Stuart Gordon – a True Master of Horror

I was happy to meet Stuart Gordon at Fantasia film festival in Montreal, 2010. My interview with him is coming soon to Rue Morgue's special edition book, HORROR MOVIE HEROES (together with interviews I did with Jaume Balaguero, Sergio Stivaletti and Christopher Lee). Here's, briefly, why I love & respect Stuart Gordon.

Stuart Gordon has a unique talent to unite the things which are either considered too disparate (like sex and horror) or those which are rarely blended with such an unmitigated success (like horror and humor). Nowhere is this mixture so successful as in his debut, Re-Animator, a timeless classic which is at once sick, depraved, hilarious and utterly what-the-funny. Many directors aimed for that particular rainbow, but only a few (like The Return of the Living Dead /1985/ and Braindead /1992/) can parallel the insanity and unpredictability of Re-Animator's inspired splattstick.  

Unity of opposites? Hell, yeah! Rooted in literature and theater (where his productions were nominated for many important awards), Gordon mastered B-movie entertainment of the horrific and provocative kind. The same man who conceived the gleefully sadistic The Dentist (1996) also wrote the kiddy fantasy hit Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989). 

With equal wit he adapts Lovecraft and Mamet (in Edmond, 2005); he is as inspired by the most outrageous fantasy of From Beyond (1986) as he is by the gritty reality of Stuck, 2007 (based on a true event). From the depths of the Charles Band and Brian Yuzna produced exploitation he is struggling to be political, socially conscious and subversive.

Gordon represents the true spirit of the independents which reigned in the bygone (?) days. His ability to join the unjoinable and make it enjoyable is all but forgotten in this day and age where young horror directors can barely concoct a story worth telling – far from imbuing it with wit, energy and subtext like Gordon so effortlessly could. 

As such, he is both a relic from the past and a lasting inspiration to all those who can see beneath the surface right into the bloody beating heart of B-moviemaking.

An Interview with Laird Barron

 

            If you read modern horror fiction, then you must've come across the name Laird Barron. And remembered it. Not only because it is pretty unique and memorable in itself, but because his writings are, too. Laird Barron is certainly one of the best new horror authors. He has a recognizably vivid, pictorial, no-nonsense style while his themes are commonly connected with the kind of cosmic horror that H. P. Lovecraft made all his own. Now Barron is putting his own distinct stamp on this fertile field – with more testosterone than found in your usual bookish antiquarian HPL-inspired works.  

His latest collection came out a few months ago, titled The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All (published by NightShade Books, just as his two previous collections and the excellent novel The Croning). It contains some of his best work ever: my favorites are the novellas "The Men From Porlock", where the mystical horror of the woods leads to an even darker horror of the caves, and "Blackwood's Baby", about hunters becoming hunted by the primal Beast… but all of the others are more than worthy additions to cement his recent reputation as "the scariest writer alive". 

            Here's the interview I did with him for the RUE MORGUE magazine: parts of it were used for the article which appeared in the April issue (a big thanks to its editor, Dave Alexander, for allowing me to publish this online). This is its first appearance in its full, original form.

- How do you feel about the label "Lovecraftian" on your prose? Of course, not implying that it's derivative and imitative, but merely as a tool in description. What's your attitude to the Old Man from Providence and his prose? How did his writing affect you? And how do you feel about some other "pulp" SF-horror writers from that era?

It is, as you say, a tool, critic/reviewer shorthand, and it doesn’t faze me. Although, I am occasionally bemused when something of mine is labeled Lovecraftian and is quite objectively not. I count Lovecraft as a strong influence, but no stronger than that exerted by Peter Straub, TED Klein, or Cormac McCarthy. At the top of his game HPL was a much better stylist than his detractors will admit. Before I found my own voice, and that was an age and a half, I was enamored of his baroqueness. While that luster has faded for me, I remain an admirer of his vision.

Growing up, I read a lot of H. Rider Haggard, Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fritz Leiber, and a slew of other authors who staked out pulp territory back in its glory days. Those are some of the guys who taught me the fundamentals. How to tell a story being lesson one.

- In terms of genre, horror seems to be pretty central to your interests as seen so far. There are spices of SF, action, spy, adventure, noir, western... but the main meat is usually horror. Do you have plans for stories or even novels where the main meat would be something other?

Basically, this question is about another label – how do you feel about the term "horror" (do you prefer "weird" or "strange" or...?) and, regardless of the term, what are your feelings about the genre?

I enjoy horror in its numerous manifestations. Much as I like category horror, it bores me a bit these days.  My preferences increasingly lean toward its use as a spice, rather than as a course. The great strength of the genre is its mutability, its chameleon nature, the way it can be insinuated into other genres. Take McCarthy’s Blood Meridian —there’s a historical western that’s energized and transformed by the infusion of horror and dark mysticism. It’s a landmark horror novel that will never be recognized as such by the main body of readers or critics, and in a perverse way, that’s the ultimate compliment a genre author can be paid.

I’m working on a crime novel and a number of stories that are horrific, if not explicitly of the horror tradition.

 

- It seems to me that some very interesting things are happening in horror literature today, with the overall level of quality higher than in the golden days of mass popularity brought by Stephen King in the early 1980s. Do you agree? Please discuss.

What do you think about horror literature today? Which contemporary colleagues would you single out?

It’s a tough call, comparing the eras. Hard to beat a young King, Barker, or Straub. Michael Shea and Karl Edward Wagner were smashing stories out of the park. TED Klein, too. So were many others. On the other hand, yes, the racks were glutted by dreck and that led to an implosion, not just commercially, but also perceptually. The average reader identifies horror with garbage from the ’80s and ’90s. In some respects the subsidence of mass market horror has done a great service to the genre —the rise of independent and small presses and their willingness to publish literary takes on the subject matter has led to a kind of renaissance. There might be less volume, but the quality is often impeccable.

There are a number of exemplary figures at work, but let me point to a handful of them: Livia Llewellyn, Sarah Langan, Dan Chaon, Stephen Graham Jones, Gemma Files, Kaaron Warren, Paul Tremblay, John Langan, Gary McMahon, Simon Strantzas, Richard Gavin, Ian Rogers, Joe Pulver, Matt Cardin, Norman Partridge, Lucius Shepard, Chesya Burke, and so on. I’m giving some terrific authors short shrift because the list would be too long. Suffice to say, the field is healthy. We’ll look back fondly on this era, I am certain.

- This is your third story collection and you have two novels published. Is this predominance of stories over novels a matter of circumstances or of your general preference to the shorter form (stories, novellas)?

Oh, it’s a little from column A and a little from Column B. I’m addicted to the short form, and have been since childhood. Collections from Dahl, King, and Barker very much sustained my creative soul and influenced my own writing. That said, I’ve written a couple of novels and am in the process of completing more. I imagine my bibliography will be fairly balanced between the forms when all is said and done.

- What's next coming from you? Any novel in preparation? Would it in any way be a continuation of the mythos of your previous novels?

I’ve a number of short stories scheduled to appear in 2013 and 2014, but mainly I’m working on a crime novel at the moment. Very dark stuff. After that, there’s a collection and another novel, both set in Alaska, both horrific and at least peripherally connected to material from my previous works.

Ghoulish RUE MORGUE!

            The new, December issue of the RUE MORGUE magazine is on stands, and has several articles and reviews by yours truly. Yes, there are even more pages of my texts than in the notorious SERBIAN FILM-inspired focus on Serbian horror cinema which I wrote for the #106 (see details on that HERE).

            It's a real Ghoul's OCCUPY THE MORGUE STREET! Here are my contributions to #129:

 

             

DARKLANDS:

My article on the first Nort American release of the long-in-limbo occult thriller which premiered 1996. I met its director, Julian Richards (Last Horror Movie) at this year's Grossmann film festival in Slovenia, and he explained the reasons for the delay and talked about his influences (Arthur Machen, THE WICKERMAN...), about merging of urban environment and paganism etc.

MUSIQUE FANTASTIQUE:

This book earned the Spotlight in THE NINTH CIRCLE section dedicated for book reviews. More than a mere book, this is a huge, unique study of music scores in SF, Fantasy and Horror films by the leading expert in the field, Randall D. Larson. He explains the background of this endeavor and provides an exclusive list of undeservedly neglected, lesser known, unsung masterpieces of horror scores which are not so often invoked in the discussion of the best ever. 

The very same NINTH CIRCLE also contains my review of BOOK OF CTHULHU II: the latest, and certainly one of the very best Lovecraftian anthologies out there! The second volume of The Book of Cthulhu (edited by Ross E. Lockhart) exemplifies the richness of Lovecraft's legacy: gloomy terror, mystery, thrills, vivid action, chilling visions, satire, SF, humor... all of that, and then some, is crammed into more than 400 large pages awaiting readers eager for some apocalyptic horror! See the review for the best titles singled out!

            Among the book reviews you'll also see one devoted to SPEAKING OF MONSTERS, an anthology of essays about monstrosity in horror fiction and film. My essay on HIGH TENSION is selected for this prestigious book from Palgrave Macmillan. Therefore, I did not write the review, but its review in this issue remains Ghoul-relevant. More details re: this book are to be found HERE.

            Just when you thought there's too much Ghoul in this issue, on the very last page the regular CLASSIC CUT is devoted to a somewhat forgotten or at least neglected, unsung near-masterpiece, THE OTHER (1972) by Robert Mulligan. In this essay I'm pointing towards the timeless qualities and influences this film has had on further development of horror, especially when it comes to the "creepy kids" subgenre, and even more – to the "big twist" horrors...

            Talking about my contributions to RUE MORGUE, here's what I wrote about for them in 2012, in reverse order (latest first):

 

#128: PRINCE OF DARKNESS

=== Popular Revenants: The German Gothic and Its Internationcal Reception, 1800-2000

#127: 100 Years of Universal

=== European Nightmares: Horror Cinema In Europe Since 1945

#126: ANTIVIRAL

THE NINTH CIRCLE

=== The Vampire Film: Undead Cinema,

===Stefan Grabinski's On the Hill of Roses

#125: RAY BRADBURY

===Laird Barron's The Light is the Darkness

CLASSIC CUT

===The Literature of Terror (1980)

#124: THE ENTITY

===Laird Barron's The Croning

#123: THE LOVED ONES

===Film Violence: History, Ideology, Genre

Here are the full contents of #129, whose highlight & cover story is devoted to the "CABAL cut" of Clive Barker's studio-butchered NIGHTBREED.

RUE MORGUE, Issue #129

MIDIAN CALLING

Two decades ago Clive Barker's Nightbreed was taken out of his hands and butchered by the studio. Now, thanks to a dedicated fanbase, the visionary Cabal Cut takes form.
PLUS: Interviews with actors Simon Bamford, Hugh Ross, Anne Bobby and Nicholas Vince.

RESTLESS SPIRITS

Genre legend Lance Henriksen taps Native American folklore for his first comic series, To Hell You Ride.

PLUS: Dark Horse editor-in-chief Scott Allie on building the company's horror line, and more!

HO-HO-HOMICIDE

Two of the men behind Silent Night, Deadly Night gift us with their fond - and not-so fond - memories of the scandalous 1984 slasher flick.

PLUS: Director Steven C. Miller on the remake.

FROM ANVIL TO ALFRED

Hitchcock director Sacha Gervasi explains how making a rock doc got him behind the camera on a star studded biopic about the Master of Suspense.

NOTE FROM UNDERGROUND

"What is this place?"

DREADLINES

30 Days of Night creators Niles and Templesmith reunite; Gregory Lamberson spearheads new eBook format with upcoming novel; "Sleepy Hollow" to get biker makeover in Chopper Movie.

THE CORONER'S REPORT

Weird stats and morbid facts. Sick Top Six: Barker's Beasts and Bad Guys

NEEDFUL THINGS

Day of the Dead Corkscrew, Nevermore Body Company Three Witches Line, Frankie And His Bride Salt and Pepper Shakers, and Ouija Shoes.

CINEMACABRE

CineMacabre features Julian Richard's Darklands, plus reviews of Frankenweenie, Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines, The Hole, Airborne, FDR: American Badass, Werewolf: The Beast Among Us, Bloody Tease, Blood Oath and Tied In Blood. Reissues reviews They Live (1988), The Night of the Devils (1972), The Complete Bob Wilkins Creature Features, House of Dark Shadows (1970) and Night of Dark Shadows (1971).

THE LATE-NITE ARCHIVE

In The Vault: Gifts that Keep on Killing.

BOWEN'S BASEMENT

Dug Up: Hard Rock Zombies.

BLOOD IN FOUR COLOURS

Features Haunted Horror, plus reviews of Ghost #1, The Pound: Ghouls Night Out #1, Sleepy Hollow #1, Rachel Rising #11 and Billy The Kid's Old Timey Oddities and the Orm of Loch Ness #1.

THE NINTH CIRCLE

Spotlight: Musique Fantastique: 100 Years of Fantasy, Science Fiction & Horror Film Music. Library of the Damned finds a new Christmas horror classic in Brom's Krampus: The Yule Lord. Plus, reviews of The Forrest J Ackerman Oeuvre, Speaking of Monsters: A Teratological Anthology, The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia: Volume 2, The Book of Cthulhu II, Hunter Shea's Swamp Monster Massacre, Mark Morris' Vampire Circus, Nicholas Vince's What Monsters Do and R.L. Stine's Red Rain.

THE FRIGHT GALLERY

On Display: Marc Hagan-Guirey's Horrorgami.

THE GORE-MET

Menu: Frank 'N' Flesh.

AUDIO DROME

Featuring the strange sounds of Corpusse. The Devil's Playlist explores the Darker Side of Christmas. Plus, reviews of Silent Hill: Revelation OST, Truth or Dare OST, Dead Souls OST, Alain Leonard and Alex Wank, Cradle of Filth, Swamp Thing, Theologian, Malignancy, and Satan's Wrath.

PLAY DEAD

Features reviews of Resident Evil 6 and You Are The Maniac!

CLASSIC CUT

The Other (1972)

PROMETHEUS (2012)

Ghoul's rating: 3/5

PROMETHEUS is pretty far from what it could and should have been, and from what we had the right to expect from Ridley Scott and his premise. However, despite all its problems, it still represents a very rare, almost unique breed of filmmaking which definitely deserves to be enjoyed in the cinema theater, not at home. That which is undoubtedly great - pompous scenery, spectacular space ships, alien landscapes, special effects and the like - can be experienced only on the big screen. If you should see one movie in the cinema in the coming days / weeks, it's definitely PROMETHEUS. But do not forget to enter the cinema with reduced expectations. Try not to be influenced by the hype machine and, if possible, to forget the heights achieved by ALIEN and BLADE RUNNER some 30-35 years ago. PROMETHEUS is a decent, intriguing, somewhat exciting film, but it's far from a masterpiece.

It is good enough that it shouldn't be spoilt for you, and I certainly don't want to do that. This is the reason why, instead of a thorough analysis, at this point I offer only the listing of the film's major qualities and faults, without arguments, examples and spoiler material which would be inevitable if I were to illustrate my points with examples from the film.

So, these are the best elements of the film:

+ A good concept, intriguing ideas, more (sporadic) intelligence displayed than in the average recent American blockbuster.

+ Excellent visual component, especially in areas based on the designs by H. R. Giger.

+ Exceptional visual effects, excellent make-up efx and creatures.

+ Intriguing character of David (the android) and wonderful acting by Michael Fassbender portraying him.

+ At least one "mystery" from ALIEN is now clarified: the nature and purpose of the "Space Jockey", and indirectly, those of alien xenomorphs themselves.

+ Good pacing, no boredom; a fluent and entertaining film.

On the other hand, these are the film's main problems:

- Viewed as a prequel to ALIEN (which it definitely is), PROMETHEUS is unsatisfactory both in terms of ideas and overall effect.

- The plot is designed as if this were a pilot episode for a series, not a separate film; too many crucial issues at the core of the plot remain vague, underdeveloped and unsatisfying.

- A number of illogical situations and unmotivated behavior, inadequate to the context, including an amazingly chaotic disregard for basic procedures appropriate for such an expedition (security, weapons, quarantine, the principle of subordination, command line, etc).

- Blatantly unfounded and unconvincing motivation for the trillionaire Weyland to jumpstart the entire long, complicated and expensive expedition, which motivation remains unchallenged even when the hostile nature of the planet's environment and the Engineers themselves become more than apparent.

- Ambivalent, vague motivation for the android.

- Too much freedom in the departments of physics and physiology of both human and nonhuman organisms; credibility and physical probability are dramatically stretched almost to the realm of miracles and fairy tales.

- Lack of clear and firm rules regarding the "anything goes" liquid in the alien vessels; haphazard modes of reproduction and life cycles of different creatures resulting from contact with it.

- The conclusion is too rushed, with plenty of action, sound and fury, but with progressively less and less sense, tension and emotional involvement towards the end.

- A terribly bad ending (the last five minutes).

- Not enough Giger: they re-used his old, well-known designs for ALIEN, but they did not hire him to produce anything really new and unseen. The non-Giger visuals are okay, but far from memorable and unique like Giger's.

To conclude: it is fine to see a film brave enough to be playful with big questions and occasional nihilism and blasphemy, but it's a pity that nothing much is really done with those, probably leaving a lot for the sequel which may or may not happen. The film's main problem is trying to merge an ALIEN-like horror film with a concept which would've been better off without the forced links to ALIEN mythology. The result is neither a gripping, suspenseful horror nor is it a very clever Sci-Fi film of big ideas: PROMETHEUS is middling in both departments. Still, it is not entirely a failure, there is some courage and cleverness amid the silly clichés and forced scenes, and PROMETHEUS deserves to be seen – but, like I said, with lowered expectations.

INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW MORGAN, THE DIRECTOR OF ARKHAM SANITARIUM

by Dejan Ognjanovic

 

Here at The Temple of Ghoul I've already published H.P. Lovecraft's ARKHAM SANITARIUM Script Review And Concept Art.

Now that shooting of the film is over, its director Andrew Morgan is subjected to a torturous examination in order for us to decide whether his Lovecraftian anthology is blasphemous or respectful to the Great Old One. The result is the exclusive, illuminating and quite promising interview below.

It's originally published on TWITCH – so you can read it there. Plus, there's embedded a short teaser to give you a better idea of what to expect.

CLIK THE LINK.

H. P. Lovecraft's ARKHAM SANITARIUM - Script Review

All concept art for this film is done by Dave Wood

(click on images to see bigger versions)

This text originally published on TWITCH

Lovecraft's fiction is notoriously difficult to translate to cinema, for several reasons. The main one has to do with his reliance on mood, atmosphere, subtlety, hints and vague suggestions of unspeakable horrors. This doesn't mean that his stories are entirely lacking in action or memorable set-pieces, but their scarcity and brevity have usually caused filmmakers to resort to padding the brief tales with all kinds of conventional (romantic, detective, slasher, monster) elements, usually dilluting and betraying the original. Lovecraft's cosmic horror was, more often than not, turned into (unintentionally) comic horror. This author has written only two novels: one of those, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward was filmed twice, as Roger Corman's lame flick The Haunted Palace in 1963 and as a much better, but still lacking The Resurrected in 1992 by Dan O'Bannon. The other, SF-horror epic At the Mountains of Madness, was almost greenlighted to be directed by Guillermo Del Toro, but Universal eventually backed-out.

It seems that anthology format is better suited for Lovecraft's shorter fiction: three short sharp shocks in a row are better than a single one padded for feature legth. This, at least, must be the rationale behind the script written by Andrew G. Morgan based on "The Haunter of the Dark", "The Shunned House" and "The Thing on the Doorstep". His anthology H. P. Lovecraft's Arkham Sanitarium is produced by Survivor Films, an independent film production company based in London, as their first feature-film. The filming of this low budget venture begins in May 2011 (on Friday the 13th!), with the movie planned for release in October 2011. What follows are my impressions of the screenplay.

Briefly and simply put, this is a very, very good script. It is pretty faithful to the stories and the changes are made mostly for dramatic and cinematic purposes. Love and understanding of Lovecraft's stories are evident (no "teens in peril" here), the structure is tight and no time is wasted on unnecessary or extraneous elements. There is no tongue-in-cheek nor wink-wink nudge-nudge nonsense here: just straight horror, in tone and approach similar to the superior anthology Necronomicon (1994). If they come anywhere near it, we should be happy. If they manage to surpass it, we'll have a new modern classic on our hands.

It is not specific about the period, but it's certainly not contemporary: a character is seen driving a 1950s Sedan, which means this is moved up in time from Lovecraft's 1920s and 1930s, but not enough for our cell-phone, video-cameras and internet age. The wraparound segment deals with a lady reporter who comes to an asylum called Arkham Sanitarium and has a meeting with a dr West (Howard, not Herbert). The following three stories depict the gruesome events which brought three of its inmates to the brink of insanity – and beyond.

All three segments take place in Arkham, fictional New England town based on Lovecraft's Providence. "The Haunter of the Dark" is about a spooky deserted church (or is it?) and a creature which dwells in the darkness. The story is faithfully adapted, except the ending is more elaborate. Whereas Lovecraft liked to confine his most epxlicit horror for the final paragraph, or even sentence – leaving most of it to the imagination – the script shows us not only the story's concluding image of "the three-lobed burning eye" but also the face and jaws of the haunter of the dark, and what they do to an unfortunate character.

"The Shunned House" is one of Lovecraft's best earlier tales, a uniquely creepy tale about a house haunted not by a ghost but by something much, much worse – a malevolent, parasitic entity which sucks out life out of the unsuspecting inhabitants. After numerous deaths the house becomes deserted, when a student and his uncle decide to spend the night in its basement and see if there is anything supernatural behind the strange fungi and yellowish miasma on its floor... This segment is excellent until the end, when the screenplay discards the uncanny and original non-human entity and replaces it with a disappointingly conventional all-too-human element. It's a pity, because it is precisely Lovecraft's ingeniously devised concept that distinguished this particular story from hundreds of similar "haunted house" stories. This change, to my mind, is the only big and serious lapse in the entire script, especially since it brings the conclusion closer to a Tales from the Crypt episode than to genuinely Lovecraftian terror. 

"The Thing on the Doorstep" is another story previously not filmed, although there were rumors that Stuart Gordon wanted to do it as a feature. It is the only instance of a Lovecraft tale with a prominent female character, although there's a twist to that, too. To put it vaguely, it deals with a marriage gone horribly wrong due to the influence of the bride's father. Who, by the way, happens to be dead. But, as HPL put it, "that is not dead which can eternal lie, and in strange aeons even death may die." So, as can be seen from these examples, church is hell, family house is hell, marriage is hell, and, obviously, insane asylum is hell. Which all leads to a nice and cheerful ending, Lovecraft style.

It is difficult to predict how this script will turn out: this is the first film from Andrew G. Morgan, the writer and director, his cast is made of mostly unknown actors, and the budget is relatively low for the ambitious concepts which will be done blending CGI and practical make-up EFX. A lot will depend on the DP's (and production designer's) ability to capture the atmosphere that the script provides opportunities for in spades. Also, they're gonna need really good EFX artists for some rather complex visual and make-up effects (and thankfully, the script is not stingy when it comes to Lovecraft's trade-mark body-horror). Anyway, the script, if filmed as written, promises to be a basis for one of the better HPL adaptations out there. Good luck, folks!

THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS (2011)

review by Dejan Ognjanovic

originally published on TWITCH

***

3

The Whisperer in Darkness is the first feature length film by the folks from the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Their version of The Call of Cthulhu (2005), directed by Andrew Leman, was a brave and surprisingly successful medium-length film (47 minutes) done with a lot of care and talent. Unlike numerous other flicks which (ab)use Lovecraft's name merely to sell yet another same-old creature feature and/or slasher, The Call of Cthulhu was obviously a labor of love, but also of knowledge about what makes the Great Old One truly great. 
 

It was shot in the style of a 1920s silent horror (which means: in glorious black and white), with period-style music and inter-titles. The Call... used the legacy of German expressionism in its high contrast photography and play of shadows, visible also in the stylized sets a la Cabinet of Dr Caligari with weird shapes and angles to depict surreal dreams and the non-Euclidean geometry in the city of R'Lyeh.   

The Whisperer in Darkness is a far more ambitious effort, and not only in terms of its running time (103 minutes). If Cthulhu was done as a re-enactment of 1920s horror, then The Whisperer, directed by Sean Branney, looks and feels like a long-lost noir-style horror from the 1940s. 
 

Shot in "Mythoscope", this time with sound, but still in black and white, it is clearly a letter of love and dedication to H. P. Lovecraft, one of the greatest horror writers of 20th century. 
 

It follows the novella it is based on (published in 1931) pretty closely, up to a point, and deals with Henry Akeley (Barry Lynch), a farmer secluded in the woods of Vermont who discovers strange, not-of-this-earth footprints (that is, hoofprints; or are they clawprints?) around his home and begins to suspect a race of creatures from the distant gulfs of space abducting some men and beginning a clandestine invasion of our wold. 
 

He corresponds with professor Albert Wilmarth (Matt Foyer) from the Miskatonic University, who decides to visit him and decide for himself if there is any truth behind the letters and curious photographs he was sent. 

This film is obviously made by Lovecraft's followers primarily for other like-minded individuals, with no big concessions made to turn it more commercial – although the action-packed ending, significantly altered from the one in the novella, may seem like an attempt to liven up things a bit and provide a more suspenseful climax than the original had, based as it was on a rather predictable "twist".  

The Whisperer in Darkness certainly has a far greater commercial appeal than its almost avant-garde experimental Cthulhu predecessor, but its intentionally old-fashioned approach (and black & white photography) will probably limit its appeal to the Lovecraft initiates, SF-horror enthusiasts and the remaining adventurous followers of the weird cinema as its primary target-audience.

Viewed as an adaptation of a genre classic, it is pretty well done, though the first half may seem too talky to some. It would've been nicer to see the creepy contents of the farmer-to-professor correspondence dramatized instead of mostly narrated and presented through dialogues. Charles Fort, a famous weird-phenomena enthusiast from the 1930s (when the story and film take place) has a clever cameo in an episode (not in the story) in which professor Wilmarth has a discussion with Fort, live on radio, about the modern science and its attitude to "wonders" and mysteries of existence. 
 

Lovecraft's twist about "the whisperer" is revealed shortly after one-hour mark, and the remaining 30 minutes or so offer events, action, chase sequences, creatures, horrors and visual concepts completely invented by the makers (the screenplay is written by Branney and Leman). 

Some Lovecraft purists may find the action-driven climax too different from what the novella is about, but others will be happy to see the well-made scenes of flying creatures chasing the small airplane and the ensuing struggle. 
 

The CGI aliens are the only obviously modern visual element in a film otherwise pretty minute and accurate in its period setting and dedication to the style of vintage horrors. The design of creatures and their various alien gadgets are excellent and rightfuly reminiscent of the retro-futuristic machinery from the covers of classic Weird Tales. 

My greatest complaint, other than too many "photographs of people talking" (as old Hitch would say) in the first half, would be the lack of sufficiently thick atmosphere in the Vermont woods. Lovecraft envisioned the plot based on his travels in the region, and conceived it as an exercise in mood and creeping hints of something sinister lurking in the silent and lonely hills and forests. 

There should've been more than a few brief shots of that in the film (some involving fine miniature work). Also, the ending resorts once again to the cliché of people in queer robes shouting incomprehensible things while invoking strange "Gods". This is not only done to death in practically every other "Lovecraftian" film, but is also utterly incongruent with this particular plot, in which the occult has absolutely nothing to do with its SF concepts. In a film pretty faithful to Lovecraft this is an unnecessary slip.

In terms of filmmaking, The Whisperer in Darkness is exquisitely shot and edited by David Robertson and very well directed by Sean Branney. The latter has already won the Audience award for Best director at the SFF-rated Festival of SF and Fantasy Film in Athens. The low budget origins are visible but expertly overcome by good costumes, elaborate production design and, of course, by the crisp photography. 

The loving attention to period detail is, after all, to be expected from the people who call themselves "H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society", and this adds to the intriguing viewing for those in the mood for such a blast from the past. The makers certainly showed that one doesn't need 150 million dollars, nor Tom Cruise, to make a very good HPL adaptation. Besides, their actors' motivation is enthusiasm, not dollars, and this clearly shows in every frame of the film. 
 

They deserve success for their efforts, and if they continue their evolution along the lines already sketched, after the 1920s and 1940s hommages, their next film will be probably in color, styled after Roger Corman's and other AIP Lovecraftian flicks from the 1960s. Let's just hope they remain closer to Lovecraft's spirit than those.