Comments on: Cthulhu Ftaghn

By: Welcome Madness, Say Hello at The Indigestible

Welcome Madness, Say Hello at The Indigestible — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 07:01:51 +0000

[...] A few weeks back I blogged on the HPLHS version of Call of Cthulhu. It was sweet, in the way that only the insanely-tainted wine of dead aeons can be; but I neglected to mention that when I ordered CofC on DVD, I also ordered the HPLHS rendering, on CD and done as a radio drama, of At the Mountains of Madness, which is my personal favorite HPL story of all time. [...]

By: Warren

Warren — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 03:03:57 +0000

The brevity of the movie is one of the things I liked about it. HPLHS did not try to turn it into a "standard" 80-to-90-minute piece; they simply told the story in the space it required, and it would be a good damn thing if more movies did that. The closest thing to such a practice that I've seen is the movie Impostor, based on a Philip K. Dick short piece of the same name. I'm not talking about the 102-minute theatrical release; I'm referring instead to the original 40-minute vignette that's included in the bonus materials on the DVD, and is the single best reason to buy the disc. Where the full-length feature drags, the original work is quick and direct, summing up the story quite well without a lot of unnecessary extra umpteen hundreds of feet of celluloid to make it fit Hollywood's standards for cinematic thoroughness. I own the DVD because I am a PKD fan,* and while it's definitely no Blade Runner, the original short version of Impostor on that disc is, to my mind, a good solid second-place contender. It's definitely not anywhere near as bad as Screamers, anyway. ==== * Full disclosure: While I have every PKD adaptation I know of available on disc (including the reviled Screamers, Total Recall and that bizarre Tom Cruise ego-fest Minority Report), I don't own Paycheck. I doubt even Ben Affleck or Uma Thurman have that title in their personal collections.

By: Bill Snedden

Bill Snedden — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 00:40:46 +0000

Yes! My experience was almost exactly the same as yours. Finding a random link to the HPLHS website, seeing the trailer for the film, buying the DVD, and being extremely pleased with the result. For an obviously amateur group it is a rather professional and polished production. I join you in recommending it to all Lovecraft fans!