2005 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival - Friday Night

I tried to go into the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival as "just a fan." I talked about this with Aaron over at geekinthecity.com; in years passed, I've been sort-of-involved on at least a peripheral-level with most aspects of the festival - promoting, being a contributing filmmaker, and so on. This year, I wanted to pull back a little bit and just enjoy the shows (sure, I had business cards made up and was ready to tell people who commented on my 'What Would Howard Do?' tee-shirt that they could buy one of their own through linking through my website, but still).

But as soon as I get to the Hollywood Theatre, someone approaches me and we start chatting about my movie Casonetto's Last Song that played at the festival two years ago. The conversation eventually dovetailed into talking about the character Solomon Kane and Robert E. Howard's characterizations, but bringing up Casonetto's... put the filmmaker-hat right back on . . .

. . . right where it belonged, apparently, because more than once, people - other filmmakers and festival attendees - asked me about any future projects I had in the works. By the end of the first night, Christian Matzke, after graciously accepting the praise I threw his way for his short film Experiment 17 told me he heard that I had something planned for next year!

All in all, it was a good night.

When festival director Andrew Migliore launched the festival (introducing the shows with Patti Smith), he told us that this was the first year in which, no matter how we arranged our schedule and ran back-and-forth between the three screens at the Hollywood, we just wouldn't be able to catch all the movies. While there were only two Shorts Blocks this year, the number of features has definitely increased. Three feature films - The Forbidden Quest, Marebito, and Cast a Deadly Spell showed Friday night, as well as all the shorts, and the world premiere of Dreams of the Witch-House, Stuart Gordon's contribution to Showtime's upcoming Masters of Horror series.

After mingling a bit, catching up with some old friends (nothing makes your night more than running into Bryan Moore (director of Cool Air from a few years back) and swapping business cards and embraces), I cruised through the merchant's room. Man, I was right; I regret not having saved a bit more money for this time of year. The usual suspects were here - Catalyst Studios (who strangely didn't seem to have anything actually new in terms of actual merchandise), SighCo (who did have some new shirt designs) and Pagan Publishing, but there were some new set-ups as well. Guerilla Productions now has a enough material under their belt to warrant their own dealer's table, and I think this was the first year for Kthulhu Kitsh at the festival. The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society are the ones that would have done me in, though, if the wallet could have handled it. Their The Call of Cthulhu was calling me all night! The DVD selling for $20, and the soundtrack for $15?! Oh, man . . .

To avoid getting too wrapped up in money I shouldn't be spending, I looked forward to the movies. For the first show, I settled down in front of the Upper Left Screen for Shorts Block One, which was made up of the following shorts:

A trailer for Let Sleeping Gods Lie (directed by Sven Bonnichsen) - Kind of hard to really say much about this one. The trailer was VERY short, and it appears that, in the end, the movie will end up being some sort of animated piece.

The Gibbering Horror of Howard Ghomley (directed by Steve Daniels) - At first, I didn't quite know what to think of this one. It seemed to start out a little slow, and some unintentional humor didn't really help. However, as the short progressed, I found myself becoming more and more invested in what was happening on the screen. There's a sequence near the end that I can't discuss too much without spoiling the story, but it's well done. Trust me.

Antiques Roadshow: Arkham, MA (directed by Jon Cazares & Brian Wood) - Brilliant! This short is EXACTLY what it sounds like it is, and the antiques brought in by the guests are definitely NOT something you'd normally see on PBS. Played for laughs, this short accomplishes what it set out to do.

Read Me a Story (directed by Bret Mix & Craig Mullins) - This was one I was most looking forward to. Craig Mullins is a friend of mine who's been reviewing Lovecraftian cinema for years (he runs Unfilmable.com), so I was eager to see if he could "walk the walk" the way he "talked the talk." Not only does he walk, but he jogs along at a brisk pace. "With reading comes dire consequences," Lovecraft said, so when a child asks his mother to read him a story, you can bet something not-so-bedtime-story-like might just happen (I'll review this in more detail in the future).

Herbert West - Reanimator: Chapter 1, From the Dark (directed by Anthony Dickson) - No offense to the filmmaker, but this was the hardest to watch of the batch. To their credit, however, it may have also been the most Lovecraftian in its delivery. The story is told, literally TOLD to us by Dr. West's assistant while we view a series of flashbacks. The dialogue/narration could have been a straight lifting of the original text.

Experiment 17 (directed by Christian Matzke) - another great short from Christian Matzke; when it comes to period pieces, he's one of the best in this little subgenre of ours. Instead of doing a Lovecraft-story/Lovecraft-period piece, this time, he shows us what happened when the Nazi party tries to read the Necronomicon during World War II.

The Statement of Randolph Carter (directed by Ed Martin III) - Ed Martin III is perhaps the most prolific of the filmmakers in the Lovecraft circle. This was a solid piece, and stood out due to its solid acting. Mad Martian and Sean Strauss play incredibly well off each other, and made this story a bit more poignant than the rest.

The Call of Cthulhu (directed by Andrew Leman) - Ah, the big one. I've been following the production of this one for the past year now, and it's been worth the wait. Presented as a silent movie, and incorporating a bit of stop motion work, this was just a phenomenal production. Instead of just shooting a movie with no sound, the filmmakers really did everything they could to make this movie feel like an authentic film from the silent film era. The acting, the camera direction, the set design, the make-up - everything fit and created a film I wish I could see again over the weekend without skipping any of the other films I want to catch!

After the shorts, I hit the Main Screen to watch the world premiere of Dreams in the Witch House. While saving a seat for Aaron (who was getting a soda), I watched a man a few rows in front of me searching the seats for . . . something. He seemed to give up, came back, looked some more, left, came back again and so on. Someone asked him what he was looking for. I recognized him as Joseph Dougherty, screenwriter of Cast a Deadly Spell, and heard him say he was looking for a black baseball cap. He shrugged and left, but came back AGAIN still looking for it. As he passed me as he left again, I asked him this time what he was looking for. When he told me he was looking for his baseball cap, I pointed out that he had one attached to his belt loop on the back of his pants. He smiled, chuckled to himself and said, "Well, I'll just use this one until I find the other one!" before leaving.

Before Dreams... started, actor Christopher Heyerdahl gave a dramatic reading of Lovecraft's "What Amateurdom and I Have Done for Each Other." I was just a little moved by it, and I wasn't alone. When he finished, Bryan Moore gave a standing ovation and shook the man's hand before he even made it to his seat.

Stuart Gordon introduced his movie, and it started up. I have to say I was fairly impressed. Ezra Godden, who starred in Gordon's Dagon appears as a college graduate student from Miskatonic University studying inter-dimensional string theory. He rents a room in an old building, and, well, it's not called Dreams of the Witch House for nothing - he starts having some crazy-making dreams. Ezra Godden impressed me; in Dagon, it felt like he was trying too hard to ape Jeffrey Combs. In Dreams..., however, he stretches a bit and creates a unique character in Walter Gilman. This is a Stuart Gordon picture, so there's a bit of nudity, and the blood splashes around a bit, but I didn't find it distracting. If this is what the Masters of Horror series has to offer, I may regret not subscribing to Showtime.

I wasn't able to stick around for the Q&A - had to catch a bus - but past experience tells me that Stuart Gordon probably stuck around longer than he was scheduled to, chatting it up with the fans. He's a great guy (this isn't his first festival appearance).

Can't wait for tomorrow. I plan to see The Dead Inside, Strange Aeons: The Thing on the Doorstep and Beyond the Walls of Sleep.