Dagon
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Movie Reviews of Dagon
Movie Review: A Lovecraft film faithful to the spirit of his writings
Summary: 4 Stars
"Dagon" is not as bad as you think that it is for most of the first two-thirds of the movie, but you do not really know that until you get near the end of the film at which point you have an opportunity to rethink the problematic elements that were threatening to overwhelm it up to that point. Otherwise you are constantly wondering why Paul (Ezra Godden) is still alive because this guy outlives a couple of cats in this movie.This 2001 horror film is based on a pair of H.P. Lovecraft stories, "Dagon," an extremely short little story that was one of the first pieces the author got published, and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth." Lovecraft was my favorite horror writer when I was a teenager and I have been always disappointed with what happens to his work on the silver screen or on Rod Serling's "Night Gallery," which did a couple of his short stories including "Pickman's Model" (if I had my druthers I would make "At the Mountains of Madness" into a movie).
The story begins with a quartet of Americans in a sailboat off the coast of Spain, approaching a old fishing town, when a storm suddenly and strangely appears, driving their boat onto the rocks. One of them is hurt, so Paul and his girlfriend Barbara (Raquel Meroño) head for shore in the dinghy to get help. However, the town seems almost deserted and the people they encounter are, to say the least strange. The next thing we know Paul is on his own and starting to get in way, way over his head in terms of being in trouble, especially since some of the things in the weird dream he had are starting to show up in the real world.
There are several things working to the advantage of director Stuart Gordon's film. First, a lot of the people in this town speak Spanish (and another language) and there is no attempt to translate any of what they are saying. If, like Paul, you know very little about the Spanish language (or the other language) then you are can identify with the character's sense of isolation because he does not understand what is being said to him either. Second, if you are looking for scenes in horror movies that have you squirming in your seats if not averting your eyes from what you are seeing, then "Dagon" is one of those films. You see, the natives have a peculiar use for hapless visitors that come to their town. Third, they found Macarena Gómez to play the mysterious women from Paul's dreams. I looked at this unknown actress with her wide eyes and all I could think of was that this was the reincarnation of Barbara Steele, except the star of "La Maschera del demonio" (a.k.a. "Black Sunday") is still among the living. Suffice it to say that Gómez provides an interesting blend of exotic beauty and psychotic horror.
Working against "Dagon" is the fact that Paul pushes his luck repeatedly through most of this film and even if he is wearing glasses and is the weaker person in his relationship with Barbara he keeps surviving situation after situation in which mere mortals should end up being dead. Also, the makeup and special effects for the monsters (it is a Lovecraft story; there are monsters; he usually avoids describing the monsters as anything other than monsters too terrible to describe but in a film you get to actually see them) are pretty much on the B-movie level, which I suppose is what Gordon is really going for here. Then there is the fact that female nudity, which is so earnestly avoided at all of the early opportunities in the film, suddenly becomes abundant in the last act. Also, for most of the movie the music is really two slow (and the roll of the final quotes is even slower).
The scale tips in favor of this film because it is arguably the most faithful adaptation of Lovecraft to date and because it has a scene that really gave me the wiggins. Obviously "Dagon" is not really faithful to the two stories on which it is based, but my point is that Dennis Paoli's screenplay honors Lovecraft's body of work in terms of the Deep Ones and the entire Cthulhu Mythos, which is more important than tossing in references to the "Necronomicon" or Miskatonic University. Plus Gordon films a lot of the big action scenes in the rail, which usually works well even when you are not making a horror film. But the most important things here is that fans of Lovecraft's works will not feel he was abused by this film, which forgives a great many faults all things being considered.
Movie Review: Shadow Over Stuart Gordon
Summary: 4 Stars
We Lovecraft fans are a fervent bunch, and I think I speak for all of us when I say that there hasn't been a single film adaptation of his work that does his stories any justice. They're not meant to be filmed, pure and simple. His writing allows your imagination to run wild and think of hideous, terrifying things that don't come close to anything that can or has been conjured up on the screen. The closest film I've seen to capturing Lovecraft's spirit is John Carpenter's In The Mouth Of Madness-and that's not even based on any particular Lovecraft story! In Dagon, our Lovecraft-to-film team of Stuart Gordon, Brian Yuzna and Dennis Paoli relocate to Spain to bring us their adaptation of "Shadow Over Innsmouth". For those who don't know, "Dagon" is a short story that ties in with "Innsmouth", which is a much larger story. "Dagon" the short story, if filmed would play out to about five or ten minutes. Shooting in Spain with spanish actors allows Gordon to get the most out of his budget coz Hollywood would never touch something like this unless it had Orlando Bloom or was a remake of a classic horror film. So, the big question is: Is Dagon a good movie? That really depends on who you ask. If you ask me, it's a fun horror film and a terrible Lovecraft adaptation. But then again, I was prepared for this coz I had lost faith in a faithful adaptation years ago. If Dagon were filmed stricly to the text, it would make a good half-hour Tales From The Crypt type story considering there just isn't enough for a full length film. So as you can guess, it varies ALOT. It keeps the basic concept but adds characters, subplots and basically makes it much more complex than it originally was. So, yeah, these additions and changes might have Lovecraft fans throwing their bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos across the room in frustration screaming, "That's not right!! He/She never did that! Oh, come on!! Dammit, That was NOT in the book!!!" On the positive side, I personally enjoyed this as a Stuart Gordon film. If you happen to like his low budget and cheesy yet fun style of horror, you should like Dagon. If you like gore(there's a scene of some poor SOB getting his face skinned that demands rewinding), atmosphere(the film actually does have good atmosphere that Lovecraft would probably approve of. The town does look good, as do the creatures) and some unintentional chuckles, it's worth the rent. This isn't gonna appeal to people of the Scream generation, Dagon's more of a throwback to that good ol' renagade drive-in horror. The fx are decent, though the CGI I could have done without. How come as time goes by and technology progresses, CGI seems to be going backwards and looking more and more fake? Another high point being the young actress who plays the priestess. I'm looking forward to seeing her in more films, she is quite gorgeous. Lovecraft would call her, "Gorgeous beyond description", I'm sure. Sure she's got gills and tentacles instead of legs, but hell, I'd do her anyway. The verdict? Dagon is a Stuart Gordon film, NOT a faithful Lovecraft adaptation. Judge accordingly.Movie Review: Don't put this one back into the water.
Summary: 4 Stars
AGON wasn't going to be a hard sell for me. Being a BIG fan of both director Stuart Gordon and producer Brian Yuznas' previous work, the prospect of another H.P.Lovecraft adaptation made by the guys who gave us the gonzo horror hit RE-ANIMATOR and the equally spaced-out FROM BEYOND was too good to pass up.
Thankfully, the film is a triumph. The right amount of atmosphere, tension, sexual undercurrent and (of course) bloodletting combine to produce a truly unique horror experience. The timing of this movie seemed to be just right, as the horror genre seemed to be flagging under its own weight. What with teen-led slasher flicks dominating the movie theatres, this small, weird little movie about people turning into fish is just what the genre needed. The story is simple. When a boating accident forces Paul Marsh (an excellent Ezra Godden) and his girlfriend to seek help on the small spanish isle of Imboca, they uncover a dark and otherwordly secret about this quaint fishing village. As the story progresses, we learn that the towns folk have struck a deal with the monsterous god of the sea Dagon, who has helped the village prosper in bad times and in return, must have his hunger satsified.
The film has many high points. One in particular gory sequence is reminiscant of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with a cast member being peeled apart by the clearly insane villagers. Lead actor Ezra Godden is well cast (however, he bears a striking resemblance to regular Gordon/Yuzna star Jeffrey Combs - a coincidence?), and he is clearly having fun in the role, coming off like a bewildered Bruce Campbell in many of his scenes. Fanboys take note of the sweater that he's wearing. Nice touch. The rest of the cast a good too, with the beautiful Macarena Gomez dominating every scene she is in.
As with this kind of movie, the make-up effects work is top notch. Just the right amount of rubber monsters in this CGI age. Thats not to say DAGON doesn't have its fair share of computer-trickery, it just thankfully keeps it to a minimum. That said, I didn't find the CG work that bad (considering the obvious budgetry constraints), but the excellent prosthetic work stands head and shoulders above it. The cinematography is lush, with cool aqua blues complimenting the story and Gordons' direction is imaginative and commanding as ever. He really is the best guy at adapting Lovecraft (his 2007 Masters of Horror/HPL entry cements that), and fulfilling the strange visions and mannersims of the text. Dennis Paolis' screenplay is funny, sick and inventive in equal measure, and one wishes these three guys made movies more often.
The DVD disc of this movie (Lions Gate) is good. Offering an excellent transfer of the film with two informative commentaries (one by writer/director, the other by star/director). They both get into the meat of the production and offer an entertaining chat about the movie. All in all, a pretty good package. Recommended.
Movie Review: Lovecraft's DAGON Revisited
Summary: 4 Stars
Usually whenever one of H. P. Lovecraft's short stories is filmed, the result is a discredit to the master of 19th century horror fiction. However, director Stuart Gordon took DAGON, one of Lovecraft's lesser known short works and has presented a stunning thriller that keeps the viewer's mind firmly entrenched in a morass of religious paganism, creepy sets, and surprisingly effective acting. After I finished seeing this film, I had to take some moments to analyze how much the fish-god Dagon impacted on me. Director Gordon cleverly kept changing the film's pace so what started out as a pleasure boat ride with a mixture of nerds, Hispanicas, and middle class types quickly morphed into a series of visual horrors. The hero is Paul, who begins the film as some bespectacled dweeb who cannot comprehend why his Latina girlfriend tossed his PC overboard when he fails to pay sufficient attention to her. A storm cloud appears with amazing speed and beaches the craft on a reef near a town on the coast of Spain. He and his girlfriend Barbara paddle a raft to town where they find it inhabited by citizens whose faces and anatomy are at first vague and well-hidden by swaddling clothes. Slowly, both recognize that the town's residents are more fish than human. Decades ago, during a time of economic crisis, they abandoned Christ to worship the Philistine god of fish, Dagon, who over the years has been altering the DNA of his captive townspeople so that they grow fins, scales, and gills. The thrust of the second half is to discover if Paul and Barbara can escape before they are offered to Dagon as sacrifice.DAGON is a successful horror film, not because of the special effects, which, by the way, are upsettingly frightful, but because of the interaction between actor and setting. Much of the outdoor filming takes place in a dreary evening downpour which accentuates a middle ground between the two humans who are land bound and the fish-people who are water-linked. The followers of Dagon lumber slowly around or simply slither in and out of each scene. Paul tries mightily to dart around these fish-folk out of water, and he does elude them long enough for him to discover a shocking truth that took both him and the viewer totally by surprise. One of the supporting actors was Francisco Rabal, who plays the last human resident of the town. His character is old and grizzled, but despite his drunken demeanor and thick accent emerges as a man of immense dignity who remembers what his town was like before the acolytes of Dagon took over. By the closing credits, I found myself more concerned with his fate than with Paul's and Barbara's. The chilling horror of Lovecraft's Chluthu monster is in DAGON transformed in a series of of visceral images that cause the viewer to ponder the impossibility of what he just has seen and to conclude that only the best of the horror genre can force him to think that maybe the impossible is possible after all.
Movie Review: Don't put this one back into the water . . .
Summary: 4 Stars
DAGON wasn't going to be a hard sell for me. Being a BIG fan of both director Stuart Gordon and producer Brian Yuznas' previous work, the prospect of another H.P.Lovecraft adaptation made by the guys who gave us the gonzo horror hit RE-ANIMATOR and the equally spaced-out FROM BEYOND was too good to pass up.Thankfully, the film is a triumph. The right amount of atmosphere, tension, sexual undercurrent and (of course) bloodletting combine to produce a truly unique horror experience. The timing of this movie seemed to be just right, as the horror genre seemed to be flagging under its own weight. What with teen-led slasher flicks dominating the movie theatres, this small, weird little movie about people turning into fish is just what the genre needed. The story is simple. When a boating accident forces Paul Marsh (an excellent Ezra Godden) and his girlfriend to seek help on the small spanish isle of Imboca, they uncover a dark and otherwordly secret about this quaint fishing village. As the story progresses, we learn that the towns folk have struck a deal with the monsterous god of the sea Dagon, who has helped the village prosper in bad times and in return, must have his hunger satsified.
The film has many high points. One in particular gory sequence is reminiscant of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with a cast member being peeled apart by the clearly insane villagers. Lead actor Ezra Godden is well cast (however, he bears a striking resemblance to regular Gordon/Yuzna star Jeffrey Combs - a coincidence?), and he is clearly having fun in the role, coming off like a bewildered Bruce Campbell in many of his scenes. Fanboys take note of the sweater that he's wearing. Nice touch. The rest of the cast a good too, with the beautiful Macarena Gomez dominating every scene she is in.
As with this kind of movie, the make-up effects work is top notch. Just the right amount of rubber monsters in this CGI age. Thats not to say DAGON doesn't have its fair share of computer-trickery, it just thankfully keeps it to a minimum. That said, I didn't find the CG work that bad (considering the obvious budgetry constraints), but the excellent prosthetic work stands head and shoulders above it. The cinematography is lush, with cool aqua blues complimenting the story and Gordons' direction is imaginative and commanding as ever. He really is the best guy at adapting Lovecraft, and fulfilling the strange visions and mannersims of the text. Dennis Paolis' screenplay is funny, sick and inventive in equal measure, and one wishes these three guys made movies more often.
Lions Gates' disc is good. Offering an excellent transfer of the film with two informative commentaries (one by writer/director, the other by star/director). They both get into the meat of the production and offer an entertaining chat about the movie...