CallofCthulu

The Call of Cthulu: The Celebrated Story by H.P. Lovecraft (2005)

I find myself one Saturday night hanging out with a friend. We share many similar tastes, which oftentimes leads to an exchange of media. This particular Saturday, she reaches into her bag and emerges with a DVD that immediately piqued my interest, a silent film version of The Call of Cthulu. The cover was even done in a similar font and style as old silent film posters look. And it was filmed in Mythoscope!

Written in 1926 by Howard Phillips Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulu is arguably one of his best-known stories and his most haunting. Translating Lovecraft to film has always been an ambitious task, to say the least, and many have tried. Only one comes immediately to mind that had any sort of success in doing so, director Stuart Gordon with his series Lovecraft inspired movies. It could also be said that post Re-Animator, he only had failure.

The film is only 47 minutes long, but it’s simply the best Lovecraft adaptation I’ve ever seen. It’s faithful to the source material, and it’s obvious a lot of time and love went into the movie’s creation.

By choosing the silent movie style to shoot in, the filmmakers have given themselves a very clever reason to hide the flaws and shortcomings of bringing to life a story on this scale. It never comes off as cheesy, and when needed, modern techniques like green-screen are used to really bring things like the cultists in the bayou scene to life. The production value has a very art-deco feel to it, and never for a second does it look cheap or fake. It’s almost exactly what one imagines while reading the story.

This film also forces you to use your imagination where it counts, as well. If you know the story at all, you know that the Cthulu idol is present throughout. It is as well in this version, so you’ve got a general idea as to this presentation of the Old God. When it comes down to it, when the crew of the boat is on the newly-risen sunken city, we see tiny bits of Cthulu, and only once is there a full frontal image. Even then, it’s obscured by the cover of night and shadow. I should also say Cthulu is a stop-motion puppet. I geeked out a bit over that, half expecting it to look like the monster from a Sci-Fi Channel original movie.

This was released through the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, a group of people who started out as role players in the Cthulu mythos and have grown in number and endeavors, this movie being one of them. If you’ve never read any Lovecraft, his body of work is easy to find on the internet, it’s all public domain now. Be warned, he can be an acquired taste. Films like this will never replace the original work, but after watching this I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on more HPLHS releases.

4 out of 4

reviewed by Seth Moore