At the Mountains of Madness - movie being made

[rabidpigmy]

fucking hackjob they're doing to the Watchmen.

Oh god, please tell me they're not raping Watchmen? And to think I was contemplating what it would be like for an Invisibles movie to come out.

No-name cast, writer, and director? Its going to suck. Word on the street says they changed the overall storyline in such a way that the entire point of the story is completely overlooked, action sequences are needlessly shoehorned in, not to mention that a brief look at the cast list shows that none of the actors are appropriate for their roles. The comedian, for example, should be pretty old... yet he's portrayed by a young 30's soap opera alum.

Dont get your hopes up.

Yeah, I was just in the process of looking into the casting of it. While not necessarily a strictly no-name cast (as one of them is popping up in the Heartbreak Kid), it is an odd one.

[nurbldoff]

No-name cast, writer, and director? Its going to suck. Word on the street says they changed the overall storyline in such a way that the entire point of the story is completely overlooked, action sequences are needlessly shoehorned in, not to mention that a brief look at the cast list shows that none of the actors are appropriate for their roles. The comedian, for example, should be pretty old... yet he's portrayed by a young 30's soap opera alum.

Well, unless they're cutting out a lot of the retrospection in the comic, there will also be fairly young versions of all the main characters, so maybe there's a method to the madness. But I agree the project is most likely doomed and I wish they would leave it alone.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

The problem with Lovecraft is that most of his works are not able to be filmed like the story. Much of Lovecraft's appeal is in the words. When he speaks of a Squamish and Eldrich horror. its the squamish and eldrich part that tends to get the reader hooked... Squamish doesn't translate to the big screen.

However, I think Gorden's win was that he could take the feel of a Lovecraft story and adapt it to film. Dagon is a insane bastardization of "Dagon" and "The Shadow over Insmuth". It works, though, because Gorden kept the bits of personal horror and dumped the actual story. He moved the dates, location and focus, but kept that same feeling of unavoidable fate (and a nasty one at that!). The same could be said for the Re-Animator series, Dreams in The Witch-House (part of the Masters of Horror series) and From Beyond. All of them were unfaithful to the actual story, but were very faithful to the Lovecraftian style of horror.

I'm hopeful for the del Toro version... but nothing I've seen of his directing skills indicate that he 'gets' Lovecraft... but then he's never done anything Lovecraftian, so maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

[Cramulus]

The problem with Lovecraft is that most of his works are not able to be filmed like the story. Much of Lovecraft's appeal is in the words. When he speaks of a Squamish and Eldrich horror. its the squamish and eldrich part that tends to get the reader hooked... Squamish doesn't translate to the big screen.

I dunno. I liked his stories but disliked his writing style. Too try and drawn out for my taste.

But that's basically the problem with any book - movie adaptation, right? How do you capture the author's words visually and still retain the original feel?

[Cainad (dec.)]

The problem with Lovecraft is that most of his works are not able to be filmed like the story. Much of Lovecraft's appeal is in the words. When he speaks of a Squamish and Eldrich horror. its the squamish and eldrich part that tends to get the reader hooked... Squamish doesn't translate to the big screen.

I dunno. I liked his stories but disliked his writing style. Too try and drawn out for my taste.

But that's basically the problem with any book - movie adaptation, right? How do you capture the author's words visually and still retain the original feel?

Forsooth. I think it depends on how the book is written: a writer who drives the story using lots of visual language may be easier to put on film than someone like Lovecraft, whose writing tends to be highly introspective (and describes most horrible things as indescribable, dammit).

[Triple Zero]

a good lovecraft story movie would be totally psychedelic .. well not psychedelic, but .. weird. like, blurry and hitchcock-like and like the aeon flux movie or "immortals" and sin city and even (though i suspect loads of people dislike this movie) "what dreams may come" .. it needs to look very surreal. like, impressionist, kind of. like you're viewing the way the character is viewing the world, not as an outside spectator.

[Cramulus]

a good lovecraft story movie would be totally psychedelic .. well not psychedelic, but .. weird. like, blurry and hitchcock-like and like the aeon flux movie or "immortals" and sin city and even (though i suspect loads of people dislike this movie) "what dreams may come" .. it needs to look very surreal. like, impressionist, kind of. like you're viewing the way the character is viewing the world, not as an outside spectator.

well said

and it would probably be directed by Kubrick or Werner Herzog or David Lynch or someone else who has "mastered" the art of holding one frigging shot for three solid minutes.


also, the monsters would rarely if ever be on screen. Like Blair Witch but with less shakeycam and more... well, plot.

[Triple Zero]

i never saw blairwitch? should i?

actually generally i don't like scary movies i liked evil dead. i liked braindead and bad taste (a littlebit, but not that time i was hungover). i really don't enjoy the actual scary horror stuff. i accidentally walked into "Audition" this one time. damn did i ever need a stiff drink after that one (it was a good whiskey).

i disagree about david lynch, because i feel he would make the story incomprehensible.

i dunno werner herzog, what did he make?

[Cramulus]

i never saw blairwitch? should i?

The first time I saw it I shit my pants.
But that was at a screening at my high school. They told us that it was an actual documentary, not fiction. I really enjoyed it that one time.

i disagree about david lynch, because i feel he would make the story incomprehensible.

agreed there.

i dunno werner herzog, what did he make?

a bunch of incomprehensible unwatchable art house films



both lynch, kubrick, and herzog aren't really good with straightforward narrative. But they are good at using visual language to depict a character's internal state.

Which is why if I had to choose the director of The Mountains of Madness, and I had to choose between Lynch and, say, Monster Master Peter Jackson, I'd choose Lynch.

'cause Lovecraftian horror isn't so much a "holy shit, run!" kind of horror so much as it's a  "That monster is related to me and there's nothing I can do to save myself" kind of horror.

[Triple Zero]

i only saw "cube" and "clockwork orange" by kubrick (cube is by kubrick, right?)

both stories are reasonably follow-able, IMO ?

maybe it helped i read the book to clockwork orange as well. for my english high school literature list.. was very hard with all the strange language he used. took me a while to figure out what was meant by "the ol' in-n-out" o i was so innocent in those days hehe .. i used the blurb at the back of the book as a little rosetta stone for the first few chapters, cause it had both the "new speak" and an translation into regular english on the back.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

a good lovecraft story movie would be totally psychedelic .. well not psychedelic, but .. weird. like, blurry and hitchcock-like and like the aeon flux movie or "immortals" and sin city and even (though i suspect loads of people dislike this movie) "what dreams may come" .. it needs to look very surreal. like, impressionist, kind of. like you're viewing the way the character is viewing the world, not as an outside spectator.

ftr, i actually like What Dreams May Come.

[Triple Zero]

then, i suspect you liked "eternal sunshine on the spotless mind" as well?

(which was AWESOME, imo, specially the ending)

[tyrannosaurus vex]

yes, i did like that one too.

ARE YOU SIDEKICK?

[Z³]

i only saw "cube" and "clockwork orange" by kubrick (cube is by kubrick, right?)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123755/

Cube is DEFINITELY not Kubrick

[Sir Squid Diddimus]

I really liked the silent film that the h p lovecraft historical society did for call of cthulhu.

im kinda interested to see what will come of this