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H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival
Clinton Street Theater
2522 SE Clinton St., 238-8899
7 pm Friday-Monday, Oct. 6-9. Call theater for individual
show times, or go to www.hplfilm
festival.com for details
$6
Actor Jeffrey Combs, who starred as Herbert West in both
Re-Animator films, also played H.P. Lovecraft in
Necronomicon.
Portland author Andrew Migliore co-wrote The Lurker in
the Lobby: A Guide
to the Cinema of H. P. Lovecraft.
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H.P. Lovecraft was a man ahead of his time. A sickly pulp
writer who contributed to the precursors of modern fantasy
and dark fiction in rags such as Weird Tales in the
1920s-1930s era, Lovecraft died destitute, his only legacy
being a handful of short stories and a legion of devoted
fans and fellow writers. His stories were often so convincing
that fictitious inventions such as the "Necronomicon" and
"Miskatonic University" have become part of our nation's
collective unconscious. The Necronomicon, Lovecraft's famed
"book of the dead"--written in blood and bound in human
flesh--should be familiar to fans of the Evil Dead
film series, and even Stephen King scatters Lovecraftian
graffiti pointing to the "Plains of Leng" in his books.
Yet, apart from every horror writer on the planet and disenfranchised
youth, conspicuously few people know his name. Now Portland
can get in on this dark little secret, because the creepy,
tentacled, squirming Ancient Ones of Lovecraft's id are
being projected for all to see at the Clinton Street Theatre.
In its sixth year, the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival gathers
together films of all shapes and sizes that have been based
on or inspired by the works of New England's original horror
writer. The four-night festival plays host to three feature
films: Bride of Re-Animator, the 1989 sequel to the
cult hit Re-Animator, both based on the serialized
adventures of "Herbert West: Reanimator" and starring Jeffrey
Combs as the deadpanning mad scientist obsessed with resurrecting
corpses; director Ivan Zucco's The Beyond (not to
be confused with horrormeister Lucio Fulci's The Beyond)
which draws its inspiration from such Lovecraft stories
as "The History of the Necronomicon" and "The Nameless City";
and director John Carpenter's The Thing, which is
based on John Campbell's short story "Who Goes There?" but
is brimming with Lovecraftian influences.
In fact, Lovecraft's influence on film reaches far beyond
those that bear his name. Yet curiously, very few direct
adaptations of Lovecraft stories have been translated to
film. This has to do with the writer's dependence on, as
he put it, "atmosphere over action"--not to mention the
budget it would take to bring his imagination to life on
the screen. Bride of Re-Animator is a perfect example
of a movie that uses Lovecraft's characters and concepts
to create a dark Frankensteinian comedy but doesn't adapt
the story it pulls its elements from.
In addition to the feature films, the festival includes
13 shorts. The quality of these varies, but the love and
respect for Lovecraft is evident in all. Out of Mind:
The Stories of H. P. Lovecraft explores the themes of
the author's work, while casting Lovecraft himself as a
character. Drawing inspiration from Lovecraft's Randolph
Carter stories, The Testimony of Randolph Carter
is an eerie courtroom tale laced with flashbacks. Rough
Magik is a bright point of the festival, seemingly the
premiere episode of a series where "dreamers" hear the call
of Cthulhu--a godlike space alien--and start sharpening
their knives.
As the films of the festival unfold, the geek quotient
goes off the scale, and the knowing Lovecraft references
fly. But you don't need to be familiar with the author to
enjoy the films. The only things you'll need to remember
are: (A) Never read aloud incantations out of books you're
unfamiliar with, and (B) If the townsfolk tell you to stay
away from the house, there's usually a pretty good reason.
Naturally, as with any film festival the quality of the
films varies greatly. Some are a bit too ambitious and would
have benefited from more money and better talent. Luckily,
there is a decent balance in the material presented. And
even in the films of lesser quality, you'll find all of
the concepts that made Lovecraft great: insanity, heredity,
evil, astronomy and glimpses at the Ancient Ones, the creeping
unconscious horrors made flesh with names like Cthulhu and
Nyarlathotep that make up their own terrible mythos.
Long after his death, many writers and fans have kept Lovecraft
from becoming a literary footnote. His books remain in print,
and his most die-hard fans continue spreading the word.
The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival is in the same spirit,
keeping the writer's vision alive--well, squiggling--and
on the screen.
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