Shadow-Blighted Innsmouth
Mar. 6th, 2023 07:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingBecause it was 99 cents to rent on Amazon (and because sometimes I am too lazy to pirate, sorry), I watched Dagon, the 2001 Stuart Gordon B-movie adaptation of "The Shadow over Innsmouth."
Dagon is really good for what it is, but it was shot on a tight budget. It's also extremely gory. What I like about the original Lovecraft story is how it creates an atmosphere of dread without anything terrible actually happening, but Dagon dwells on the bloodier side of human sacrifice. If you're squeamish about fishhooks, I'd recommend avoiding this movie. Again, it's really good for what it is, but I wish it were something different.
Dagon was filmed in Spain; and, to me at least, the setting looks like any seaside Mediterranean town. The only "Innsmouth" thing about it is that it's raining (and also the human sacrifice, I guess). Although the POV character's room in the Gilman Hotel is delightfully nasty, there's no real sense of decay in the setting.
My impression of coastal New England is that it's a lot like Atlanta, by which I mean that there's been a ton of corporate development since the 1990s that has resulted in big-box chain stores with large parking lots ornamented by drive-thru Starbucks. If there are fishpeople in Massachusetts, they probably work at Dunkin.
If we're talking about pitted cobblestone streets and abandoned warehouses and boarded-up townhouses and half-functioning refineries and no trees and no grocery stores and miles of underground tunnels, though, that's Philadelphia. So I guess, in a suitably Lovecraftian twist, I have been living in Innsmouth this whole time. Idk man, the property is affordable and the homeowner taxes are low, so I'm not complaining.
Dagon is really good for what it is, but it was shot on a tight budget. It's also extremely gory. What I like about the original Lovecraft story is how it creates an atmosphere of dread without anything terrible actually happening, but Dagon dwells on the bloodier side of human sacrifice. If you're squeamish about fishhooks, I'd recommend avoiding this movie. Again, it's really good for what it is, but I wish it were something different.
Dagon was filmed in Spain; and, to me at least, the setting looks like any seaside Mediterranean town. The only "Innsmouth" thing about it is that it's raining (and also the human sacrifice, I guess). Although the POV character's room in the Gilman Hotel is delightfully nasty, there's no real sense of decay in the setting.
My impression of coastal New England is that it's a lot like Atlanta, by which I mean that there's been a ton of corporate development since the 1990s that has resulted in big-box chain stores with large parking lots ornamented by drive-thru Starbucks. If there are fishpeople in Massachusetts, they probably work at Dunkin.
If we're talking about pitted cobblestone streets and abandoned warehouses and boarded-up townhouses and half-functioning refineries and no trees and no grocery stores and miles of underground tunnels, though, that's Philadelphia. So I guess, in a suitably Lovecraftian twist, I have been living in Innsmouth this whole time. Idk man, the property is affordable and the homeowner taxes are low, so I'm not complaining.
