Call of Cthulhu, low budget version

Reel Advice: Beyond the Wall of Sleep
By Steve Anderson Aug 9, 2006, 12:02 GMT
http://dvd.monstersandcritics.com/columns/article_1188579.php/Reel_Advice_Beyond_the_Wall_of_Sleep

H.P. Lovecraft movies are generally a good bet.

There really are only a handful of them, and most of them turned out well. There are the great Jeffrey Combs performances of the "Re-Animator" series, the romp that was "From Beyond", and even "Necronomicon", which had its pluses.

Let's be charitable about things and not bring up "Dagon". And those of you bringing up “Cthulhu Mansion,” hey now, that wasn’t really that bad. Especially when you stack it up against “Dagon.”

But at any rate, "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" is going to prove to be somewhere in between the polar extremes of "Re-Animator" and "Dagon."

What we have here story wise is about par for the Lovecraftian course--lots of quack science intermingled with insanity, lots of scientists abusing their positions, and lots and lots of bloody messes. A "mountain man", one of those living in the counterculture of the Catskill Mountains around the 1920, is committed to the Ulster County Asylum, following the brutal murder of his own family. The mountain man in question has a succession of odd growths on his back, and as the asylum probes the mountain man, soon it becomes apparent that he's not what he looks to be. And that's when all hell breaks loose.

"Beyond the Wall of Sleep" looks to have everything it needs to join that grand fraternity of choice Lovecraft. Especially from the first five minutes - "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" takes fullest advantage of that classic confused terror that is the hallmark of pretty much anything H.P. Lovecraft ever did. From the beginning, you are quite sure that something is very, very bad wrong here...and yet, you have no real way of knowing just what that something is. And despite your hopes, you will likely never know just what it is that went wrong. Only that it did.

Now there are more than a few horror fans out there who like their stories clean and delineated. A start, a middle, a clear and obvious end with maybe a couple nodded-at loose ends for sequel potential down the line.

This is by and large not the standard operating procedure for Lovecraft horror. The most horrendous enemies of reality will be brought into play--possibly only for moments--before being banished to the realms from whence they came and all like that. And who knows for how long?

Which is actually Lovecraft in the truest sense. The monsters are truly monstrous--Freddy Krueger would probably wet himself if he ever got a good look at Hastur, and even old Michael Myers would start screaming and gibbering if put in the same room as the classically-described Yog-Sothoth. They're only barely repulsed, and the chances that they'll come back sometime in the near future are a pretty good shot indeed.

Which I'll confess isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea. It's scary, make no mistake, but it's really more scary in the "think about it" sense than it is the "huge evil monster jumps out from the shadows and eats your sister's face" sense.

The ending is also pretty standard as Lovecraft goes--watch for the classic appearance of squid-face Cthulhu as well as Amdusceus, a fairly new player to the Lovecraftian horror scene.

The special features include filmmakers' commentary, English and Spanish subtitles, storyboard gallery, audio options, a behind the scenes featurette, and trailers for "Akeelah and the Bee", "Madea's Family Reunion", "A Good Woman", "Minotaur", "Maid Of Honor", "Beyond the Wall of Sleep", and "The Graveyard".

All in all, it's Lovecraft. For better or for worse, it's genuine, honest to goodness Lovecraft, with all its faults and foibles cleanly intact. "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" may well be the most representative example of Howard Philip's work to come out to video stores in quite some time.

Beyond The Wall of Sleep is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.

Another obscure low-budget Lovecraftian film is The Yellow Sign
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0370081/

I saw "Call" tonight at a friend's house and while it was a valiant effort, it really suffered from being shot digitally instead of on film. Black-and-white digital still looks... digital.

For a low budget, though, it looked pretty good in the costumes and props department. That said, I had a hard time following the story; too many flashbacks (within flashbacks). I've not read the source material so that might make a difference.

"The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath".

Crude animation -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys8Yk-u9VPI

A bit of period background behind the Lovecraft fiction -

Besides Frank Robinson, another religious leader who communed directly with God about this time was William Dudley Pelley (c.1885/1890-1965). Pelley was a publisher, magazine writer and minor novelist, who by the 1920s had explored most of the available fringe religions, including British Israelitism, Atlantis theories, and pyramidology. He had also lived in Hollywood at the height of its occult boom.
<snip>
Unlike Robinson, Pelley was not content merely to found a mail-order audience cult, and in 1933, he formed a new political-religious movement, the fascist and anti-semitic Silver Legion of America, the Silver Shirts. This was "a great Christian Army fortified by the inviolable principles of the Christ." [8] Pelley was the "beloved Chief," a term which could equally well refer to his role as American F?ºhrer, or as the living Secret Chief, a not-yet-Ascended Master: he was aspiring to be Zanoni as much as Hitler. The Silver Shirts were explicitly modeled on the German Nazi Party, and Pelley claimed that he was inspired to form his movement on January 30, 1933, the day Hitler became German Chancellor.

He may have drawn some of his ideas from the popular media, as this day also marked the first broadcast of the radio western series, The Lone Ranger, with its heroic Rangers and the recurrent silver themes: Pelley's followers were also Silver Rangers, and that was the title of one of his newspapers. Whatever the origins of the idea, Pelley now focussed on the Jews as the source of most evils and problems in the world, and he offered a solution based on the formation of a Christian Commonwealth, a Christ-Democracy.

Through the 1930s, the Legion continued to circulate its anti-semitic views through books like No More Hunger, The World Hoax, and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Pelley became the nation's best-known figure on the paramilitary far Right, and he inspired Sinclair Lewis's imaginary American dictator Buzz Windrip in the 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here.

From http://www.cesnur.org/testi/bryn/br_jenkins.htm

I own all of these movies. I have been a fan of Lovecraft since `82 (7th grade). The movies are made by fans who know how to make a proper H.P.L. movie. I highly recomened them.
http://www.cthulhulives.org/TOC.html
http://www.lurkerfilms.com/

Cheers,
Jeff

....this just in.....

Lurker Films Announces the Weird Tale Collection Volume 1: The Yellow Sign available on DVD

Download this press release as an Adobe PDF document.

Lurker Films -— the leading manufacturer of literary horror, Cthulhu, and Lovecraft related film merchandise -— is proud to announce the release of the first volume of the "Weird Tale Collection". The DVD features some excellent adaptations of horror author Robert W. Chambers' work including Aaron Vanek's award winning film inspired by the short story "The Yellow Sign".

Portland, OR (PRWEB) September 22, 2006 -- Lurker Films –– the leading manufacturer of literary horror, Cthulhu, and Lovecraft related film merchandise –– is proud to announce the release of the first volume of the "Weird Tale Collection". The DVD features some excellent adaptations of horror author Robert W. Chambers' work including Aaron Vanek's award winning film inspired by the short story "The Yellow Sign".

A young gallery owner, Tess Reardon (Little Giants star Shawna Waldron), is looking for a new talent to spark life into her failing business. Haunted by nightmares, she discovers that an artist she dreamt about, Aubrey Scott, actually exists, and seeks him out. The eccentric painter agrees to a showing of his art, but only if Tess will model for him. She grudgingly agrees and begins to regress into a past life from a parallel world, and now everything is not at all as it seems. The street date is September 22, 2006.

A fine Gothic thriller... reminiscent of "The Twilight Zone"... [Uses the same technique that The Blair Witch Project employed; only The Yellow Sign accomplishes it much better. ––Sam Frazier, Jr., Film Threat

A creepy exercise in existentialist fantasy... carries a weight that most feature films envy. Thoughtful and unsettling... The Yellow Sign is all the more impressive for its humble origins, demonstrating that deep pockets matter far less than the talents involved. --Rob Vaux, Flipside Movie Emporium

The Weird Tale Collection Volume 1: The Yellow Sign DVD includes:
• "The Yellow Sign" short starring Shawna Waldron from "The American President" and "Little Giants". This film is in English with subtitles in: English, Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Finnish and Portuguese.
• David Leroy's short film "Tupilak". Winner of Best Short at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. During a polar expedition, Kelvin and Max leave their wounded Inuit guide behind them. Two years later, on the very same date, they meet by accident in a deserted museum. The past comes back, and the evil shadow of the Tupilak is not far away. This film is in French with subtitles in English and French.
• "The King in Yellow" by filmmakers Emiliano Guarneri & David Fragale. A girl goes to an antique shop to buy a book for her friend who was admitted to a hospital; but on the way to see her, falls down into a nightmare world where she will meet the King in Yellow. But who is, or a better question to ask, what is the King in Yellow? This film is in Italian with subtitles in English.
• "Chambers in Paris", a documentary on Robert Chambers by expert Christophe Thill. Robert W. Chambers (1865—1933) is probably best remembered for The King in Yellow, an odd collection of supernatural weird tale, and tales of the artist’s life in Paris. First published in 1895, "The Yellow Sign" is one of Chambers’ very best stories taken from The King in Yellow, his second (and best) book.
• Slide shows, deleted scenes, audition footage, and more.

The Weird Tale Collection Volume 1: The Yellow Sign DVD will be available through retail at a suggested price of $19.99 US. The DVD is not rated but a rating of PG-13 is suggested. Total running time of the DVD is approximately 100 minutes.

I have $19.99!!

Story said:

Lurker Films Announces the Weird Tale Collection Volume 1: The Yellow Sign available on DVD

Click to expand...

Sounds great! I never so much as even heard of this company! Ooooor the accompanying Lovecraft film festival!