Review of Dagon (2001) by Daniel K — 08 Oct 2010

A fairly good adaptation of the classic Lovecraft story "The Shadow over Innsmouth" (with some elements of "The Festival"). The setting's been changed from Innsmouth, Massachusetts (a fictitious town that's a combination of Gloucester, Mass. and Newburyport, Mass.) to Northwestern Spain (Galicia), in the town of Imboca (equally fictitious).

A group of boaters (Paul Marsh, his girlfriend Barbara, and Barbara's parents) stumble upon a derelict fishing village in Spain after a storm threatens to sink their boat. As per normal modern horror movie trope, they quickly lose their laptop computer and their cell phones get no signal. Of course, all the land lines in Imboca are dead. The village priest tells them to check in at the "Hotel del Mar" (The Gilman Hotel from the book), which turns out to be as gross and run down as everything else in town. The town church has weird marine icons on it/within it rather than crosses and other familiar Christian imagery. Barbara notices the hotel clerk's eyes don't blink, and he appears to have the suggestions of gill-like slits on the sides of his neck. As it gets dark, Paul and Barbara find themselves pursued by murderous, bestial locals. An old drunk (Ezequielâ??Zadok in the book), who as it turns out is the only "normal" person in Imboca, saves their lives and tells them (and the viewer) the story of how the town changed into what it is.

The half-abandoned town's backstory is basically the same in both the movie and the book; long ago, there was a decline in fish catches, and a strange sea captain (Captain Orpheus Cambarroâ??Captain Obed Marsh in the book) came to town preaching a new religion that he had learned on his voyages. The townspeople abandon Christianity, and the town's Catholic Church becomes a temple of "la Orden Esotérica de Dagon". As a reward for their sacrifices and ceremonies, Dagon and the Deep Ones bring fish and gold to the Imbocanos. The townspeople also begin mating with the Deep Ones (presumably part of the deal for the Deep Ones shunting fish towards Imboca and for bringing gold); their offspring resemble humans at first but become increasingly deformed and bestial as they pass middle age. The hero is pursued by the fishy townspeople, eventually learning that (*wait for it*) he is actually ONE of them, his mother had conceived him with a Deep One, but had run off to America before giving birth. Barbara dies by Dagon's own hands (er, tentacles) and Paul stays with his father and half-sister, Uxia. Whether by chance or some strange attraction to the town, he had come home at last, presumably to "dive down through black abysses and in that lair of the Deep Ones...dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.".

There are some definite departures from the book as far as the appearance of the Deep Ones. In the book, they look like "frog-fish-men". In "Dagon", they look like mutated humans with varying degrees of marine attributes (usually tentacles substituted for limbs or webbed fingers). Also, in the movie, we actually see Dagon himself, who is depicted as octopoid (somewhat like Cthulhu) instead of looking like a giant Deep One.

The acting is OK, and there are some pretty gory scenes (the "skin-removal" one is kind of tough to stomach, but it establishes that the Imbocanos are nasty, sadistic, and inhuman, so we don't feel as bad when Paul burns a few of them and stabs the Dagonian priest in the gut), but the movie's not really a gore-fest. The set design is really good; Imboca certainly looks the part of a run-down Spanish fishing village. The CGI is somewhat less good, I think for some scenes they'd have been better off using rubber props. As far as H. P. Lovecraft adapations go, this is one of the better ones (probably due to director Stuart Gordon). Like most Lovecraft movies, will probably be of more interest to fans of his stories than general horror audiences.