Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown | |
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Directed by | Frank H. Woodward |
Produced by | William Janczewski James B. Myers Frank H. Woodward |
Starring | Ramsey Campbell John Carpenter Guillermo del Toro Neil Gaiman Stuart Gordon S. T. Joshi Caitlin R. Kiernan Andrew Migliore Robert M. Price Peter Straub |
Cinematography | Don Spiro |
Release date |
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Running time | 90 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown is a 2008 documentary film about American writer H. P. Lovecraft.
The film examines the life, work, and mind of the creator of the Cthulhu Mythos. [1] [2] [3] It features interviews with Guillermo del Toro, Neil Gaiman, John Carpenter, Peter Straub, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Ramsey Campbell, Stuart Gordon, S. T. Joshi, Robert M. Price, and Andrew Migliore.
The film was released on Blu-ray and DVD in the United States on October 27, 2009.
Johnny Butane of the website Dread Central gave the film a score of 4 out of 5, calling it a "solid documentary that’s sure to appeal to everyone from casual Lovecraft readers to the most hardcore of his fans". [4]
The film won Best Documentary at the 2008 Comic-Con International Independent Film Festival. [5] It was the official selection at: Cinema Du Parc in Collaboration With The Fantasia Festival 2008; Erie Horror Film Festival 2008; Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre Festival 2008; Shriekfest Horror Film Festival 2008; The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival 2008; TromaDance 2009 and Porto Alegre, Brazil's Fantaspoa Festival 2009.
Cthulhu is a fictional cosmic entity created by writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was introduced in his short story "The Call of Cthulhu", published by the American pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928. Considered a Great Old One within the pantheon of Lovecraftian cosmic entities, this creature has since been featured in numerous popular culture references. Lovecraft depicts it as a gigantic entity worshipped by cultists, in the shape of a green octopus, dragon, and a caricature of human form. The Lovecraft-inspired universe, the Cthulhu Mythos, where it exists with its fellow entities, is named after it.
The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets is a rock band from Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada. Their music largely consists of often tongue-in-cheek homages to the works of H. P. Lovecraft, specifically the Cthulhu Mythos.
The Dunwich Horror is a horror novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in 1928, it was first published in the April 1929 issue of Weird Tales (pp. 481–508). It takes place in Dunwich, a fictional town in Massachusetts. It is considered one of the core stories of the Cthulhu Mythos.
Lovecraftian horror, also called cosmic horror or eldritch horror, is a subgenre of horror fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is named after American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937). His work emphasizes themes of cosmic dread, forbidden and dangerous knowledge, madness, non-human influences on humanity, religion and superstition, fate and inevitability, and the risks associated with scientific discoveries, which are now associated with Lovecraftian horror as a subgenre. The cosmic themes of Lovecraftian horror can also be found in other media, notably horror films, horror games, and comics.
Cosmicism is American author H. P. Lovecraft's name for the literary philosophy he developed and used for his fiction. Lovecraft was a writer of horror stories that involve occult phenomena like astral possession and alien miscegenation, and the themes of his fiction over time contributed to the development of this philosophy.
The Call of Cthulhu is a 2005 independent silent film adaptation of the H. P. Lovecraft short story "The Call of Cthulhu", produced by Sean Branney and Andrew Leman and distributed by the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society. It is the first film adaptation of the famous Lovecraft story, and uses Mythoscope, a blend of vintage and modern filming techniques intended to produce the look of a 1920s-era film. The film is the length of a featurette.
Seed is a 2007 Canadian horror film written, produced, and directed by Uwe Boll. Filming ran from July 17 to August 11, 2006 in British Columbia, Canada, on a $10 million budget.
Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire, was a writer of weird fiction and horror fiction based in Seattle, Washington. His works typically were published as W. H. Pugmire and his fiction often paid homage to the lore of Lovecraftian horror. Lovecraft scholar and biographer S. T. Joshi described Pugmire as "the prose-poet of the horror/fantasy field; he may be the best prose-poet we have" and as one of the genre's leading Lovecraftian authors.
Closet Space is a 2008 horror film directed by Mel House. It stars Melanie Donihoo, Jovan Jackson, James LaMarr, Morgan McCarthy and Tim Wrobel. It was filmed in and around Houston, Texas.
Cthulhu is a 2007 American horror film directed by Dan Gildark and co-written by Grant Cogswell and Daniel Gildark. The film is loosely based on the novella The Shadow over Innsmouth (1936) by H. P. Lovecraft.
The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society or HPLHS is the organization that hosts Cthulhu Lives!, a group of live-action roleplayers for the Cthulhu Live version of Call of Cthulhu. Founded in Colorado in 1984, it is now based in Glendale, California. Their motto is Ludo Fore Putavimus.
Furnace is a 2007 horror film written and directed by William Butler. It stars Danny Trejo, Michael Paré, Tom Sizemore, Ja Rule, and Paul Wall.
Sick Girl is a 2008 American independent horror film written and directed by Eben McGarr.
The Blair Witch Project is a 1999 American supernatural horror film written, directed and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez. It is a fictional story of three student filmmakers—Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard—who hike into the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland, in 1994 to film a documentary about a local myth known as the Blair Witch. The three disappear, but their equipment and footage are discovered a year later. The purportedly "found footage" is the movie the viewer sees.
H. H. Holmes: America's First Serial Killer is a 2004 biographical documentary film directed by John Borowski. The film relates the true life story of American serial killer H. H. Holmes. Produced over a four-year period, the film highlights locations such as Holmes' childhood home in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, and the courtroom in Philadelphia where the "trial of the century" was held.
Found footage is a cinematic technique in which all or a substantial part of the work is presented as if it were film or video recordings recorded by characters in the story, and later "found" and presented to the audience. The events on screen are typically seen through the camera of one or more of the characters involved, often accompanied by their real-time, off-camera commentary. For added realism, the cinematography may be done by the actors themselves as they perform, and shaky camera work and naturalistic acting are routinely employed. The footage may be presented as if it were "raw" and complete or as if it had been edited into a narrative by those who "found" it.
The Redsin Tower is a 2006 indie low-budget horror film directed by Fred Vogel and written by Fred and Shelby Lyn Vogel. This is the third film produced and distributed by TOETAG INC, and the first film in their filmography to be a traditional three-act narrative. The Redsin Tower is noteworthy for its use of excessive gore, violence, and psychological horror. The plot centers around Kim, a girl trying to get over her ex-boyfriend by taking a trip with her friends to the Redsin tower, where the partying quickly becomes a fight for their lives. The film was distributed and released on DVD on October 10, 2007, by TOETAG INC.
Alan Jones is a film critic, broadcaster, and reporter primarily focused on movies in production, especially in the horror fantasy genre. His first assignment was on Star Wars in 1977, after which he became the London correspondent for Cinefantastique magazine from 1977 to 2002 and reviewed for the British magazine Starburst from 1980 until 2008. A film critic for Film Review and Radio Times, he has made contributions to the Radio Times Guide to Films, the Radio Times Guide to Science Fiction, and Halliwell's Film Guide. He has also been a film critic for BBC News 24, Front Row on BBC Radio 4, and Sky News programme Sunrise. He has worked for Empire, Première, and Total Film. An article of his in the latter coined the term for the Splat Pack.
Rodrigo Gudiño is a Mexican Canadian film director and editor, known for being the founder of the horror magazine and company Rue Morgue. He currently serves as the company's president and also helps coordinate and program for several of the festivals and events that Rue Morgue holds or sponsors. Gudiño previously worked as the magazine's editor-in-chief before leaving the position to focus on making films. His short films were collected into the DVD Curious Stories, Crooked Symbols in 2009.