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Rating: Summary: A Mythos Movie Must-Have... Review: Charming and highly informative book on HP Lovecraft/Lovecraft related movies including all the usual suspects (ie the Stuart Gordon/Jeffrey Coombs/Barbara Crampton titles) and short films that might escape the attention of the average filmgoer. Misters Strysik and Migliore prove their love of both cinema and all things Lovecraft. with this fast paced read chock-full of eye candy (three cheers to Armitage House & Beyond Books for the wonderful layout)...Besides the in-depth and witty reviews, there are interviews with the people behind the adaptations and an introduction from top Lovecraft scholar, S.T. Joshi. After finishing Lurker In The Lobby was ready to race off to the local video store (the only thing stopping me was the lateness of the hour) and rent enough films to keep me glued to the couch for hours.
Rating: Summary: Lovecraft would be pleased Review: Great little book, filled with big laughs and a lot of big pictures. The lay out and design work is great. A must have for all horror film fans and H.P. Lovecraft fans. Excellent production art from the never produced adaptation of "Shadow Over Innsmouth".
Rating: Summary: Lovecraft would be pleased Review: Great little book, filled with big laughs and a lot of big pictures. The lay out and design work is great. A must have for all horror film fans and H.P. Lovecraft fans. Excellent production art from the never produced adaptation of "Shadow Over Innsmouth".
Rating: Summary: Movies Man was not Meant to See Review: I shall never permit anything bearing my signature to be banalised and vulgarised into the flat infantile twaddle which passes for "orror tales"amongst radio and cinema audiences! Yrs. most cordially and sincerely, H.P. Lovecraft So wrote the master in a 1933 letter to Richard Morse. Yet since his untimely death at forty-six, Lovecraft's Mythos has been "analised"into at least twenty-four feature films, four episodes of Rod Serling's Night Gallery , a couple of cable movies, a slew of amateur shorts, and even a few Saturday-morning cartoons. HPL's unacknowledged influence is even greater, helping to breathe unwholesome life into screen monsters like The Creature from the Black Lagoon and the acid-dripping anathema of Alien. But why should the works of a man who believed in "tmosphere, not action"exert such an influence on the action-oriented world of commercial films? The Lurker in the Lobby attempts to shed light on this and other perplexing questions by reviewing a select set of Lovecraft adaptations, correlating them with the original source stories and illustrating them with production stills, posters, and other original graphics. The Lurker has also conducted exclusive interviews with the key individuals behind these squamous blasphemies. For the first time, professional filmmakers provide us with unwholesome glimpses into their own unique interpretations of the Lovecraft Mythos. On the amateur end of the spectrum, The Lurker in the Lobby exposes rare and hard-to-find short films based on Lovecraft's work, non-commercial movies which, in their own way, carry on HPL's cherished tradition of amateurism. Works created for passion, not profit. The Lurker in the Lobby is not, however, a definitive guide. There are many, many films that may contain Lovecraftian elements, but these are often subjective in nature. In general, the films selected for this book are either direct adaptations or do serious name dropping from the Lovecraft Mythos. Likewise, this modest work should not be confused for a scholarly treatise on Lovecraft and the cinema (our metaphoric tongue is usually too firmly planted in our cheek to have allowed that to occur). Unlike many of the films themselves, we are intentionally trying to be entertaining. Finally, it seems fitting to close this introduction by noting a short prose poem Lovecraft penned in 1920 called "yarlathotep,"a nightmare he claimed to have started writing before waking up. Ironically, Lovecraft's unconscious mind made Nyarlathotep a supernatural filmmaker! A "warthy, slender, and sinister"stranger projecting (on a portable screen) images of "estruction from ultimate space; whirling, churning, struggling around the dimming, cooling sun . . . ghastly midnights of rotting creation, corpses of dead worlds with sores that were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low." This bleak, cosmic, soul-shattering vision was dreamed many years ago by a man who died obscure and penniless in 1937. A dream that became part of a unique vision known as the Lovecraft Mythos which, as The Lurker in the Lobby attempts to show, filmmakers have been trying to capture onto their own screens ever since.
Rating: Summary: Wit and wisdom Review: It's absolutely hilarious. The remarks made about the bad films are so cutting, I kept checking to see if my fingers were bleeding. Between its skilled analysis of the good movies, its critical evisceration of the bad ones, and the interviews with people like Jeffrey Combs, Roger Corman, John Carpenter, and Stuart Gordon, this book is a must-have. The section on independent films is great as well. An often overlooked field. While I realize that most HPL fans are quite mature, perhaps a small disclaimer that some material may be inappropriate for younger readers could have been added. But it's very little material.
Rating: Summary: Wit and wisdom Review: It's absolutely hilarious. The remarks made about the bad films are so cutting, I kept checking to see if my fingers were bleeding. Between its skilled analysis of the good movies, its critical evisceration of the bad ones, and the interviews with people like Jeffrey Combs, Roger Corman, John Carpenter, and Stuart Gordon, this book is a must-have. The section on independent films is great as well. An often overlooked field. While I realize that most HPL fans are quite mature, perhaps a small disclaimer that some material may be inappropriate for younger readers could have been added. But it's very little material.
Rating: Summary: Just fair Review: The problem with this book is the endless tongue in cheek approach which becomes very tiring and seems to show a lack of genuine respect for the material. Some parts are OK, but as a whole this Lovecraft guide is merely fair.
Rating: Summary: Just fair Review: The problem with this book is the endless tongue in cheek approach which becomes very tiring and seems to show a lack of genuine respect for the material. Some parts are OK, but as a whole this Lovecraft guide is merely fair.
Rating: Summary: Only Lurking in the Lobby Review: This book is helpful for those who want to brush up on their "must have" Lovecraftian films. In fact, I was surprised by one or two of the additions that I had either forgotten about or hadn't seen because of their easily overlooked releases. Still, it only goes so far on addressing the Lovecraftian equation of the cinema, leaving out some relatively obscure films that have been made and stringing together some really loose ties to others. The banter is sometimes really funny, sometimes really annoying, and oftentimes hit-and-miss with its reviews on the films it speaks of. I would only recommend it if you only want to get your feet wet in the mythos or just have to have anything with the word "Lovecraft" attached to it.
Rating: Summary: Only Lurking in the Lobby Review: This book is helpful for those who want to brush up on their "must have" Lovecraftian films. In fact, I was surprised by one or two of the additions that I had either forgotten about or hadn't seen because of their easily overlooked releases. Still, it only goes so far on addressing the Lovecraftian equation of the cinema, leaving out some relatively obscure films that have been made and stringing together some really loose ties to others. The banter is sometimes really funny, sometimes really annoying, and oftentimes hit-and-miss with its reviews on the films it speaks of. I would only recommend it if you only want to get your feet wet in the mythos or just have to have anything with the word "Lovecraft" attached to it.
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