Many Lovecraft inspired movies not made by Stuart Gordon tend to be rather dreadful, so it's a nice surprise to watch two very good Lovecraft films in one day.
The Music of Erich Zann (1980)
This short film uses its length of just seventeen minutes to adapt one of my favorite Lovecraft short stories as faithfully as possible.
Lovecraft's technique of directly showing as little of the supernatural as possible and reaching his effects by insinuation and hinting at terrible possibilities that aren't spelled out lends it self perfectly for a small project like this.
The film uses brilliant minimalism in all of its aspects - lighting, production design, acting, effects - and achieves a wonderful creepy mood without overtly doing all that much.
Il Mistero Di Lovecraft - The Road to L. (2005)
This feature-length movie uses the basic concept and some of the footage of an earlier short project, about which I have talked a little, to expand on the fictional journey of H.P. Lovecraft during his hidden years to Italy, where he found the basis of his Cthulhu mythos in local folklore of the Po delta and the truth behind the folklore. To my surprise, this version of the story avoids most of the things I criticized about the short version and should now be of interest to horror movie watchers in general and not just Lovecraft fanatics like me.
The Road to L. uses the Blair Witch method of fake documentary work. It shows the attempts of a small film crew to find real proof for Lovecraft's journey.
The more they look into deserted houses, strange disappearances, and try to get the cooperation of a very unwilling local populace, the more they step outside of the comfort zone of accepted reality and come close to a terrible discovery.
The film comes to Lovecraftian horror from a different but related angle as The Music of Erich Zann. Instead of adapting a Lovecraft story, the film drags some of Lovecraft's ideas into the here and now, where they are able to fend very well for themselves. Lovecraft himself of course used seemingly non-fictional reports as the framework for his stories, which makes this a clever and respectful way to go about a project like this.
Parts of the film are extremely creepy, especially the ending is very effective. My only problem with it was the amount of squabbling and hissy fits between the crew members - it seemed a little too much, without enough reason for the break-downs.
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