So yesterday I watched Call of Cthulhu. I saw it in the horror section of my visual programming download site of choice, and thought, “Hmm, I don't remember seeing this on the verge of release in 2005.” For H.P. Lovecraft based movies, you usually don't. Despite the fact that Lovecraft's work beats the hell out of Stephen King out on the horror playground, and even the campy movies based on his books totally make King-based flick look like something you watch when you need something dumber than a B grade gore-flick, you generally do not get any hype form the straight to video Lovecraftian genre.
So as I cue-ing it up to watch, I'm remembering the wonderfully cheesy visual effects and deviation from the actual novels that one can find in older movies in this vein, such as Reanimator, and Dagon. I'm suddenly struck with a thought: I begin hoping that newer Lovecraft movies do not stoop to the level of poorly rendered CGI that one can get when they find a Maya class dropout willing to work more cheaply than Pixar. Even the good effects companies only hit the mark every once in a while, and the sort of story Lovecraft has to tell may be too tempting to base your whole movie on the virtual monster.
So the flick starts up, an my fears are all put to rest. The effects are extremely campy-- yet without a trace of any visible CG interference. In fact, it looks like an amateur job done completely with camera tricks and classic stop-motion animation. What's more, its fillmed in silent, scratched-up sepia toned, complete with text panels you have to read like the old time moving pictures. It sounds awful, and at first, I thought it would be, but you quickly get used to the style and in no time you are drawn into a world that remains true to the feel of the original story.
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