The Call of Cthulhu (film)

Plot

The film adheres very closely to Lovecraft's story, but there are a few changes. The sailors aboard the Emma first encounter the Alert abandoned at sea, rather than crewed by Cthulhu cultists and taken over by Emma's crew after a violent confrontation as in the original story. Additionally, the film depicts the narrator present at the time of his great-uncle's death, who dies peacefully in his sleep, rather than being summoned upon the mysterious death of his great-uncle, who was presumably killed by Cthulhu cultists in the original short story. The narrator (Matt Foyer) notes that Inspector Legrasse, who had directed the raid on cultists in backwoods Louisiana, died before the narrator's investigation began.

In the original story, the narrator does not seem to end in a lunatic asylum or experience any mysterious nightmares himself.

Production

Early on in production, Branney and Leman decided to film it as a black-and-white film. The official site says this was done to show what the film would have looked like had it been made in 1926, when the story was first published. In the DVD commentary the producers admit that shooting in black and white provided many other benefits. When using black-and-white cinematography, a filmmaker does not need to pay particular attention to the materials and decoration of sets, as the colors will not appear in the final product.

Release

The Call of Cthulhu has been selected to appear at numerous film festivals, including the 2006 Slamdance Film Festival and North America's largest, the 2006 Seattle International Film Festival, where it sold out both screenings thanks in part to a glowing review from The Stranger, a local paper.

Reception

Despite the long-standing conventional wisdom that this story was inherently "unfilmable", the film garnered mostly positive reception from genre reviewers. It holds 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 7.1/10 based on 6 reviews. Paul di Filippo of Science Fiction Weekly called it "the best HPL adaptation to date", labeling the decision to adapt it as a silent film "a brilliant conceit".

In their book Lurker in the Lobby: The Guide to the Cinema of H. P. Lovecraft, Andrew Migliore and John Strysik write: "The Call of Cthulhu is a landmark adaptation that calls out to all Lovecraftian film fanatics — from its silent film form, its excellent cast, its direction, and its wonderful musical score... this is Cthulhuian cinema that Howard would have loved."

Awards

The Call of Cthulhu received various awards, including: