Category Archives: Films & trailers

At the Mountains of Money

16 Friday May 2014

Posted by in Films & trailers, Lovecraftian arts

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News that Lux Digital Pictures has seed-funded a planned animated adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness. On the back of this Telefilm Canada is “expected” to invest “approximately $2.5 million” Canadian dollars, along with fan-funding via a Kickstarter set to launch in June 2014.

Hopefully the movie will be faithful and an authentic period piece. Not distorted by the insertion of some tedious new ‘love interest’, or by setting it on another planet, or by adding a giant Cthulhu standing atop Kadath. Although adding an additional subtle layer of valvepunk styling to the visual design and costuming might be nice. Or even a 1931 vintage look for the illustration style, following the ‘filmed in Mythoscope’ lead of the HPL Historical Society movies and the first 30 minutes of Sky Captain.

The lead creative will be Stephen Sloan of Upon Animation Studios, and the film will be “produced entirely in Canada”, rather than being outsourced to the Far East. Judging by the ‘Saturday morning cartoon’ style that Upon Animation’s animation used for the animated inserts in Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Movie (2011), the style may be stylised toony 2D rather than Space Pirate Captain Harlock rendered 3D. The screenplay is by stage playwright Peter Colley. Casting agent Deirdre Bowen is said to be set to start “casting by the beginning of July”, if the funds are raised.

willjuniorconceptA Mountains concept poster borrowed from Walter Junior. Not the poster for the Upon Animation version.

New Houdini movie rumoured to feature Lovecraft and his monsters

15 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Films & trailers, Unnamable

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Sony is apparently reviving their on-again-off-again Houdini movie with new writer Max Landis. Originally a straight biopic, the Houdini script was then pepped up with the Downton Abbey-friendly twist of “…and Houdini falls for a glamourous woman spiritualist”. I guess the nascent idea was to move it toward being an American riff on the Sherlock Holmes reboot movies, while also appealing to the fans of British TV costume drama.

This week there’s news of a new Max Landis script, set to have more of a horror/mystery tone… “telling the story with an H.P. Lovecraft influence” (Deadline). Which holds out the tantalising possiblity of us seeing a 30-foot high Lovecraft glowering down from the silver screen.

But movies that won’t appeal much to the Korean / Chinese / world market are hard to sell to studio bosses. Digging up dusty old American hero-brands from the pre-1939 era may also feel rather risky after the recent studio-threatening failures of The Lone Ranger and John Carter of Mars. So I’d have to suspect that Houdini might not be a $200m tentpole movie. However… if Sony is really going ahead with a major Doc Savage movie soon, then it would make financial sense for them to hedge their bets and re-use Doc‘s expensive 1920s costumes and props in a smaller Houdini movie.

houdini_2016_postersm

So what might it look like? I’d guess at a stylised period look (think the first 30 minutes of Sky Captain), coupled with a romping Indiana Jones-like mystery/archeology story. Houdini, Lovecraft, and Lovecraft’s bespectacled boy-archeologist protege Bobby Barlow (who is Not What He Seems), all racing through dark versions of National Treasure puzzles to uncover a Mysterious Forgotten Tomb or similar. Also on the trail of the mystery is the sinister Madame Blavatski — who is also Not What She Seems, pretty nifty with the ol’ psychic powers, and who turns out to be the concealed love interest of Houdini. A fairly conventional adventure, perhaps (hey, it’s 6.30am and I’m writing this before breakfast…), with superhero-like Theosophist powers vs. Lovecraftian monsters to liven up the escapology. If Sony’s Houdini movie is indeed intended as a safe backstop for the finances of a big Doc Savage tentpole, I guess conventional may be what’s required. Both the monsters and psychic powers could be pretty much invisible or shadowy, to save on SFX costs, although extensive dream/flashback sequences could bring scale and visual drama to some of Houdini’s escapology stagings. Here’s also hoping for a lovely $50,000 shot of Lovecraft slowly realising… “what, my monsters are actually… real!?”

Captured Bird now online

12 Thursday Sep 2013

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One of the most “must see” screenings at NecronomiCon 2013 seems to have been the film The Captured Bird. Now the Bird has finally escaped from the festival circuit and is available online for just $5.99 for the deluxe, or $2.99 for the original short…

“The Captured Bird and ALL of the extra features on the DVD available for instant streaming and HD digital download! Storyboards, concept art, production stills, audio commentary, making of doc, horror film school interviews, director’s diary, Jovanka’s second short film Self Portrait, hours of extra content”

TCB_TeaserPoster_FINAL2

Solomon Kane (2009) finally available in USA on DVD

08 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by in Films & trailers, REH

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Cool, I just heard that Solomon Kane is finally out on DVD in the USA. I’ve no idea what delayed this fine 2009 movie, or stopped it getting to the cinemas in the USA. I can only imagine that there was perhaps some spurious legal challenge by a copyright troll, going on behind the scenes?

Thanks to Lovecraft is Missing for the new review of the DVD. I saw the movie way back in 2010 in the UK, and enjoyed it. I thought it was a fine and respectful evocation of R.E. Howard’s Puritan hero, beautifully designed and lit, and well acted with good period accents. The flaws were not very many, but were annoying: two jarring jumps in the plot during the first third, as if the makers hadn’t filmed quite enough material to bridge the gap; many lost opportunities to visually foreshadow the distinctive look of the main bad-guy (for instance via having his minions wear his face as crude tattoos or scrawl it on walls etc); and the ending is a little too “Mines of Moria cave-troll battle” (in a cheesy kind of way, in that it resembles LoTR far too strongly).

SolomonKanePoster

The plan was apparently that Solomon Kane would have been the first of a trilogy. Africa was mooted as being the next stop. But Puritan New England, and a slight blending with the historical back-story of Lovecraft’s Mythos, would have seemed a much better choice. Anyway, due to the bizarre and unexplained four-year hiatus in actually getting this movie to a U.S. audience, it doesn’t seem we’ll get to see the next two movies.

Pacific Rim

09 Tuesday Jul 2013

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del Toro’s Pacific Rim getting excellent reviews = slight uptick in the chances of a big-budget movie of At The Mountains of Madness. Although his next projects seem to be the SF classic Slaughterhouse-Five, and Frankenstein.

On enjoying Pacific Rim, note that the 12 years prior to the movie’s events are laid out in the 120-page comic-book prequel Pacific Rim: Tales From Year Zero, penned by the movie’s scriptwriter.

Prometheus II plot

08 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by in Films & trailers, Lovecraftian arts, Odd scratchings

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The movie Prometheus II has apparently been given the green-light for script development. That’s the film which pinched a lot of Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness. The rumour is that…

“Sources close to the sequel [said the] studio and Scott [are] taking pitches from basically anyone who can crack the story”

Well, guys here’s my 1,500 word pitch for the sequel’s backstory and full plot (PDF link). It’s a revised and polished version of the plot I posted here back in Sept 2012. It’s yours for $75,000 🙂

Haunter of the Dark wins 2011 Machinima Expo

20 Sunday Nov 2011

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A Lovecraft machinima movie has won the Grand Prize in the 2011 Machinima Expo (machinima is amateur 3D animation storytelling, rendered in real-time with a videogame engine). Phil Browne’s adaptation of The Haunter of the Dark was made with the real-time animation software iClone. Here’s the film with the director’s commentary…

[vimeo 32303090]

And here’s the original…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyqoNvcmEcM&w=640&h=360]