Hurricane Lovecraft

Many of you that follow my art blog or who are my friends, know that I am a nut about Lovecraft. Even though the long strangle hold over the copyrights of his work was released many years ago, Lovecraft is still sitting in a niche of small loyal fans. However, there is a storm brewing, and a media hurricane about the mythos that Lovecraft created is coming!

Recently I have been doing research to see where the popularity of Lovecraft's work was doing. I began with flexing my Googlefu. If you do a basic search for Lovecraft or names from his mythos you get between 12 million to 15 million results. There are over thousand different Lovecraft works or related works in books alone and over 100 different films that are directly Lovecraft or related to Lovecraft's work. Writers and directors such as Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Ridely Scott, John Carpenter, and Del Toro just to name a few all have been influenced heavily by the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

Lovecraft's work is also picking up a lot of steam in foreign countries. For years I have known that Lovecraft's work has been very popular in Mexico, but because I am an artist who does a lot of Lovecraftian illustrations I have often been approached online, by groups in other countries to feature my work on their Lovecraftian sites. Some of the other countries that are becoming Lovecraftian Hotspots include Japan, Germany, Ireland and that is just to name a few in which Lovecraft's work has slowly metastasized to.

Lovecraft  has influence many mediums such as books, movies, music, and all forms of games, but if you mention the name Lovecraft to a random person on the street they may not know what you are talking about. However, I feel that there is going to be a dynamic shift soon in that general knowledge. A good portion of what is deemed popular is determined by the large media companies because when they produce something they have the ability to reach more of the general public than do individuals, but often is the case that they won't take a risk on what they consider an unknown. However, that is going to change sooner or later because the pressure is building  and then the hurricane named Lovecraft will be on us before we see it coming.






At the moment, there are two major forces that will bring Lovecraft into main stream media. The first force will be from the efforts of Del Toro the hottest director out there in the name of horror. Del Toro has already made a huge success with the Hell Boy movie series as well as a bunch of other successful horror films he has made over the years. When you watch his films it is easy to note how Lovecraft has effected his work. Right now he is now in his second attempt to get started on a movie based on Lovecraft's In the Mountains of Madness. His first attempt was push aside by the movie Prometheus because of the similarities between both stories, but after finally watching Prometheus I found that there was only a small similarity between the stories. Del Toro's version of Mountain of Madness is already confirmed to star Tom Cruise and with such a big name in the movie industry new Lovecraft fans are soon to generate.

 The second force will be coming from Alan Moore who was the creator of the Watchmen and Batman comics. He is in the works to create a Lovecraft comic called Providence which is such an awesome Lovecraft comic title since it is what is inscribed on Lovecraft's grave marker. I am really excited about this prospect because Alan Moore's style is really suited for the dark worlds of Lovecraft. So with just these two forces, I predict there will be a huge media hurricane surrounding Lovecraft's work and then everyone will jump on the band wagon to create more.




I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this and to help expand knowledge of the of incoming storm. Please feel free to comment.

Bad movies and their signs/ Plus my first review

For a long while now I have had a couple of theories about bad movies. These are signs that I high suggest that you should pay attention to before seeing a new movie. In addition, I will being doing a review of Silent Hill Revelations.

THE SIGNS

1. The Movie is being presented as a 3D Movie.

This is a big indicator of a bad movie, because odds are the movie was not designed to be a 3D movie which is it's own beast. Do not get me wrong, there are some 3D movies out there that were designed to be 3D, planned as a 3D movie and are a enjoyable 3D experience. However, a good majority of the time you will see a movie converted into 3D or the 3D is added on at the last second because the bigwigs in the movie industry thinks it will sell big. This sadly isn't so, because they do not treat it as an art form but a fad and thus it cheapens the experience.

2. It is a sequel with different directors, writers, and cast.

While there is always an exception to this rule, this is often another indicator of a bad movie. If the first movie was a success then it was due to the hard and creative efforts of the original cast, director and cast.  If the director is different, the cinematography maybe wildly different or a pale copy of what made the first movie strong. If the writer is different it also becomes a gamble because the script may not have the flavor of the first. If the movie is suppose to happen almost directly after the first successful movie then the audience that enjoyed the first movie will be expecting that cast because of continuity and they generally enjoyed their performance.

3. The Director and Writers are not fans

When a movie is based off a book, an old television series, or video games, it is vitally important that the director and writer have been exposed thoroughly to the original material. The first reason is that they get the content correct because all the fans will expect it to be held somewhat true to the original source material. The second reason is that the writer and director need to care about the source material because only then will the spirit of the movie be true to the spirit of the original source material. A movie these days are almost always written or discussed during its production or inception; this is especially true these days because of the internet. It is easy to find out about the lives of the directors and the writers and especially true to find out about the actor. So keeping this in mind it is easy to find out if they are fans or not.

4. The Preview is a lot of Razzle Dazzle.

Now don't let me mislead you, razzle and dazzle is a fine technique and it can help sell a product well, but if you see a preview of a movie that is nothing but razzle and dazzle without making you intrigued then this is a bad sign of a band aid approach for a bad movie. Some of the best pre-views you can ever see are the ones that don't try so hard to make you interested, they tell you just enough information just to make you interested to discover what the movie is about. The bad previews are super transparent and super flashy which often is most enjoyable aspect of that movie.

5. The movie relies too heavily on CG special effects and not content

Just like everyone else, I enjoy good and spectacular special effects, but a good movie relies content than it does it's special effects. Some of the best movies of all times had very little or bad special effects and yet they are more enjoyable. If you are going to have special effects then having a mix of both good CG and good old school special effects that are blended together. The reason that you need to blend it together is because it often makes it more believable.

6. A short time between the screen to DVD

Lastly this can be a big indicator of a bad movie. Often I can't get to or afford to go to the movies and I have to wait to the DVD release. If the movie didn't last long in the box office and it comes out to DVD in less than three months after it leaves the screen then indicates it is a bad movie. I can only speculate of the reasons why this is true but the biggest one is that they are trying to make up for money they lost in the box office. If they don't clear what they paid into it through the theaters then they need to make up the difference through DVDs and even streaming. Often these DVD will contain tons of coming attractions to the screen and DVD to help make up the difference. However, if it was a good movie odds are you won't see the movie in DVD form to much later because they have the money to make them extra special with extra features and you will see very little previews of coming attractions or none at all.

Enclosing, I am not an expert but these are signs that I have figured out to hold true and I also think they are all related to greed and not for the art of making a good movie. I am sure there are more signs of a bad movie and I would love to be informed about them from everyone else.

The Review!

            Silent Hill: Revelations 3D

This image is property of Davis Films and Konomi

 To be honest I am a big fan of Silent Hill back with the first one because it was truly scary and interesting. When the first movie came out I was interested but skeptical, but when I found out that the writer and director studied the games to become fans I took the chance and was rewarded to what I think is the best video game to movie ever. To me Silent Hill both in game and its first movie felt like a cross between the Twilight Zone and the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

So, of course, when the sequel to the first Silent Hill came out I wanted to see it but when I saw the 3D part, it made me nervous and then I started hearing bad reviews, not only from critics but from everyone that watched it. I also found out it was not made by the same people, well that is understandable  since one of them is in or was in jail.I stayed away from going to seeing it in theaters and only recently did I view it on DVD. This movie was horrible and hit just about every single bad sign that I mentioned in this article. The movie felt rushed and tried to do too much in too little of time. The script was really horrible and made Sean Bean look like he never acted a day in his life. The concept work of new monster were horrible and not in a good way, because they didn't fit the world of Silent Hill.