking. I was wringing my hands until the last minute, when Migliore saved the day by volunteering one of his Deep One statuettes (made by Kevin Jones), which are the proper awards for the screenplay contest. That was FedEx'd to me, so the Jenkins went to the two shorts and The Whisperer in Darkness. Bill Barnett won the Deep One for his script, "The Old Man and the Box", a touching, haunting featurette using R.W. Chambers' King in Yellow tales for inspiration. It was a close competition between Bill's and "Death Wind", a feature by Travis Heermann and Jim Pinto.

Money wise we did a tad better than break even, which isn't bad for the second year.

Although overall I think the 2011 HPLFF-LA would get a B+ or A- from most attendees, there were for me two big successes at the 2011 HPLFF-LA.

First was screening Berkeley Square. Here's how that happened. I've always wanted to play it, so first I had to find a copy. A friend managed to find the oft-copied bootleg DVD version, which is floating around bit-torrent and other sites. I saw it but the quality was shabby. Plus, I wanted the rights to screen it legally. As you might know, you have to pay the copyright holder of a movie whenever you screen it publicly, especially if you are charging for tickets. My hope was that there was a 35mm print somewhere, and if I went for the exhibition rights, I'd also find a print. There apparently was one in the 70's, according to the Wikipedia entry on lost films.

First stop: a friend of mine who used to work at MGM's DVD division. She sent me over to a contact of hers at Fox, the original rights holder, who sent me along to Criterion Pictures, the current exhibitor rights holder. Criterion and I went back and forth; I was talking to an accountant. They would grant the screening rights for 30% of box office sales against an advance of $375. That was higher than any of the other screening rights I paid for, so I negotiated that down to a reasonable fee. Then the accountant asked what I was screening, because Criterion didn't have a print. I said the DVD. There was a long pause before he sternly informed me that I couldn't screen something that was bootlegged. This pissed me off, as I was so close. Fortunately I run on rage, so immediately after that phone call I went hunted for a print of Berkeley Square. I didn't find one that day, but I did find the Frank Lloyd Films website, run by the famous director's grandkids. I contacted them and they were very generous in giving me details about their grandfather's favorite film. They also offered a few tips on where to find a print, but those didn't pan out.

I know of two film archives, my alma mater's (UCLA), and the Academy Film Archive. I tried both of them, leaving desperate emails or skipping through automated voice mail systems until I reached a living being. UCLA didn't have one and the Academy pointed me to the DVD versions. However, UCLA mentioned a Usenet board for film archivists and preservationists and said I could post publicly to see if anyone knew of a print. I had to register to do that, which took far longer than it should have to get approved. I finally sent my request to Web 1.0. About 24 hours later, I received an email from the same Academy contact I was talking to, who wrote: "I see that you were actually looking for a print of the film for a screening. You had emailed me about a week ago asking about a copy and I had assumed that you were seeking a copy for research purposes. We do actually have a new print of this title from a recent preservation. Sadly, we require at least four weeks notice for print loans and for theatres to be approved ahead of time for screenings."

I frantically looked at the calendar, and realized that the festival was four weeks and three days away. I hit my afterburners and started jumping through hoops to get that new, restored print. There are many requirements for the Academy Film Archive to loan a print, one of the main ones being a complete report on the theater showing it and the projectionist handling it. Luckily Lee Sweet, the manager at the Warner Grand, is an expert at bureaucracy and quickly turned the paperwork around as fast as I did. I added the Academy to the insurance contract, contacted Frank Lloyd's grandkids, and also dangled my non-profit partnership and exhibition rights via Criterion before the AFA. It was a close, tight week, but they finally agreed to loan it out. The next day, this same contact wrote something to the effect of "I have to check with my boss to make sure no one else booked it for that weekend. He won't be back for another week." But by that point, I knew I won. When I told Blake, the film fanatic who helped run projection, that I had a brand new never-before-screened restored print of Berkeley Square on loan from the Academy Film Archive, he summed up my victory: "Holy fuck!"

It was special to have Berkeley Square's director's grandson, Christopher Gray, in a tuxedo to introduce the movie. I then read H.P. Lovecraft's review of the movie from his letter to J. Vernon Shea in 1934 (in Selected Letters, vol. III). There's a story in that, too, because I left the copy of the text from the book, given to me by Mike Tice, at home. Thus a crazy series of phone calls to Mike's wife and a detour from picking up Die Farbe director Huan Vu from the airport by one of my generous minions, Brady, and the book was in my hands about an hour before I needed it. It was a hassle that I caused, but I felt that the screening, the first in decades, required Lovecraft's words. After I finished reading and thanking the Archive, the lights dimmed and the audience got a very rare treat: a 1933 speculative fiction movie seen in a restored 1931 art deco theater—much as I like to imagine Lovecraft himself saw it. Unfortunately, I had to run around and manage other things while it played, so I only caught about 15 minutes of it.

The second success of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival®-Los Angeles 2011 was the joy apparent on fest founder Andrew Migliore's face. Frequent visitors to the Portland festival probably recognize the furrowed look of consternation and stress on Andrew's face, which in recent years became the tired look of resignation. Knowing first-hand how difficult it is to run a film festival; I'm awed by Andrew's ability to do it for fifteen consecutive years. Having known him since before the fest started, I've had a front row seat on the 50-yard line for each trial and triumph the HPLFF and Andrew has faced, from devastating thefts (two) and family tragedies to the delightful birth of his son, Vincent, and the rise and fall of Silver Key Media and Lurker Films.

It's my belief that Andrew started the festival to indulge in one of his favorite past times: watching weird, bizarre, bad, and unbelievably awesome movies with friends and soon-to-be-friends. But with success comes sacrifice and in these later years Andrew was running a business, consequently the delight that fueled the business dwindled. Rarely, if ever, was he able to sit in a seat and watch the picture with all of us. There's always something else to do during the fest.

So one of my proudest moments this year was when Andrew called me late Friday morning from his hotel (the Crowne Plaza, a few blocks away from the Warner Grand) and asked if I needed help setting up. Of course I did, but I said I'd get in touch with him once I got there, that he should instead relax and I'll touch base in a few hours. I arrived at the annex and immediately set to work setting other people to work, as well as myself. I forgot about everything except getting the vendor tables set up, the art show working, the swag bags stuffed with goodies, the projection prepped, the green room stocked with sundries, or any of the other details needed to pull off a festival. I didn't see Andrew until about 4pm, an hour before the VIP reception began. He again offered to help, but I turned him to the bar. After fifteen years I didn't want him to have to worry about anything. The only request I had was to help present the screenplay and filmmaker awards on Saturday night. Other than that, Andrew could mingle, chat, drink a beer, eat popcorn, or watch movies secure in the fact that I had everything under control (barely). Every time I caught a glimpse of him through my own stress-pinched face, he was smiling and laughing, nary a worry visible. Andrew told me a few times how proud he was with the Los Angeles H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival®, but he didn't need to. Seeing him enjoy himself again was reward enough.

I missed the 2011 Portland festival in October, as I am taking the rest of this year off. But I know the HPLFF's HQ is in good hands with Brian and Gwen Callahan, who were also invaluable to me. I look forward to seeing them again in May when the full Portland festival will be up and running, and I invite everyone to come to San Pedro in September to see what we can do for 2012.

For more reports of the 2011 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival® in Los Angeles:

http://fez-o-rama.com/blog/?p=2099

http://www.examiner.com/movie-in-los-angeles/annual-h-p-lovecraft-film-festival

http://www.examiner.com/movie-in-los-angeles/h-p-lovecraft-film-festival-concludes-on-saturday-plus-photos

http://www.chud.com/67354/la-2011-h-p-lovecraft-film-festival-awesome/

http://digitalairwaves.net/2011/09/20/lovecraft-film-festival-perfect-for-fans/

http://lostcontinentlibrary.blogspot.com/2011/09/lovecraft-film-festival.html

http://unfilmable.blogspot.com/2011/09/hpl-film-fest-los-angeles-2011-write-up.html

part one: http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/?p=14541

part two: http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/?p=14542

http://www.smallpleasurescateringblog.com/

http://cosmicomicon.blogspot.com/2011/09/keeping-la-weird-2nd-annual-hp.html

http://sheneverslept.com/newsandreviews/archives/7142

To see Guillermo del Toro's video announcing the short film winners: http://youtu.be/zqLhj0J8K7U (subscribe to the channel as well)

Be sure to "like" the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival Facebook page, and follow us on Twitter at HPLC_Fest

(Thanks to Aaron Vanek)

New Goodies

2011-10-19T20:35:00.005-05:00

Lord Bassington-Bassington mentions in his blog that Kim Holm will shortly be releasing a graphic novel adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's story 'Pickman's Model' (and also links to where it can be read online for those of you unable to immediately pick it up on release).

IDW Comics has announced a sequel to last years Infestation crossover, in which a supernatural threat ran simultaneously through several of their comics. This year the threat is the Old Ones, and they'll be invading Transformers, DND: Eberron, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, G.I. Joe, Star Trek, Ghostbusters, as well as a one shot featuring Bat Boy from the Weekly World News and Archibald from Groom Lake. I thank goodness I'm not the editor in charge of continuity for this...They will also be releasing a comic adaptation of the Dunwich Horror.

This month Fall River releases H.P. Lovecraft Goes to the Movies, a historical retrospective of films based on Lovecrafts works. It picks a handful of Lovecrafts stories, and proceeds to discuss each (as well as the films inspired by it) one at a time.

The Orphan Palace.............. .your room is ready

2011-10-19T20:16:00.002-05:00

Chomu Press has released my new novel THE ORPHAN PALACE.
And what is it you ask?

It is NOT Sugar & Spice & everYthing nice . . .
Here is a ‘Route 66′ synopsis in exactly 66 words:
“Cardigan heads east through the night-bleak cities of America. His destination? Zimms County Home for Orphaned Children, the palace of dementia where Dr. Archer, ‘Lord of Chaos’, evilly presides – a trap baited with memories. Fires blaze in the rear-view mirror. On the roadside, ghosts, bounty hunters, mermen, Ghoul Hotels. Will D’if, the talking rat, help Cardigan escape this maze, or do all roads lead to madness?”

And here are the blurbs of two highly-respected weird fiction authors:

“Joe Pulver is like the answer to some arcane riddle: What do you get when you cross one of Plato’s Muse-maddened poets with a Lovecraftian lunatic, and then give their offspring to be raised by Raymond Chandler and a band of Beats? His work caters to a literary hunger you didn’t even know you had, and does it darkly and deliciously.” - Matt Cardin

“The Orphan Palace kicks you in the face and doesn’t stop. Pulver’s prose sees the world through a cracked lense of 60’s hedonism and 70’s grit, with a side order of unshakable terror. A serial killer novel that explores the dark side of America via Kerouac in a shell of cosmic horror. What he does is electrifying. I’ve never seen anything like it. My hair is still standing on end.” - Simon Strantzas
And you can sign up [until NOV 2] to enter the "Prize Draw for uniquely inscribed copy of The Orphan Palace". Where?

http://chomupress.com/news/the-orphan-palace-a-road-trip-to-madness/

And what do you get?
                                        The CP “contest ed” will contain –
          postcard(s) [with a note~.S.~] from Carcosa East

                                                                              signed & dated{RIP}
an unpublished poem/tExt;;;; or 2 . ?. ?.

                                  a “few” special annotationS sprinkled here & there . . {in REDink? ??}.

a drawing of a RAT [this is good for a laugh as P’ull-yverre can’t draw! !!]

                                                                                         an illo of a bEastie [see above]
a TOP bookmark [one of only 25 made]
                                          a "selections" from the TOP "SOUNDTRACK" CD -- I'll BURN~ ~~ it just for you! !! [Yes, there's a soundtrack for TOP~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Did you have anY d;o..u\b/t? ??]

[& maybe some stickers?/rubber stampings??/
. . . .................. and only CTHULHU knows what the hell else? ??]

Here's the CHOMU PRESS page for THE ORPHAN PALACE

http://chomupress.com/news/the-orphan-palace-a-road-trip-to-madness/

I hope you read it/like it/share it/tell Ma/tell Pa/.............. I hope it bothers you! !!

See you in Carcosa............... .~ ~~~~~~~~ ~ ~.~..
                                                    yer bEastie

http://www.amazon.com/Orphan-Palace-Sr-Joseph-Pulver/dp/1907681116/ref=wl_it_dp_o_npd?ie=UTF8&coliid=I3EQO0NH83VTHU&colid=2F4V4U3J4GAY8

http://www.amazon.com/Orphan-Palace-Sr-Joseph-Pulver/dp/1907681116/ref=wl_it_dp_o_npd?ie=UTF8&coliid=I3EQO0NH83VTHU&colid=2F4V4U3J4GAY8

Uncle Kitty vs the Thing

2011-10-15T16:59:00.003-05:00

Spoony gives a decent, if profanity filled review here.

Obviously both it and this review will contain spoilers. Spoony gets it pretty much right on the money, so be sure to watch his review.

Let's compare the two films shall we?

Atmosphere: The original Thing began with a sense of isolation, which quickly devolved into paranoia, mystery, and a foreboding sense of doom. In the new film you don't feel any isolation at all until maybe halfway through the film. But once the monster escapes, the paranoia has a brief moment before it turns to relying on jump scares, and then devolving into an action film cliche of a badass woman with a flamethrower gunning down aliens in the third act. It's not an exact comparison, but think Alien vs Aliens. One is a horror film, one is a monster/action film. This Thing is not truly a horror film, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead definitely doesn't have the presence of Sigourney Weaver.

The cast: The original film took some critical flack for lack of character development, but personally I think that was undeserved. All of the original actors were veteran character actors, and you could see the personality of their characters in the way they reacted to the situation they were in. In the new film you don't really get a glimpse of the personality of any but three characters, and it's a very shallow glimpse. If you asked me what either of the three were I'd answer by the job title they held in the film, because that's as far as it gets. Hell you don't even know the name of half the Norwegian victims. Whereas in the first film you felt something for the characters, in the new one they quickly get separated into three faceless groups: heavily bearded Norwegian victims, beardless American victims, and lightly bearded pompous Norwegian pricks who deserve what they have happen to them. By the end of the film you aren't even sure what happens to some of them because the monster rampages after the leads and you don't learn of their fates.

The Monster: Hoo boy. In the first film the monster was sneaky, and didn't want to be found. You don't see the monster much, it takes a different form each time, and it's smart. Obviously it learned from this film. Because in this one it takes time to transform, it's loud, and it's a rampaging Hulk. Once it's on screen, it's constantly on screen. And there's less imagination used because it tends to repeat itself when appearing. There's always a giant mouth erupting from someone's body, or placed somewhere on the critter form. Basically, it's dumber, it's slower, it's louder. You can't develop paranoia and suspense when there's a giant freak roaring it's head off crushing things and running about. You always know where it is.

The Setting: In the original there was a storm on the way, and it was apparent going outside was deadly. You don't get that feeling here. People go outside all the time with no repercussion. Also the alien ship is visited. In detail. Because the alien tries to use it to escape (isn't it supposed to be a wreck?). In the original it was established the ship was in a crater because the Norwegians were excavating it with thermite, but in this one it's apparent it's in a crater because the alien fires the ship up melting the ice above it. Also with it being the size of Times Square you'd think someone would have noticed. The American camp for example.

The Effects: There are a few practical effects in this film, and they aren't bad. Don't get used to seeing them. Once the alien is revealed we go cgi, and the cgi varies from being pretty good in the quick cut scenes to absolutely piss poor when it needs to stand out. Once you get to the ship, the Thing basically becomes a cartoon. Granted it's an icky, Lovecraftian inspired cartoon, but it's not scary.

Overall: This was originally intended to be a remake before they made it a prequel, and it shows. It shows really bad. You have newer versions of several scenes from the classic (the autopsy, the failed blood tests, etc), and you have nods to the first film in that they show how some of the Norwegians die but not others (implying deleted scenes). Instead of building characterization and paranoia, the first half is exposition. Some of which is pointless. If you've seen the first movie, you know whats happening. If you haven't, the film has no subtlety, so you don't need it explained. It kind of exists to 'explain' the first one, and only succeeds in demythologizing it. It also mentions a Russian base 50 miles from the Norwegian one, setting up a sequel as you never find out the fate of the female lead (although by all rights she should freeze to death in the snow). Then they tie it to the first film with a scene shown after the credits.

My Impression: This was kind of rushed. The cgi doesn't seem finished in some scenes, you never find out what happens to several Norwegians (implying scenes were cut for time or to keep an R), and there are huge gaping plot holes. It's a mediocre alien monster film. Accent on mediocre. If they'd tightened up the script, and took their time with the effects, and established some characters it could have been great, or at least a worthy sequel to the original. This just feels like they got lazy or ran out of money. So all in all the monster of the film is like a metaphor for the movie itself. It makes an imperfect copy of it's target that doesn't stand up to serious scrutiny. Much of what made the original special is gone, and you are left with only an imperfect copy without the soul of it's predecessor.

Also on a side note, after the boring expositiony bit when the monster is on the loose, this movie is LOUD. At least it was in the theater I saw it in. Avoid sitting near speakers or you will leave deaf.

Guillermo del Toro talks Black Goat and HPLFF winners...

2011-10-13T20:57:00.000-05:00

For Immediate Release:

Guest judge Guillermo del Toro announces via the video below, the 2011 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival "Brown Jenkin Short Film Awards" (the award was created by Bryan Moore of Arkham Studios)! The awards were presented by Andrew Migliore and Aaron Vanek at the Grand Warner in San Pedro on September 17, 2011...

Runner up - Black Goat by Joseph Nanni

Co-Winner - Static Aeons by Gib Patterson

Co-Winner - Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven by Don Thiel III & Christopher Saphire

Andrew also gave special consideration to The Shadow of the Unnamable by Sasha Renninger for "Best Short Lovecraft Adaptation"...

(Thanks to Aaron Vanek, Sascha Renninger and Joseph Nanni)

First Devil's Mile still appears...

2011-10-13T20:27:00.000-05:00

Back in August we told you about a new Lovecraftian thriller called The Devil's Mile, and now we can tell you that the film has wrapped and the first image has hit the web! Written and directed by Joseph O'Brien, the film stars Maria Del Mar, Casey Hudecki, David Hayter, Samantha Wan, Amanda Joy Lim, Frank Moore, Craig Porritt and Shara Kim. Look for it to be released sometime in 2012...

About the film: A relentlessly-paced hybrid of gritty crime thriller and Lovecraftian supernatural horror, The Devil's Mile follows a trio of kidnappers who take an ill-advised detour en route to deliver their hostages - two teenage girls - to their mysterious and powerful employer. When they accidentally kill one of the girls during a botched escape attempt, their simmering mistrust explodes into shocking violence. But what they thought was their worst case scenario is only the beginning, as they are engulfed by the hellish forces that haunt the road - a road they realize they may never escape. Now captors and captive must fight together to escape the monstrous forces pursuing them and somehow survive, The Devil's Mile...

(Thanks to Dread Central)

Pickman's Models: The Lands of Dream...

2011-10-13T17:59:00.000-05:00

As we mentioned back in September, Jason B. Thompson started what has turned into an extremely successful Kickstarter funding drive to turn his out-of-print Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath comic book into a graphic novel, and he's just revealed the latest artwork to be included, an insanely detailed map of H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands! Self-published in the late 90's, the mini series was a 122-page, five-issue all-ages adaptation of Dream-Quest, drawing inspiration from underground comics and classic children's books and the "naive fairy-tale wonder-spirit" that Lovecraft, in his own words, was trying to capture...

The graphic novel will include all five issues along with his adaptations of the Dreamlands stories Celephais, The White Ship and The Strange High House in the Mist! It will also include concept art and the following map of the Dreamlands, 176 pages in all...

Check out the image below, and head over to Kickstarter for more info...

(Thanks to Jason Thompson)

The latest issue of Strange Aeons is out now...

2011-10-13T17:22:00.000-05:00

There are very few magazines worth waiting by the mailbox, or dimensional doorway, for, but Strange Aeons is definitely one of them! Featuring a gorgeous cover by Mike Dubisch, Strange Aeons Magazine #7 is 52 pages of amazing B&W and color comics by Rob Corless (Hell Dorado), Lee Davis (Bloodworm), Vincent Ferrante (Witch Hunter and the Harbour Master of Innsmouth), and Tim Sparvero (What the Moon Brings), and short fiction by S. G. Browne and Robert M. Price, accompanied by illustrations by Ben Hansen and Nick Gucker. The magazine also includes book and game reviews, an artist spotlight, an exclusive ruleset for Strange Aeons, the eldritch miniature game, and the latest limited edition 'Lost Lovecraft Film' mini movie poster replica...

Pick up your copy through the official site here, or ask your local comic book retailer to carry it...

(Thanks to Kelly Young)

The 2011 Portland H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival Wrap-Up, Part Two

2011-10-08T19:29:00.000-05:00

(From Plan D: The Official Website of Derek M. Koch)

The second day of the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival started the same way - a gathering at Magnolia's beforehand (this time for a scheduled reading with author Jenna M. Pitman that I missed out on as I ended up writing a bit myself while waiting outside the Hollywood - hey, when the muse calls, one must answer!), a long line forming in front of the Hollywood and another sold out night.

The Shorts Block began with a repeat showing of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" before a recorded message from Roger Corman as he was presented with this year's Howie Award for his contribution to Lovecraft cinema. He told an abbreviated story of the events that led to his 1963 film The Haunted Palace being promoted as an Edgar Allen Poe film upon its initial release even though it's clearly derived from the original Lovecraft story "The Cast of Charles Dexter Ward." (A lot of this was also covered in the special feature A Change of Poe from the DVD release of The Haunted Palace.) The short films included:

The Window Into Time (dir. Thomas Nicol) - This was one of my personal favorites of the festival. William Kephart plays Dr. Schenker, a scientist working with an old classmate . . . in a lab . . . studying old formulas and old books . . . with conequences involving an encounter with things from another world. This is a period piece, set sometime within the past forty-or-so years (in the days of reel-to-reel personal tape recording), and handles this period setting gracefully. It's not over-the-top in design or performance. It easily could have been a film that's been locked away somewhere for the past forty years and just recently dusted off for the festival.

Haselwurm (dir. Eugenio Vallani) - This was interesting, had some good-looking monster effects, but ultimately I think will suffer with most American audiences. It's steeped deep with a "rural legend" story of Italy by way of Lovecraft, and while I don't have a problem with foreign films, I feel Haselwurm short 16-minute running time didn't give us enough time to bridge the culture gap.

Black Goat (dir. Joseph Nanni) - This short was slick, it looked good, it "felt" good . . . but it was a little empty. The HPLFF program included a synopsis for each of the shorts, and the blurb about Black Goat gave us more story than the film itself did. What ended up on screen felt like the opening of a longer film I'd LOVE to watch, but it ended just as it was getting good! The film's website - http://blackgoat.ca - tells us there's a feature on the way, and if it's as engaging as this taste was, it should be good! (I just wish there was something in this short proper to indicate that it actually was just a teaser!)

The Island (dir. Nathan Fisher) - Less Lovecraftian and more post-apocalyptic, The Island tells the story of a man who's managed to find a bomb shelter while the rest of the world struggles to survive in a world overrun by . . . something. It's never quite explained, and that's okay, because that's not what the story's about. The story is about how this man reacts when a woman comes banging on his door for help . . . and how she reacts when he doesn't turn out to be the hero she was expecting . . . and then how he deals with that!

Static Aeons (dir. Gib Patterson) - There didn't seem to be a lot of animation this year. There were the stop-motion pieces, Call of Nature and this one. With most animation, it's possible to put anything on screen ; there aren't any real-world budgetary restrictions. What's interesting here is that Patterson didn't let this "anything goes" approach creep into Static Aeons. The short is a series of images depicting an empty earth after the worst of Lovecraft's bestiary has had its way with humanity while a single narrator provides an epitaph for all mankind. It's a restrained bit of storytelling that left the audience with a sense of dread.

Shadow of the Unnamable (dir. Sascha Renninger) - I remember seeing a trailer for this years ago. It's a rather straight-forward telling of "The Unnamable" whose strength lies in the performance of Robert Lyons as Carter. As it's fairly accepted that Randolph Carter was Lovecraft's surrogate, Lyons brings a sense of odd to his portrayal that made this short enjoyable.

The Shorts Block ended with a recorded announcement from Guillermo Del Toro who chose Static Aeons and Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" as his favorites. After one final stroll by the vendors' tables, it was time for the final feature of the night.

"The Colour out of Space" is my favorite Lovecraft story (for now - ask me again in a month or so from now and I might have shuffled something else into the top spot!). It's creepy, it's evocative, it's distrubing, it's just GOOD . . . which, of course, means Hollywood can't get it right when it comes to trying to adapt the story as a film. (Not that Hollywood's had a stellar record when it comes to bringing Lovecraft to the screen, but that's besides the point!)

(I actually have a soft spot for Die, Monster, Die!, but I will be the first to loudly criticize it for botching the source material! The less said about The Curse, the better . . . )

Die Farbe (dir. Haun Vu) pulled it off. This German production follows American Jonathan Davis (Ingo Heise) as he searched for his missing father in the forests of Germany. His father served in World War II, and Davis' search has brought him to a small village where his father encountered . . . Lovecraftian.

The execution is smart and subtle. The choice to present the film in black-and-white was an inspired one. I overheard Festival Director Brian Callahan telling the director (who was at the festival for a question-and-answer session after the film) that Die Farbe wasn't just "good for an independent film," but that it was "good for any kind of film." I have to agree, and I immediately bought the movie from the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society's table after the film.

The festival ended with another after-party at Tony Starlight's (and more of that "Midnight Special: The Legendary Performances" DVD in the background). Old friends ate and drank, and congratulated Brian and Gwen on a job well-done running the festival.

Sure, it's different. There's a different vibe, and I missed having more features, any panels and more vendors (I start saving around mid-summer because I know I'm always going to find something at the festival that needs to come home with me!), but it's still the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival, and it was still a lot of fun. The Callahans have a passion for the festival, and it's in good hands.

I'm looking forward to the next go-'round. The Daily Lurker - the festival's newspaper-like program - announced that the next HPLFF will take place in May ("when the stars will be right . . . again!").

I know I'll be there.

The Raven trailer debuts on the anniversary of Poe's passing...

2011-10-07T20:40:00.004-05:00

Edgar Allan Poe died on this date, October 7, 1849...

The trailer for James McTeigue's forthcoming film The Raven debuted today (check it out below), the 162nd anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe's passing. The film, which hits theaters on March 9th, 2012, stars John Cusack, Luke Evans, Alice Eve, Brendan Gleeson and Oliver Jackson-Cohen...

About the film: A detective partners with Poe to search for a serial killer who has kidnapped the Poe's fiancee and has gone on a murder spree that mimics the author's work...

(Thanks to Dread Central)

The Elder Sign, and Other Games

2011-10-07T17:27:00.002-05:00

The people at Fantasy Flight Games are turning out more Lovecraftian goodies for gamers this month. Aside from the usual stream of new expansions for their Call of Cthulhu LCG, Arkham Horror novels, and Mansions of Madness, they have put out a new game: Elder Sign.

Ostensibly it's a rewrite of Arkham Horror of a sort, in that it's more a card/dice game than a board game. AH fans will recognize many aspects of play, and will take to the rules readily, but it's different enough to require them to learn the new rules set. It's also somewhat less complex will make it easier to teach the little one, and costs less than Arkham Horror. It's for 1-8 players too, so you can do it solitaire.

You may also wish to take a peek on Kickstarter for the Miskatonic School for Girls deck-building game. They're making decent headway on their goal, and the card game looks to be a hilarious take on all things Mythos set in (obviously) a girls school.

And finally on a side note, for those of you whose fandom extends into Kaiju territory, in a month or two you should be able to get Destroy All Monsters and Godzilla vs Megalon on DVD and Blu Ray from Tokyo Shock.

Charles Band announces the release of The Evil Clergyman…

2011-10-06T20:44:00.001-05:00

The Holy Grail of Lovecraftian Cinema, the Empire Pictures short film The Evil Clergyman, is finally seeing the light of day according to cult filmmaker Charles Band, and he's released footage of the film to prove it! Produced and directed by Band as part of his Pulse Pounders anthology in 1988, the film is a who's who of Lovecraft film veterans including writer Dennis Paoli (Re-Animator, Dagon), the Re-Animator trio of Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton and David Gale (who plays Brown Jenkin, borrowed from Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witch House), and genre favorite David Warner (The Unnamable, Cast a Deadly Spell). I've asked Charles many times over the years about the film, and he's always said that he would love to release it, but was unable to because of legal issues, but it looks like he's finally found a way to make it happen...

The film will make its debut on FullMoonHorror.com, which launches at 7:00 pm on October 21st, but you can get your first taste of The Evil Clergyman in the clip below! A specific screening date has yet to be announced, but watch this space for details...

(Thanks to Shawn Francis)

The 2011 Portland H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival Wrap-Up, Part One

2011-10-06T01:19:00.000-05:00

(From Plan D: The Official Website of Derek M. Koch)

The 2011 Portland H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival has come and gone. As I mentioned in a previous post, it was a smaller event; it only ran two nights and it only ran on one screen at the Hollywood Theatre. Because of this, there were only two feature films shown, and they were SOLID and more than carried the load for a festival typically carrying multiple films. But more on those in a bit.

While some congregated at Magnolia's Corner across the street, the line started forming in front of the Hollywood Theatre as early as 5:00pm on Friday. It quickly became obvious that this was going to be a crowded event. When the doors opened at 6:00pm, the lobby of the Hollywood was flooded with Lurkers eager to visit the vendors' tables, hit the concessions bar, and make their way to a seat in front of the main screen.

A fez-topped Andrew Migliore took the stage to welcome us, and then quickly turned the show over the new keepers of the eldritch flame that is the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival - Brian and Gwen Callahan. After a quick welcome, introduction and Mi-Go-Brain-Canister-in-the-Ladies-Bathroom joke, the movies rolled.

Rick Tillman's Call of Nature started the Shorts Block. It was short, sweet, to the point, and got some laughs with its animated Cthulhu. Other shorts I saw that night included:

Flush With Fear (dir. Christopher G. Moore) - This was a fun short following a woman escaping her breaking down relationship with a good cry in the bathroom. In the bathroom, she unfortunately makes the mistake of reading some of the graffiti-that-should-not-be-read on the stall walls. Fortunately for us, Moore and company gave us some great visuals and scare moments as a result of that damned graffiti.

Doppleganger and Idle Worship (dir. Theo Stefanski) - These two shorts were nothing but beautiful. These were stop-motion animation pieces featuring a skeleton in some sort of desert wasteland setting either looking for others like him/her/itself (Doppleganger) or searching for something to worship (Idle Worship).

Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" (dir. Christopher Saphire) - I should be completely honest. I can watch hours upon hours of Lovecraft-based or -inspired movies, but I really don't enjoy the Poe-movies as much. I get the reason why Poe always has representation at the HPLFF as Poe's influence on Lovecraft is evident, but . . . I, personally, am kind of over it. It's a personal thing. That said, this short, featuring Saphire as a troubled writer, remembering his lost Lenore while a raven taunts and haunts him, was striking. The imagery slowly cycles into a fast-paced nightmare with some stunning cinematography.

Dirty Silverware (dir. Steve Daniels) - I've got a few pieces of mismatched silverware - an odd faux-wood-handled soup spoon, a fork with a plastic stem, etc. - and Dirty Silverware tells us where these pieces of unfortunate utensils come from. Not only are they "dirty," they're also capable of great evil, and this short tells the story of one man who loses more than most would dare to sacrifice to stop this table setting madness.

I had to step out of the theater for the final shorts of the night, but I've heard that Ethereal Chrysalis was amazing.

After the Block and a few minutes to stretch our legs, it was time to settle in for the movie I was most looking forward to seeing at this year's festival - The Whisperer in Darkness (dir. Sean Branney).

I've been a fan of the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society for years. I've snatched up their Dark Adventure Radio CDs, their Prop Collection .pdf CD-ROMs, and have always looked forward to their vendor table at the Festival. Seeing their The Call of Cthulhu on the Hollywood Theatre a few years ago was a fantastic experience, and I know we've all been counting down the days until we could see The Whisperer... at the HPLFF.

It didn't disappoint. Branney's skill as a director are on full display; Troy Sterling Nies' score is his best work yet; Matt Foyer's physical performance reminded me of the best of Dwight Frye while his unique vocal delivery pulled me into the film's story effortlessly. This was an ambitious production, and everyone delivered.

The HPLHS' mission is to create time-period-appropriate-but-modern-audience-acceptable props and materials based on the work of Lovecraft. The Whisperer... is an ideal example of what they do. The movie is presented as a film that could have been produced and released in 1931, the same year the original story "The Whisperer in Darkness" was published, but I'd argue that it would probably be more at home in the mid-30s as films like Frankenstein and especially Dracula were a bit "stage-y." Nies' score is a bit more "full" than the scores from this time period's films, but none of this distracts or detracts from The Whisperer.... In fact, this is one of the strengths of the HPLHS, Sean Branney and co-writer Andrew Leman - they know when to bring just a touch of modern sensibility into their work to make the work accessible to modern audiences. (That's not to cast a negative light on the film at all!)

I really enjoyed The Whisperer in Darkness, and can't wait for it to hit DVD and Blu-ray (and for the score to hit CD!). Yeah, there are a few long stretches and, yeah, there are some changes and expansions made to the original story, but as a film . . . I see it easily becoming one of my favorite Lovecraft adaptations.

The night ended with a Q&A with director Branney and special make-up effects artist Dave Snyder before drinks at the after party at Tony Starlight's Supper Club (where an odd choice to play a "Midnight Special: The Legendary Performances" DVD was made!).

I'll follow-up with a Part Two/Day Two wrap-up later this week.

The ABCs of Death: T is for Termite...

2011-10-04T20:11:00.002-05:00

Steve Daniels (Dirt Dauber, Dirty Silverware) is one of the most original filmmakers working in Lovecraftian cinema, and his latest short film, T is for Termite, is no exception! The four minute short, which Steve describes as "in the pulpy spirit of Robert E. Howard's weird, horror western tales", was created for a contest being held by Drafthouse Films, where one lucky filmmaker will join 25 established directors on a feature length horror anthology called The ABCs of Death...

The anthology revolves around deaths surrounding a particular letter of the alphabet, and the top ten films voted on by viewers will then be watched and judged by the 25 filmmakers already participating on the project. The winning filmmaker will become the 26th director and their film will add the "T" to the ABCs of Death...

About the film: T is for Termite is about a crust punk exterminator who has to go into abandoned houses to clear them of unspeakable termite monstrosities...

Check out the film here, courtesy of Drafthouse Films...

(Thanks to Steve Daniels)

You Are My Everything by Edward Lee, review by Steve Hergina

2011-10-04T19:25:00.000-05:00

This novella was supposed to be another H.P. Lovecraft short, but I found it to be another Ed Lee "hardcore" story instead. The only resemblance to Lovecraft is that the main character is a writer. It's all about a husband and wife living in the backwoods, and her finding him cheating on her, so in turn she kills him. I'll spare you the details of a "header", because if you’re not sure what it is, well...you really don't want to know. She then meets a writer while in town searching for a tape recorder, because she wants to record a Lovecraftian chant to bring about "things". But other than that, it's a gory, sex filled, short 71 pages, not a story for most Lovecraft fans. Enjoyable to me, but I've been told I'm not normal either, so be forewarned, not for the squeamish.

First look at Dead Shadows...

2011-10-04T19:13:00.000-05:00

Production is underway on David Cholewa's Dead Shadows, and the first official images have appeared, via the film's facebook page. The film stars Fabian Wolfrom, Blandine Marmigère, John Fallon, Rurik Salllé and Laurie Cholewa...

Look for the film to hit theaters sometime in 2012...

About the film: Dead Shadows tells the story of a young man named Chris whose parents were brutally killed 11 years ago, on the same day that Halley's comet could be seen from earth. Tonight, a new comet is appearing and everyone in his building is getting ready for a party to celebrate the event. There's even an apocalypse theory going around. As the night falls, Chris discovers that people are starting to act strange – and it seems to somehow be connected to the comet. They are becoming disoriented and violent and it doesn't take long before they begin to mutate into something far beyond this world. In a fight for survival, Chris tries to escape from his building with the help of a gun taunting tenant named John – but will they make it out alive?

(Thanks to shocktillyoudrop.com)

The Innswich Horror by Edward Lee, review by Steve Hergina

2011-10-03T21:01:00.000-05:00

I was very skeptical entering into this novella due to the past H.P. Lovecraft stories Edward Lee's written, but I was pleasantly surprised how smoothly the story flowed. It almost seems like he went more traditional Lovecraft than his usual "hardcore" sex and violence. It definitely has its elements of horror but a serious lack of sex usually apparent in his novels.

Foster Morley decided to take a trip and follow the path of the greatest author of his time Howard Phillips Lovecraft. On his motor coach trip to Salem, they stop in Olmstead, like in The Shadow over Innsmouth. He figures maybe Lovecraft stopped there to write the story itself. He finds the town’s real history by talking with the locals, only to find it is more and more like the novel. Lovecraft, it seems, came up with the whole story from Olmstead, just changing the names and places slightly. Then it is revealed Lovecraft had been there and had taken a picture with one of the locals, a must for this die hard fan. He ventures around rather than traveling to Salem. He opted to scope out the town and tries to visit with the people and places Lovecraft might have been there to experience what Lovecraft had only a few years ago.

He was in town looking for his friend, who had been out looking to locate work during the hard times of the era. His friend was an accountant, by trade, so Morley figured he had found work. The town was rich in an abundance of fishing. Exporting to all the other local towns were nothing for them, even though most were fishing towns, it seems Olmstead had the best fish and the most.

Upon his travels he met Mary, who he fell hard for. As they talked more about Lovecraft and the town, he found out she had eight kids, with a ninth on the way. He heard about her husband running away, and soon realized most every woman in town was pregnant. After much more digging, the more he found out about the town, the more he concluded that Mary needed a stable life, with him of course, so he decides to take her away. Being rich didn't hurt matters either, he could support her and the nine kids better than how they were surviving now. He knew too much about the town and it's past now, the townspeople believed; he had become a liability and couldn't leave now.

This has to be the best Lovecraft story Edward Lee has written yet. His usual "hardcore" style has been tamed but, as I believe, has enough potency to make this a 21st century Lovecraft story.

Chasing Shadows by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., read by MorganScorpion...

2011-10-02T19:23:00.000-05:00

Julia Morgan, better known as MorganScorpion, has been quietly amassing an extensive list of audio adaptations including influential horror authors H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe to more contemporary authors like W.H. Pugmire (Some Distant Baying Sound), R.S. Cartwright (Dreaming in Darkness), and her latest, Joe Pulver's Chasing Shadows! She began by recording for the online organization Librivox, and has since started doing videos, which she posts on YouTube and CTHUTUBE. Some of her material has also appeared as part of the online magazine, the Lovecraft eZine. Other recordings include Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, The Call of Cthulhu, The Whisperer in Darkness and Poe's The Raven...

Check out Chasing Shadows below, then head over to her Unfilmable.com audio recordings page for more...

(Thanks to MorganScorpion)

JDatE one-sheet unmasked...

2011-09-29T21:59:00.000-05:00

For well over a year, Phantasm director Don Coscarelli's adaptation of David Wong's John Dies at the End was shrouded in shadows, but over the last week or so, there has been a flood of promotional material including images, a teaser trailer, footage (as seen at Fantastic Fest), and now, a crazy new promo poster! The film, coming in 2012, stars Paul Giamatti, Clancy Brown, Angus Scrimm, Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Doug Jones, Glynn Turman and Daniel Roebuck...

Check it out below, and be sure to check out the trailer here...

(Thanks to bloody-disgusting.com)

Hunters of the Dark...

2011-09-29T01:10:00.005-05:00

Written and directed by Ansel Faraj, and inspired by the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, Hunters of the Dark is a dark Lovecraftian thriller about a series of events that build up to an invasion of the Earth by beings from another dimension, and Earth's reaction to it...

According to Ansel Faraj, a lifelong fan of Lovecraft's work, he used ideas and elements of several of Lovecraft's stories, including The Shadow Out of Time, The Dunwich Horror, At the Mountains of Madness, The Colour Out of Space and The Whisperer in Darkness, to flesh out his basic idea of monster hunters battling Lovecraftian creatures from another dimension throughout the years...

Shot in July of 2011, and scheduled for release in November, Hunters stars Linden Chiles (as The First Hunter), Mihran Konanyan (as The Monster Hunter), Luke Hollman (as The Infected, Yog Sohoth), Mayra Gonzalez (as The New Believer) and Kevin Shayer (as The Space Bender)...

Head over to the official site for further information, a gallery of images and behind-the-scenes stills, and an essay by the director. A teaser trailer is forthcoming...

(Thanks to hollinsworthproductions.com)

HPLFF Portland schedule announced...

2011-09-28T22:04:00.001-05:00

This weekend marks the return, in a shortened more streamlined form, of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, Oregon, with two nights (Friday and Saturday) of guests, films and Eldritch events! Each night features one feature film and 90 minutes of short films, on the main (downstairs) screen only, so seating is limited. As always, the festival takes place at the historic Hollywood Theatre...

Friday night starts with screenings of the short films Call of Nature by Rick Tillman, Flush with Fear by Christopher G Moore, Doppelganger by Theo Stefanski, The Ritual by Will Wright, Idol Worship by Theo Stefanski, Dirty Silverware by Steve Daniels, Ethereal Chrysalis by Syl Disjonk, Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven' by Christopher Saphire, Apartment Eleven by Mark Player and ends with a screening of the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society's The Whisperer in Darkness...

Saturday nights schedule includes screenings of Window Into Time by Thomas Nicol, Haselwurm by Eugenio Villani, Black Goat by Joseph Nanni, The Island by Nathan Fisher, Static Aeons by Gib Patterson, Shadow of the Unnamable by Sascha Renninger, followed by a screening of Huan Vu's stunning feature Die Farbe (The Colour)...

Check out the full schedule here, or purchase tickets here...

(Thanks to Brian Callahan)

New trailer, website for Andrew Jones' Doctor Glamour...

2011-09-28T20:10:00.000-05:00

Andrew W. Jones has unleashed an amazing trailer for his Frank DanCoolo: Paranormal Drug Dealer follow-up, Doctor Glamour, which you can check out below! The film, which revolves around a genius scientist who contacts another dimension to save the woman he loves, summoning a flamboyant rock & roll superhero, will be released sometime in 2012...

You can also check out the new, fully operational website here...

Doctor Glamour (Trailer) from Andrew W. Jones on Vimeo.

(Thanks to Never Knows Best Productions)

Countdown to the HP Lovecraft Film Festival (2011) #2

2011-09-27T20:54:00.001-05:00

(From Plan D: The Official Website of Derek M. Koch)

When I think about the Lovecraft Film Festival, the thoughts that come to mind aren't necessarily of films. I think about the friends I've made at the festival over the years, the camaraderie, the shared community of Lovecraft lovers. It's sometimes easy to overlook the films, so I thought I'd look back at some of the features I've seen at the festival over the years.

The Attic Expedition (dir. Jeremy Kasten) - Jeffrey Combs just belongs on the big screen at the Lovecraft Film Festival, and while this movie certainly has some low budget issues, watching it on the big screen with a crowd probably made seeing the movie a better film-watching experience than it had the right to be. The direction and acting - save Combs - is a little rough, and the screenplay does suffer a bit in spots, but there's something about this production and the production design that still grabs me. I don't think this is something I would have tracked down to watch on my own if not for the festival, and now I've got it on DVD at home because of the festival.

The Fog (dir. John Carpenter) - I hope it's obvious to most that I had already seen this movie by the time I saw it at the festival, but I had never seen it on the big screen. To see this Carpenter classic at the Hollywood Theatre was an amazing experience, especially since back then, the theater ran pretty cold (it's an old building, and has been in a perpetual state of remodel/refurbishing for at least as long as I've been a Lurker, and the heating/cooling had been out of whack for years) which gave the movie experience an uncomfortable edge that played right into the visuals of the film itself.

Beyond the Dunwich Horror (dir. Richard Griffin) - Honestly, I almost didn't catch this at the festival. I wanted to see it, but sometimes scheduling all the movies I want to see into my own schedule was tough, but I ran into Chris from The Shadow Over Portland and he encouraged me to check it out. I juggled my schedule around, and found myself sitting in on the last screening of Beyond the Dunwich Horror, and I'm glad I did. I really enjoyed the film. Jeff Dylan Graham is almost always fun to watch in lower-budget horror movies, and he didn't disappoint. The movie itself has a fun 70s drive-in vibe (Griffin's proving himself to be the guerilla master of genre throwback movies with movies like The Disco Exorcist, Atomic Brain Invasion and Nun of That), which lends itself well to a movie that does play a little fast and loose with the Lovecraft material. (And I love the music in the film!)

Curse of the Crimson Altar (dir. Vernon Sewell) - I've always been a Lugosi fan. I like Karloff - don't get me wrong - but I've always been a bigger fan of the Hungarian over the British actor. Because of this, I've not been as well-versed in some of Karloff's non-Universal genre work as I should have been, and I knew nothing about this film before walking into one of the screening rooms on the second floor of the Hollywood. Karloff? He was in another Lovecraft adaptation apart from Die, Monster, Die!? And Christopher Lee is in it? Sign me up! Karloff's looking a little rough around the edges health-wise, but he still delivers a magnetic performance from his wheelchair. Lee's solid. Barbara Steele is solid. This was one of the sleepers for me the year it was played at the festival.

Dagon (dir. Stuart Gordon) - Re-Animator's a great film, but let's be honest - it's not very "Lovecraftian." It has the trappings, and, yes, the original story "Herbert West - Reanimator" was written as a parody of the Frankenstein novel, but Re-Animator film is so over the top, it's hard to think of it in the same light of Gordon's Dagon. (No disrespect to Re-Animator; it's easily one of the Top 100 Zombie Movies... !) Dagon's got a great score, teams actor Ezra Godden (who's doing his best Combs-meets-Bruce-Campbell impression) with director Gordon a few years before his excellent turn as Walter Gilman in the "Masters of Horror" episode "Dreams in the Witch-House, and gives us a touching and heart-breaking performance by Francisco Rabal as Ezequiel.

The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu (dir. Henry Saine) - Gregg Lawrence as Captain Olaf. That could be enough to sum up why I remember this movie. Lawrence is GOLDEN in this film. Fortunately, that's not all this movie has to offer. We've got the last descendant of Lovecraft and his buddy, both frustrated wanna-be comic book creators - out trying to save the world. Okay, Lawrence isn't the only this golden in this movie; the entire movie is!

Cthulhu (dir. Dan Gildark) - Yes, the one with Tori Spelling. I didn't know what to think about this one going into it. Lovecraftian scholar S. T. Joshi supported it, and it was generating a lot of attention in the Pacific Northwest, but I still had reservations, mostly because of Spelling. It turns out, I had no reason to be hesitant about the movie; it's a solid film, and successfully and seamlessly blends a modern day story with a Lovecraftian theme. This also introduced me to the film music of Willy Greer (his music also turned up in an adaptation of "Pickman's Model"), whose haunting music disappears behind the cool, bleak imagery on screen.

Alien Raiders (dir. Ben Rock) - Scott Glancy introduced this movie when it played at the festival, and summed it up as the last session of a Delta Green role-playing game gone HORRIBLY wrong. While this movie might have been telling the story of a group's last hurrah as they track down and try to stop an alien threat, the chemistry of the characters and performers made us feel like they'd been doing their job for a long time, and Carlos Bernard and company wore this "we've-got-to-save-the-world-because-that's-what-we've-always-done-no-matter-what" on their sleeves, their faces and their entire bodies, which sold the threat to the audience, and made me wish I could spend more time in this world . . . even if, in this world, things don't go as well as they could for most folks.

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (dir. Edward Martin III) - If memory serves, this played at the festival the one year there was a fourth night added, and while I was at the IMDB confirming that Toren Atkinson was the performer providing the voice of the lead character, I stumbled across a review I apparently wrote about the movie at that site back in 2006: "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is an ambitious movie, striving to adapt one of H. P. Lovecraft's most fantastical fictions and succeeding in nearly every aspect. Using a unique style of animation, director Edward Martin III has created a movie that should be examined by more than the typical "Lovecraft-Crowd" - the movie is that good. The voice actors did an excellent job wrapping their mouths around the more complex "Lovecraft-isms" (Nyarlathotep anyone?) while still conveying the sense of wonder that a story like ...Kadath evokes. The soundtrack was inspired as well. If you have an opportunity to see this movie, SEE IT." Well, I'm not going to argue with myself . . .

There are other movies that come to mind when I think about the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival (including a number of non-feature-length films like The Yellow Sign, AM1200 and The Call of Cthulhu), and I'm sure that as I lay down tonight to go to sleep, a few more titles will come to mind.

What I'm most looking forward to, though, is this year's film offerings (feature and otherwise)!

Trolley No. 1852 by Edward Lee, review by Steve Hergina

2011-09-27T19:00:00.000-05:00

Trolley No. 1852 is set back in Providence, Rhode Island in 1934, as H.P. Lovecraft was writing in his prime. He is requested to write a short for an erotic pulp publication, Erotesque: Tales for the Selectively Bizarre. Enclosed is a check for 500 dollars and it includes a clause for another check, of 500, upon delivery of story. Being nearly broke at the time; he comes up with a pen name, Winfield Greene, and writes Trolley No. 1852.

In the story, he recalls the travels of Morgan Phillips, a Brown professor of mythology and ancient history, and his relocation to New York. On his trip he meets Erwin, who shows him the ropes of riding the trolley for the first time, including the harlots. What ensues would make Lovecraft roll in his grave, but it is very much like one of his own stories, just add raunchy sex. It's a very graphic depiction of sex, from the very strange beings from Lovecraft's imagination. It has a great idea behind it with possible sequels (what horror movie/book doesn't), but Lee has multiple ideas of what he has in store for the future, all of which I can't wait to read. Overall a solid book, as long as "hardcore" writing is what you're looking for, I just wish he wouldn't keep using Lovecraft in his stories.

Dead Shadows promises old school tentacle horror...

2011-09-26T21:14:00.001-05:00

There may not be any Lovecraft in Dead Shadows, but it sure as hell looks like some great old school tentacle horror!

Currently shooting in Paris, France from a screenplay by David Cholewa, who is also handling directing duties, and Vincent Julé, Dead Shadows stars Fabian Wolfrom, Blandine Marmigère, Rurik Salllé, with a special appearance by French TV host Laurie Cholewa...

About the film: Dead Shadows tells the terrifying story of a young man, named Chris (Wolfrom), whose parents were brutally killed 11 years ago, on the same day that Halley's comet could be seen from earth. Tonight, a new comet is appearing and everyone in his building are getting ready for a party to celebrate the event. There’s even an apocalypse theory going around. As the night falls, Chris discovers that people are starting to act strange – and it seems to somehow be connected to the comet. They are becoming disoriented and violent and it doesn’t take long before they begin to mutate into something far beyond this world. In a fight for survival, Chris tries to escape from his building with the help of a gun taunting tenant named John (Fallon) – but will they make it out alive?

Check out the teaser trailer below (as well as some concept art from the official facebook page), but please note that none of the footage in the trailer will be used in the film. It was shot to get interest from buyers at the Cannes Film Festival...

(Thanks to joblo.com/arrow)

Lovecraft inspired short wins Anchorage film competition...

2011-09-26T20:39:00.000-05:00

Woodruff Laputka sends word that his latest film, shot under the Laputka Films banner, has won the 2nd Annual Anchorage 48 Hour Film Competition! Contained, one of 15 films to compete this year, was inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's The Terrible Old Man, and was made to reflect each of the following three prompts; something that is Mexican, the phrase "this isn't a game", and the Science Fiction genre...

About the film: Contained is the story of, Hope, a young woman living in an inner-city apartment building who picks up the slack of her ailing superintendent father. Longing for a better life far away from the confines of the old apartment building, and from the idiosyncrasies of her oddly eccentric tenants, she befriends an old man who entrusts to her the delivery of a strange, mysterious box. Unsure of the boxes contents, Hope needs only remember the old man’s one request: "The box must not be opened…"

Laputka Films will be releasing an official cut of the film in October...

(Thanks to Woodruff Laputka)

Updated: The JDatE trailer delivers, All hail Korrok...

2011-09-26T20:12:00.004-05:00

As promised, writer/director Don Coscarelli, along with special guest Doug Jones, premiered the trailer for John Dies at the End at Fantastic Fest last night, and for those of us who couldn't attend, you can check it out below! Extra footage featuring Chase Williamson (as David Wong) and Doug Jones (as Roger North) was also screened, but that hasn't appeared online...

After you've checked out the trailer, head over to Cracked.com to read JDatE author David Wong's article about the project...

Update: You can also check it out below, with an introduction by Don Coscarelli and Doug Jones! Please note: The five minutes of footage they talk about has not been released online...

(Thanks to Don Coscarelli and cracked.com)

Countdown to the HP Lovecraft Film Festival (2011) #1

2011-09-23T00:08:00.001-05:00

This came up on my Facebook page when I posted that my brain exchanged the word "French" for "Eldritch" when I saw a tin of General Foods International French Vanilla Cafe sitting behind my manager's desk at work. I posted that I must have Lovecraft on the brain, which makes sense because for me, this is the time of year that I start thinking about all things H. P. Lovecraft.

I've programmed myself. When Brenda and I first started considering moving to the Portland area, I went online and did a bit of research. I found the area comic book shops, the public transportation system . . . and I confirmed that The H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival was happening. I knew about the festival before the move. I knew there was a loose community of amateur moviemakers who adapted Lovecraft's work when I found a Miskatonic University website (I can't find that site anymore) selling merchandise, which included the VHS releases of Lurker in the Lobby: The Best of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, Vol. I and Return to Innsmouth.

I bought and watched and rewatched those VHS tapes repeatedly. Even though I was already reading Lovecraft, those tapes blew the doors open for me. There were people . . . people like ME (at the time, I was making no-budget movies of my own) . . . who not only loved Lovecraft but put his work on screen.

I had to get to the Lovecraft Film Festival. Unfortunately, our first year in Portland I wasn't able to attend (I don't remember why, but I regret it), but the next year (2002) I was there. We didn't have a car at the time, so I was taking that public transportation to the festival, and I didn't get to stay the entire time or watch The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets perform, but I still had a lot of fun. I saw some wonderful films, some outstanding shorts, and started meeting other like-minded Lovecraft fans. I met the director of Return to Innsmouth (Aaron Vanek), and a number of other filmmakers that over the years that I've come to call friends.

At least year's festival, Festival Director Andrew Migliore announced that he'd be stepping down. There was rumbling that the festival would still continue in Portland (a satellite festival popped up in California thanks to Mr. Vanek), but for a good part of this year, there was little to no talk about a 2012 H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival happening in Portland. When an announcement was made . . . I know it sounds silly, but I felt a rush of relief. For years, I've joked that "October doesn't begin for me until the HPL Film Festival," but there's a lot of truth to that. It's become a tradition for me. I get to see old friends and watch some fantastic movies in a comfortable setting (The Hollywood Theatre), although I think some of the comfort comes from the familiarity of the building and the event rather than the actual accommodations (although it has gotten better over the years!).

It is a smaller event this year (it's only two nights, and there won't be as many films shown) as the current keepers of the local Festival flame wanted to keep the festival more intimate while still giving us Lurkers a fix of Lovecraft.

I'm counting down the days.

(I wish I could get Return to Innsmouth and Lurker in the Lobby: The Best of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, Vol. I on DVD. I MIGHT have the VHS tapes stashed away in a box somewhere, but I'd love to put them in my DVD folders along with my 5-disc set of The H. P. Lovecraft Collection.)

Derek M. Koch blogs regularly at his website Plan D.

New images from JDatE...

2011-09-20T20:18:00.004-05:00

Last week cult filmmaker Don Coscarelli tweeted that he was taking a break from editing his latest epic John Dies at the End to attend Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, and today it was announced that footage from the film will be previewed before a screening of Penumbra, introduced by the man himself! The screening takes place at 9:15 pm, on Sunday, September 25th...

Images of Paul Giamatti (as reporter Arnie Blondestone), Clancy Brown (as paranormal superstar Dr. Marconi) and Doug Jones (as Roger North) were also released, which you can check out below! The film is based on the amazing novel by David Wong...

Synopsis: 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 and Don Coscarelli)

Pages Torn from a Travel Journal by Edward Lee, review by Steve Hergina

2011-09-19T18:51:00.000-05:00

Edward Lee states that H.P. Lovecraft is one of greatest writers ever. His (Lee’s) writing is nothing like Lovecraft's, except for the imagination part. It is truly astounding how things work out, he wrote Trolley No. 1852, The Innswich Horror, and The Haunter of the Threshold directly with Lovecraft in mind. With all that being said, all I can say is wow. This review might be slightly biased, considering I am already an Edward Lee fan. It was a graphic depiction of life back in the early 1900's.

Pages takes place after a train broke down in the Virginian hills near Kentucky and West Virginia, with our main character Howard, who is a starving writer, hmmm, he decides to partake in a nature walk instead of going to the local hotel establishment for the night, cause he couldn't afford it. His new "friends" told him of the creekers they were hoping to find. He really wanted no part of that, then a tall man appeared and asked to hang a poster for the carnival that was in town, in exchange he offered them free tickets. Of course, they went.

That is where Howard met Bliss, his dumbfounded self, couldn't understand his attraction to such an odd "performer in a carnie, but her beauty bewitched him. He fell head over heels, and had to help her escape her father/husband, who owned the carnival.

The depiction of everything is in great detail, the good and the bad. If you have ever read an Edward (Ed) Lee novel, you understand completely what I'm saying. He uses very descriptive words, which is sometimes good, sometimes very nasty. This book offers up everything an Ed Lee novel has and delivers it with a solid blow to your face. His writing is very "hardcore", and is not for everyone, but I love it. Don't say you weren't warned. Enjoy!

And the winner is...

2011-09-18T20:13:00.005-05:00

The winners have been announced for this weekend's H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in San Pedro, including best screenplay, best short film and best of fest...

The Old Man & the Box, written by Bill Barnett won for best screenplay, and Death Wind by Jim Pinto & Travis Heermann was runner-up...

The best short film, as chosen by Guillermo del Toro, was a tie between Static Aeons by Gib Patterson and Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven by Christopher Saphire & Don Theil III, with Unfilmable.com favorite Black Goat (by Joseph Nanni) coming in second...

The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society's The Whisperer in Darkness, directed by Sean Branney and produced by Andrew Leman, was voted best of fest at the 2011 HPLFF...

Congratulations from Unfilmable.com to all the winners and runners-up...

(Thanks to Aaron Vanek)

HPL Film Fest Los Angeles 2011, write-up by Michael Tice...

2011-09-18T17:22:00.000-05:00

I drifted (slowly through Friday rush-hour traffic) down to San Pedro for the start of the second Los Angeles-based HPL Film Fest [here's what little I wrote about the first one down here]. Any annoyance at the traffic was alleviated by being ushered into the VIP reception hosted at the Grand Vision Foundation's digs near the Warner Grand Theater itself. Got to hobnob with friends old and new, and drool over the props and things from Whisperer in Darkness. Sean and Andrew brought a ton of stuff along, and it looks as good in person as it does on screen. Also had a chance to try out some Bowen's Whiskey before it's available in stores. They served it in some ice shotglasses that were a little better in concept than execution; it forced you to drink fast as your beverage and container rapidly turned into a puddle in the middle of your hand. So I didn't linger over the bouquet or taste, but it was pleasant and a bit on the sweet side. I also had one of their whiskey-ritas. It sounded like an abomination -- clearly perfect for a Lovecraftian gathering -- but the combo of whiskey and basil-infused lemonade was surprisingly good.

Oh, and I suppose there were some films, eventually.

First up, Whistle and I'll Come to You, based on MR James's similarly named story. I love James' tidy little antiquarian ghost stories, and this BBC production captures the charm and the spook factor pretty well. That... thing on the beach is no doubt made on a BBC budget, but after the slowly building set-up, it's freakin' eerie. [And while I'm linking things in my mind, the one great James film adaptation is Night/Curse of the Demon, based on "Casting the Runes", which makes a cameo of sorts in Cast a Deadly Spell, which screened the second day of the fest.]

A tribute to Roger Corman, with his video'd acceptance of the Howie award, followed by Haunted Palace. Roger talked a bit about how the production went from an adaptation of HP Lovecraft's "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" to "THE HAUNTED PALACE... based on a poem by Edgar Allan Poe... and a story by howard philips lovecraft.

The film holds up reasonably well. It's not the best of the Corman/Price collaborations, but it's certainly not the worst either. Interesting to see how much screenwriter Charles Beaumont added to really make it *more* Lovecraftian, at least in a name-check way. It's set in Arkham rather than Providence/RI, and even the big C gets a mention. I wonder where Cathie Merchant's character shopped for her revealing outfit in Puritan New England. Not that I'm complaining. Also kind of funny that Ward's resemblance to Curwen is not so surprising, inasmuch as all the residents of Arkham look just like their ancestors. Which reminds me... does Elisha Cook Jr. ever win? Even crippled newsies can get the better of him.

Then Aaron's big coup, a screening of a newly restored print of Berkeley Square with Leslie Howard. A film that Lovecraft saw several times and inspired the Shadow Out of Time (and a bit of Charles Dexter Ward as well). This is probably the first time the film has been screened publicly in 50 years, and it was great to hear the director's grandson give a little introduction, and to hear Aaron Vanek stand on a stage and thank the Academy.

The film is a pretty early talky, so sadly some of the dialogue was a bit difficult to hear -- one of those jobs where they hide a microphone in a potted plant in the middle of the room and hope they get the sound they need as people walk around and act. But it's easy to see how it would have punched Lovecraft's buttons; L. Howard being transported from the horrid Jazz Age back to the Georgian period Howard L. loved so well. Leslie Howard's Oscar-nominated performance is excellent; some nice subtle details as he negotiates the different protocol of an earlier age. The love story/resolution is a bit mawkish, but really it was such a treat to enjoy this film.

I skipped out on the afterparty at the Whale & Ale, but I was back bright and early to earn my keep as a VIP next day as part of the author reading and discussion alongside fellow scribes Denise Dumars, Jenna Pitman, Ted Grau, C Courtney Joyner, and Cody Goodfellow, who ably moderated and participated. I was so anxious about my own reading that I could hardly pay attention to a word anyone said in their own readings. I can well understand the wisdom of Ted's solution to have his wife read for him. I was glad Denise offered her nonfictional musings about possible mythological antecedents for Cthulhu, since I started off in a nonfictional vein myself. I was inspired by seeing Vincent Price burned as a witch the previous night, so I dug out my bit of Lovecraftian almost scholarship on the identity of Pickman's witch ancestor. This dry scholarship I characterized as giving the audience its vegetables, but I followed it up with some dessert, a reading of a few of the Eldritch Quintuplets. They went over well, though I fear I permanently dispelled any possible mood of cosmic dread. Indeed, in the ensuing discussion, I managed to reach the height of hypocrisy by decrying most modern Lovecraftoid fiction and the rise of plush Cthulhus and other Lovecraftian kitsch. Bad Mike. But I must not have come off as too much of a jerk, as our kind host, Jerry at Williams Book Store managed to move a half dozen copies.

Back at the theater, we started off with Cast a Deadly Spell. If you haven't seen it, it's a lot of fun. The bizarre anachronistic videogame analogy that comes to mind is that, just as Red Dead Redemption had the Undead Nightmare version, Cast a Deadly Spell is the Lovecraftian Nightmare version of LA NOIRE. Raymond Chandler meets HPL, with Fred Ward as our gruff non-magic using gumshoe in a 1940's Los Angeles where everyone uses magic. And Julianne Moore as his old flame/femme fatale. The screenwriter and an actor were on hand for some lively Q&A.

During the all-too-brief dinner break, I strolled down to the San Pedro Brewing Company for a quick quesadilla and a beer. Good stuff, and they have free tours of their brewery Fridays at 4:30. Aaron randomly popped in to get some change, and I'm afraid I stole some of his precious time, though that may be the only time he sat down all day.

I couldn't remember if I'd seen La Sombra Prohibida before. The description seemed familiar, so I dawdled a bit and chatted with a few people. When I drifted in, it soon became clear that I hadn't seen it. So I missed the first twenty minutes or so, but got caught up in the action, though it's kind of a downer... the darn Earth gets saved again! What is it with that?

Next up the shorts:

First the short shorts:

Call of Nature: a quick joke

Ritual: a quick nonjoke

Pickman's Model: a quick shock

Black Goat at least ended the string of happy endings. That lack of happiness made me happy.

Static Aeons shared the prize for best short, but it left me pretty cold. The visuals were computer animation... it was sort of like watching someone play a creepy version of MYST. Accompanied by a poetical voiceover that I couldn't seem to focus on... I think film burnout was setting in.

Idle Worship started with some really really beautiful stop motion as a skeleton comes to life. I confess I am a sucker for animated skeletons, but unfortunately the animation in the rest of the short is merely good. If it had all been as lovely as the opening sequence, I'd overlook the fact that the story isn't much of one. But I still enjoyed it.

Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven. Yes, I know, I know. Another frickin version of the frickin Raven. But this was really a great surprise and well worthy of being the other cowinner for best short. I was dubious when I read that it updates the setting to the 1950's, but really it's a well-conceived reimagination and beautiful as well.

Shadow of the Unnameable - This almost worked for me. The title sequence was inspired and awesome, as you sort of emerge from out of a pulp magazine. In the main story itself, some of the composition of live action and CGI elements was a little clumsy, but I think it actually gave the piece a more dreamlike fantasy feel that worked in its favor. Maybe their clumsiness was intentional, in which case it was genius! A little different acting, a lot different denouement, and this coulda really been something. I blame the source material, which is not one of HPL's finest.

Curse of Yig. Another one that I wanted to like more. Some uninspired acting and uninspired presentation. A story that could use more condensing. And the most important thing.. I really like the ending of the story. You are led down a garden path, and then Zap, a final revelation that makes it all worse. But it has to be ZAP. One quick line and cut to black, and let the audience think about it for three seconds and all go "EW!" at each other. This got stretched out to Zzzzzzzzaaaapppppppp. And if you try to stretch out a P, it just sounds like fffffft. [Looking at the original story, they filmed the dialogue of the last paragraph exactly as written, but I think you really only need the first sentence. The speed of reading and the speed of listening to filmed dialogue are a little different.]

Then the Whisperer in Darkness. I've already talked a little about it, but I think I'll withhold further spoiler-y comment til more people have had a chance to see it. But another great piece of work from the HPLHS, who well deserve their best in show prize. Getting to be a VIP gave me a swelled head, but nothing like the size of my big melon on the screen of the Warner Grand in the debate scene.

I schmoozed a bit at the afterparty, and then away home.

[Used with permission...check out the original post here.]

(Thanks to Michael Tice)

The Haunter of the Threshold by Edward Lee, review by Steve Hergina

2011-09-18T16:16:00.002-05:00

The Haunter of the Threshold is an Edward Lee proclaimed sequel to The Haunter of the Dark by H.P. Lovecraft. I say in name only, as this novel shares very limited ideas with the Lovecraft story. Without the sexual overtones (or acts performed within), this book would be all of ten pages, stretching it out. Edward Lee has brought his very "hardcore" writing style to another Lovecraft story, his other one; The Innswich Horror (review forthcoming) is about other Lovecraftian ideas.

The story itself revolves around pregnant college professor Sonia Heald, an English literature professor, her fiancé Frank Barlow, a mathematician, an academic wiz, his recently deceased college professor, (retired) friend Henry Wilmarth and Sonia's closet friend Hazel Greene (whom wants to be lovers with Sonia). Sexual overtones already, you should read how that unfolds...

Sonia and Hazel travel up to meet with Frank at Henry's cabin, in the middle of nowhere New Hampshire. Henry asked Frank to destroy all the work he and Frank's father were working on over the years, because Henry believed he solved the math problem that hounded them for years, only to discover how it would bring about a new world.

Some of the Lovecraftian beings are here; The Old Ones, tentacled people in robes, and Yog-Sothoth, but the majority of the novel revolves around sex and many fetishes. From the backwoods redneck hillbillies and their strange ways of getting by, to all the weird mystical ideas that Lovecraft came up with, butchered by an author (whom I like to read) who uses his perverted ideas of sexual overtures where they don't belong (this time, you don't mess with Lovecraft in that way). He writes a lot of stories, but unfortunately his style doesn't fit with Lovecraft. He proclaims Lovecraft as one of his faves in the author's notes and confessed that this novel is "a damnable one" as far as a sequel goes, and in the end says "And May God and Lovecraft Forgive Me". He can only hope they do, cause I can't.

The Window Into Time...

2011-09-16T20:16:00.002-05:00

Currently playing the festival circuit, writer/director Thomas Nicol's The Window Into Time "seeks to bring the essential style of HPL to the screen in an original story, inspired by his work." The short film, co-written with Ryan Collins, stars William Kephart, Stephanie Swearingen and Michael Kilcullen...

About the film: Dr. Lawrence Schenker, Man of Science, is contacted by an old classmate with an intriguing problem, setting him on a mission to recreate a substance described in an ancient manuscript...with no thought to the possible consequences...

Check out the teaser trailer below...

(Thanks to Tangeant Productions)

H. P. Lovecraft at the Seattle Art Museum...

2011-09-15T21:00:00.001-05:00

For Immediate Release:

The Seattle Art Museum presents: HPL@S.A.M. - Lovecraft's Visions

Lively discussions and some of the best cinematic interpretations of the works of H. P. Lovecraft will be presented, as well as an art show curated by David Verba! Guests scheduled to appear include Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi, speculative fiction author Greg Bear, writer/filmmaker Jason V Brock, science fiction author Marc Laidlaw and Whisperer in Darkness director Sean Branney, with more to be announced...

Panels include "H. P. Lovecraft's Life, Work, and Influence" (S. T. Joshi [Moderator], W. H. Pugmire, Philip Haldeman, Maryanne Snyder, Greg Bear) and "Lovecraft in Film" (Sean Branney, Andrew Leman, Marc Laidlaw, Jason V Brock [Moderator], Justin Giallo)...

Films set to screen include the Lovecraftian classics; Re-Animator, Out of Mind, Bryan Moore's Cool Air, The Music of Erich Zann by John Strysik, The Ancestor (the unreleased director's cut of Dan O'Bannon's The Resurrected), and the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society's The Call of Cthulhu...

Other screenings include The Haunted Palace, H. P. Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown by Frank Woodward, The Dunwich Horror, Night of the Demon, The Last Wave and The Whisperer in Darkness by the HPLHS...

Click here for ticket information and a full schedule...

(Thanks to Jason V Brock)

Another look at the Unnamable...

2011-09-15T20:21:00.000-05:00

Press Release:

The short film "Shadow of the Unnamable" by Sascha Renninger is a film adaptation of a short story by H.P. Lovecraft which has its world premiere at the 17th of September 2011 at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival® in San Pedro, Los Angeles, USA. The judge of the nine films spanning short film block is Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy I and II, Blade II).

The story plays in New England in the 20th of the last century. The American actors Robert Lyons and Jeff Motherhead play the two friends Randolph Carter and Joel Manton. Carter tells one of his usual horror stories, a legend about a creature ...

The German production in English language was shot on film with enormous efforts in production design whereas the post production was done completely digital. Not only fans of Lovecraft but also friends of subtle horror will be completly pleased with it. The release on DVD-Video is planned for 2012.

Official homepage: www.the-unnamable.com


Joel Manton (Jeff Motherhead) listening the words of Randolph Carter.


Randolph Carter (Robert Lyons) talks to Joel Manton.

Randolph Carter (Robert Lyons) and Joel Manton (Jeff Motherhead).

Joel Manton (Jeff Motherhead) does not believe in spooky tales.

Randolph Carter (Robert Lyons) talks about a legend of a strange old man.

Tombstone in the twilight

All photos are film stills by Wilfried E. Keil

(Thanks to Wilfried E. Keil)

The stars are right in San Pedro...

2011-09-15T12:01:00.001-05:00

The 2011 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival is upon us, and while Unfilmable.com will not be in attendance, we are pleased to see that the festival continues to survive and grow! We know that there will be many of our loyal readers in attendance, so we invite you to share with us any film reviews, festival write-ups or interesting stories or events...anything submitted will be published in these pages! Please send them to: unfilmable@yahoo.com

This year's festival continues to see a wide variety of guests and films (both short and feature length) from all over the world proving that H.P. Lovecraft's influence knows no boundaries, in this dimension, or any other! Feature films scheduled to appear include; Berkeley Square, Cast a Deadly Spell, Die Farbe (The Colour), La Sombra Prohibida (The Forbidden Shadow), The Haunted Palace and new fan favorite, The Whisperer in Darkness! Some great looking short films are set to screen including Black Goat and The Curse of Yig (both featured heavily on Unfilmable.com), Call of Nature and Idle Worship (both stop-motion films!), Pickman's Model and the previously mentioned Shadow of the Unnamable, Static Aeons, The Ritual, Whisper and I'll Come To You and the Poe film, The Raven...

Guests slated to appear include; Andrew Leman and Sean Branney (of the amazing H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, artist Mike Dubisch (see: Pickman's Models) and many more...

Head over to the official HPLFF site for the complete schedule, and click here for ticket information...

(Thanks to Aaron Vanek)

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath and Other Stories...

2011-09-15T11:09:00.000-05:00

Working on Edward Martin's feature-length animated adaptation of The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is something that I'm extremely proud of, and I've always wished that I would have been aware of Jason B. Thompson comic book series on which it's based, but sadly, it was sold out before I even knew it existed! Self-published in the late 90's, the series was a 122-page, five-issue all-ages adaptation of Dream-Quest, drawing inspiration from underground comics and classic children's books and the "naive fairy-tale wonder-spirit" that Lovecraft, in his own words, was trying to capture...

Now all these years later, Jason has announced his intentions to re-release the comics as a graphic novel including all five issues along with his adaptations of the Dreamlands stories Celephais, The White Ship and The Strange High House in the Mist! It will also include a map of the Dreamlands and concept art...176 pages all told...

You can read the new comics; Celephais, The White Ship and The Strange High House in the Mist at mockman.com...

Jason is currently trying to raise funds for the project on Kickstarter, which you can check out here...

(Thanks to Jason B. Thompson)

The Unnamable arrives on the big screen...

2011-09-15T10:38:00.000-05:00

The long awaited premier of Sascha Renninger's Shadow of the Unnamable takes place this weekend at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in San Pedro, with an encore screening at the Portland, Oregon HPLFF! As previously announced, the official site has been revamped and the final teaser trailer has been released, which you can see below...

Bonus materials for the eventual DVD release are being edited, and a short making-of teaser will hit YouTube soon, according to the director...

(Thanks to Sascha Alexander Renninger)

Richard Stanley talks the making of Toads...

2011-09-15T10:25:00.000-05:00

Cult filmmaker, writer, and world traveler Richard Stanley (Hardware, Dust Devil) tells the story behind his latest project, The Mother of Toads (based on the story by Clark Ashton Smith) over on the Terra Umbra - Empire of Shadows blog! The film, which is part of the Theatre Bizarre anthology, is enjoying a successful festival run...

Check it out here...

Mother of Toads concept art by Ivan de Castries

(Thanks to Richard Stanley)

ShEvil Dead - Live On Stage...

2011-09-15T01:55:00.000-05:00

For Immediate Release:

ShEvil Dead - The Real Blood Letting Returns This October!

Purchase tickets here: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/195983

ShEvil Dead is an outrageous parody of both Evil Dead movies, as well as Army of Darkness, but featuring an all female cast. Get ready for hot chicks, demons from hell, flying body parts and blood spraying all over the audience. Some items to note:

- Unlike other theater companies with blood shows, we do not charge extra for sitting in a blood section. Everyone will be covered in blood... although there will be a small Dry Seats Section.

- For large groups, it's recommended to come early.

- If you want to get drenched in blood, come early so you can sit in the Prime Blood Seats.

- On October 29th we'll have a Halloween Costume Contest with prizes!

When/Where:

October 1, 7, 8, 15, 21, 28 and 29 (Fridays and Saturdays in October)

8pm at Cellspace

2050 Bryant @ 18th

San Francisco, CA 94110

Doors open at 7pm. Seating will be on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Do not wear nice clothes to this event!

Tickets: $20 Advanced Tickets, $25 At The Door (Shows sell out quickly! Buying in advance is recommended!)

(Thanks to Bob Brinkman)

Heed the call of a Lost Land...

2011-09-15T01:44:00.002-05:00

More than 2 years in the making, Lost Land, the short film by writer/director Woodruff Laputka, was confronted with obstacle after seemingly endless obstacle. Technical failures, logistic nightmares, footage loss across continents and even the death of the films musical composer mark the history of this short films production, shot in the summer of 2009. Now, after nearly two years of salvage and re-edits, Lost Land has been completed and mastered for screening and festival circulation.

Lost Land follows, Carter, a bewildered asylum patient in the 1930's, who seeks the source of a mysterious call from his distant, long buried past. As Carter digs deeper and deeper, however, he discovers that some memories are best left buried.

Inspired by the work of H.P Lovecraft and Algernon Blackwood comes this tale of lost souls, eldritch powers and the madness of horrors long forgotten.

Lost Land stars Jared Fink, Joshua Lowman, Woodruff Laputka, Jon Lang, Scott Stohl, Keir Reid and Ian Dickson...

Lost Land (2011) from Laputka Films on Vimeo.

(Thanks to Woodruff Laputka)

Up from the depths...

2011-09-15T01:29:00.000-05:00

The following commercial, which aired around 1988 I believe, contains one of the most amazing "Deep One" suits ever committed to film. Special thanks to Makio Kida for sharing this on facebook...

(Thanks to Makio Kida)

What lurks in, The Tunnel...

2011-09-14T21:48:00.001-05:00

Check out Ivan Radovic's short creature flick The Tunnel below! Atmospheric, with great production values, the film was written, produced and directed by Ivan, and stars Nathalie U Bloom...

About the film: Engulfed by dark thoughts, she is forced into a tunnel to confront the creature who is waiting for her in the dark...

(Thanks to IvanRadovic88)

Black Goat besieged by Indonesian Pirates...

2011-09-14T21:33:00.001-05:00

Over at the Bad Advice for Good Times blog, insanely talented filmmaker Joseph Nanni talks about how his latest effort, Black Goat, was besieged by Indonesian Pirates, and what you can do to help...

Please take the time to read about it here...

(Thanks to Joseph Nanni)

The Creeping Unknown coming to DVD...

2011-09-14T21:04:00.000-05:00

Described as an "excellent film and a great example of cosmic horror that will surely resonate with Lovecraft fans" by Andrew Migliore and John Strysik's Lurker in the Lobby, 1955's The Quatermass Xperiment (aka The Creeping Unknown) is coming to MOD (Manufacturing on Demand) DVD in September courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and MGM! Details, including price, are forthcoming...

About the film: A spacecraft returns to earth with only one terrified passenger left aboard...and a creeping monster. Stars Brian Donlevy, Margia Dean, Jack Warner, Richard Wordsworth. Directed by Val Guest...

(Thanks to dreadcentral.com)

Re-Animator coming to Blu-ray...

2011-09-12T19:56:00.001-05:00

According to Scream Queen Barbara Crampton, via twitter, a Re-Animator Blu-ray is about six months out! There are no details currently, but the heads-up came from producer Brian Yuzna...

Watch this space for more...

(Thanks to Re-Animator the Musical)

Cast a Deadly Spell screening in Houston, Texas...

2011-09-04T10:12:00.000-05:00

There will be a free screening of the 1991 HBO film Cast a Deadly Spell, with a great performance by Fred Ward as Detective Harry Philip Lovecraft, in Houston, Texas on Saturday, September 17th! Because the film, written by Joseph Dougherty and directed by Martin Campbell, was never released on DVD, the organizers are screening the film on VHS (which I think this is cool as hell)! Rotten Cotton has designed as t-shirt for the event, which you can check out below...

Click here for details...

(Thanks to shocktillyoudrop.com)

Watch The Unnamable on FEARnet...

2011-09-04T00:38:00.000-05:00

Jean-Paul Ouellette's under appreciated 1988 film The Unnamable is currently screening on FEARnet, but only until Monday, September 5th! If you've not seen it, you should check it out, if for no other reason than for Mark Kinsey Stephenson's wonderful portrayal of one of Lovecraft's most memorable characters, his alter ego Randolph Carter...

Thanks to Justin Ward for the heads up...

(Thanks to Justin Ward)

New In Between images...

2011-08-30T19:41:00.000-05:00

Shooting is complete on José Luis Martínez Díaz's In Between, starring Jonathan David Mellor of REC 2 fame! José passed along several production stills, which you can check out below...

(Thanks to José Luis Martínez Díaz)

THE COLOR (2011) (aka DIE FARBE)

2011-08-29T14:24:00.004-05:00

Ask anyone who has lived in Germany for a while and they will tell you that the Germans are a very literal people. Their language is literal, their machinery precise, their thought process logical. Nobody has ever been forced to read German poetry in high-school. It should come as no surprise then, that the Germans have produced one of the more efficient Lovecraft adaptations in years. Even the title is efficient, paring down Lovecraft’s title “The Color Out of Space” to a mere two syllables (“die farbe” in German).

Opening in Arkham, USA, in 1975 (for no apparent reason other than the producers had a ’75 Audi 100 at their disposal – efficient filmmaking!), Jonathan Davis is searching for his father who went missing in Germany during WWII. “Wait!” I hear you cry. Yes, yes, I know. After a paragraph talking about the literal Germans, I start out with a plot synopsis that has nothing to do with Lovecraft except be set in Arkham. Simmer down teapot and hear me out.

After obtaining some clues from the local Arkham librarian, Jonathan sets off to Germany to a farming village where his father was last stationed. Blocking the road to the valley is a road crew who are detouring motorists due to the damming up of the river to create a lake. Once in the village, Jonathan finds the villagers to be sullen lot who claim to not recognize the man in the picture that Jonathan passes around. Except one. A white-haired farmer, Armin Pierske (read: Ammi Pierce). Pierske tells a tale in flashback about how he met Jonathan’s father, a US Army medic, at the end of the war, after the incident at the Gartner’s farm (which took place before the war) and how he at that time related the incident to Jonathan’s father. Confused? Yes, it is a little convoluted in the telling as well, but the main portion of the movie is an almost exact adaptation of Lovecraft’s short story.

Pierske is a neighboring farmer who witnesses a meteor crash out of the sky into the Gartner’s (read: Gardener’s) fields. The local scientists analyze it six ways to Sunday and discover it has the most peculiar properties. It’s a metal, but not one that is known on this planet, and unfortunately reacts with air, so that it eventually disappears entirely. The Gartners, pleased to forget about the meteor and get back to farming, awake one morning to discover their pear orchards filled with giant fruit. What seems like a godsend soon turns to horror as they discover that the fruit has an unpleasant after-taste which is only a foreshadowing of things to come.

If you’ve read the story, you know what comes next and writer-director Huan Vu (yes, I know I spent a paragraph talking about Germans and this guy is Vietnamese) follows Lovecraft’s story virtually to the letter, though he does add one or two details and omits others. One of the nice touches Vu adds is a scene in which the Gartner’s boys flip a coin to see who watches their deranged mother and who does the farm chores. The winner does the chores.

Shot on video, with lots of processing to appear as a black and white film, Vu makes the best of his medium, employing pages from Ivan Zuccon’s book to try to hide the deficiencies of the medium. Maybe not as successfully as Zuccon, but as this is his second film (the first being 2008’s DAMNATUS, based on the
"Warhammer 40K" games, that has not been released due to legal issues), Vu hasn’t had as much practice either. While Vu does a great job with very limited resources and sets up stunning camera shots, it sometimes feels a bit too much like a technical showcase for camera composition that does little to impact a story that has been told many times before. Ironically, at the same time, there are scenes that could benefit from some artistic license. When Pirske and Nahum Gartner discover the giant fruit tastes odd, there is little dramatic impact in the scene. Instead, the giant pears (which appear to be created from plaster) that the actors pretend to eat, end up looking rather comical. In THE CURSE (1987), the idea was retooled to fit a visual medium; the fruit looked beautiful, but was rotten and writhing with worms on the inside. This gives the rather crucial scene much more dramatic impact, even if it does lack in the subtlety department. As far as the script goes, the few little injections of added depth, like the aforementioned coin-flipping, are actually really well done and it would have been nice to see more of those and less of the oddly structured and somewhat clumsy wrap-around story.

On the plus side, Vu shows a nice sense of restraint, using CG effects seemingly sparingly, and for the most part, to excellent effect. Like Zuccon’s THE COLOUR FROM THE DARK (2008), Vu uses CG to add atmosphere and obscure the undesired qualities of the digital video format. When he does use CG for more obvious effects, they are generally well done. For instance, Lovecraft refers to the insects being “strangely puffed” and this is reflected in a scene where Pierske notices a giant bee on Mrs. Gartner’s clearly deranged noggin. Although the close-ups are, in my opinion unnecessary, the acting is what carries the scene, not the effect.

Over all THE COLOR is an excellent Lovecraft adaptation that is marginally lacking in a few areas making it not quite as satisfying as it could have been, but on the other hand, completely blows away bigger budgeted tripe like THE VALDEMAR INHERITANCE (2010/2011) and should be eagerly hunted down by even the most casual of Lovecraft fans.

New Scream of the Dead teaser trailer...

2011-08-28T12:00:00.000-05:00

The teaser trailer for Joester Films latest animated short based on Herbert West-Reanimator is now online! In Scream of the Dead, Daniel Cain discovers, after returning from a vacation to see his parents, that Herbert West has perfected a newly modified re-agent. One that would perfectly preserve a corpse as it is the moment the chemical is injected into the bloodstream and, when injected at the precise time, prevent decomposition from even beginning. However, that isn't the only thing he discovers after his return...

Check it out below...

(Thanks to Joester Films)

Strange Aeons celebrates women of the weird...

2011-08-25T21:57:00.001-05:00

Issue #6 of Strange Aeons the magazine is now available! The issue is a celebration of women of the weird, with a cover by Cari Corene, comics by Jen Weber and Asley Quigg, and fiction by Angel Leigh McCoy and Gina Ranalli. The usual strangers; Vincent Ferrante, Tim Sparvero, Lee Davis and Rob Corless also return, and Nick Gucker provides the artwork on an amazing "Lost Lovecraft Film" poster...

Head over to the official Strange Aeons site for details...

(Thanks to Kelly Young)

Joe Pulver talks The Orphan Palace contest...

2011-08-25T21:38:00.000-05:00

Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. talks The Orphan Palace, his latest novel, to be released by Chomu Press on OCT 19th, and the sheneverslept.com contest in which he is giving away three copies, in the video below. Joe is the author of the Lovecraftian novel Nightmare's Disciple, and the highly acclaimed short story collections, Blood Will Have Its Season and SIN & ashes. He is currently editing two anthologies, A Season in Carcosa and The Grimscribe's Puppets, both of which will be released in 2012...

Unfilmable.com also gets a mention in the video, which I must say was cool as hell! Thanks Joe!!!

(Thanks to Joe Pulver)

Dreams of SKIN...

2011-08-25T20:38:00.000-05:00

Based on a "children's scary story", Dwight Taylor's SKIN is a short Lovecraftian film that was produced in July of this year...

I don't know much about this one, but I believe it was submitted to the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival (the festival logo bumpers the film)...

(Thanks to Dwight Taylor)

Theatrical Dunwich Horror trailer...

2011-08-25T20:06:00.000-05:00

On August 12th we told you about Ororo Productions' theatrical adaptation of The Dunwich Horror, which will debut at the London Horror Festival, and now you can check out their new teaser trailer below...

(Thanks to Ororo Productions)

Has the Thing shown its face...

2011-08-25T19:09:00.000-05:00

I've only covered Matthijs van Heijningen's prequel to John Carpenter's classic The Thing a couple of times, because there are plenty of sites out there giving it press, but when some supposed creature shots appeared online...I just had to show them! Especially since so much has been made about the Special Effects, and whether or not they can live up to Rob Bottin's show stopping creature effects...

The following images came from the unofficial Facebook page for Universal's forthcoming The Thing, and according to bloody-disgusting.com, Universal has already stated that they have NOTHING to do with the production...

Whether they do or not, there's no denying how cool they are, so check them out below, and we'll see when the film opens October 14th...

(Thanks to bloody-disgusting.com)

Fandance Film Festival call for submissions...

2011-08-25T18:10:00.002-05:00

Filmmaker Edward Martin (Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, Flesh of my Flesh) is looking for "Lovecraftian and quirky horror" films (and a whole lot more!) for the upcoming Fandance Film Festival in SeaTac, Washington! The festival is part of the larger Norwescon event, and takes place April 5-8, 2012...

Click here for details...

(Thanks to Edward Martin)

Black Goat to open for Troll Hunter...

2011-08-25T16:55:00.000-05:00

Joseph Nanni's amazing new film Black Goat (watch it here), will open for a film that has gotten a lot of positive press over the last year or so, Troll Hunter! Both films will screen at the Dark Bridges Film Festival in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, on Friday, September 29th, starting at 7:00 pm...

According to Joseph, "Troll Hunter is from Norway and Black Goat is heavily influenced by their grim and frostbitten kingdoms."

(Thanks to Joseph Nanni)

New Unnamable screening announced...

2011-08-25T16:43:00.000-05:00

As I've mentioned before, Sascha Renninger's Shadow of the Unnamable is a film we've been covering since the days when Unfilmable.com was a website, and not the streamlined blog it is today, and with the previously announced premiere at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival (in San Pedro), Sascha sends word that the film will also screen at the Portland, Oregon incarnation of the festival! I'm sure there will be many more festival screenings in the coming months, so watch this space for more...

A new teaser trailer and revamped website are also in the works...

(Thanks to Sascha Renninger)

New film from the director of The Island...

2011-08-25T16:17:00.000-05:00

The following press release is for the film 109, the latest from writer/director Nathan Fisher, whose previous films Beyond the Wall of Sleep and The Island received a lot of coverage in these pages. 109 isn't necessarily Lovecraftian, but if its anything like his previous efforts, it will be well worth seeking out...

For Immediate Release:

Announcing the world premiere of writer/director Nathan Fisher's third locally produced short film, 109.

109 tracks the bizarre steps taken by a deeply disturbed loner totally controlled by his obsessions. He may have found a salve for his tortured mind, but at what cost? It features a talented cast of experienced performers as well as the film debut of Murfreesboro resident Rob MacLaney, 109 delves into the unexpected horror of the everyday.

Shot on location in Murfreesboro, Lebanon, and McMinnville, Tennessee, 109 is Gonzo Entertainment's most ambitious effort to bridge high production value with low budget film-making. The cast and seasoned crew have succeeded in telling a simple story that still contains tremendous depth and will definitely leave audiences talking. 109 also features an original soundtrack by Murfreesboro musicians including John McGhee, Jonathon Nash, Lars Hall, and Kenny Johnson.

This premiere will be on Friday September 16th at The Boro Bar and Grill located at 1211 Greenland Drive Murfreesboro, TN. The screening begins at 9:00 PM and will also feature a screening of Gonzo Entertainment's award winning 2010 release, The Island, along with other selected locally produced short films. Admission is $5 and The Boro is 21 and up.

The Island is currently completing its successful festival run with a screening at the 2011 H.P Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland Oregon. It has previously screened at The World Science Fiction Convention, The Phoenix Film Festival, The Dam Short Film Festival, The Las Vegas Media Xpo, The River's Edge Film Festival as well as numerous others.

Nathan Fisher has been a fixture in the Murfreesboro arts and music scene for over 20 years. Perhaps best known as the frontman for seminal Murfreesboro punk rock band Doctor Gonzo, he is also the voice of the Nashville Rollergirls.

(Thanks to Nathan Fisher)

THE ORPHAN PALACE (Book Trailer)

2011-08-24T15:07:00.002-05:00

Joe Pulver's new novel, The Orphan Palace, is coming from Chomu Press on OCT 19th.

Cardigan is heading east through the night-bleak cities of America. His destination? Zimms County Home for Orphaned Children, the palace of dementia where Dr. Archer, ‘Lord of Chaos’, evilly presides, and a deadly trap baited with memories. Fires blaze in Cardigan’s rear-view mirror. On the road he travels: ghosts, bounty hunters, mermen, Ghoul Hotels. Will D’if, the talking rat, help Cardigan escape this maze, or do all roads lead to madness?

After two acclaimed collections (Blood Will Have Its Season and SIN & ashes) praised by the likes of Ellen Datlow and renowned Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi, Joe Pulver returns to the long form for a novel that consolidates and extends his vision. The Orphan Palace is not only a significant addition to the road trip genre by way of supernatural horror, it is, itself, a novel on the road to something strange and new, in parallel to our contemporary anxiety about our unknown destination. An unerring evocation of a psychotic American society whose cinematic glamour has taken on the threatening colours of a schizophrenic vision, it is a novel of genuine risks in which genres appear to mutate before our eyes.

Annotated one-sheet sees you...

2011-08-21T15:35:00.001-05:00

A new promotional poster for Joe Lopez's Annotated has been released, just in time for the world premiere screening of the film, which was yesterday at the Unnameable Blood Bath Film Festival, in Dallas, Texas...

About the film: A rare book dealer receives a strange book with a small note that reads only, "The world must know." As he attempts to decipher the contents, he finds himself faced with deeper and darker levels of occult knowledge that chips at his sanity...

(Thanks to Joe Lopez)

La pension Esmodine, the final episode...

2011-08-20T16:54:00.000-05:00

The final episode of Aymeric Pelzer's La pension Esmodine (see our previous post here) is now online! Check it out below...

La pension Esmodine - Episode 7 by -CMP-

(Thanks to Aymeric Pelzer)