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Film Details:
Directed by Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, From Beyond) Written by H. P. Lovecraft (story) and Dennis Paoli (Re-Animator, From Beyond) Starring Review: by Melissa (e-mail your faithful reviewer) Today, I had the good fortune to have a look at the latest Brian Yunza/Stuart Gordon/H. P. Lovecraft flick, Dagon. As a movie snob, I wasn't expecting a whole hell of a lot from the movie, even though I am an ardent Re-Animator fan. I knew the film was low-budget, and that it suffered from a host of distribution problems, and that it was getting mixed reviews from non-fans and fans alike. I expected to be one of the non-believers. I am pleased to say, though, that I agree with Don's review (click here to read it). Dagon is a pretty decent flick. It wasn't great, but if I was over at a friend's place and the movie was on, I would be happy to sit through it again. The world of film has notoriously had a poor relationship with Lovecraft. The best Lovecraftian films (Session 9 and Pi are excellent examples) have nothing to do with Lovecraft's tales. The Lovecraft adaptations that stand best as films (such as Re-Animator) are neither very "Lovecraftian", nor do they stick well to the original tales -- they stand best as films because they took the seed of an idea and ran in their own direction with it. There really has never been a Lovecraft-based film that has been faithful to the source material and good at the same time. This isn't that movie, but it's not too far off the mark. Dagon, in fact, has nothing to do with the Lovecraft story of the same name. Instead, it is based on "Shadow Over Innsmouth", and despite adding characters and placing the town in Spain, the film is actually relatively faithful to the source matieral. Yes, you get creepy frog people chasing a guy through a town, you get the crazy old drunken sailor, and you get an ending that is at least somewhat faithful to the end of the original story. Beyond that, there have been numerous liberties taken, but I'd rather see the likes of this than the abyssmal Necronomicon (even if it did have David Warner). Is it successful as a scary movie? Actually, it's alright. It's not leave-the-lights-on scary, but it's better than many horror flicks I've seen. I think it's fair to say that this film has a much firmer grasp of the term "Lovecraftian" than any of the previous Yunza/Gordon efforts. This film is smart enough to realize that dirty toilets, nasty hotel rooms, xenophobia, and broken eyeglasses can have a significant fear factor. The sound designer should get extra kudos for putting great voices to the frog people. The movie would probably have been bordering on great if it either had a bigger budget or had completely avoided computer graphics. There's nothing worse than cheap, bad CG -- there's just no getting around that it looks laughable these days. The use of CG in the film is far from liberal, but every time it shows up, you get pulled out of the world that the film has set up. But aside from the CG effects, the movie holds up pretty well for a B-grade flick, and I can heartily recommend it with a case of beer. DVD Details: 5.1 Dolby Digital For a B-grade flick, the DVD is pretty well done. The sound is good, the transfer is decent, and there is a healthy smattering of extras for the curious. Further Information: |
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