H P Lovecraft’s classic and very influential short story, ‘The Call of Cthulu’, was first published in 1928. This amazing independent film, produced by Sean Brennan and Andrew Leman, distributed by the H P Lovecraft Historical Society, is almost exactly what a contemporary adaptation would have been like. Filmed using Mythoscope techniques, it looks very authentic, with the lines and dots, high contrast, title cards, background music and physical special effects which you get in films from that era. The actors have dramatic make-up and clear expressions, again giving it a vintage feel.

The narrative is about the research pieced together by an unnamed man, who discovers a terrible cult which worships massive, ancient tentacled monsters. An earthquake has caused their dreadful city to rise from the ocean and if the monsters take over, chaos and depravity will reign. Everyone who is unfortunate enough to learn the truth of this ends up dead or insane.

I do wish that more film directors would respect their source material as much! The adaptation is very similar, using the same structure and some extracts from the text. It is slightly simplified and we don’t get so much of the Lovecraft writing style. The film reveals that the man is actually telling his story to the doctor at the mental hospital. The main difference between the original story and the film, and a very sensible move, is the removal of any racist overtones to the cult worshippers.

The film is under an hour long and manages to be frightening as well as impactful, so it’s a treat for people who are interested in Lovecraft and also for admirers of the aesthetics and production values of the silent movie era. There is, to my non-expert eyes, nothing at all to indicate the film is from the 2000s, except for a website listed at the very end of the credits.

Image may be found at the following website: http://www.movieposterdb.com/poster/0fa7a3b7, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34177267