Breaking: A Lovecraftian Houdini Film?

Sony pictures is developing a Houdini film with an H P Lovecraft influence.

‘Chronicle’s Max Landis Takes On Sony’s ‘Houdini’ Project

Shameless Plug!

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

Eye Pendants

Online Viewing: The Wrath of Cthulhu

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

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

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

CAST:
Åke Rosén

...with supporting roles by;

Christopher Johansson
Thobias Ericsson
Daniel Lenneér
RichardSvensson

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

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

Announced: Call Girl of Cthulhu

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

More over at Fangoria

Happy New Year!

Online Viewing - The Shadow Out of Time

H P Lovecraft's The Shadow Out of Time

Here at Unfilmable.com we are always scouring the web for new and interesting films, short films and videos. If you haven't yet seen this, it is well worth a look. Put together with great care, this productions shows what can be accomplished with a little budget and a lot of time.

Meanwhile...elsewhere

Rick Lai at the Lovecraft eZine has put together one of the best writeups on the Dark Shadows "Leviathans" storyline that we've ever read. Be warned, this is a pretty in-depth look, and isn't something to casually glance over. At a touch over 14 pages of text, this covers all of the storyline, including the appearance of the Leviathans in the licensed storytelling of Big Finish productions.

Trust us, you REALLY don't want to miss this.

The Collinsport Horror: Dark Shadows and the Cthulhu Mythos

Shameless Plug!

Unfilmable.com founder Craig Mullins has been away. He's been hard at work on a number of writing projects. Well, the next of those project's will be released in January, from Strange House Books.

"Here's the cover for our first release of 2014, Craig Mullins and Drew Von Dred Ozkenel's Re-Animated States of America! With Cover art by Drew Von Dred and Jesse Reid Wheeler, edited by Sean Ferrari! Available January 6th from StrangeHouseBooks.com!"

Announced: The Dreamlands (Die Traumlande)

Having won multiple awards for his first foray into Lovecraft Country, The Color Out of Space (Die Farbe) Writer/Director Huan Vu once again channels the gentleman from Providence with his new film project, the Dreamlands (Die Traumlande). Attempting to make the first ever, feature-length, film focusing on Lovecraft's Dreamlands.  

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

Having first come to fan prominence after the internet leak of his first project, Damnatus, Mr. Vu's first commercially available film took the Lovecraft community by storm and created a great deal of blood. For his latest project, he once again teams up with producer  Jan Roth and Director of Photography Martin Vincent Kolbert in an effort to recapture the mythos-magic of Die Farbe.

We had a chance to catch up with Mr. Vu and ask him a few questions about the forthcoming production.

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Unfilmable: Because you were born in Vietnam, and grew up in a divided Germany, you have said that "borders and limits have always been something to be probed, pushed and contested." With those feelings in mind, do you think that your background might give you a special view and insight into Lovecraft's Dream Cycle?

Huan Vu: Hmm, don't know if I can answer that question... you know it's just a "story", has to be read as tongue in cheek I don't think my background does really give me a special view on Lovecraft's writings I'm just a guy who obviously loves to seek out great challenges, wherever that came from, I don't know.

Unfilmable: This film reunited you with producer Jan Roth and Director of Photography Martin Vincent Kolbert. Obviously, having worked with them before, your existing relationships can certainly give you a head start. How much of an advantage is it that the three of you last worked on another Lovecraft film?

Huan Vu: It was really important for me to team up with large parts of the former Farbe crew again, it just makes sense And since "Die Farbe" received much praise for its beautiful and special cinematography it was out of question not to ask Martin if he would be interested. I have to admit though that he was a bit reluctant in the beginning, since he's not that much into fantasy films, but when he had read my first treatment he could see, that this won't be a sword & sorcerer type of film.

Unfilmable: The plan is to shoot this film in varied locations such as Iceland, Croatia, Turkey with an English-speaking cast. Do you feel that this is going to create any special challenges for the production?

Huan Vu: Those locations are possible destinations, we have seen other film productions like "Game of Thrones" going there to get special landscape shots and so we're considering to spread out and look for suiting locations for our story as well. Iceland has wonderful ash deserts and volcanos, in Croatia you get rocky beaches, in Turkey there are many ruins of Roman, Greek and Byzantine times. It would be awesome to be able to go out and capture those real environments. 

It certainly will be a new challenge for us, since we haven't yet shot anything on a larger scale outside of Germany. But I think with thorough preparation it will be manageable. And we're not planning to go there for months and shooting lots of scenes with lots of actors - just a couple with a small cast and crew.

Unfilmable: If budget and technical constraints were no obstacle, what story would you most like to bring to the screen? What is the "dream project" from the writer of the Dreamlands?

Huan Vu: Perhaps you already know that my first feature film was a Warhammer 40,000 fan film ("DAMNATUS")? - I would really love to go back to that universe and tell a huge sci-fi epic with vast space battles, giant daemons and Gothic cityscapes.

Unfilmable: As a Lovecraft fan, who is your preferred cult-film star? Mark Kinsey Stevenson as "Randolph Carter" or Jeffrey Combs as "Herbert West"?

Huan Vu: Oh, that's a question for co-producer Jan Roth, I think he has watched anything that has "Lovecraft" written on the cover. I know that both films are cult classics, but I still haven't found time to watch them.

<after checking with Jan Roth> 'definitely Jeffrey Combs'.

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To fund this ambitious project, Mr. Vu is reaching out to Lovecraft fans with a crowd-funding effort that is scheduled to begin in March of 2014.

More information about the project, as it becomes available, can be found at the film's website http://www.the-dreamlands.com/

Check out this special teaser from the production blog at http://www.the-dreamlands.com/the-awakening/