|
|
| THE
COLOUR OUT OF SPACE |
Un-produced |
| USA
(AIP) 1971
Film Rumor |
Sam Arkoff's American International
Pictures announced in the trades that they were going to put a film entitled
The Colour Out of Space into production in 1970. The script was said to
have been based on both "The Colour out of Space" and "The Case of Charles
Dexter Ward." The film was never made. |
| PICKMAN'S
MODEL |
1971 |
| Rod
Serling's Night Gallery - USA (Universal/NBC-TV) 1971.
2nd Season 1971, production 2-11a, 1 Dec 71
Producer / director: Jack Laird
Cast: Bradford Dillman, Louise Sorel, Donald
Morrat, Jack Livingston, Joshua Bryant, Joan Tompkins.
|
 This
was one of the better episodes in Serling's lesser version of the "Twilight
Zone". Dillman plays the tortured Richard Pickman and Louise Sorel the
art patron who almost comes to her end at the hands of a creature who abducts
women to procreate.
According to Murray: "The problem with "Pickman's
Model" is that they showed the monster: Lovecraft's monsters are generally
too horrific to show on film. And then they are presented as stuntmen in
latex suits, they looks silly." |
| COOL
AIR |
1971 |
 Rod
Serling's Night Gallery - USA (Universal/NBC-TV) 1971
2nd Season 1971, production 2-12a, 8 Dec 71
Cast: Barbara Rush, Henry Darrow, Beatrice
Kay, Larry Blake, Karl Lucas
|
 Rod
Serling adaptation in a Hammer vein with Darrow as Dr. Munoz and Barbara
Rush as the narrator. A haunting love story of a young woman and her late
father's colleague, a man clinging desperately to life in a refrigerated
flat.
Murray: "A good version of a lame story."
|
| PROFESSOR
PEABODY'S LAST LECTURE |
1971 |
| Rod
Serling's Night Gallery - USA (Universal/NBC-TV) 1971.
2nd Season 1971, production 2- 8d, 10 Nov 71
Producer /director /script: Jack Laird
Cast: Carl Reiner
|
 A
tongue in cheek episode of Professor Peabody (Reiner) talking about Cthulhu
and the rest of the Mythos pantheon while reading from a paperback edition
of THE NECRONOMICON. The lecture drops references to many of the
Mythos names from Cthulhu to Nyarlathotep, from Arkham to Miskatonic, and
even from Lovecraft to Derleth. While debunking ancient cults, the
academic unwisely scoffs at the wrong god. |
| RETURN
OF THE SORCERER |
. |
| Rod
Serling's Night Gallery - USA (Universal/NBC-TV)
* 3rd Season 1972 (now 30 min), production
3-1, 24 Sep 72
Cast: Vincent Price, Bill Bixby, Patricia Sterling.
|
 A
sorcerer hires a translator to divine the meaning of an ancient Arabic
manuscript that has some grisly connection with his twin brother's death. |
| HORROR
IN THE HEIGHTS |
1974 |
| [Alternate
title: THE RAKSHASE] - Kolchak: The Night Stalker - USA (Universal/NBC-TV)
1974
Director: Michael T. Caffey; Script: Jimmy
Sangster
Starring: Darren McGavin, Simon Oakland, Jack
Grinnage, Ruth McDevitt, Phil Silvers, Benny Rubin, Abraham Soafar
1st Season 1974, production 1-11, 20 Dec 74
|
Investigative reporter Kolchak
(McGavin) discovers a Rakshasha, a flesh eating demon from Hindu legend,
preys upon the elderly in Chicago's Jewish ghetto, taking on the form of
the person his victim trusts most. The script, by Hammer veteran
Jimmy Sangster, was said to be a tribute to Lovecraft."
Stephen Jones says, "One of the better episodes
of the short-lived Kolchak television series, based on two tele-movies
written by Richard Matheson.
|
| THE
WHISPERER IN DARKNESS |
1975 |
| USA
(Pentagram Pictures) 1975, 35 minutes
Director / Script: David C. Smith
Starring: David Clement, J. Vernon Shea, Ron
Koloskee, Barry Meshel
|
An
amateur (super 8 / silent) rendition of the Lovecraft story shot in Ohio
which included Lovecraft correspondent J. Vernon Shea.
"Given the obvious limitations, it's a fairly
faithful adaptation of Lovecraft's story. Much of the story is told in
the title cards, mostly relating the letters the two lead characters shared,
and the actual camera footage is barely adequate to illustrate the story.
It's, um, interesting... in a morbid sort of way." - Bruce V. Edwards,
Bad Cinema Diary |
| Giger's
Necronomicon |
1975 |
| Switzerland, Documentary, C-40 minutes
Director: H.R. Giger, J.J. Wittmer
|
While not a Lovecraft project, H. R. Giger
has a strong undersanding of Lovecraft's imagery and has brought that to
his own Necronomicon, an artistic work which brings alien creatures into
our realm. His influence, and that of Lovecraft on him, can been
seen most clearly in the film "Alien." |
| Phantasm |
1979 |
 USA,
1979, 88 minutes
Director / producer / script: Don Coscarelli
Cast: A. Michael Baldwin (Michael 'Mike' Pearson),
Bill Thornbury (Jody Pearson), Reggie Bannister (Reggie), Kathy Lester
(Lady in Lavender), Terrie Kalbus (Fortuneteller's Granddaughter), Angus
Scrimm (The Tall Man) |
Mike, a young teenage boy who has just lost
his parents, is afraid to lose his brother. This fear causes him to follow
his brother to a funeral, where Mike witnesses the Tall Man lift a coffin
on his own. Mike decides to investigate and discovers a horrible world
where the Tall Man, along with his flying spheres, shrink the to half their
normal size and reanimate them as slaves. It is then up to Mike, his brother,
and Reggie the ice cream man to stop the Tall man. - IMDB Summary written
by Chris Nickerson {cnicker@bgnet.bgsu.edu}
-----
There is a strong feeling of Lovecraft's The
Whisperer in Darkness in the film. The idea of cannistering up humans
and shipping them off into space is similar in many ways to the cannisters
discovered by Wilmarth on Akeley's farm.
|
| THE
CRY OF CTHULHU |
1979 |
| USA
(Cinema Vista Corporation) 1979 Dir: Wolfgang Glattes Prod/Scr: David Hurd,
William Baetz
Film Rumor |
"I want to make 'Cthulhu'
a household word," said producer David Hurd as he announced his $6 million
dollar film based on an "original" treatment to be shot in the German Black
Forest. Obviously, he didn't. |
| THE
MUSIC OF ERICH ZANN |
1980 |
USA (Columbia College, Chicago)
1980. 17 minutes
Dir/Scr: John Strysik Prod: John Strysik &
Robert Rothman
Starring: Robert Ruevain, Robert Alexander,
Darryl Warren, Barbara Snapp |
A
17 minute amateur version of the Lovecraft short story. Despite the limitations
of a college production it has a feel for the genre until it tries to depict
the terror.
----
This story revolves around a student of metaphysics,
Charles Dexter Ward who befriends Erich Zann an aging violinist who lives
on the floor above him. Charles is fascinated and then drawn to Zann's
sinister yet wonderful music that he hears late at night drifting down
from above. He, of course, discovers more than he bargained for when he
peers at what beckons from beyond that strange curtained window in Zann's
room. IMDB summary written by Ørnås
|
| . |
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| So, all in all, the Seventies
were not a good time for Lovecraft adaptations. Film producers were uncertain
if there was a large enough audience for Lovecraft adaptations. And the
fans were hoping for someone to spend enough money on a picture that might
break pulp writer Lovecraft out of the B-movie houses. But,
since his name was not the household word Poe's was, such films were considered
a financial risk. Next, Lovecraft in the Reagan years. |
. |
| . |
. |
| . |
Bibliography:
Halliwell, Lee, Halliwell's Film Guide, Granada,
UK, 1979
Hardy, Phil, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction,
Woodbury, 1984
Jones, Stephen, "Haunters of the Dark," Fear
Magazine, UK, Oct. 1990
Maltin, Leonard, TV Movies and Video Film Guide,
Signet, 1990
Murray, Will, "H. P. Lovecraft: The Unadaptable?,"
Fangoria #106, Sept 1991
Rod Serling's Night Gallery reference:
http://www.nightgallery.net/episodes.html
Kolchak: The Night Stalker web reference
http://www.scifi.com/kolchak/Epi.html |
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