cinematic v. horrific, or what i did on my summer vacation

[Don Quixote]

On Thu, 25 Feb 1999, sp!ke wrote:

> 	this is why nobody can make a decent film based on lovecraft (especially a
> film that closely resembles his work)...lovecraft was always like, "...and
> then the unspeakable shambling thing emerged from the cyclopean crypt and
> everyone went mad.  the end."  you can't show the unspeakable in a movie
> and get away with it (and not showing it at all ruins the reason for
> *filming* the damn thing).

I've been agreeing with you up to this point, but here I'm going to have to
disagree.  This is something that I think that Hollywood has for the most part
forgotten- you DON'T have to show everything.  Lovecraft knew what was up- you
don't have to describe everything in every little detail- the reader's
imagination is far more potent a force than all the CGI in the world.  Take
"Jacob's Ladder" for instance- you NEVER really see any of the 'demons'- you see
snippets, cuts too quick to really get a focus on, and you get no easy
explanation, so these send your imagination spinning.  Along similar lines are
"In The Mouth Of Madness"(while not a brilliant movie by any means, it did try
to hold true to Lovecraft's style- you are constantly doubting the narrator's
sanity, and you dever actually SEE the monsters- just their aftermath, and the
scene with it running down a long hallway in alternating pools of light and
blackness, combined with shifting shooting distances, so you  never actuially
get a good look at it), and "Seven"- the scene
that bothered me most severely when I saw it opening weekend(and knew next to
nothing about it) was in the police station, after the "Lust" killing; No blood,
no special effects at all, just a guy freaking out, and a small polaroid
snapshot that you get to see for all of one quick second.  That is cinematic
Horror, plain and simple- the use of images to arouse feelings of terror/horror;
and the lack of said images can easilly be far more powerful than their
presence, sometimes.

Sorry for the rant.

					justin