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I'll avoid spoilers...
Christian Matzke's "Nyarlathotep" is an amazing first film.
Based on the
story and one of HP's poems, this 15 minute gem does a lot of
things
right. It's a period piece, and manages to give the illusion of
taking
place in three locations: Arkham, Egypt, and the trenches of
World War
I. Christian has the distinct advantage of living in Maine, so
he was
able to get great New England areas for photography. He also
runs the
website Propping up the Mythos
so of course, the
props were
excellent, as well as the costuming.
The story centers around Dr. Burke, who was wounded in the Great
War and
is trying to ignore the malaise and depression that settled over
America
after witnessing the devastation of WWI. Into this comes
Nyarlathotep, a
"dark, swarthy man", who runs a sideshow of wonders and
amazements that
are utterly unforgettable. Dr. Burke sees this show,
and...things
happen.
Aside from the props, costumes, and locations, which, given the
low
budget, and about as good as you can get, Matzke also picked a
wonderful
musician /composer to do the sound effects, one derek.cf.PEGRITZ
of the
band "Nyarlathotep". Shot on video and pulled into black and
white, it
doesn't quite capture the "film look", but a lot of dark shots
and
blurry, grainy figures do well for it. The casting features
Christian in
the lead role, and he plays the meek intellectual well. Dan
Harrod as
Nyarlathotep is very imposing, even with a goofy long Egyptian
style
beard. There's also a cameo by James Cagney's great grandson.
My biggest problem was the voice over narration, which is a
personal pet
peeve of mine (even though Lovecraft stories almost invariably
fall into
the voice-over over creepy visuals style). However, it remains
true to
the story, so the purists will be happy. This video reminded me
most of
Bryan Moore's great "Cool Air" in terms of visual style. Three
out of
four "stars are right".
Christian is currently selling "Nyarlathotep" off his website,
but he hopes to have it collected on "Lurker in the Lobby III",
if/when
such a thing is created (Andrew Migliore, who runs the Lovecraft
festival in Portland, OR, and puts out the Lurker tapes, just
helped
"put out" a baby boy, so I don't expect another video to be
arriving
soon...better buy "Nyarlathotep" off Christian now--it's cheap.)