As a passionate H P Lovecraft enthusiast, I’ve always been very keen to see films based on his work, though it has to be said that most are very loose adaptations at best. One of the best known films based on a Lovecraft story is of course Stuart Gordon’s RE-ANIMATOR (1985, based on Lovecraft’s 1921-2 novella ‘Herbert West: Re-Animator’). This film has a large cult following, and is certainly very entertaining, but it has to be said that it doesn’t really stay faithful to Lovecraft’s work past the basic premise, preferring to go for humour, sex and OTT gore. Gordon returned to Lovecraft the following year with FROM BEYOND (loosely based on a 1920 short story of the same name), a considerably less successful film, but a more faithful rendering of Lovecraft’s work. Over the following years Gordon produced several other horror films, plus the sci-fi comedy SPACE TRUCKERS (1997), not to mention writing HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS in 1989! However, he was unable to get the funding to realise his dream of producing a film version of Lovecraft’s 1931 novella THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH. Finally, in 2001 he teamed up once again with Brian Yuzna, the producer of RE-ANIMATOR and a well-known genre director in his own right (SOCIETY (1989), BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR (1990), RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD III (1993), THE NECRONOMICON (1994), THE DENTIST (1996), FAUST (2002), etc). Yuzna is a fellow Lovecraft devotee who has in recent years set up shop in Spain, producing horror films over there due to lower costs and cheap access to stunning locales. The product of this reunion was DAGON, a very loose adaptation of THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH. The choice of the title ‘Dagon’ for the film seems odd, given that this is the name of one of Lovecraft’s earliest short stories (1917). The short story ‘Dagon’ is effectively an early dry-run for Lovecraft’s later defining work, THE CALL OF CTHULHU (1926), and although it introduces the sea god, the story is completely different to that featured in Gordon’s film.

The film opens with a diver uncovering something strange deep below the sea. Suddenly he sees a naked woman who comes over to embrace him, before opening her mouth which is filled with razor-sharp teeth. The man, Paul (played by Ezra Godden), awakens in bed with a beautiful woman, Barbara (Raquel Merono). It turns out that they’re on a yacht at sea with an older couple, celebrating the success of Paul’s expedition to find gold on the sea bed. Suddenly, they hear strange chanting and looking towards shore they see an old and shabby looking town. A dark cloud gathers overhead and seems to be propelled towards the yacht from the town. A violent storm ensues and the boat is thrown onto a large rock. The older woman is trapped below deck, and Paul and Barbara elect to take the dinghy to shore to get help. After they leave, something starts to stir in the water on the flooded yacht, and they hear gunshots ring out.

Arriving on shore, they find the town deserted. Spying a church, they run to it and go in, momentarily off-put by the strange sign on the church (‘Esoterica Orde de Dagon’). Inside they find a creepy looking vicar who takes them back to the port where two dodgy looking fishermen agree to take Paul back to the yacht. Barbara is to stay behind to get help from the police and find a doctor. Once Paul has left, she is quickly attacked by the vicar and a hotelier. Paul returns to the yacht and finds that the older couple have disappeared. Returning once more to the shore he locates the hotel where Barbara was attacked. Finding the hotelier as unhelpful as possible, he takes a room, which turns out to be squalid and filthy. He nods off, only to have another nightmare. Awakening, he hears strange guttural noises outside. Looking out the window, he sees a crowd of strange, deformed figures entering the hotel. In a panic he tries to escape, eventually jumping out of the window. After several other incidents he meets a drunken tramp who tells him the story of the town…

To give away any more of the story would be to spoil some nice surprises, but suffice to say that things get quite gory at one point and we find out what Dagon wants with the women in the group…

I thoroughly enjoyed this film and have been surprised at some of the negative reviews I’ve read (though I’ve also seen some very positive ones too). I think that although the film doesn’t exactly stick to Lovecraft’s story (it’s very different in fact), Gordon does capture the atmosphere of Lovecraft’s work extremely well, particularly in the deformed, loping villagers who almost bring to mind the infamous shoggoth Lovecraft was so fond of depicting in dark hints. Several details are rendered very faithfully from Lovecraft’s story, for example the entire scene when Paul is in his hotel room and has to replace the lock on the door with one from within the apartment is lifted directly from the story. The drunkard who reveals the dark secrets of the town is also present in Lovecraft’s story (named Zadok), though he is re-named Ezequiel in the film for some reason. Gordon has Paul wear a sweater with ‘Miskatonic’ emblazoned across the front in a nod to Lovecraft (he did the same in FROM BEYOND) and ends the film with a quote from the ending of ‘Shadow’: “We shall swim down through black abysses, and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever”, though this is truncated from Lovecraft’s original: “We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many-coloured Y’ha-nthlei, and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever”.

DAGON is easily one of the best horror films directed by an American for some years and marks a definite return to form for Gordon. The film uses computer effects sparingly but with great success and features some stomach-turning gore scenes that are guaranteed to make you wince. Both of the lead actors are good in their parts, with Ezra Godden’s bespectacled performance strongly reminiscent of Jeffrey Coombs’ turn in RE-ANIMATOR. Sexy Raquel Merono is also very good in her part, though she is somewhat underused. Prolific Spanish actor Francisco Rabal, who plays the part of the beggar, died shortly after completing work on the film but puts in an excellent performance as the tramp, really making you care about what happens to him.

It will be interesting to see what Yuzna does with BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR, due for release next year, though on the strength of this film it’s a shame that Gordon isn’t on board for that one also.