Dagon

Dagon Good

Yes!!!

This is everything a horror movie should be.

It has abominations that should not exist
and evil goings-on galore (and la gore).

Great creepy atmosphere,
lots of creepy creepies and one creepy plot
that crescendos to a mind-numbing conclusion
(watch it all if you can).

The ending is horrific and perversely happy
at the same time.

Lovecraft and Gordon, oh my!
If your looking for sick, twisted humor,
a la "Re-animator", forget about it.
This serious sick, twisted stuff.

Highly recommended for the horror fan. August 16, 2008

Gripping fish tale

There are many other good reviews of Dagon on this page. I'll just add that there are things in this film that you will see in no other that I'm aware of: A man getting his face removed while alive (and NOT by plastic surgeons); a hub cap used as a weapon; a scene of a naked woman suspended over a monster's pit that beats the heck out of Catherine Oxenberg's similar scene in "Lair of the White Worm"; and a man striving to rescue his wife armed with nothing more than a cig lighter and a seemingly bottomless container of flammable liquid. Although Dagon starts slowly, it becomes a heart-pounding and fun tale of terror. And I have never seen a more hauntingly beautiful actress (at least from the waist up) than Macarena Gomez--yes, Macarena, like the goofy dance craze. Rent or buy, and enjoy. July 13, 2008

Wonderful horror thriller!

In a seashore by a town in Spain, a successful company owner named Paul with his lover are celebrating their success on a yacht. Until a storm wrecks their boat, leaving them to swim for shore as they seek help and his girlfriend disappears without a trace mysteriously. Weird things begin happening in the town at night as the townfolk are actually half-human aquatic monsters that worship a powerful demon god named Dagon as it needs a human sacrifice to satisfy it's hunger.

From the makers of "Re-Animator", "Dolls" and "From Beyond" Brian Yuzna and Stuart Gordon have done it again! they have put another fine H.P. Lovecraft adaptation to the screen. They bring their style of wit and atmosphere with some gruesomness as usual, this US/Spainish made horror thriller delivers the goods for fans of both directors and H.P. Lovecraft. The acting is quite good considering it's a low budget movie production and the direction by Stuart Gordon is fantastic, the monsters themselves look nifty despite looking like the ones from "Nightmare City" and Dagon itself is a neat creature.

This DVD has good extras like two audio commentaries, trailer, production artwork, and storyboards.

Also recommended: "Hellboy", "Re-Animator", "From Beyond", "In The Mouth of Madness", "The Mist", "Phantasm", "Evil Dead 2", "From Dusk Till Dawn", "Hellraiser", "Candyman", "The Host", "Castle Freak", "The Curse (1987)" and "Versus". June 10, 2008

One Good Ink Deserves Another

(This is a slightly edited version of my earlier DAGON review, which appears on the TONMO site under my username TaningiaDanae.)

A man dreams of diving through undersea ruins where a beautiful mermaid beckons; as they embrace, she opens her mouth to reveal the knifelike teeth of a predator. A severely wounded woman is trapped in a sinking boat; as a ribbon of her blood curls downwards into the sea, a huge cloud of black ink billows upwards ominously to meet it. These disturbing images are only hints of the horrors to come in DAGON, a film based upon two Cthulhu Mythos stories by H.P. Lovecraft -- "Dagon" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", as adapted by Stuart Gordon (who had years ago filmed a version of HPL's "Herbert West, Reanimator" under the title of RE-ANIMATOR).

Actually, the title DAGON is misleading. The story "Dagon" -- one of HPL's shorter and less notable works -- has little to do with the film except for the reference to the shipwreck and the eponymous Philistine fish-god. DAGON the film is actually an updated version of HPL's brilliant, vividly written novella "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", transplanted by Gordon from a Massachusetts seaport town to a fishing village on Spain's Galician coast. The name which Gordon gives the village, Imboca, is an inexact Spanish translation of the name Innsmouth. The original story was told in the first person, by a solitary male traveler to Innsmouth; Gordon has added an additional man and some women to the plotline, though most of the film is from the POV of "Paul", the shipwrecked young Spanish-American stockbroker (equivalent to HPL's traveler) who finds himself stranded in Imboca, among people who are not quite.... people.

The first thing that impressed me about this film was its relative faithfulness to the original story. I say "relative" because -- in addition to the shift of time and place -- there were many Hollywoodish embellishments, obvious (and successful) attempts to get that coveted R rating. As horrific as HPL's stories were, the ultimate horror was always implied -- left to the imagination of the reader -- which made it that much more effective as compared with the almost unwatchable gore towards the end of DAGON. In addition, the Gentleman from Providence was ever the old-fashioned prude, to whom S-E-X was a four-letter word. He would've been appalled at the gratuitous female nudity and expletive-laden dialogue in DAGON -- indeed, there was no vulgar language in his stories, and hardly any women at all (the few that were, were not the sort one would want to see nude!). Gordon also added an element of dark humor to some of the scenes, and even threw in a touch of STAR WARS with a Jerry Springer twist!

That being said.... DAGON captured the atmosphere of HPL's story to perfection. The brooding, rainy skies, the narrow streets, the nauseatingly shabby rooms, the desecrated former church, the shadowy figures hobbling down alleys making guttural inhuman sounds, and most especially the "Innsmouth look" -- or, in this case, the "Imboca look" -- of the villagers, all were done with loving detail by the director, set designers, and makeup artists. Nearly everything about the story was as I'd visualized while reading it, including the not-so-crazy town drunk played masterfully by distinguished Spanish actor Francisco Rabal (who unfortunately passed away after the filming of DAGON). Former unknown Ezra Godden, who is in nearly every scene, gives a harrowing, convincing performance as protagonist Paul. And Macarena Gomez -- yes, that's her name! -- in the role of Uxia deserves the Morticia Addams award for being beautiful, sexy, and creepy at the same time. Even the musical score was haunting and atmospheric, a refreshing change from the usual recycled rock songs used in some modern "slice and dice" flicks.

And, of course, there's squiddage galore! Though only hinted at in that initial shipwreck scene, tentacles later begin to show up in the darnedest places: shooting out of a mouth; in place of arms; in place of legs; and in the climactic "sacrifice" scene, exploding horrifically out of the abyss. There is even a possible cinematic first -- a real live (as opposed to cartoon) "mer-squid", thanks to some top-notch special effects.

Other makeup effects are equally impressive, like the "Imboca look" in all its stages, from an eerie fish-like stare to the complete, hideous transformation. There's also a "skinning" scene so realistic that the only way I could watch it was by repeating to myself, "It's only a special effect, it's only a special effect...."!

There are some drawbacks to DAGON besides the ones mentioned above. Much of the dialogue is in Spanish without subtitles -- I had to rely on my rudimentary college Spanish, combined with prior knowledge of the story, to figure out what was being said. But a viewer without either advantage might be extremely confused. Therefore, I strongly recommend reading "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" before seeing this film (I'd recommend reading it anyway -- it is one of HPL's best works). Also, I had a problem with the nudity. Not out of prudishness, but because of the old Hollywood double standard -- ever notice how male human sacrifices never have to take their pants off? If Gordon had wanted to be faithful to the story, no nudity would've been necessary. But since he envisioned a more graphic fertility ritual, he should've extended that vision to both sexes. In addition, I became rather impatient at the very beginning of the film, where much time was wasted in pointless dialogue between Paul and his girlfriend on the boat. I can understand Gordon's desire to build up the horror slowly -- which he did quite successfully -- rather than inundate the viewer with scary stuff immediately. But the initial dialogue should've been relevant to the story line, or at very least interesting, rather than an annoying, petulant lovers' quarrel just to kill time. And as a cephalofan, I would've liked to see even more tentacled beings, and to have caught a longer, closer glimpse of the squid-god himself.

Nevertheless, DAGON is to date the most accurate cinematic adaptation of a Lovecraft story I've seen. I watched it on VHS, and from what I understand the DVD is even better because of its additional material (interviews, background, etc.). I give DAGON a solid four-star rating, and will close this review as Stuart Gordon did the film, quoting the final lines of HPL's story "The Shadow Over Innsmouth":

"We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses.... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever." May 11, 2008

One of the top Lovecraft movies

Although it is an amalgamation of several Lovecraft stories, this is by far one of the best in recent memory. There's no real way to describe what effect it can have on you if you are truly open to letting it sink in. Although, on a technical level, there is room for improvement, this is true of most movies out there. The cinematographer understands the mood of HPL's stories, and captures it very nicely. Some scenes appear to be of lower quality than others, but their placement in the movie captures the feel of the moment, which is a technique that is lost to most hollywood directors in this day and age. I highly recommend it to not only HPL fans, but also to those horror buffs that are searching for something more intelligently written. March 26, 2008

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