OCTOBER 2, 2011 2:33AM

October 2nd - Haute Chthuthoure: Wave of Mutilation

Rate: 2 Flag

   Ah, Dagon, a superb and gory little Lovecraftian adaptation from the year 2001!  Based on H.P. Lovecraft’s work, but less on the titular short story and more on The Shadow Over Innsmouth.  The latter, incidentally, is an epic escape tale that really deals with nothing more than Lovecraft’s innate anxiety over root rust.  Dagon the movie deals with anxieties you can't quite place - perhaps the collapse of the dotcom  bubble?  Its male lead character, Paul Marsh, seems to be an obsessed online trader or dotcom mogul.  His girlfriend Barbara is fed up with his all-work-no-play, and throws his laptop into the sea.  Is this sacrifice what awakens the dread sea god Dagon and starts the first of our several economic crises?
I note the film for the striking beauty of its lead actresses (see picture above of Macarena Gomez as the haunting, evil mermaid Uxia), the bumbling Bruce Campbell-inspired slapstick of its lead actor, Ezra Goddard, and above all the amazingly realized Lovecraftian religious iconography and liturgical music.  These blend quite well with the landscape and architecture of the Galician coast. 

  As for the Cthuthoure of choice, I enjoy this plain tourist shop memento t-shirt send up, and once I score some steady employment it shall be mine!  If your grandparents visited beautiful R'yleh and survived to get you this "lousy" t-shirt, they are very fortunate grandparents indeed - unless they succumbed to incomprehensible, unpronounceable cosmic Elder God madness!
Also, if a song could be matched to a movie, I think The Pixies' "Wave of Mutilation" is a perfect complement, with its talk of mutilation, kissing mermaids, riding the El Nino, the Mariana Trench and other treasures and nightmares under the sea.

Author tags:

31 days of halloween, zazzle, pixies, haute chthuthoure, wave of mutilation, travel, belief/religion, fright, spooky, gothic, music, fiction, horror fiction, horror movies, terror, horror, salon, open salon, chillerpop, halloween, ezra goddard, macarena gomez, raquel merono, lovecraft, paul marsh, uxia, dagon, travel, belief/religion, fright, spooky, gothic, music, fiction, horror fiction, horror movies, terror, horror, salon, open salon, chillerpop, halloween

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love it...thanks.
You should "autoplay" the sound with the post.

Rated

D.

Dianne Schuch - Lindsey

October 02, 2011 02:50 AM

Thank you dianne! Now how does that work?

ChillerPop

October 02, 2011 02:58 AM

Has there ever been an author with a better name than H.P. Lovecraft? And you may have indeed traced the roots of the current financial crisis.

And of course love the (acoustic) Pixies too!

After reading this

VariousArtists

October 02, 2011 08:45 PM

VA, possibly the best name ever for a paranoid, sickly, bigoted master of horror!

ChillerPop