Cool News
Ron Howard to turn from the Bible to the Necronomicon? The Old Ones are pleased!!!
Hey folks, Harry here... The idea of an H.P. Lovecraft film coming from the man that conjures thoughts or cardigans, fishing poles and the America of yore... well, it tickles me. The idea that the director of these culty Dan Brown adaptations is turning his talents to the world of H.P. Lovecraft is crazy to ponder. And yet, that's exactly what Variety is telling us.
Now - technically, Ron isn't doing this quite yet - it's a deal with Universal and Imagine Entertainment with the intent of being a Ron Howard project. And TECHNICALLY this isn't even H.P. Lovecraft - it's the Image Comics property, THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF H.P. LOVECRAFT. Which basically has the nightmares and horrors of his writings basically unleashed upon the world. Now - none of us can really judge if this material does our fave horror writer justice, as this is one of those cases of a Comic being sold to become a movie before it has hit the stands. Which is coming this April 9th apparently.
Sounds interesting - if Ron Howard does end up directing this - this may end up being the first big Mainstream film to openly display the big scary fun that occupies the Lovecraft universe. Personally, I would prefer if Guillermo Del Toro's AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS was first - but hopefully Ron's film will prime the pump and help Guillermo get his greatest masterpiece made. (if you read the script, you'd be as enthusiastic as me!)
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cause he doesn't know how to do it.
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Get Opie away from Cthulhu please!
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Was doing the Evil Dead remake.
But only for a second... -
deserves someone as genius with film as he was with words. If this goes any further it could seriously damage the cinematic possibilities inherent in Lovecrafts work. They'll do what they did to PKD in the way they took his head fuck sci-fi masterpieces about lonely people and turned them into star-vehicle chase movies. A similar mutation could occur if this guy is allowed to do this. I really hope I'm wrong.
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Mar 26, 2009 2:20:02 AM CDT
Yeah, everyone wants that tedious little ginger suburban mediocr
by sepulchrave
...to engage with the Great Old Ones: Gee whizz and Yuggoth and Nyarlathotep and all that. Worst news in ages. Guys hasn't got a dark, decadent or neurotic bone in his little boneless body.
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...have been that little silent call of Cthulhu made by those film students and the trailer for their upcoming (we hope and pray) Whisperer in Darkness. I hope Ron Howard gets dragged into the seething black void by unspeakable tentacles.
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Takes four AAA batteries.
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Lovecraft was a frequently horrible writer. Dreadful passages and purple nonsense. 'Unspeakable things' that he then proceeds to speak of for pages and pages. But he was mad, and focused and he has the inexorable power of the obsessive to drag his listeners into his deranged imaginings. it's like visiting a madman in an asylum; you seem cut off from the normal, reasonable world for a while.
And Howard is the normal, reasonable world of profit and script, smooth production and delivery on time and under budget. Wrong. -
The best Lovecraft-Movie-Not-Written-By-Lovecraft ever made.There's a shop near my office called 'Lovecraft' that sells sex toys, incidentally. HP must be spinning in his grave over that one.
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Im not a huge fan of Mr. Ron Howards and I'd definitely want to see Guillermo's first but having Ron direct this will bring a classiness to this film that I think it deserves.
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Poster: An aging Fonzie with a shotgun stares at tentacles emerging from clouds of fog.Tagline: "These Are Not Happy Days."
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The best Lovecraft-Movie-Not-Written-By -Lovecraft ever (re)made.
I don't think Lovecraft's stories translate to the screen particularly well... maybe because most of his stories are pretty thin on characterisation.
Also, because so much of his work deals with vast cosmic things which drive men insane, its difficult to capture that unless the filmmaker is a real visionary. The sad thing is that all it seems to take nowadays to pass as Lovecraftian, is tentacles. -
Is Hollywood sucking the superhero dry, and now onto the next thing? That's gonna suck if we end up getting some half-baked twilight with tentacles bullshit for profit.
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...but this piques my interest, if only to say that I'm not entirely sure I would trust this to Ron Howard. I think JuanSanchez up above is correct; Howard's strength is life dramas, but then again, who knows. My problem, as a hardcore Lovecraft fan, is that Howard has had little if any experience with the darker side of fantasy. Lovecraft has always been devilishly hard to film. his works do not lend themselves well to visualization. I don't know if Howard has the ability of, say, del Toro, with the maturer, darker side of fantasy. This ain't "Willow" or "Splash." Lovecraft's milieu is mind-shattering, cosmic fantasy, not lighthearted, everything's-okay-in-the-end Hollywood stuff. We'll see. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, I guess, but I'm more interested in ATMOM.
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I don't understand why this story hasn't been turned into a movie (i'm talking big movie, not fan project here) yet. It reads like a movie script. Put in a love story for god's sake to please some cautious producers and just film it.
BTW CLOVERFIELD is a great Lovecraftian movie, the best in years. -
he aint that fuckin great. why does he automatically get a pass on anything he does? or anything he thinks of doing. i hope his midget movie is as shitty as the watchmen.
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Not nearly as good as the first Hellboy, which wasn't exactly a classic. Cronos and Pan's were cool though.
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no love?
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He's a very capable filmmaker, but I feel he's too nice to go to those places.
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Ronnie will have a hard time topping those.
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and that was pretty awful. He tried dealing with dark stuff and magic and it just didn't work.
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big screen 5-hour epic, multiple sequels! make it so.
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great made for cable flick.
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...equals bland. Very bland. Go get a paint by numbers Lovecraft book and that's what this will be.
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I was with you re: the inexplicably, obscenely overrated Del Toro, right up until you took a dump on one of the best movies in recent memory. Watchmen kicked ass to hell and back, and I'll defend it to the eye teeth. So, my friend, you are cordially invited to chew on a prick, suck on a dick and have a clit-ring nailgunned to that pussy you laughingly refer to your mouth.
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Ply them with megabucks for the job, MEGA...BUCKS... make it in digital 3D (3D haters - eat me), and have them unleash the God of all horror movies.
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From Beyond & Reanimator - big love for those babies, and I'm a pretty big fan of the part 3 of the 1993 Necronomicon film (the other two stories in the pic were okay, great effects, but there wasn't the same sense of blood-curdling menace).
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ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
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In his most terrifying episode yet, he visits Harlem.
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In the Mouth of Madness.
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Ron Howard, next to Wes Craven, the most overrated director ever. He's a good judge of material, and he directs actors well, but he has no vision, no style, no substance. The eeriest, most atmospheric thing Howard's ever done is COCOON. I'd prefer to see someone who has proven themselves capable of directing otherworldly monsters. A Howard Lovecraft I'm afraid will be about as tame as a Columbus Harry Potter movie. Glossy and one dimentional. I bet Terry Gilliam could pull off a really good Lovecraft picture. Anyone who doubts that hasn't seen TIDELAND. I also think anyone of the 3 amigos could pull it off. Especially Guillermo with Gaimen as a consultant.
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Mar 26, 2009 6:44:33 AM CDT
Interesting news! You guys can join richpassion.com to meet a s
by iamalice1
Interesting news! You guys can join richpassion.com to meet a sexy&hot girl or a wealthy guy for love or for fun!
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What a great fucking movie, and agreed probabaly the best lovecraft story not written by him, oh how i wish carpenter would return to his early 80's style of filmmaking...and for fucks sake make a third escape movie before kurt russel dies
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i also agre we need a fucking edit button, or else you get idiots like me posting twice and clogging up the TB
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I respect Ron Howard...but it dont get better than From Beyond
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when this sucks, which it most likely will studios will go lukewarm about Lovecraft, this could really hurt in the mountains of madness, or any future films from being made.
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for obvious reasons
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They are both works of fiction.
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Not cinematic at all. I'd rather see Del Toro do CALL OF CTHULHU, THE DUNWICH HORROR or SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH. You know, none of these horror films ABOUT Lovecraft and the Elder Gods coming out of his fiction, either. Just straight up make a modern adaptation, or even a great period piece from one of his stories. CTHULHU you'd have to start with adding a couple of central characters to take us on the tour of world wide madness.
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You're not Professor Hubert J Farnsworth from Futurama, are you? Now fuck off before we find you and kick your balls right through your skull.
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He out-sucks Uwe Boll. His direction is waaayyy too dramatic and amaturish, reminds me of a film student that never evolved.
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Not cinematic? Vast mountains of the Antartic? Desperate men in fear for their lives deep beneath Arctic ice? Ancient races and effing shoggoths? Put down the bong, son.
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Mar 26, 2009 7:45:01 AM CDT
Doesn't Del Toro have like 15 projects lined up?
by we_are_trapper_keeper
Is his "Madness" movie something that might actually get made or just a "dream project"? I read somewhere he wanted to make Hellboy 3 after the Hobbit.
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A lot of the later historical events (especially from the Babylonian captivity forward through the Maccabean (spelling?) revolt) in the Old Testament have been corroborated by other sources. Some colleges (and I don't mean Liberty) even have history courses based on a secular historical reading of the bible.
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Seriously, compare their faces. You know there's no other choice.
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Buddy where are you? Let's hear the Cthulhu Dance.
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Mar 26, 2009 8:22:31 AM CDT
The Da Vinci Code features the city of Paris, which is REAL!
by dogstardude
Therefore, it is not fiction.
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Give Opie a chance!
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zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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I mean WILLOW! it was... well... Hrrm. willow?
anybody? -
That is fucked up, whatever you may think of Howard's films, he is nowhere CLOSE to being the talentless hack that Boll is. That is probably the most absurd comparison I have ever seen anyone make, and yes I like Howard's films.
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Mar 26, 2009 8:44:18 AM CDT
there's a loooooot of untapped potential with Lovecraft
by the amazing g
I'm talking shit your pants scary, but with an epic "tent pole" scale, done right it could own all your asses
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sure he's not my favorite director, but he's a solid guy and he's directed a great range of movies (something I respect)
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A Beautiful Mind is one of the worst Best Picture winners. It's a bad movie. Period. I liked Apollo 13, but only for the subject matter, not Howard's pedestrian direction.
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Well, I'm not sure if Ron Howard's the guy for a project of this sort. And, honestly, I've never had much faith in Image to create a decent horror anthology; so, even the source material may be a wash. The best I can say about Howard is that he's competent. But I think I can safely say we need more than competent on a flick like this. I've always seen the CTHULU picture in my head being more like an anthology period piece taking place in the Arkham community, perhaps utilizing the lead from CALL OF CTHULU to be doing investigations into several cases, using Angell and LeGrasse as the rap arounds that lead into a number of stories ranging from SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH to NYARLETHOTEP to DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE to THE HAUNTER OF THE DARK...etc. I'd pick about 6 stories that fit well. (Yes, I know INNSMOUTH and WITCH HOUSE were pretty well covered by Stuart Gordon--Liked DAGON. Hated WITCH HOUSE.) Then I'd end it with our hero discovering the story of Johansen and his ill-fated crew in the city of R'Lyeh. The trick is, you have to make the waking of Cthulu utterly epic. It can't be just a monster.--Anywho, that's my two bits. ****SPOILER**** That, and if you're going to do a Lovecraft novella, don't do the one with a "scientific" explanation of the Cycle. I love Lovecraft; but he pissed all over his ideas when he did that. It's the rise of the metachlorians of the Mythos. ****SPOILER ENDED**** If anything, I'd rather see Del Toro or Gilliam do DREAM-QUEST OF THE UNKNOWN KADATH.
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tentacle rape, monster rape, human rape the lot, it's the last frontier and you know it.
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isn't Ron Howard Mormon?
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for From Beyond. Nothing beats sucking someone's brains through their eye socket.
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His stories deal with the fringes of sanity and human comprehension... trying to put "unspeakable" things or creatures and geomotries "beyond description" into words is what is so compelling about his writing. He hints at concepts and spurs the readers imagination to formulate what these things may be. The post above sayng H.P was a "...frequently horrible writer" is assinine and ignorant.
In our visually dominated society everything needs to be 'seen' and H.P's works will always be diminished when put to film. They may be cool in their own right but the element of 'otherworldliness' best exemplified in something like 'The Silver Key' is reserved for the intimacy of a book. -
Mar 26, 2009 9:28:00 AM CDT
Lock Opie in a recording studio until Arrested Development movie
by eriamjh
Then he can go back and direct whatever he wants. He's a fine director by Hollywood standards, but Gob Bluth needs to do his illusions on the big screen with some decent Richie Cunningham narration!
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Mar 26, 2009 9:31:14 AM CDT
I thought it was De Camp that tried to rationalize the Mythos
by jarjarmessiah
Saying the Old Ones and the Elder Gods were at war or something.
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More meat on it than MOM for me, loaded with atmosphere and texture. Gordon had a go at it with Dagon, but was let down by a meagre buget and pretty bad actors. Hope Del Torro gets his finger out after the Hobbit and delivers a Lovecraftian nightmare with MOM.
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With a phone to throw in each tentacle! Kudos to Ron Howard for continuing to push himself creatively.
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...H.P.Lovecraft is?...from comic book adaptations? Just wondering. I spent most of my teens and early twenties haunting moldy old used book stores. Lovecraft would usually turn up in crumbling fantasy/horror anthologies but I thought he was a pretty obscure taste...but apparently I was wrong. I always wanted to like Lovecraft more than I did...to be honest I enjoyed Lord Dunsany and Howard more. And Jack Vance I think...with all that dying earth stuff.
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Morbid Angel is pleased.
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These TB's are the worst.
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You perfectly articulated the argument I wanted to make. It is all about the unknown. Rarely do you get a big monster "payoff" in his stories, because you're left uncertain, and thus keeps the fear lingering.
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terrible news.
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just....kinda lame
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I bought a couple of 'Best Of H.P Lovecraft' editions in the early eighties (complete with twisted cover art) and never read any other horror since. Have you read 'Dreams In The Witchouse'?
I haven't read any Jack Vance. Good stuff? -
'They're delicious'.
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Pretty much everything Lovecraft ever wrote is still in print, though largely through Arkham House (small independent publisher). And other authors keep cranking out Cthulhu Mythos anthologies regularly.
There's also a very-long-running successful (by RPG standards) "Call of Cthulhu" tabletop roleplaying game, published by Chaosium.
That being said, most folks *here* probably know of Lovecraft mainly through the "Reanimator" movies, which aren't exactly faithful, to say the least. -
Time to change that fucking Watchmen animation!! Old news!!!
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Fuck yes. Call HR Giger now for the artwork and props.
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Cast a Deadly Spell. Anyone? Anyone?
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gosh dog gonnit. x6
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Reading Lovecraft is great for the journey, not necessarily the arrival. What he was a genius at was ATMOSPHERE -- putting the reader in a blasted and diseased environment; hinting at unfathomable horrors but usually keeping them offstage; building a mounting sense of dread. An HPL movie, in the CGI era of the 21st-century, is going to be mostly about tentacles, I fear. Ron Howard is a competent filmmaker who, I'm sure, could turn in a competently-made, Spielbergian PG-13 monster movie. To do Lovecraft right, you need a technically competent director who's also a little whacked in the head. David Lynch is very good with creepy material, and "creepy," rather than "shit your pants scary," would be the right approach. I think he could do a pretty good job, especially if the film isn't going to be based specifically on an HPL story.
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...those who seek will always find of course. I've just been surprised to hear the term "Lovecraftian" tossed around willy nilly recently. Jack Vance was one of those pulp writers from the 40's and 50's...I'm mostly familiar with his "dying earth" stuff...stories set in a sparsely populated planet Earth far in the future...lit by a slowly dying sun...vegetation taking over layer after layer of crumbling futuristic civilizations...technology has become an alchemy like fusion of science and magic...that sort of thing. I wouldn't call it literature or anything, but I have a soft spot for the best of the old pulp stories.
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Please, let's finally have a decent Innsmouth adaption...
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Mar 26, 2009 11:28:23 AM CDT
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn OPIE!!!
by thefuckingcreepythinman
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They could probably save some cash and just run an audio book tour...I'd still be interested in seeing a 'What Dreams May Come' approach to the Dream-Quest, though.
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There's MANY good Lovecraft stories but I would personally recommend The Dreams In The Witch House...one of my personall faves which has all the elements that made him so prolific.
Just Google "H.P Lovecraft online" and you can read all of his works online. -
he does hacky, sure bet wide appeal movies and never takes a real creative risk...and if you call him out he uses his charm to make you look like a jerk. F HIM AND HIS SHIT MOVIES!!!
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AICN already reviewed this!
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/37816#5 -
F YOU AND YOUR SHIT TAKE ON MOVIES!!!
Apollo 13 is a fine film. -
I disagree. Vast landscapes, ancient ruins, arctic mountains passes, airplanes, dog sleds, murder, mystery, aliens, giant blind penguins...it would be a beautifully cinematic film. Who ever did it would just have to scrap the past tense, memoir approach to telling the story, and just put us right into it as it happens. Course, they would also have to add some element to build characterization, which, as was mentioned above, not one of HP's strengths. HP's stories are perfect for movie making...just the right amount of source material, with plenty of leg room for a director to get creative.
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had the same edge of sanity / horror to it as Lovecraft, until the end. Not really even a "Lovecraftian" story, but same vibe. I like some of what Howard does, but I doubt that he could pull off Lovecraft. Hardly any directors could though. We'll have to wait and see what the comic is.
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Get ready for Cthulhu's giant green dong!
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...Cthulhu is out of the Lovecraft script. It was decided audiences would laugh at a giant, extra-dimensional squid. Instead humanity is menaced and driven mad by a noiseless ball of expanding blue-colored energy that destroys cleanly, leaving no messy human body parts, nor even charred corpses, in it's wake.
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not better then RE-ANIMATOR or FROM BEYOND but it's my favorite Gordon film.
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Mar 26, 2009 12:11:26 PM CDT
RON HOWARD WOULD BE BETTER FOR THE CATS OF ULTHAR
by thefuckingcreepythinman
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He proved that with Willow. And much of lovecrafts Mythos encompasses Dark fantasy so I think Ron Howard would be a sound choice. Though I'd love to see Lynch tackle Lovecraft territory. Madness indeed!
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...The Thing is in fact the best Lovecraft story put to film that isn't Lovecraft. Every aspect of that film screams Lovecraft. The most important of which is the isolation, which means it's paramount that a film based on one of his stories has to be a period piece.
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There simply is no way to represent the images conjured by reading the stories. Unless somehow a fil maker can tap into the darkest corners of ever viewers personal imagination, any Lovecraft movie will be tinged with disappointment.
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OBVIOUSLY a film about exploring Antarctica in the 1920s is a TOTALLY different from a film about exploring it today. I'M SURE GDT AND THE SUITS AND UNDERSTAND THIS.... Right? RIGHT? Honestly I'm not sure anyone currently working in Hollywood with the required clout could do this film justice. It's in the same league as Watchmen and LoTR in terms of difficulty of adaption. GDT seems like a good idea, but then I imagine him making a AtMoM film filled with contemporary high-tech gadgetry and the jokey tone of Hellboy 2 and it makes my heart sink.
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And to really fuck with people, have the narrator played by Jude Law and his associate played by Robert Downey Jr.
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Fucking hack.
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...and Under the Hood last night on On Demand. Kee-rist! Snyder even managed to royally F-up the side projects!
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get David Cronenberg to do it. That man has an eye for the crazy.
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I like In the Mouth of Madness and Re-animator. Would like to see a Lovecraft adaptation, and not a movie where Lovecraft is a character. Yes, he was racist so the visit to Harlem would be his most terrifying adventure. No, I don't consider CLOVERFIELD a Lovecraftian flick.
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Ron Howard is shitty.
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Because of The Devil's Backbone.
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Or a straight adaption?
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I got into Lovecraft after watching Re-Animator and finding out it was "based" on a story of his.
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Not sure there ever can be one. Del Toro may get close...but you know he'll come up with cool creatures and stuff like this...but the moment you show something, it fails. Why? Because Lovecraft was about creatures we couldn't comprehend...how can you design a creature in Zbrush or whatever and have if uncomprehensable? Also, the Mythos is full of geometry that's suppose to be "wrong angles" and such...again, how can you portray that at all because the little idiots out there will be all "this movies sucks, you didn't see any kewl creatures or shit". It was the little idiots that took a great movie like the original "The Haunting"...which didn't show any creatures or ghosts and was a very scary movie...and updated it with KEWL SPECIAL EFFECTS d000dz!!!!1!", which of course stank up the screen. I say good luck to Del Toro or Ron Howard, but let's face it, it won't capture the essence that's Lovecraft. And I don't care how great the script is for "At the Mountain's of Madness"...it's still talking about things that can't be described, yet they'll get their Zbrush artists to work now and of course they'll fail.
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Ron has to put his midget brother in everyone of his fucking movies. "Frost/Nixon" was a near perfect movie, except for Clint Howard being in it. Ron Howard is a very good director, but he needs to stop supporting his brother's career by putting him in movies he doesn't deserve to be in. It's taking away work from people who know how to act. Get your own work, Clint.
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As well as (natch) Re-Animator and From Beyond. As for the shout out for In the Mouth of Madness - I frickin' love that flick. Really underated. And can't way for the Blu-Ray...
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its true.
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And since The Wraith is such a fantastic movie, we should not begrudge Ron for wanting such a cachet actor for his movies.
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that's been sitting in my room without a fingerprint on it for months now.
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now, that I think of it I didn't need to buy so many Spider-Man dildo(e)s in the great Super-Hero Dildo Fad of 1999.
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no one's mentioned David Fincher? Sounds like a natural...
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Want to see some tentacles and not opposed to Howard (despite Willow) as he can make a solid movie, but obviously not the first person that springs to mind... Cronenberg would be good, Paul Thomas Anderson... if the script is good then fuck it, I'm on board!
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As others have mentioned, Lovecraft is uneven and his works fragmented and incomplete. You get a sense that he had a much larger, more cohesive mythology that he never finshed where by contrast Howard's mythology is much more viable and complete.
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every story ends with an exclamation point!
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are they making a movie of that? That was pretty good. And it had Lovecraft in it.
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"The Shadow Over Mayberry", "The Rats in the Walls of Arnolds Drive-In"
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I saw it in the theater three times and was blown away by the film. It's a great little flick with copious amounts of metafiction, Lovecraft, and a great performance by Sam Neil, who is able to convey a steely, cool demeanor and batshit crazy equally well.
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But "Ron Howard to turn from the Bible to the Necronomicon?" Really? The Bible? How in the fuck is The Da vinci Code the Bible? Atheists! All of you! Hes coming for you!! He will watch you all burn!! And when I say 'He' I mean Harry. He will watch you burn and than eat you.
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Great little story. Especially with Sherlock's return.
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Clint Howard is a Hollywood legend and a winner of the MTV Lifetime Achievement Award!!. The greatest B-actor of our time!
Show some respect! -
Seriously? This premise sounds like Jumanji or Zathura meets HP Lovecraft.Not too pleased with this at all.I'd much rather hear of Ron Howard or ANYONE adapting one of Lovecraft's short stories instead.
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He's not batting a thousand, but Howard can make some great stuff. I just think he's too "nice" to make something that should be creepy and disturbing. Apollo 13 is one of those movies that if I start watching one scene I flip past on TV, I can barely get myself to turn it off. The DaVinci Code does, however, blow. But for some reason I have a feeling Angels and Demons could turn out good.
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needs to comeback and do this, not fucking opie!
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Tim Burton would be the visionary to do this. Alan Rickman as HPL.
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Admit it: post-stroke Floyd was right out of a Lovecraft story.
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In no way does that equal TOTAL FUCKING DESTRUCTION. Maybe next time.
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Mar 26, 2009 7:36:02 PM CDT
anyone else read the title of this article and briefly think...
by glenn_the_tool
...that Ron Howard was going to be directing Evil Dead 4?
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Have we learned nothing from Watchmen? We regularly lambast the studios for not making bold choices. Zach comes along with one of the most uncommercial, over-the-top, sincere adaptations of a beloved work, and we fail to support it. My point is not that Watchmen was the best, or most accurate, adaption, but that it was a lovingly created work made specifically for us. Shall we do the same to Ron Howard? Although his filmography doesn't suggest a strong affinity for this material, we should support and congratulate him for making a courageous step. ANYTHING with Lovecraft is never a sure fire win. Howard's work in "Beautiful Mind" and the "Da Vinci Code" show that he is at least interested in madness and the occult. Box office success on this project will allow Joe Sixpack to become aware of this widely unknown niche of American fiction. This, in turn, will open the door to all sorts of smaller, interesting works, that have the potential to be closer to "source". So, give Howard his shot. A more accessible, conventional story will pull in a new generation of readers and fans. Lovecraft is damnably hard to portray on screen in the first place, as the discussion so far illustrates. Looking at the comic's site, it appears the story may be a pretty linear sequence of setpieces with various Lovecraftian monsters. Exult in the fact that a mainstream director is even willing to consider such a project. If we help it succeed, stranger, mind-blasting tales of unsettling non-Riemann geometry are sure to follow. The goal, of course, is to create a work of Lovecraftian-mythos horror of the same power as the Exorcist was for Christian-mythology horror. You will note, fellow traveler, that the best horror works are smaller works with more creative freedom. So do your part, fellow nerd, and let's help the stars get right. Cthulu phtagn!
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Just let Del Toro do Mountains.
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If I know Hollywood like I know my Hollywood, If this Lovecraft Howard Project is a success, Hollywood would totally miss the point and hire brett ratner to direct Call of Chthulu.
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Also, why does he feel compelled to use words like "tickled". Don't want that image in my head.
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it's true! as someone who has actually had a LOVECRAFTian story published (THE HOLE - ZAHIR TALES, spring 2005), i feel qualified to say that the only good thing that can come from this is to jump-start DEL TORO. but then, ANGELS AND DEMONS could change my mind
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His english-language movies are horrible. I'm so happy he's not the only one writing the Hobbit, because if he was it would be garbage.
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...fucking rules!!!
That scene w/ the old guy on the bike that speaks in a kid's voice STILL gives me the heebedee-jeebees! -
They tried to blend it with a whole gay subtext, which was interesting but ultimately just distracted from the real story. A very strange movie that I thought actually did the atmosphere and un-namable horror thing well, but was marred by poor acting, amateurish lighting and some terrible haircuts.
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Is this a joke? That's a twisted inter-species crossbreeding even Lovecraft couldn't dream up. I don't see how it could be a good thing, even if AKLO did the soundtrack.
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..They just want to rain on Del Toro's parade.
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on their RealD 3D glasses at the end moment and bombard them with incomprehensible, mind bending images.Seriously, though, say what you will about Howard, he sure knows how to pick hot ladies for his flicks (or have his wife squeeze out a hottie).
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If ever there was a filmmaker and author that could share a bond together it's these two.
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The difference between a mister ron howard and a mister John Carpenter is production values.
Yes, In the Mouth of Madness is a masterpiece.
But if we have Tom Hanks losing is mind to tentacled horrors-think how good that would be for the whole world!
You people are all good with the naysaying and second-guessing-what are you a bunch of democrats?!?
What i want to see is a goddamned tentacle Apocalypse film production with a BIG budget that leaves many many people horrified by the spectacle!
You negative whiners are dissing a professional-the guy who made freakin Apollo 13!
Imagine apollo 13 meets HP lovecraft and i say hell yeah
The only thing wrong with watchmen was the catastrophic miscast of ozymandais.
Danny Glovers DickBlood-can i get a hell yeah?
As well-malin whatsherface was hot as hell as silk Spectre in watchmen-who was also featured in the new maxim!
haters get a life!
Your snivelling diatribes begin to annoy me :-) -
STFU-my bad :-)
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Houston we got a AHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOO AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH
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Just like Hollywood to follow what others have been doing for awhile. www.fewdio.com
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Really don't want this to happen. How the smeg can Howard do this any justice at all?
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It just doesn't jibe.
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Clint would be lucky to be a Z-movie actor without his brother Ron. He would be lucky if he could get work in a late night Cinemax movie. More than likely he would be doing a Reality TV show and appearing in some infomercials, or he would be a regular cast member on "Craprica". Do you understand me, DoctorWhore?
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that's such a wonderful idea, I could cry.
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It's called sarcasm. I should have known from your other postings that you don't have the intellectual capacity to pick up on such subtlety.
My bad. -
In the Mouth of Madness??? It definitely had a wannabe Lovecraft feel during parts.
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Apt description!!!
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... would indeed be a nice property for filming, as several people have already pointed out. Problem is, there's not enough plot there to support a feature-length movie. What WOULD be cool is a cable TV series of Lovecraftian stories, "Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos" or somesuch. "A Study in Emerald" would be perfect in a format like that, along with recent fiction like "Jihad over Innsmouth" and "A Colder War." Somebody get on the blower with TNT or HBO!
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Such a great flick. Seriously, Sam Neill is one of my favorite genre actors. This, Event Horizon, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, the man kills in each of them. Of course, Re-Animator and From Beyond are awesome. Whoever said 'Dagon'-you're cool. Solid little movie. This, tho: Never Happen. Oh, and 'Chinatown Death Cloud Peril'- Great book. Go read it, all of you.
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Hated it. Easily my least favorite story in the Sherlock/Lovecraft anthology I read (Shadows over Baker Street?) Then again, I'm not much of a Gaiman fan. American Gods and Good Omens are great, the rest I can take or leave. Feel free to roast me over open coals.
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A man who has lived and breathed the entertainment industry for 40 plus years? TWICE the average age of most of you?
Ron Howard directed Cocoon. Cocoon was a fantastic genre film. Ron Howard is efficient, delivers on time and on budget, and has his hand in alot of genre classics.
All of you dissing on such a consumate professional can kindly wrap your car around a tree and burn and rot in hell. -
with some of you God damn people.
It's called transference. You're so jaded and cynical with life you try to exert your innate pessimistic attitudes and self-loathing misery on every aspect of life including film appreciation, and film tastes. So when a film isn't basically god damn GORE porn or filmed so dark you can't see shit but shadows, it "isn't worth a shit." That's fucking sad. That's completely typical of Generation Y'ers. Fatalistic and nihilistic.
Fuck that shit. Give me light airey fantasy. Whimsical. Give me The Neverending Story, E.T., Ben-Hur , Spartacus, give me films with a positive message and vibe filmed in glorious technicolor.
That God damn movie Se7en defined the genre for an entire generation. Fuck that dark, dank, depressing, oppressive modality of film. If you need a constant reminder of how shitty your life is, and actively seek it out in film and entertainment, get your ass off Aint it cool message boards and get in therapy. I bet some of you God damn people can't name 20 films made before 1990. You can always tell someone pissing time off versus a film afficianado and fan. For all of Harry's self-indulgent exercise, the man is a film fan, and it shows. You would think it would get OLD being nihilistic after awhile you know? -
Wait a second, odd-looking man with unnatural swimming ability? My God, The Shadow Over Innsmouth was TRUE!
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I'm afraid I'm not nearly as enthusiastic as Harry. IMO they went overboard on trying to movie it up, and turned it into an Aliens vs. Predator/The Thing hybrid. There are some really great scenes, a few moments that really capture the Lovecraftian sense of horror and foreboding, but they don't come together cohesively, and there's a lot in there that's standard shock-schlock. And the ending is too much, I think.
But I'm all for seeing more Lovecraft on the screen. Now that most of his work is in the public domain I think we can expect to see Cthulhu giving Dracula's record as "most portrayed movie villian" a run for its money. -
The thing is that, with Lovecraft specifically, the theme IS nihilism and impotent hopelessness in the face of cosmic horror. Doing anything else is missing the point.
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Mar 30, 2009 10:06:05 AM CDT
Necronomicon, eh? That explains Chachi's popularity on Happy Da
by mrmysteryguest
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Eventually I think Guillermo will get both of his dreams realized -- he's too stubborn not to -- but I think he'll have to combine them. It makes too much sense.HPL's original story "At the Mountains of Madness" IS uncinematic -- not in the sense of no imagery, but in the near-total lack of any "plot" in the movie storytelling sense. It's like a bad of cool ideas and atmosphere that doesn't hang together (like most of Lovecraft's work).The best adaptation of "Mountains" so far was John Carpenter's THE THING, which extracted all the horrible early stuff in Lovecraft's story (the best part of the story) about the ill-fated Lake Expedition and the discovery of the massacred camp and so on, and then the attack of the Shoggoth at the end was also clearly an inspiration. But what's left to adapt? The other "gods" of the "Mythos"? They don't appear in the story, although they're referred to in the endless bit where the characters are deciphering the reliefs (a dreadfully uncinematic sequence). The giant cyclopean structures in Anarctica? Unfortunately, those showed up in ALIENS VS. PREDATOR. (I suppose that might legitimize this in some studio exec's eyes, since that film made money.Meanwhile, if del Toro wants to make another HELLBOY, he'll probably need a more compelling reason than "The first two movies probably recovered slightly more than their negative cost including marketing." Well, how about pulling in the rest of the Lovecraft audience (the portion that hasn't already paid due homage to the fact that Hellboy is basically a combination of Lovecraft and Dashiell Hammett)?
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