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SUNDAY
Sunday mornings are memorable for being "brunch day", where
Andrew and his wife Linda make brunch for all of the Lurkers and their
friends (and Thicket Warren makes us unholy omelettes!). We had Stuart
and Joshi over, the band, plus all the remaining Lurkers, somehow looking
presentable after a night with more debauchery than sleep. We entertained
one another with a fireside chat sipping tea and eating eggs, muffins,
and sausage, telling each other heartwarming stories of morgues, bodies,
murder, and severed heads sent through the US postal service (what do
you THINK we'd talk about over Sunday brunch?). A few hug-filled pictures
later, and many people departed for parts unknown, spreading the disease.
The last holdouts maneuvered to the theater for the last day of films.
Andrew, at this point, could rightfully be classified as a zombie, yet
still he managed to pull everything off. I was looking forward to Sunday,
because I was going to see the remaining short films, screen "The
Yellow Sign" again, and see the SECRET SCREENING. The matinee at
two o' clock was shorts block 1 & 2. The first short block started
with "The House on Dame Street", a neat little CG piece loosely
inspired by "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" that was held
up by customs for last year's fest (it's from Ireland). It looked great,
but I missed the ending. I blame myself. Second was the Night Gallery
episode of "Cool Air", a touching tale of a woman who falls
in love with one Doctor Muñoz, who has managed to avoid death
through a regimen of chemicals and his constant immersion under exceptionally
chill air, maintained by a not-so-reliable air conditioner. It's not
a bad episode, but doesn't quite capture the drama and feeling that
Bryan Moore's stellar version does. See Moore's take instead of this.
Next was "Call of Dagon", a thankfully short piece done in
Flash animation. We only saw two parts of a supposedly longer piece,
so there is not much to comment on. "The Investigators" is
better. Next, a flick called "Necronomicon", running long
at 15 minutes. It was shot for a very low budget, so it was hard to
see anything, the sound was muddled, but I think I got the gist of it:
a man looks for the dreaded book and finds it, but not from the person
he expected to. This is one where the low production values hurt the
end product. I just didn't get it. A valiant effort, though. Following
"Necronomicon" was "The Statement of Randolph Carter",
another low budget video fare that should have been severely edited,
and more importantly, recast. The actor playing Warren wasn't quite
suited to show cosmic horror and fear. There were a few neat effects
in here (opening the tomb, for example, and the audio work), but I must
still side with Andrew Leman's version of "The Statement of Randolph
Carter" which, although also too long, is very atmospheric and
spooky, and mostly faithful to the original story. The basic plot of
"Statement", for those who have not read the story, is about
a guy who goes down into a tomb and leaves his friend on the surface
with a two-way radio, and his friend gets to hear the screaming and
shrieking of his pal&and the thing that caused those horrid cries.
Having already seen block two of shorts, I took a break and hung out
in the dealer's room for a bit, breaking for dinner a little early.
I returned for the last (long) leg of the festival, starting with Shorts
Block Three. There were six great "bumpers" in block three,
little 60 second or so shorts by Blood Everywhere Productions, apparently
two FEMALE Lurkers (Lurkettes? WHY weren't they at the festival?!?)
Anyway, each was a pun on a title of a Lovecraft story, like "The
Whore and Red Hook" (instead of "The Horror at Red Hook")
where a prostitute sits with a case of Red Hook lager, or a bleeding
answering machine and a plea from a demonic voice to "call me",
being "The Call of Cthulhu." They were shot very low budget,
but short and creative enough to get a ton of laughs. I recommend doing
stuff like this for new filmmakers trying to get into the festival:
as short as possible, funny always helps. The first big short (oxymoron?)
was "Madness from The Sea", an experimental style piece that
was like an animatic, or series of still photographs, with some movement
within them, and a spooky soundtrack (without much, if any, dialogue).
It looked great, but I don't know what happened. My attention waned
about five minutes into it, and it was 12 minutes long. According to
the program book, this is about a storm that brings up a mysterious
island from the sea, stranding a ship, and leading the sailors to some
horrible end inside the island's temple. Next came "The Evil Clergyman",
a modern take on the Lovecraft story. Low budget, shot on video, which
could have been redeemable if the end didn't have an unexplained shot
of some Trick or Treating kids, and a better lit climax. A good attempt.
The last short I saw was called "Gnosis", by Shawn Owens,
who also attended the festival. Shawn and his partner were taping a
documentary on H.P. Lovecraft, and interviewed a bunch of Lurkers. Look
for that at some point. Their film, "Gnosis", is more Gothic
and occult-ish than Lovecraftian, but I thought it was good for a no-budget
first film. Again, it ran long, but the concept and execution were good
enough that I could see some thought went into this. In "Gnosis",
the lead singer of a Goth band casts a spell on his birthday, and then
gets caught in the web of the spell, ending up in a "time and space
" loop (lost in a TARDIS). It is a great "screwing with your
head" show, akin to David Lynch's "Lost Highway" (a movie
I love, so I'm biased towards this sort of thing). Last on the shorts
block three was "Innsmouth Wo Oou Kage", the UN-subtitled
Japanese version of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth". It is well
done, and has some great sequences, but Japan just doesn't seem to be
the place to worry about fish people&can't you just turn them into
sushi? I've seen this before and have the tape, so I skipped out on
this one as well. Yet, I do recommend it to HPL fans. I had one more
screening of "The Yellow Sign", and this was the most interesting
of the two showings, so I'll describe it a little more. "The Yellow
Sign" is about a woman (played by Shawna Waldron, who was in "Little
Giants" and "The American President") who owns a struggling
art gallery. She dreams about a painter that really exists, so to save
the gallery, she tries to do an exhibition with him. He agrees, but
only if she poses for his new painting. As it turns out, he has far
more sinister motives in mind than just capturing her likeness in oil.
The movie is based on a R.W. Chambers story of the same name, from a
collection of shorts called 'The King in Yellow", which was published
in 1895, and was read and liked by H.P. Lovecraft. The screenplay was
written by John Tynes (Pagan), co-produced by Ken Lobb and myself, and
directed by yours truly. It was shot on video in the summer of 2000
and runs about 45 minutes in length. I introduced the movie and the
"Pickman's Model" episode of Night Gallery, and away we go.
Only this time, we were in a different screen than the last, using a
different DVD player. One that wasn't calibrated to the projector. This
time, the reds were heavily saturated. The actors looked like sunburned
lobsters. I talked to the projectionist, who said that if he tried to
fix it, a menu would pop up on the screen. I didn't want that. I could
not bear the thought of STOPPING the movie once it was playing. That's
like stopping a roller coaster in the middle of a loop. So the movie
continued, those reds just making me increasingly aggravated. Finally,
with one shot where we see this red painting in the background, I couldn't
take it anymore. I stopped the movie, apologized to the audience, and
we adjusted the color balance and continued. My cast and crew thought
it was hilarious, but really, what was I supposed to do? I should have
stopped it sooner. It bugged me to no end. Despite it almost being "The
Red Sign", I think the screening went very well. The Q&A was
long and involved (which is good), and people actually had good questions
to ask, so it wasn't me just vamping for time. One announcement I made
at the fest, for all you Harry Knowles types: when asked the inevitable
"what are you working on next" question, I leaked that I would
love to do a FEATURE length adaptation of Lovecraft's "The Colour
Out of Space." which got solid rounds of applause. So let's hope
the powers-that-be can help make that nightmare a reality. But the best
part of the screening, in fact, the best part of the whole festival,
an occurrence that sent me giggling like a school girl, occurred during
the climax of "The Yellow Sign". Rick Santizo, the sound designer,
and I treated the voice of the main actor, Dale Snowberger, playing
the artist Aubrey Scott. So as he talks, his voice's pitch shifts lower,
so he starts talking like a demon. One of the audience members brought
his dog in with him (no idea why, no idea how), a robust reddish Doberman
that was very well behaved through out the entire screening. He/she
lay quietly in the aisle, and other than having to go around it, presented
no problems. Until Dale started talking like a demon. That's when the
dog suddenly raised its head and started GROWLING! The owner calmed
it down, and the voices changed, but for a brief moment, that dog knew
that bad things were afoot, and it sounded a warning. It was reacting
to my movie! I look at it this way: if "The Yellow Sign" can
freak hounds out, it should have at least SOME effect on people, right?
Either that, or the dog was just waking up from a bad dream or someone
almost stepped on its paw. I'm going to believe it was the movie.
After TYS, the audience
voted on what to watch for the Secret Screening.
There were three choices, and because we're well beyond insane at this
point, we watched two of them. Just for you, dear readers who have
continued reading to this point, I will divulge the contents of the
2002
HP Lovecraft Film Festival's Secret Screening.
It was the best of films, the worst of films.
The first was the worst: an amateur production of HPL's "Dreams
in the
Witch House" that Andrew has kept around since the early days of
the
Festival. I have to hand it to the filmmakers (whose names I choose
not
to recall), they had the chutzpah to do it and the balls to send it
in,
but man, this is a perfect example of "That Which Must Not be Seen."
It
looks like it was edited in camera, so there were a long series of
shots, often with people standing around doing nothing, waiting for
the
"action" or "cut". The composition of every shot
was completely
atrocious (backs of heads, profile, intolerably slow zooms and holds),
there was no music or sound effects, the witch from the witch house
was
dressed exactly like the witch in the "Wizard of Oz" (right
down to her
green skin and fake nose with a wart), the lead actor had a mullet,
some
of the other actors were fresh from the Jerry Springer show, and best
of
all, the monster called Brown Jenkin from the story, which is supposed
to be a rat-like creature with a human face and hands, was played by
a
ferret that didn't want to be there.
"What does it all mean, Elwood!?"
I can only hope that anyone who saw that will realize "Oh! That's
what I
shouldn't do in a movie! OK."
Fortunately, the bland taste in my mouth was blown away by the next
feature, "Los Sin Nombre", a recent Spanish film that translates
into
"The Nameless" in English. It was very late, and people were
dozing off,
but I was completely engrossed in the picture. The visual style is
stunning, the acting superb, and the concept downright frightening.
I
don't want to give too much away, because I recommend you all go out
and
watch it now, but it involves some very hairy (scary) stuff. Watch it
in
the dark, alone, if you can. If you are a parent, this movie is three
times as terrifying. It more resembles David Fincher's "Seven"
than
anything by Lovecraft, but there is that recurring theme of cosmic
horror that makes it so good. It's not supernatural, but still, very
dark. It was directed by Jaume Balagueró (who also did "Darkness",
distributed by Fantastic Factory/Filmax, Brian Yuzna's company, which
also puts out "Dagon" and "Beyond Re-Animator").
When we left the theater for the final time, there was more last minute
bonding, and more scary true stories from Scott Glancy. But I was glad
to be with the gang, for after coming out of the theater, late at night
(it must have been 3am), and feeling the chill Pacific Northwest wind
hustling the first fall leaves down the deserted street in Portland
to
the graveyard of dead leaves, I knew that although we laugh and joke
a
lot, and our friendships are as palpable as a roaring fireplace, it
will
never quite be enough to quell the undying fear of the unknown we all
have inside our hearts and minds&that undying fear that keeps bringing
us back to these movies, and for the unfortunate ones, the fear that
keeps us making the movies.
MONDAY
Monday began with a fun but slightly sad brunch with the remaining crew
of the Pagans, Andrew Leman, Andrew Migliore, and Bryan Moore, before
we
went our separate ways. We enjoyed one of the best repasts at the
Cadillac Café, which got young Bryan Moore (a Caddy connoisseur)
into a
tizzy. He even swiped the menus from the restaurant (we cant take him
anywhere). I also know that we were the center of attention in the
restaurant, drawing wide-eyed glances from the mostly elderly patrons
scattered around us. Was it our typical evil conversation that drew
the
whispers?
With bellies full, Kirsten and I gave our last hugs and hopped onto
the
plane bound for smoggy Los Angeles, back to the lab to work on the next
slate of shows pegged for the silver screen, which includes: a DVD
release of "The Yellow Sign" plus ALL my other Lovecraft movies
(coming
out next year), development on three (or more) feature films, a music
video (in February), and directing a spec pilot (a small, indie one),
plus an action short film helmed by me.
I do regret missing a few shows at the fest, notably, the director's
cut
of "Lifeforce" (mainly to see Mathilda May walk around nekkid),
and
especially, the indie filmed version of the Lovecraftian opera "The
Music of Erica Zann". I also missed the Sunday matinee of a secret
screening, something that was different from Sunday night's screening.
It would have been nice to see Joshi and Gordon on a panel together,
but
alas, there are only so many hours in the night.
Recovery of this trip is still going on, for it's taken me this long
to
write this monstrous essay (sorry if it bored you). I'm still basking
in
the glow of "The Yellow Sign" screening, and seeing all those
great
movies and shorts. I cant wait for next year. I dont know how Andrew
always manages to top himself, but he does it every year. This next
one
will be the tenth festival as well, and there's a rumour that Andrew
will show the "best of the fest", so if you haven't seen anything,
next
October is the time to get up there. Plus, I'm sure there will be much
more new stuff to twist your brains and spin your eyeballs. If you're
like me, you've already reserved that weekend next October.
--
Aaron Vanek
"The Yellow Sign"
REVIEW: http://www.flipsidemovies.com/yellowsign.html
Also Check out: http://www.webnoir.com/yellowsign
and
The Carmichael-Reardon Gallery: http://www.webnoir.com/crg
"Return to Innsmouth" available on video (PAL and NTSC)
http://www.beyond-books.com/catalog/
"(My) Necronomicon" viewable at:
http://www.hypnotic.com/films.asp?ID=48
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