Deadline reports that Guillermo Del Torro will finally be able to complete his vision of the H.P. Lovecraft masterpiece, At The Mountains of Madness. Del Torro has had this on his wish list for quite some time but the effing pussy Hollywood Studios wouldn't touch it because there is no love interest or happy ending. It's an EFFING HORROR FILM YOU MYOPIC BEAN COUNTERS!!! GET A FRIGGIN CLUE.
Anywho, it seems like none other than James Cameron stepped up to lend his producing muscle to the project in order to make this happen and appease the risk-averse accountants- er studio heads. Now I'm no big Cameron fan, but this is easily his single best achievement since... well, since Terminator.
Del Torro is the perfect creative genius to helm this project - a true Lovecraft devotee and a true visual master. In his hands, this should finally be the Lovecraft movie done right! For those who haven't read it (and please go and buy a Lovecraft collection immediately - what's wrong with you?) At The Mountains of Madness is a seminal piece of horror fiction that has spawned such classic movies as The Thing and Alien. It is one of his finest stories, along with Call of Cthulu, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Shadow Out of Time and The Whisperer in Darkness.
I can't wait to see this tale finally brought to the masses - the Old Ones would be proud.
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, The Commune tells a tale of entrapment, sacrifice and familial dysfunction. It premiered at Dances With Films Film Festival and has received multiple awards.
He failed to carry any of Hellboy's spookiness into his movies, I have no expectation that he'll translate the more subtle horror of At the Mountains of Madness.
ReplyDeleteThe real terror of that story, like most of Lovecraft's, is the creeping realization of man's place in the universe.
SPOILERS
The narrator first has clues that there was life on Earth far before anything recorded, advanced to a degree impossible for a native. These things are found so the potential truth becomes increasingly realized and more horrifyinigly real still as they thaw out and kill everyone in the camp.
He's an intellectual and as much as the dread builds he has to know. Beyond all safety or maybe because knowing is the only possible hope of security he must learn what these creatures are.
When he follows them the story becomes a long backstory. It's cool but the unsettling facts it distills are
1) Man is not the height of evolution came about by millenia of development
2) These creatures are older and were more powerful than man ever was.
3) Man did exist during their reign and was but an amusement.
4) While specimens like those thawed out slept, their creations took over the waters' deep.
5) The creations of man's creators overwhelmed the star-aliens, making them both a better creation than man, the next step in evolution, superior in the sense that they did surpass their original role, and overwhelming in their potential to destroy or enslave humanity.
6) The shaggoths wait in the deep waters of the ocean and should man ever bring himself to their attention he will be destroyed.
7) The author's ability to convince the reader of this danger, his letter to the next expedition, is humanity's only hope of letting far-off monsters remain unaware of us.
END SPOILERS
Factually, it's not much to cover. The story's very tidy. Much of the inner monologue is solved by having an overt narration and much of his experience can be shown (like the series of statues). It's archaeology which becomes solving a murder mystery and encountering the murderer. The best Hollywood may do is have a wild-looking visage yell Yeteli-li.
The 2005 silent film version of "Call of Cthulhlu" was pretty cool.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478988/