A friend of mine received "Call of Cthulhu" as a Christmas gift a couple of years ago and called me a few days later feverishly insisting that I must have a go at it. As an avid reader of Lovecraft I wanted so badly for his lavish praises of the film to reveal themselves upon viewing. So many of us have seen the mediocre, sophomoric efforts that have defined the Lovecraft cinema genre and I feared this would be just one more in this long, sad line.
To my great surprise though, the film is a minor masterpiece. Making the work an homage to the great silent era of cinema is perhaps the best choice the filmmakers made. Since they were hamstrung with an obviously low-budget, the use of black and white and grainy effect allow for the use of cheaper special-effects without making the whole thing a cheap, campy affair.
The way in which these effects are employed provide both a conduit for suspense and create the "cyclopean" architecture of R'lyeh, the land from which Great Cthulhu ascends after a terrible storm exposes the terrible island from its dead sleep. A group of Norweigen sailors run aground on the island and we see the shadowy figure of Cthulhu emerge from his layer and terrify the sailors of the schooner, "Emma".
The scene at sea is probably the most dramatic but the film deftly utilizes these effects in the scene of the cult in the Louisiana Delta, and in its portrait of the Inuit Cult worshiping the same hideous figure that was found aboard the Emma.
It felt like everything in this film came together in such a manner to produce a truly genuine and truly masterful cinematic version of Lovecraft's classic of horror literature. I only hope now that Guillermo Del Toro will persevere in making "At The Mountains of Madness" and then perhaps we will have a big-budget Lovecraft masterpiece to complement the small-budget "Cthulhu".
Obviously, I found this film to be a triumph on the grounds that no big studio had anything to do with it and the budget was raised in a grass-roots type of effort.
To my great surprise though, the film is a minor masterpiece. Making the work an homage to the great silent era of cinema is perhaps the best choice the filmmakers made. Since they were hamstrung with an obviously low-budget, the use of black and white and grainy effect allow for the use of cheaper special-effects without making the whole thing a cheap, campy affair.
The way in which these effects are employed provide both a conduit for suspense and create the "cyclopean" architecture of R'lyeh, the land from which Great Cthulhu ascends after a terrible storm exposes the terrible island from its dead sleep. A group of Norweigen sailors run aground on the island and we see the shadowy figure of Cthulhu emerge from his layer and terrify the sailors of the schooner, "Emma".
The scene at sea is probably the most dramatic but the film deftly utilizes these effects in the scene of the cult in the Louisiana Delta, and in its portrait of the Inuit Cult worshiping the same hideous figure that was found aboard the Emma.
It felt like everything in this film came together in such a manner to produce a truly genuine and truly masterful cinematic version of Lovecraft's classic of horror literature. I only hope now that Guillermo Del Toro will persevere in making "At The Mountains of Madness" and then perhaps we will have a big-budget Lovecraft masterpiece to complement the small-budget "Cthulhu".
Obviously, I found this film to be a triumph on the grounds that no big studio had anything to do with it and the budget was raised in a grass-roots type of effort.