The Call of Cthulhu

For today's horror film I embark once again into Lovecraft territory with Andrew Leman's " The Call of Cthulhu." Probably Lovecraft's most famous story and one of the most influential stories on many different types of media from literature (Stephen King, Neil Geiman) to music (notably Metallica songs such as The Thing that Should Not Be and Call of Kthulu) to films (innumerable to name), this film does the most justice to Lovecraft's story of any Lovecraft-based film I've ever seen. Presented as a silent film to better suit the era in which Lovecraft wrote and set his story (also surely as a way to better hide the insanely small budget this film had), Leman does a mostly stellar job in evoking the feeling of the silent era. Leman draws much from German Expressionism (my favorite era of film making) especially in the dream sequences and the final confrontation with Cthulhu. The mood and lighting of the film as well show these influences and yield greatly to this monster-god tale. However, this silent approach is not without it's flaws-- sometimes rather than yielding to the story these techniques blatantly show how the choice to go the silent route were surely influenced by budgetary decisions. The over-the-top silent acting is sometimes too much so, showing bad acting even without words. When Cthulhu is finally revealed as well as a claymation monster one can't help thinking that, while this is realistic for a film of the era, it was surely even more greatly a budgetary decision. All in all, though, Leman does a great job with what he is given and brings Lovecraft's landmark story perfectly to life on the screen. I can't help but be think, though, after seeing this film, that this story is yearning for a proper, big budget treatment. The source material is so good it more than deserves it and it baffles my mind someone hasn't created it yet. Maybe sometime soon, and this is a more than a great start.

8.5/10