The Shadow Over Innsmouth (1992)

Original title: インスマスを覆う影 Insumasu o ouu Kage

In a version of Japan where places like Innsmouth, Arkham and Kingsport are a train ride away from Tokyo, newly minted travel-journalist and photographer Hirata (Shiro Sano) develops a curious obsession with visiting the small coastal town of Innsmouth. Innsmouth’s pull on him seems to be connected to vague childhood memories and a vision of a rather fishperson-like looking gentleman.

Once Hirata arrives there, Innsmouth turns out to be a former rich fishing town that has somewhat come down. Most of its buildings appear closed and dilapidated. Apart from a female cab and delivery driver (Kimie Shingyoji) from Arkham whose outfit (nobody here seems to ever change their clothes) screams early 90s, the town’s population is less than friendly. Their food seems to consist of fish that’s not quite dead yet, and there are very peculiar ceremonies held on the beach. Still, Hirata persists in poking around town and making photos – there’s just something about the town he can’t quite grasp that draws him in ever further, yet that also seems to influence him for the worse, bringing on a desperate and violent side we didn’t get to see when he was still in Tokyo.

On the plus side, there’s a sexually aggressive lady in a kimono (Michiko Kawai) strolling around town for Hirata to fool around with.

If you keep in mind its nature as a sixty minute Japanese TV movie from the early 90s and can cope with the cheap look of the cinematography that comes with that, Chiaki Konaka’s is surprisingly clever adaptation of Lovecraft’s “Shadow over Innsmouth”. There are, of course, a lot of changes, but most of these make sense for the film’s place, time, and budgetary constraints. Olmstead’s flight from Innsmouth as written in Lovecraft, the film simply couldn’t bring on screen in any decent way, and the long expositional scenes of Zadok Allen would either mean a guy talking at the audience for large swathes of the movie or flashbacks the film again simply couldn’t afford.

Thus, putting a stronger emphasis on Olmstead’s/Hirata’s disturbing familial connections and the horrors of heritage and identity makes a lot of sense, while keeping fully with Lovecraft’s interests. It also opens up avenues for horror and suspense sequences the film can afford, while also providing ample opportunity for building up a somewhat creepy mood. Konaka – who has predominantly worked as a writer for much if his career – turns out to be rather good at doing this with the simple sets much of the film takes place in, bathing them in the classical colours of weirdness – red and green – whenever something mildly creepy happens, and making up for the lack of make-ups effects that would work in dialogue scenes by filming most of the townies in expressionist half-shadow.

There are some pretty neat Deep One masks, mind you, and they are sculpted with what looks a degree of love and care – they are just not the kind of thing you’d put front and centre, or let the audience’s eyes linger on for too long.

Thanks to Konaka’s direction, and his clever interpretation of what this Lovecraft tale is all about (turns out, you can leave the whole icky fear of “miscegenation” out and still keep rather a lot of Innsmouth intact), this version of Innsmouth is much better than you’d expect given its circumstances. There’s a thematic coherence that doesn’t even break down when the plotting becomes a bit loose in the end. For much of its running time, Insumasu is dominated by the feeling of watching a guy stumble through a situation he can’t quite comprehend, reacting to it in ways he can’t quite understand either that does stand an adaptation of this particular novella in very good stead.

It also ends on little bit of flip-book magic that most certainly wasn’t in Lovecraft but is such a clever little moment, I found it impossible not to love the film for it alone.