Whisperer in darkness - bonus disc

[avid fan]

Anyone who makes films is insane.

Poor Matt Foley how he suffered as Albert Wilmarth. If asked him how he
did what he did. He would just say it was acting. The way his facial
expression said a hundred words is completely beyond me.
How he survived filming and did not die from hypothermia is a mystery.

Barry Lynch brilliant acting but he did not suffer enough Henry Alkeley

Daniel Kaemon as P. F. Noyes. perfectly played.

Matt Lagan as Nathaniel Ward (What chilling performance).

Autumn Wendel as Hannah Masterson - try and fault that performance.

We will see more of Autumn I hope.

[avid fan]

Forgot to mention Caspar Marsh as Will Masterson brilliant performance.

[Offramp]

On Feb 2, 2:29 pm, avid fan <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
> Anyone who makes films is insane.
>
> Poor Matt Foley how he suffered as Albert Wilmarth.  If asked him how he
> did what he did.  He would just say it was acting.  The way his facial
> expression said a hundred words is completely beyond me.
> How he survived filming and did not die from hypothermia is a mystery.

Poor Matt Foley only thought he knew. He did not know all - thank God!

[thang ornerythinchus]

Ok I am about to watch this movie, within the next day or two. I will
post my opinion which will be firstmost and foremost, objective.

thang
>

[thang ornerythinchus]

Watched it. Nice crisp B&W and some very good cinematography (decent
angles etc), however...

Firstly, it failed to sustain my interest. I found it boring after
the laughable chirping noises made by Alkely and the disembodied
holographic head(s). Suggested horror is good, but shadow lobsters is
bad. The little girl needs some acting lessons and the chinless
hillbilly should not have been in the movie.

I thought the best talent in the entire dribble was the supremely
confident University colleague (the chain smoker) who handled things
with such aplomb at the outset.

A bomb in my view.

Probably the best horror movie I have seen in antiquarian style was
the BBC production of "Whistle and I'll Come". Cheap special effects
and terrible chills - producers and directors of movies such as the
one just reviewed should place this on their must view list, before
setting out to insult audiences.

thang
>>

[avid fan]

SPOILER ALERT IF YOU INTEND ON SEEING THIS FILM GIVE THIS A MISS.
_________________________________________________________________

On 10/02/12 08:51, thang ornerythinchus wrote:
> Watched it. Nice crisp B&W and some very good cinematography (decent
> angles etc), however...
>
> Firstly, it failed to sustain my interest.

Ok one hand they get criticised for not following the the original
story. Now you criticised them for doing just that, Films need a big
bang at the beginning and a much bigger one at the end.

> the laughable chirping noises made by Alkely

Read the original story. Akeley Is misspelt (two ees) in typed letter
is the first give that something is wrong. To me if I hand never heard
Henry Akeley I would have thought his strange speech was part of his
Asthma.

and the disembodied

I found it boring after

> holographic head(s).

The HPLS want to make film as if it was made in the 1930s, with the
art Deco machines that we would expect in those years. Yes such an
advanced race should have had HD TVs. They were trying for something
different. If this film was shown in the 1930s viewers would have run
from the cinema screaming.

Suggested horror is good, but shadow lobsters is
> bad.

Read the original text this is all Wilmarth did not see shadows or live
Mi-Go, he just heard their foot falls and conversation. Not very good
for a film, but we see them completely in the film. Shadow lobsters is
only hint of what we are to see next. The full Mi-Go

The little girl needs some acting lessons

This is very low blow. As far as I am concerned. I thought her
performance was faultless. Many high points but the look on face when
one of the Mi-Go followed Wilmarth into the barn is the winner for me.

and the chinless
> hillbilly should not have been in the movie.

I assume you are talking about Will Masterston (Caspar Marsh) what was
wrong with that performance? Somebody who thought they were helping
some alien race in mining operation with a bit of money, then finds he
in neck deep in a conspiracy. He does paranoia perfectly,

He has the best lines in the film.

"Not much of a day for hunting, is it?" - Wilmarth
"Depends what you're hunting for"

"Mankind is done! they are what is next!!"

"No. You are wrong" Wilmarth.

"Wrong? Wrong? Have you seen one up close?
"They can put thoughts right into your head."
"We're no match for them."

That is the way people behave when they scared witless.

Please tell me what was wrong with the delivery of those lines?

>
> I thought the best talent in the entire dribble was the supremely
> confident University colleague (the chain smoker) who handled things
> with such aplomb at the outset.

Give me a break he did a got job as a bit part, but did he play anything
other than a spoilt brat? There was no arc in his character?
He did what he did well, but he was a bit part.

>
> A bomb in my view.
>
> Probably the best horror movie I have seen in antiquarian style was
> the BBC production of "Whistle and I'll Come". Cheap special effects
> and terrible chills - producers and directors of movies such as the
> one just reviewed should place this on their must view list, before
> setting out to insult audiences.

Probably had 100x the budget and full time FX people sitting around
floor waiting for something to do.

I think you will like Die Farbe better

[thang ornerythinchus]

I did not like this movie. I am a long standing fan of HPL, but like
all things, one grows up and leaves childhood things behind. HPL was
a childhood thing with me, I was reading him (Arkham Press, red
covers, nice paper...) back in the late 1960's and to a kid like I
was, in a town which had a library called "The School of Arts"
populated by first editions of The Book of Dzyan and all that, my mind
was wide open to things flopping in the dark, Plateaus of Leng, etc
etc.

We grow up, don't we.

I used to read Harlan Ellison and thought he was the bee's knees, but
I don't any more. I liked Hendrix, Fillmore East, loud, driving
music, but not any more.

Same with HPL.

Now, if he could be delivered in a different way, like Stross in A
Colder War, for instance, then we could say that HPL has surpassed
death and grown up. Kept up, even.

My opinion above is honest and the way I felt when I watched it. I
switched off at about 3/4 of the way because is was just too boring.
Why on earth deliver a movie just like the story, without any artistic
changes or subtle dimensions? Plain boring.

HPL, in order to survive in this photonic age, needs to be transmuted
by an expert. Shea is one, Stross another, but their interests are
elsewhere and their HPL visions are just tangential to the general
body of their work. "Fat Face" would make an excellent horror story,
and so would "A Colder War" - much more promise than this movie.

I'm sorry if you don't agree.

thang

[Kishin]

So, if you've left Lovecraft behind, why do you read a newsgroup devoted
to his works?

--

Kishin

[thang ornerythinchus]

Yes, if I've left Lovecraft behind indeed. Except I haven't and I
don't think I said I had. I was commenting on the movie, which is not
a good one, and the need like everything else to evolve, or die. I
have very fond recollections of finding HPL in my youth, and they are
engrams which will never dissipate. However, I'm also a creature of
the third millenium and I fear HPL will bite the dust as generations
pass the baton, unless the formula mutates or changes to suit
fashions. These are fast times we live in and HPL needs to adjust.

Just like everything else in history. Who reads Ambrose Bierce
nowadays?

thang

[Kishin]

That's an interesting way of looking at things. So do all classic
authors need to "adjust" to the 21st century? What exactly are you
suggesting? That they be re-written for modern sensibilities? Dickens?
Shakespeare? Poe? Twain? Am I understanding you correctly?

And yeah, you did pretty much say that you'd left Lovecraft behind: "I

am a long standing fan of HPL, but like all things, one grows up and

leaves childhood things behind. HPL was a childhood thing with me..."

--

Kishin

[thang ornerythinchus]

Well, you're close but no cigar :)

I wouldn't extend it to "all" authors. For instance, Shakespeare,
Tolstoy, Poe - even Mark Twain - patently don't need translation to
maintain interest. They are broadly read by practically all of the
literate classes, in most languages and cultures.

HPL on the other hand has not and will not achieve such broad literate
acceptance . For me to say that is just being honest with myself.
What I was getting at, maybe not too successfully, is that even though
HPL is a niche genre, it is not masterful enough to achieve resilience
through the ages without some re-writing for modern sensibilities as
you put it. I would have once denied this to be the case. But the
only way for me (maybe not for you) that HPL is still interesting, or
at least his creations, is through the writing of modern artists such
as Shea and, yes, Stross (his A Colder War is an excellent example of
what I'm talking about - I have read it many times, while I haven't
re-read any HPL originals for decades).

>
>And yeah, you did pretty much say that you'd left Lovecraft behind: "I
>am a long standing fan of HPL, but like all things, one grows up and
>leaves childhood things behind. HPL was a childhood thing with me..."

I can see how you have arrived at that, its basically what I said, but
I meant it in the context of my above comments. I should have said I
have left HPL behind (as I said, I haven't read him for decades) but
not the genre - because of authors such as Michael Shea and some
others.

Its just an opinion. That's the beauty of usenet.

thang

[Kishin]

That really does seem to me to be a very unusual opinion for an educated
person. It's easy for me to see someone uneducated, who just wants to be
entertained and doesn't care about artistic integrity, being open to
changing a written work. The type who read Reader's Digest. The type
who'd rather watch a movie with a bad dub than go to the effort of
reading subtitles. The kind who watch colorized black and white movies.
But I would expect someone of your smarts to be more in favor of
protecting creative works from censorship or other modification. I'm not
saying that you're not entitled to your opinion, just that it seems an
odd one to me.

Personally (and this is only my opinion), I don't mind at all
contemporary stories that explore Lovecraftian horror. I quite enjoy
many of them. But I would not want to see one word of Lovecraft's
original stories changed. Movies take his stories and re-write them as
you describe all the time, and I'm okay with that, too. But not changing
the originals. To me, that is sacrilege. And I feel that way about most
creative works, whether I appreciate them myself or not.

>>
>> And yeah, you did pretty much say that you'd left Lovecraft behind: "I
>> am a long standing fan of HPL, but like all things, one grows up and
>> leaves childhood things behind. HPL was a childhood thing with me..."
>
> I can see how you have arrived at that, its basically what I said, but
> I meant it in the context of my above comments. I should have said I
> have left HPL behind (as I said, I haven't read him for decades) but
> not the genre - because of authors such as Michael Shea and some
> others.
>
> Its just an opinion. That's the beauty of usenet.

Sorry, thang, I didn't mean to imply that you weren't allowed an opinion.

Me? I still enjoy reading Lovecraft. I don't read a lot these days, but
I read "The Whisperer in Darkness" last spring. I carry a complete
collection of Lovecraft fiction on my phone, as something to read if I
ever get stuck somewhere with nothing to do.

--

Kishin

[Ramsey Campbell]

On Feb 22, 1:23 am, thang ornerythinchus <bl...@whomedunnit.com>
wrote:

> On Wed, 15 Feb 2012 08:37:20 -0500, Kishin <n...@yobiz.ness> wrote:
> >thang ornerythinchus wrote:

The idea of rewriting Lovecraft but not Poe strikes me as
inexplicable, sorry. Neither should be subjected to it.

[Ramsey Campbell]

On Feb 15, 12:40 pm, thang ornerythinchus <bl...@whomedunnit.com>
wrote:

> Who reads Ambrose Bierce
> nowadays?
>
> thang

Presumably those readers who help his work to stay in print, since it
is:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_tc_2_0?rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3AAmbrose+Bierce&keywords=Ambrose+Bierce&ie=UTF8&qid=1329925944&sr=1-2-ent&field-contributor_id=B000APEJCK

[Magister]

On 15 Feb, 13:40, thang ornerythinchus <bl...@whomedunnit.com> wrote:

> Just like everything else in history.  Who reads Ambrose Bierce
> nowadays?

Presumably the people who decide what goes into the Library of America.

[Magister]

On 22 Feb, 16:56, Ramsey Campbell <ramseycampbel...@gmail.com> wrote:

> The idea of rewriting Lovecraft but not Poe strikes me as
> inexplicable, sorry. Neither should be subjected to it.

AMEN!!

[thang ornerythinchus]

I agree with that and that isn't what I meant. Of course HPL's works
are art and will stand as such. Those who read him for the first time
are in for a treat (or may, like my father, think he was unbalanced).
I'm not about changing any of his works, just taking his inventions
and transforming them for our times. For instance, a story written
with great skill but set in times of Twitter and Google - perhaps
these media being used by the minions of Azathoth - slimy tentacles
wrapped around a suddenly noncommunicative Russian Mars probe - Dagon
emerging as a result of increasing oceanic temperature and acidity:
you get the drift, right?

Michael Shea did this to some extent with Fat Face, prostitutes set in
a modern mileu. Stross moreso involving Lake Vostok and a combined
alternative history/mythos/armageddon. There are others that
illustrate what I mean - I certainly didn't mean the sacrelige of
changing one iota of HPL's words.

I didn't mention or imply censorship - good lord, I'm a total
libertarian in the full meaning of that word.

Translation, transmutation, but original.

>
>Personally (and this is only my opinion), I don't mind at all
>contemporary stories that explore Lovecraftian horror. I quite enjoy
>many of them. But I would not want to see one word of Lovecraft's
>original stories changed. Movies take his stories and re-write them as
>you describe all the time, and I'm okay with that, too. But not changing
>the originals. To me, that is sacrilege. And I feel that way about most
>creative works, whether I appreciate them myself or not.

Well "explore Lovecraftian horror" is closer to what I meant, but
rather than explore, I would use the term re-invent (perhaps with a
mutatis mutandis thrown in). And I haven't seen a movie, and I have
seen most, which really successfully takes his concepts and transmutes
them in a modern context. There hasn't ever been a widely acclaimed
movie adaptation of HPL's works, with the possible exception of
Re-animator, which was absolute junk but was moderately successful in
its time.

Again, I'm not about changing originals. I'm not about Stephen King
type adaptations like Couch End either, which is nowhere near as good
as Michael Shea's Fat Face (or The Autopsy, for that matter, which is
not really mythos but really, really good) - Stross's Shoggoth story,
probably the best Shoggoth story I have ever read - Gene Wolfe's
miraculously well written Lord of the Land ("No tongue showed between
his parted lips; worms writhed there instead, and among the worms
gleamed stars") and a few others of note.

>
>>>
>>> And yeah, you did pretty much say that you'd left Lovecraft behind: "I
>>> am a long standing fan of HPL, but like all things, one grows up and
>>> leaves childhood things behind. HPL was a childhood thing with me..."
>>
>> I can see how you have arrived at that, its basically what I said, but
>> I meant it in the context of my above comments. I should have said I
>> have left HPL behind (as I said, I haven't read him for decades) but
>> not the genre - because of authors such as Michael Shea and some
>> others.
>>
>> Its just an opinion. That's the beauty of usenet.
>
>Sorry, thang, I didn't mean to imply that you weren't allowed an opinion.

Hey, I didn't mean to imply that you had implied ... opinion :)

No need for sorry, you didn't do anything. I was just making a
general comment as to why I like usenet.

>
>Me? I still enjoy reading Lovecraft. I don't read a lot these days, but
>I read "The Whisperer in Darkness" last spring. I carry a complete
>collection of Lovecraft fiction on my phone, as something to read if I
>ever get stuck somewhere with nothing to do.

You clearly still have the wonder - I remember when I was besotted by
his works back in the late 60's, and I wish actually that I still had
that sense of wonder. It's gone alas.

Keep the flame burning as they say.

thang

[thang ornerythinchus]

Don't be sorry. I didn't say that. Read it again please.

thang

[thang ornerythinchus]

On Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:09:04 -0800 (PST), Magister <klar...@spray.se>
wrote:

Don't be patronising.

thang

[Magister]

On 23 Feb, 03:14, thang ornerythinchus <bl...@whomedunnit.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:09:04 -0800 (PST), Magister <klark...@spray.se>

> wrote:
>
> >On 15 Feb, 13:40, thang ornerythinchus <bl...@whomedunnit.com> wrote:
>
> >> Just like everything else in history.  Who reads Ambrose Bierce
> >> nowadays?
>
> >Presumably the people who decide what goes into the Library of America.
>
> Don't be patronising.
>

I was merely replying to your question. A selection of Bierce material
is vol. #219 in LoA. And AFAIK, it has sold rather well.