Review of Dagon (2001) by Jérôme V — 17 Jun 2009

In 2001, director Stuart Goldon was back behind the helm with his collaborators of old, writter Dennis Paoli and producer Brian Yuzna, to create, once again, another movie based (or rather « inspired by ») on the writings of Providenceâ??s horror maestro Howard Philip Lovecraft. Years after they made one of the best splatter comedy of all time with Re-Animator and created the fascinating study about the corruption of the human mind and soul in the hell ride of From Beyond, they cut their teeth on one of the classics of Lovecraft, Shadows over Innsmouth (despite having the title of another Lovecraft short storyâ?¦).

This is not classic Gordon and co. (you should rather look at their adaptation of Edgar Allan Poeâ??s The Black Cat, which they made for Master of Horror Season 2: I promised you a Hell of a good gory time!), but Dagon definitely have a lot to love, especially if you are a Lovecraft fan (as I am). Of all their Lovecraft adaptation, this is the most faithful to the source material (yes, it may be set in contemporary Spain, but Imboca is Spanish for â??in mouthâ?? so they keep some nice touch like these to pay their tribute to the Providence master). The town of Imboca is definitely a typical Lovecraft corrupted town full of degenerate people (except here there is no latent racism as in the source, fiouu!) always under the rain. Here and there, creepy tentacles creatures raise their ugly heads, making disturbing sounds.

Indeed, the setting is one of the primary force of this flick: the town, the desecrated church, the old dark houses and sea temple: they show a great attention to the Lovecrat writings. And of all their Lovecraft adaptation, this is this teamâ??s most chilling adaptation: the gothic chants, the subtle mutation, the gurgling sounds made by imbocians. Add to that a very atmospheric soundtrack and you have a killer ambiance to boots. The climax, largely inspired by the short story â??Call of Chthullhuâ??, should give any seasoned horror fan some spine chills with his depiction of a cult of the old ones. Thanks God, the finale is all faithful to the novel and is poetically captured by Gordon.

What make this flick a little flawed when compared to his companion pieces (Re-Animator and From Beyond) is the CGI effects: few really works. Hopefully, the FX department largely favored prosthetics when creating the Deep ones. And then there is the main actors: they may not be bad, but they definitely donâ??t have the talent, the charism and chemistry that Barbara Campton and Jeffrey Combs shared (luckily, Combs play Edgar Allan Poe in the aforementioned Black Cat. See it: itâ??s definitely pure old Gordon and Combs, packed with black humor and juicy gory scenes; a sure treat!). Also, Stuart Gordon show less kinetic visual talent than in his prime years as a director. Still, he clearly know what to do with a tight (indeed, very tight) budget in a pure horror way.

Despite those flaws, this is highly recommended to any Lovecraft fan as it is definitely one of the most respectful adaptation of the masterâ??s writing. And now that Gordon, after having done rather poor 90â??s movies, seems to reconnect with his old self, I could say that Iâ??m really eager to see what he would do with â??The Thing on the Doorstepâ??, one of my favourite Lovecraft short storyâ?¦.