Reviews

"The Call of Cthulhu" is a faithful low-budget movie adaptation of the 1926 short story of the same name by H.P. Lovecraft. The original 1926 "Cthulhu" spawned the "Cthulhu Mythos," which has in turn spawned a host of stories, games, movies, and websites, all revolving around "Cthulhu". However, though the film is faithful to the original story, it lacks the sense of cosmic horror from the original. Nevertheless, it is an admirable effort.

The original story by H.P. Lovecraft remains intact in this film. Without revealing any spoilers, the story concerns the discovery of an ancient religion, perhaps the "true" religion, around a creature called "Cthulhu", who lies dead/alive and dreaming somewhere under the ocean. Cthulhu is completely malevolent, and the best that his worshipers can hope from him/it is indifference. The "cosmic horror" and the greatness of Lovecraft's original tale is that he makes the existence of Cthulhu plausible, and that right now... today... if the stars are right... Cthulhu could rise and reclaim the world again. Really. Right now. Today.

The 2005 "Cthulhu" is really good. There are great dream sequences that evoke the 1919 film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari". There is an incredible amount of attention paid to detail, so that if a scene takes place in 1908, it looks like 1908, and if it takes place in 1925, it looks like 1925. And in many scenes, the black and white adds to the "horror", by making everything dark. The music by Fifer, Holbrook, Neis, and Pavkovic should be singled out for special praise, it sets up a psychological dimension of horror that enhances the movie.

However, the film comes across as ultra-low-budget, and that harms it. Additionally, and for not entirely convincing reasons, the producers decided to make this movie adaption of "The Call of Cthulhu" a black and white silent film, complete with subtitles. They call this the "Mythoscope" process, where they mix 1920's style film-making with modern digital composting and editing. This results in many scenes that are not convincing.

For example, Inspector Legrasse's raid of the swamp starts out very promising, but the actual battle scenes between the police and the Cthulhu cultists are very fake looking, and I never got a sense of the COSMIC HORROR of that swamp scene, whereas Lovecraft's depiction of it from an eyewitness at the scene, still raises a chill: "He indeed went so far as to hint of the faint beating of great wings, and of a glimpse of shining eyes and a mountainous white bulk beyond the remotest trees, but I suppose he had been hearing too much native superstition."

The scenes with "The Alert" (a small ship) look too much like a model.

Worst of all though, is the obvious puppet that is meant to be Cthulhu. The Cthulhu puppet never really looks any taller than 2-3 feet high, and the stop-motion photography that animates him is clumsy, even amateurish.

The sense of horror that this story is supposed to evoke – that there is an ancient, malevolent, yet true religion waiting out there to destroy, or at best enslave all humans – is missing. Cthulhu comes across as a silly, stop-motion sea-gargoyle, who might be able to scoop up a few humans in his "flabby claws", but is no real threat to anyone, a few machine guns could take him down… Enough with criticizing the movie. I do it with love, in the hope that if the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, or HPLHS, ever makes another movie based on one of the master's stories, they will evoke his sense of "Cosmic Horror" to a greater extent. This is a good first effort, and one that I will show my friends. But what I'm really looking forward to is the second movie the HPLHS makes, I'm sure it will be much better, now that these indie guys have more experience. Good work though, and great effort! I give it 8 out of 10.

"The Village" is just awful. I feel like I was suckered into giving up $20 by Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan himself, and that he should personally apologize to my wife and I for tricking us into watching this awful film. Since that's not going to happen, first I will rant, and then go into some well-marked spoilers.

*RANT*

This film promises one thing and delivers something completely different. I was fooled by the advertising campaign, I thought this was a HORROR film, not a nearly two-hour long episode of the Twilight Zone (and not a very good one either).

Ron's Howard's daughter's acting really sucks! She's the "blind girl," but until she tells the audience she's blind, you'd never know it. She looks right at people, runs through fields without tripping, etc. Her emotional range is so limited that I thought she was autistic as well (but that's just bad acting).

All I can say is DON'T SEE THIS MOVIE. It is a waste of time and money, and most likely, you'll feel ripped-off. Buy not the ticket, it will show you the bad movie.

***SPOILERS AHEAD*** ***SPOILERS AHEAD*** ***SPOILERS AHEAD***

Warning: Don't read what follows unless you've seen the movie or don't care if certain scenes are spoiled for you.

The premise of this film is that in the 1970's a professor and some other folks are part of some "recovery group" for people who have lost loved ones to violent crime. So he gets a forest preserve (somehow), prevents planes from flying over it (somehow). In the center is The Village built on a glen and fields, and surrounding the fields is a forest, and surrounding the forest is a tall wooden fence, which is patrolled by guards in jeeps. Who pays for all this? Who cares.

The professor sets up this village so the people of the recovery group can live in "innocence". Supposedly there will be no crime or violence. However, he and the "elders", the original members of the recovery group, decide that the best way to keep the generation of kids that will be born in the village away from the outside world is to fill the woods with "Those We Do Not Speak Of", essentially were-porcupines who wear red robes. The were-porcupines are actually the elders, taking turns being "Those We Do Not Speak Of". 25 years or something goes by from when they set up this Village, so now, in 2004, The Village is filled with a new generation that knows nothing of the outside world.

Now, I paid money to watch a HORROR movie. I was very curious as to what the creatures in the woods were. I was hoping the villagers would get tired of being bullied by these creatures, and would rise up against them, but they would be going up against tough supernatural creatures, so the battle would be long, exciting, tense... we'd learn more about these creatures, their origins, religion, society, etc. But I wanted above all to see a SUPERNATURAL THRILLER, what I felt the trailer promised. Instead it was an episode of the Twilight Zone. You can almost hear Rod Serling: "For man has only one real enemy to fear. It is man himself." Aw geez, gimme a break!

Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan's script is just bad. The film begins with scenes from The Village, where everyone is talking in this fake sounding 1890's American English. No one, and I mean NO ONE ever spoke American English this way. If this is supposed to be particular to The Village, then okay, but if this is supposed to be reflective of 1890's speech, give me a break. Shymanlan should have read "McTeague" or another famous novel from the 1890's to get some kind of flavor of how people spoke in those days.

Adrian Brody is just WASTED here as the village idiot. This is the guy who one the Best Actor award for "The Pianist", remember? He could have been working on a real project instead of this tripe. And if he is the village idiot, how does he know how to find his parents' were-porcupine costume, put it on, escape from a locked room, and find the EXACT location of Ron Howard's daughter in the woods? Did he have GPS?

Eventually, The Village would rebel against the creatures, regardless of hurt. They are just a bunch of were-porcupines, there's no way they could stand up against an entire Village determined to kill these vermin once and for all!

Why aren't the kids in The Village more curious about the creatures? How come none of them have ever stumbled upon their parents dressing up in a were-porcupine suit? Isn't it odd to the kids that on some nights their parents disappear, then appear tired in the morning?

Also, there's no way the fake "joy" in The Village could be sustained over a course of years. The kids, especially the teenagers, would get bored and rebellious. Even some of the adults would want out, and once on the outside, they'd open their big fat mouth and tell the world about this Village.

Boring, unconvincing, just plain bad. Steer clear of this Village.