Note: The opinions expressed in this review do not necessarily reflect those of my own...

First Night.

Up for the first night was "The Shunned House" and "Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath".

"The Shunned House" was an Italian import, in English with Italian subtitles. Melds three lovecraft stories into it, taking place in the same run-down house in three different time periods, in a way that all fit together somewhat in the end. Very Surreal, much like a David Lynch movie. Also rather gory, like a "Reanimator" sequel.At times, a little too much (I didn't need to see Miss Zann try to play her wrist arteries like a violin when the violin broke).

Vaguely reminded me of the infamous "Beyond" movies from Italy, shown at the festival a couple years ago. I wonder if the same people were involved or if it was just a coincidence.

The scriptwriter was there to answer questions, though this process was somewhat difficult with his lack of sleep, (speaking a language he was not too fluent in, and his hearing difficulties). Nice guy though.

"Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" was a full on adaptation of the lovecraft fantasy epic of the same name (100 pages in 2 hours). They somehow managed to fit it all in, and very well done (I had reread the original story just before seeing, so nothing was missed ). I particularly liked the fact that Carter's waking self looked much like the old gent.

Voices were rather interesting, in that the cast was obviously small and several characters are assigned to the same actors (except for carter). Many animated shows have this problem (Watch Family Guy, Southpark or the Simpsons for long enough and you'll notice it). Also in the fact that all Ghouls have male voices, and all vools and cats have female voices (rather weird when you have one of the cats who is obviously supposed to be male, I believe either the kitten or the grandfather (?)). The biggest surprise of all was the crawling chaos itself, who looks like an Egyptian man, but with a female voice. Though in context it makes sense, considering the Crawling Chaos has many forms. Carter's voice was nicely done though and fit the role perfectly. The music was good as well.

I realize that much of it was just scans of the comic with sounds and occasional animations added, and sometimes very obvious hypercardish animations, but I also realize that unless someone ever decides to fully animate it, this is likely to be the best version ever made. I don't have enough optimism in me to imagine that what happened with Peter Jackson and LOTR will ever occur in my lifetime. Not unless Lovecraft gets a lot more popular among the public at large (actually if the public at large knew who he was at a mention, that would give me faith that there was a chance). Maybe if Del Toro's Mountains of Madness gets made right and is successful, but I have my doubts.

The only complaints I had was that it needed color at times (the dead zebra is the foremost example, where it's really hard to tell there's a wound on it's neck) and at least one of the scenes of the stars looked very much like an animated bitmap. Minor clean up details really, though getting a good artist to perhaps add some vivid color and cleaning up some of the CGI would enhance it.

The creators and a cross section of the cast where there that night and I was able to meet him. He seemed like an interesting guy, though very nervous about his flagship effort. I reassured him that there was nothing to worry about. There wasn't. The audience loved it. I would have liked to see that bit at the end that got cut off after the credits, but I'll get the DVD someday.

Night 2:

I spent all night watching shorts.

The Good:

"Pickman's Model": True to the story, even though rather comical (I believe intentionally so). Rather liked the retro-"black and white" way of filming it. Gives away the ending far too soon, but it was fun to watch, so I'll forgive it. A interesting way to look at it, where if the monster suit is very obviously a monster suit, don't take the shots where it's shown too seriously.

"Don't feed the Book": Animated short about man who walks into an occult bookstore to browse, while sipping a drink. The signs say "No food or drinks". The Necronomican tries to eat him (a nice homage to "Army of Darkness"). He gets kicked out. Short but sweet.

"The Raven": A Poe story, but nicely done. Live action, the bird was a well made puppet. The entire poem was dubbed by a guy who sounded like Kelsey Grammar, and the guy on screen mouthed the spoken parts. Black and white.Short and to the point.

"Cool Air": I've seen it before, but nicely done and true to the story. Good talent.

"Thing on the Doorstep": Faithful, even though done in the modern day setting. Ending changed slightly that you can see coming, but it doesn't detract from the film.

"The Statement of Randolph Carter": Probably the easiest Lovecraft story to do, but it really gets done to death at these festivals, This one was different and funny, being faithful while not taking itself too seriously, also well paced so it didn't drag on forever like some of these adaptations do. The actor playing Warren was amusingly over the top. Made it very watchable and enjoyable.

"The Imperfect Solution": Part of the Herbert West series, nicely done.

"The Picture in the House": Took some liberties with the original story, made it contemporary, but stayed relatively close. You could see the ending comes a ways off, but didn't matter much, as the main character wasn't particularly likeable. The main character spent far too much time running in the woods. 5 minutes when only 30 seconds was needed.

The Bad:

"Beyond the Realm of Consciousness": A film from the UK, had some potential but squandered. Nothing really happens, the characters aren't well defined and the tantalizing hints of something beyond are unexplored (Possibly a Computer Generated R'lyeh).

"Beyond the Wall of Sleep": Faithful, but poor SFX and uninteresting actors did little to keep interest. Flawed.

"Beauty in the Dark": A middle aged guy sits in a room for 15 minutes smoking a cigarette while the camera shows light tricks and a dead squid. At one point he got up and wandered around, then a girl stalked around in the dark without him noticing. I think it was supposed to be an descent into insanity for him, but it seemed more like a cigarette commercial aimed at lovecraft fans. The main character reminded me of Billy Bob Thorten in "The Man who wasn't there".

"The Item": Anime Parody with Sailor Moon-ish girls going after a mysterious item held by the old ones. Interesting, but I didn't particularly like it. Too reminiscent of the Poke'mon/Sailor Moon style of Anime that I'm not a fan of.

"Fungi From Yuggoth: Recognition": Based off one of Lovecraft's poems, showed HPL walking around a forest, being freakily animated (somewhat reminiscent of the old "Dr. Katz" show on Comedy Central) while computer generated feminine-looking trees dance around an alter in the dark. There is dialogue, but most of it is not comprehensible. Had potential but flawed.

"Casonetto's last song": Started out good with the newspaper clippings leading up to the story at end, but then goes to a grainy video that is tolerable, but nothing more. Characters are rather stupid ("A guy who swore revenge on me and was into black Magik sent me a package? Of course, I'll open it".) and not particularly great actors. Nice soundtrack though, with the Haunting "Requiem to the Black mass" . Based off a Robert E. Howard story, though having never read it, I don't know if the story had the same flaws or not.

"Pickman's Model": Made in Italy. Rather poor, with bad translation through most of the movie. The ghouls were also unimpressive. However, there is a bright side, which is the set design (choice?). It really does look like how Pickman described the North end of Boston and one of the best lovecraftian locations I've ever seen.

Night 3:

Night 3 was rather subdued, most people having gone back to get some sleep before going back to work on Monday. Jack Donner was still manning his table, but most of the other vendors/guest had gone home.

Saw "Dark Heritage", an adaptation of the story "The Lurking fear". Rather faithful and could have been so good, but an absurd ending was tacked on. Frankly, the script/actor quality was extremely poor. It's like they hired gas station attendants to star in this, and asked them to ad-lib. The characters were also incredibly stupid ("I'm in a dark creepy mansion with no lights. Campers have been killed not far from here. I hear a noise. Despite the fact there's a huge gun right next to me and I'm supposed to be keeping watch while my buddies sleep, I'll walk off into the dark with a switchblade") and fond of huge guns, without ever showing they actually know how to use one. The main character, a supposed graduate from journalism school, must have cheated his way through, because I don't see how he could have gotten a legitimate degree. Filmed in the end of the 1980's, but looks like mid-1970's. Was unintentionally funny at times. At least one scene predated the Blair Witch Project by a decade. ("Arguing about a map near a creek").

Don't bother ever renting it or watching it unless you really, really want to see every lovecraft film ever made. I never plan to see this movie again, unless to write a MST3K track for it.

People:

Some interesting people showed up, most notably ST Joshi, Lovecraft Scholar Extraordinaire. Also Jack Donner, who was in the "Puppetmaster" movies, "Cool Air' and on an episode of the original Star Trek "The Enterprise Incident", as the Roman Subcommander who kirk stole the cloaking device from.

Also, Bryan Moore, Creator and co-star of "Cool Air". Told the amusing story of how he was able to film "Cool Air" by breaking into the house and filming under rotting timbers and such.

Brian Yunza and Jeffery Combs were supposed to be there, but never showed. I don't know what happened.

It would be interesting someday to show "Army of Darkness" or "The Evil Dead" both of which are vaguely lovecraft related and invite Bruce Campbell to attend. He lives in Oregon, so it probably wouldn't be that hard to get him.

- Cameron Rhyne