Just finished attending the 11th annual H.P. Lovecraft Filmfest with G. It's a highlight of my year... It was pretty good this year; not as shiny as last year though, I'd say.

I go mostly for the shorts blocks. I was a little disappointed. There weren't very many with creatures this time. They tended to be more the human-human stories. Also, it seemed like there were fewer that were directly related to Lovecraft; more that were simply supernatural tales. Realized this time around how important the funny clips are, to keep things from getting too depressing. A surprising dearth of animated clips probably had something to do with the lack of funny.

Here are some notes I took while suffering through a few of the shorts...

How to make a typically bad H.P. Lovecraft adaptation:

• film in black and white... or better yet: sepia tone
  
• apply the "old film" filter in QuickTime Pro to make your footage look scratchy
  
• use silent film titles... for long monologues
  
• make everything scary happen at night
  
• make the audience watch lots of unnecessary footage [put on coat, put hand on doorknob, open door...]
  
• use actors in their 20's because you don't have age-appropriate friends for the story
  
• actors: speak ye as if thy native tongue t'were Old English
  
• do the entire film as a voice-over -- it's hard to record sound outside the studio
  
• have very *SKREE* distorted *SHHHHHHK* sound
  
• copy the "Bambi vs. Godzilla" joke -- listing your name over and over in the credits

I suppose I could also start assembling a drinking game...

Evil book -- drink!
Cultist in black robes -- drink!
Fake blood gets splattered -- drink!
Main character gets frustrated and shouts "what's going on?!" -- drink!

...and so on. Maybe that'll be my little covert project next year. ;-)

Some of the feature films were pretty good. "Resurrected" and "Dead and Burried" were of similar quality: B, but competently made, and reasonably fun.

"The Last Wave", a Peter Weir film, was very good. Excellent use of water as a symbol; betcha I could spin a Jungian interpretation, if I tried, too.

Quatermass 2 was also very good, but in a different vein. Not really "weird" or "horror" -- just a good old-fashioned invasion from space story. As I understand it, the Quatermass films were pretty influential on Brit sci fi. I was strongly reminded of the Tom Baker Dr. Who episode, "Android Invasion"... However, there are a lot of Dr. Who eps that were probably inspired by this flick -- Particularly Pertwee eps, where the Doctor is stranded on Earth, and almost every episode is an invasion from space story.

Two things I really appreciated about Quatermass: (1) It didn't try to be funny -- it just told the story, straight. (2) Lots of innocent people died -- not just people who had sex, or who were somehow morally flawed. [Actually, take this as a sad commentary on how crappy a lot of contemporary sci fi is.]

I could also praise this flick for putting the power in the hands of the people... It's an angry mob and a few authorities who no one's listening to that save the world -- not the organized military. Nice change, to not have the implicitly pro-military message there. Go proletariat!

Spent way too much on Lovecraftian swag... But at least some of my Xmas shopping is now done.

Nice to see the usual suspects in the lobby between films. Both Edward Martin III and Andrew Migliori wanted to know when I'd be submitting something. Does my heart good to know that I'm remembered, and there are open arms waiting.

Damn my ass is sore. The Hollywood Theater is a nice venue -- but it has terrible seats. Oy. I'll be walking this off for days.