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Seeing this discussion of Cthulhu video games reminded me of a post I made in the 'Books' section a few days ago:
Speaking of Lovecraft, since there is no 'Video Games' section, have any of you played the game "Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem" for the Nintendo Gamecube? It's VERY heavily based on mythos elements and CoC in general. Your character even has a SANITY meter! You can learn to cast spells by invoking the names of some of the Great Old Ones (which drains some of your sanity when used), fight horrific creatures (which drain sanity when you even SEE them), and all sorts of other crazy stuff. When your sanity gets low, the walls will start to bleed, you can hear laughter coming from nowhere, and occassional shadows will flicker around the screen. When your sanity gets REALLY low, your character can fall through the solid floor of a room (only to snap back to his senses immediately afterwards), or, if you stand around idle long enough, your character will actually KILL HIMSELF!!!
It's so badass. Highly recommended for mythos fans.
I remember reading an article about this game years ago. It showed a painting in the area your character explores with full sanity, and then showed what it looks like after your sanity goes down.
Twas wicked cool-looking.
Now if only Guillermo Del Toro will make At The Mountains of Madness, I can shut up for you nice folks...
Yes! YES! YES!
Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth were more than enough to prove that this man must do a Lovecraft movie!
If you like Del Toro, you should check out "The Devil's Backbone." Excellent atmospheric horror. Jade, if you liked "Session 9", you'll love this one, too.
BTW, you're not the only one who liked that movie...
I did not see it mentioned here - but there is a loose adaptation of Shadow over Innsmouth called Dagon. It's mostly a splatter flick but many of the Deep One/Human hybrids are quite horrific. They tend to show it on SciFi once in a while (edited of course)
And yes, Tori Spelling does have the Innsmouth look
Now if only Guillermo Del Toro will make At The Mountains of Madness, I can shut up for you nice folks...
Yes! YES! YES!
Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth were more than enough to prove that this man must do a Lovecraft movie!
If you like Del Toro, you should check out "The Devil's Backbone." Excellent atmospheric horror. Jade, if you liked "Session 9", you'll love this one, too.
BTW, you're not the only one who liked that movie...
Never saw this post, Lichman. Sorry about that. I'll check out The Devil's Backbone. Glad to see I'm not alone in my appreciation of Session 9.
The Devil's Backbone is a great movie - easily one of the best horror flicks of the last ten years. I very highly recommend it, and am dismayed that it's not more widely known, despite being in Spanish with English subtitles.
Another great atmospheric horror movie is Below, set on a submarine during WWII. It's a nice take on the locked-in-a-haunted-house theme.
Rent both for the weekend and it'll be a viewing experience tough to match.
The Devil's Backbone is a great movie - easily one of the best horror flicks of the last ten years. I very highly recommend it, and am dismayed that it's not more widely known, despite being in Spanish with English subtitles.
Another great atmospheric horror movie is Below, set on a submarine during WWII. It's a nice take on the locked-in-a-haunted-house theme.
Rent both for the weekend and it'll be a viewing experience tough to match.
I remember Below. Not the particulars but I recall it was much better than what I was expecting.
I'll check out TDB this weekend if I can find it.
Kind of unrelated, but has anyone tried the XBox game Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth? I just bought it used, but haven't gotten around to playing it. Reviews were positive when it came out. It's supposed to be a pastiche of a lot of Lovecraft stories, Shadow Over Innsmouth being the most prominent. You actually have to play through the chase scene in the hotel from aforementioned story. It's probably closer to the role playing game than the stories, but sanity (and the loss of it) is supposed to have all kinds of impact: like your vision blurring, the screen greying out, talking to yourself, putting away your weapon without realizing, hearing the voices of people you've met, the controller vibrating randomly and then finally killing yourself once you hit your wit's end. Also, in keeping with the Lovecraft flavor, your character is quite fragile; definitely not a "run and gun" type of game.
As far as atmosphere, Dark Corner of the Earth really nailed it headon. It really has the 1930s look and feel. Innsmouth is as I imagined it from the book. I think that this is the best visual adaptation of HPL world.
Unfortunately, the gameplay lags behind somewhat. I do have to give it credit for not making this a 1st person shooter. In fact the 1st few part of the game is all about investigating and story building. You are not given any weopon early on and so must rely on stealth to sneak past enemies. The problem with this game as a few others mentioned is that there are a few part of the game where it is just too difficult and it will discourage a few people to stop playing. Worst yet is that once you die you have to start back again. I had reload about 15 times before I was able to get out of the Gilman Hotel scene.
I would still recommend this game to anyone who wants to see how a proper HPL world would probably look like.
Tangenting back to the Gamecube game Eternal Darkness, the sanity system in that game rocks. I own it, and have played it twice, as you actually have some alternate pathways based on which "elder evil" you choose as your benefactor.
The best sanity breakers in that game were, for me at least:
The screen bleeds.
You take crazy damage, and when you open your inventory to use a healing item, its totally empty.
Your television turns off. Actually it just looks like it does, but its really convincing in the heat of the moment.
And my alltime favorite brain tourque: A warning message pops up informing you that your memory card is corrupted and ALL your save files are lost.
Breaking the 4th wall to break you!
Some things to point out about the movie.
1.It will be seen at COMIC CON!!!! I live right downtown from it. I can't wait! So I guess it's not out on dvd yet.
2.This is done by the guy that brought you DAGON which dispite whatever was said earlier is the best adaptation of Lovecraft on film. Sorry about that. It just is.
3.This movie is done by here! network. here! is a gay film house that only do movies with gay characters. The main character is gay(which makes me only want to see it more since there are so few horror movies with gay protagnatists.
4.Give Tori a break! If all you know of her is from 90210 then you havent seen her in movies such as Trick. She CAN act.
Well, I got it. And watched it. It sucked hard. So, I knew that the protagonist was gay, but I didn't know the movie was going to force the issue every 30 seconds. The movie had a couple of cool flashes, but it seemed like it was going to build up into a cool climax that never really came. So, if you're looking for some gothic horror in your life, just go play Arkham Horror again.
Less life style issues more MADNESS.
Just finished it, and I have to agree. I have no problem whatsoever with introducing a dose of gay angst in my Lovecraft... especially in the context of the (reworked) story, it could have worked really well. But they sort of lost track of proportion, and ended up producing a movie that's about 1 part Lovecraft to 9 parts gay angst.