Stuart Gordon's "H P Lovecraft's Dagon" (2000)

I just had a chance to watch this for the first time. Contemporary horror movies are bloody, in that they show a lot of blood, spilled intestines, the insides of people which should not be seen except by a coroner. All that said, this is surprisingly low on the gore factor. A Brian Keene or Edward Lee book is far worse than the images Gordon shows.

Still, he has a tense and intense movie which moves along at a nice clip. It's definitely for the fan, though I'm sure it plays to the non-initiated.

I found that it smacked more of The Shadow Over Innsmouth than Dagon, per se. There's a smidgeon of Arthur Jermyn, too.

The requisite topless girls are featured, naturally. There are some jokes and pranks that Gordon also injects - though one has to look carefully. Crotch kicking jokes work in a horror movie as well as in "Home Alone."

All in all, the movie plays well as a nice diverting genre movie. Mr. Gordon is a good story teller. It will be a bit before I get to watch the commentaries - one of my favorite DVD features; I just love commentaries.

New Literary Antiquarian Style Magazine

http://www.southernliterarymessenger.com/

In the spirit of amateur journalism, and in honor of Lovecraft's antiquarianism, John just alerted me to his new magazine. Take a look, soon.

Lovecraft Image from Arkham Sampler 1983

From the ebayeum: The Arkham Sampler, Volume 1, Number 2, 1983. Published by The Strange Company. This issue conbtains a nice H. P. Lovecraft cover photo and letter (a copy of the original and a transcription) to August Derleth. There's also letters by William Hope Hodgson, stories, verse, and art by Eddy C. Bertin, Richard Tierney, Dave Stall, Jim Faulkenberg, and more. A little smaller than digest sized, and side stapled with 38 pages. In good shape.