When Stuart Gordon became successful with his cheeky versions of H.P. Lovecraft stories I guess other studios decided to attempt doing a movie or two based on the guys work. This is one of them. It's actually pretty good and the best adaptation I know of although I've never read the story (I've read quite a few of his other stories though and their thematic signatures are unmistakable). I just think the movie's good and since his writing style is a lot like it, moody, murky, haunted by ambivalent facts and unholy histories that bleed horrors into the future, it's probably as accurate as your going to get without disfiguring it's essence and losing it's subtext by modernizing it. Actually, it does take place in modern times but accurate to the author's themes reality, the present, is just a superficial veil for the depthless ancient horrors lurking underneath that everyone's existence is built upon. This one takes itself really seriously and deserves credit not only for doing so but for the most part succeeding. And yes, it does have big ugly disgusting deformed monsters filmed in a way to suggest more than a fleeting glimpse of them would drive a person mad while inquisitive characters stumble around in the darkness of subterranean lairs, and of their own pasts, with unanswered questions and inadequate mobile lighting. The basic narrative starts as a detective story and then spreads into a supernatural conspiracy spanning time with the reincarnated version of the main character investigating what might be his own madness. And that's about all I can remember. I remember it was well written too but hey it's not only H.P. but Mr. O'bannon as well doing the honors. Unfortunately the douche bags (the production company?) who released and distributed this movie have not a made a DVD version of it (or any other format of it that I am aware of) readily available in years, possibly decades, so me telling you how good it is is probably a waste of time since the chances of seeing it are about as good as not seeing stupid capitalistic crap propaganda like "Batman Begins" collecting dust in a bargain bin for $2 in some department store dictatorship. Still there is the hope. Anyone with a copy heard of Youtube?

I love Lovecraft stories. Living in Massachusetts and spending summers in Northern Vermont put my childhood smack dab in the middle of his world. All the creepy elements of his stories invoke moods that I already felt and saw. Like Hitchcock, Lovecraft makes use of the readers imagination instead of blatant descriptions that may or may not let down the reader. One cannot fault one's own imagination for coming up with gore and deep implications Lovecraft puts forth for consideration. Unfortunately, todays movies feel the need to put everything in your face, too weak for some, too strongly for others. I have been searching for a good film adaptation of a Lovecraft story for quite a while. I found the re-animator series cute, but without any serious bite. Likewise for From Beyond. The black and white (and silent) "Cthulhu" came verbatim from the book, and I couldn't even finish it, having reread the story a week before. The new "Cthulhu" was horrible. "Resurrected" captured the mood in many places and follows the original story somewhat, but fails to make the primary connection between Curwins centuries old bid for resurrection (using his great, great, great grandson Charles Ward as a catalyst) and his continued intention of raising an Old One. Marsh makes note of the urns in the laboratory containing the remains of wizards and practitioners of the black arts, but fails to relate that Curwin was resurrecting them for their knowledge and power. The flashback raiding party, instead of being the culmination of the Curwin attempt to bring forth the Great Old One Yog-Sothoth, merely marks the incident from the book. There is no link between how close Curwin got and the fact that his resurrected body in the guise of Charles Ward is currently attempting the same thing. This is a crucial part of the story and makes this movie version a less than complete letdown.

My neighbor came by a few nights ago to return a few of my movies he had borrowed, along with a few of his own for me to watch. One was a film from the "Masters of Horror" series, which I will not mention. The other was "The Resurrected". At first, I made the mistake of putting it aside because of the cover art which looked like the typical straight-to-video horror crap that floods the video store.I didn't check it out 'till the other night when I was watching the original "Halloween" with my girlfriend. We were having a micro-theater presentation of spooky movies on the video projector and I left it up to her to pick out the next feature. Out of "Hostel", "Tourist Trap", "Night of the Living Dead"(Savini), and "The Grudge", she picked this one. She read the back of the case and said it was based on an H.P. Lovecraft story, which isn't saying much due to the quality of adaptations of his work. Then, she said "directed by Dan O'Bannon". Now, that was a name I hadn't heard in a long time. I mean, he is somewhat of a legend.After just watching "Halloween", it was hard to get into the flow of this movie, but then Chris Sarandon was the evil doctor, and then I realized what I'd missed out on in the nineties. I'm now checking out other flicks from that decade. You should, too.

This movie is exceedingly faithful to Lovecraft's original story, and I loved the original story ("The Case of Charles Dexter Ward"). So why did I dislike the film so much? Essentially, because it's NOT an "adaptation" of the source material: It's a straight line-by-line reconstruction of it, with no concessions of any note made to the adaptation process, to the differences in story telling technique which are required for film, as opposed to the written word.In short, it's uncinematic and what works on the printed page does not - most definitely does NOT - work on the flickering screen unmodified. The end result is tedious in the extreme.