Call of Cthulhu Available on DVD 163
An anonymous reader writes "The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society is finally finished with the ultimate labor of mythos-love. The Call of Cthulhu is now available on DVD! For those not familiar with the long-awaited project, The Call of Cthulhu is a silent film adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's famous literary masterpiece of the same name. It really looks like something that would have been shot in the 1920's silent film era. I, for one, welcome our new multi-tentacled, aquatic, ancient overlord. Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn."
warning (Score:5, Interesting)
Thanks for your order; your DVDs will ship the end of the week via US
Airmail. Be forewarned, the quality of The Call of Cthulhu is WAY better
than Randolph Carter. TTORC was shot on VHS tape and suffers from poor sound
and image quality. It's watchable but I wanted to give you fair warning.
Sean
I have no problem with that. But thought I would share.
Silent Film Eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
At least this means that the movie can be multilingual with few problems.
Re:Silent Film Eh? (Score:4, Interesting)
As for recent silent films-- there are plenty, but most are made by film students and obscure artistes. The "e" was intentional. It's a lost art, but like making a black and white movie today it's a conceit, so if you're doing it you better have a good reason and do it well... Most films of the silent era would have used sound if they could. It would be fun to see a major or large independant studio make one-- it really is a different kind of filmmaking, and works well with creepy horror and broad physical comedy-- but it's not likely to happen, since most moviegoers would avoid silent films like the plague. Also, they don't tend to play well on TV, it's harder for a silent film to hold your interest on the small screen... You really need to be in a theater.
Cthulhu on Sunday Morning Cartoons (Score:3, Interesting)
Plug for "The Atrocity Archives" (Score:2, Interesting)
Readers of Slashdot who also enjoy Lovecraftiana should check out Charles Stross [antipope.org] who has written a few 'Lovecraft-meets-Dilbert' stories.
The Atrocity Archives [goldengryphon.com] comprises The Atrocity Archive & the sequel novella, The Concrete Jungle [goldengryphon.com] wherein the protagonist, Bob Howard, provides IT support for a fictional British Intelligence agency charged with stopping the horrors from the next dimension from encroaching into our universe.
The stories are set in a universe where the running of certain esoteric code on your PDA can inadvertently open portals into the dimensions where the horrors wait.
Not only does Bob have to keep Cthulhu etc. from encroaching into our dimension, he also has to justify his expenses to his pointy-haired manageress. The Concrete Jungle [goldengryphon.com] recently won a Hugo award [worldcon.org.uk] for Best Novella.
A previous story that is available online, A Colder War [infinityplus.co.uk], has a similar setting but is much more grim. Stross regards it as a 'dry run' for The Atrocity Archives.
Re:Silent Film Eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's still there, but struggling. The accompaniments aren't always just piano; a couple of years ago I saw a live performance there of an original rock orchestration for Metropolis that was friggin' amazing.
The venue is also notable for being the site (about 10 years ago, IIRC) of a murder worthy of a second-rate detective movie; an associate of the original owner killed him in order to get control of his film collection -- in the box office during a showing!