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Anyone else watching this?

At first I was like ... Cool. Del Tuoros monster stuff in shorts. Good. Then one of the stories seemed ro be heavily inspired by HP Lovecrafts Rats In The Walls but without all the racism. Then the next 2 episodes were Pickman's Model and Dreams In The Witch House. This show is legit great.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/90/806646.page#11449469

Haven’t watched it yet, didn’t terribly peak my interest when I saw it, but I may have to because I keep hearing good things.

I watched three episodes because I liked the stories (Lot 36, Pickman's Model, and Dreams in the Witchhouse). Not bad. I am a Lovecraft guy and I liked seeing two more of his works put to film. Liberties were taken but that's to be expected I think. I thought the three were all good episodes of TV/short films.

I haven't watched the rest.

At first I was like ... Cool. Del Tuoros monster stuff in shorts. Good. Then one of the stories seemed ro be heavily inspired by HP Lovecrafts Rats In The Walls but without all the racism. Then the next 2 episodes were Pickman's Model and Dreams In The Witch House. This show is legit great.

All the episodes are based on horror short stories.

Lot 36 is by del Toro himself. Two of the episodes, Pickman's Model and Dreams in the Witchhouse are by Lovecraft. Of the other episodes, the only one I know is The Autopsy, which is a story by Michael Shea (was the inspiration I think for The Autopsy on Jane Doe). Graveyard Rats is apparently based on a short story by one Henry Kuttner, though it is very similar to Lovecraft's story Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family and King's Graveyard Shift.

Graveyard Rats seems to be so heavily based on Rats in the Walls with a different location and protagonist to remove the racism.

He finds the hidden temple/alter and everything.

It could be. Wikipedia says the story was written in 83. Most modern horror writers have been influenced directly or indirectly by Lovecraft. I just wanted to be sure the author did get credit cause it does say the episode is based on Kuttner's story.

The premise of the episode is a bit different from Rat's in the Walls. Rats in the Walls is about a family estate and rats aren't really rats so in that regard I'm not sure how similar they are. I'd have to watch the episode.

Bugger. I either need to find a friend to borrow their logon, or cough up a tenner, because this seems right up my street.

I bloody love anthology horror, me.

Henry Kutner was one of Lovecraft's circle of correspondents so it's not surprising if there are themes in common

Was somewhat disappointed by the Lovecraft adaptations. I say somewhat because I went in with low expectations. Capturing the feel of Lovecraft's work isn't easy, and most adaptations seem to add romantic interests/other personal attachments and/or some humor. Understandable...but you lose some of the Lovecraft by adding such conventionalities. Del Toro added both with his Hellboy movies and that world isn't even proper Lovecraft.

I thought maybe they could crack Lovecraft better in an anthology series. That's what I thought the Hellboy reboot should have been...a streaming series rather than a movie. It was actually much closer to the comics than the Del Toro films, but when the source material is mostly very short comic stories, it's easy to see why it didn't work to just mash some of them together into a 2-hour film.

I think Pickman's Model is okay. I think the mistake they made, and the mistake many make is that they abandon the chilling mystery of what's really going on to just be blatantly supernatural. Lovecraft's stories need to do what most horror on film refuses to do; don't show the monster. Don't even suggest the monster. The monster must be an unseen and mysterious maybe-nothing that dances on the line of maybe-supernatural, maybe-mundane, maybe-monsters.

 gorgon wrote:
Was somewhat disappointed by the Lovecraft adaptations. I say somewhat because I went in with low expectations. Capturing the feel of Lovecraft's work isn't easy, and most adaptations seem to add romantic interests/other personal attachments and/or some humor. Understandable...but you lose some of the Lovecraft by adding such conventionalities. Del Toro added both with his Hellboy movies and that world isn't even proper Lovecraft.

I thought maybe they could crack Lovecraft better in an anthology series. That's what I thought the Hellboy reboot should have been...a streaming series rather than a movie. It was actually much closer to the comics than the Del Toro films, but when the source material is mostly very short comic stories, it's easy to see why it didn't work to just mash some of them together into a 2-hour film.

The problem I have had with every single Hellboy movie so far has been the prominence of his dad. Seriously. His dad is alive for a whole 1 page in the comics before they move on. They insist on making Hellboy a teenager with daddy issues instead of an adult solving mysteries and punching monsters.

In the original, yeah. He’s alive in a lot of the current comics still as well though.

 AduroT wrote:
In the original, yeah. He’s alive in a lot of the current comics still as well though.

The ones that take place in the past? Yes. Those are a series of short stories that obviously take place before he is killed. Any "modern day" Hellboy story including the entire main series consisting of like... 14 trades. He is dead except for that first page in the first issue where he is killed by a frog monster. .

 Lance845 wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
Was somewhat disappointed by the Lovecraft adaptations. I say somewhat because I went in with low expectations. Capturing the feel of Lovecraft's work isn't easy, and most adaptations seem to add romantic interests/other personal attachments and/or some humor. Understandable...but you lose some of the Lovecraft by adding such conventionalities. Del Toro added both with his Hellboy movies and that world isn't even proper Lovecraft.

I thought maybe they could crack Lovecraft better in an anthology series. That's what I thought the Hellboy reboot should have been...a streaming series rather than a movie. It was actually much closer to the comics than the Del Toro films, but when the source material is mostly very short comic stories, it's easy to see why it didn't work to just mash some of them together into a 2-hour film.

The problem I have had with every single Hellboy movie so far has been the prominence of his dad. Seriously. His dad is alive for a whole 1 page in the comics before they move on. They insist on making Hellboy a teenager with daddy issues instead of an adult solving mysteries and punching monsters.

Yeah, again it's all part of the effort by writers to build more relationships around him and make him more relatable. Just like with adaptations of Lovecraft's stories and their protagonists. Personally I have less problem with the daddy angle than with making him a hen-pecked boyfriend. It's good comic relief and Perlman pulled it off well. But when you read a Hellboy comic, you don't *relate* to him as just a regular dude and aren't supposed to. He's a half-demonic eschatological wrecking ball. Lovecraft's protagonists aren't people we're supposed to grow close to either. But different mediums have different requirements...mostly.

Back on topic(-ish), has everyone seen this VFX shot from Del Toro's abandoned At the Mountains of Madness project?

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2022/11/guillermo-del-toro-reveals-horrifying-at-the-mountains-of-madness-vfx/

I...have mixed feelings (and I don't think the article author knows what they're talking about).

It continues to shock me that At the Mountains of Madness, one of Lovecraft's more easily adaptable stories IMO, continues to not have any sort of big theatrical release to its name.

Especially when movies and shows with somewhat similar premises (Alien v Predator, The Thing, Harbinger, and Helix just to name a few) have proven successful. It's especially weird when the story has an angle that's easily contemporary to our times (the fear of losing control and seeing the world crumble around you, and the horror of realizing you never had any control to begin with).

The thing i always liked about hellboy was that hes just a regular dude. He is completely relatable in the comics. He has a short temper. He isnt very good with a gun. He gets sent to Rome to investigate something as a favor for a friend of the directors thinking he will find nothing and tells his friends "Paprika Chicken, baby!" as he boards his flight. His first real interaction with Abe is when he gets tired of the scientists keeping him in the container they found him in, so he pulls him out and makes him a ham sandwich. His first interaction with Liz was when she was a scared 8 yr old girl who lost her family and saw only people in huge scary flame proof suits. So he sits next to her, offers her a lollypop, and treats her like a person.

Hellboy is more human than most other characters and his humanity is what brings the team together and makes them a family. Kind of hard to do that when hes moping over a pile on pancakes and cats.

The making him a child in an adult demon body is what disconnects him for me. Trying to make him more relatable by making him less mature. More annoying. As though that would be endearing.

It's a general problem with a lot of modern media that follows Whedon's style of quirky characters and melodrama. I don't even hate that style. It wouldn't be as popular as it is if it weren't good in some way.

But when everyone does the same thing it gets tiresome. That's trends I suppose. It'll be nice when things trend back the other way eventually to more mature characters handling problems in less overly dramatic and asinine ways.

 Lance845 wrote:
The thing i always liked about hellboy was that hes just a regular dude. He is completely relatable in the comics. He has a short temper. He isnt very good with a gun. He gets sent to Rome to investigate something as a favor for a friend of the directors thinking he will find nothing and tells his friends "Paprika Chicken, baby!" as he boards his flight. His first real interaction with Abe is when he gets tired of the scientists keeping him in the container they found him in, so he pulls him out and makes him a ham sandwich. His first interaction with Liz was when she was a scared 8 yr old girl who lost her family and saw only people in huge scary flame proof suits. So he sits next to her, offers her a lollypop, and treats her like a person.

Hellboy is more human than most other characters and his humanity is what brings the team together and makes them a family. Kind of hard to do that when hes moping over a pile on pancakes and cats.

The making him a child in an adult demon body is what disconnects him for me. Trying to make him more relateable by making him less mature. More annoying. As though that would be endeering.

Watched a couple and quite enjoyed. I do like a bit of lovecraft - although I thought The Thing (both films) and Annihilation with Natalie Portman captured it better

 Lance845 wrote:
The thing i always liked about hellboy was that hes just a regular dude. He is completely relatable in the comics. He has a short temper. He isnt very good with a gun. He gets sent to Rome to investigate something as a favor for a friend of the directors thinking he will find nothing and tells his friends "Paprika Chicken, baby!" as he boards his flight. His first real interaction with Abe is when he gets tired of the scientists keeping him in the container they found him in, so he pulls him out and makes him a ham sandwich. His first interaction with Liz was when she was a scared 8 yr old girl who lost her family and saw only people in huge scary flame proof suits. So he sits next to her, offers her a lollypop, and treats her like a person.

Hellboy is more human than most other characters and his humanity is what brings the team together and makes them a family. Kind of hard to do that when hes moping over a pile on pancakes and cats.

The making him a child in an adult demon body is what disconnects him for me. Trying to make him more relatable by making him less mature. More annoying. As though that would be endearing.

I'd say that Hellboy behaves like a *good* dude. But he isn't a *regular* dude. He doesn't spend his time worrying about his mortgage or his lawn or bowling night or SO troubles or his fantasy football team in the books. His stories are mostly either quick, self-contained one-shots, or extended storylines focused on his struggles with his terrible destiny. And personally I think it's a mistake to 'ground' the character with all that regular dude baggage. He's the beast of the apocalypse in a trench coat. Yeah, he behaves like a pretty nice guy. But he's still the beast of the apocalypse.

 gorgon wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
The thing i always liked about hellboy was that hes just a regular dude. He is completely relatable in the comics. He has a short temper. He isnt very good with a gun. He gets sent to Rome to investigate something as a favor for a friend of the directors thinking he will find nothing and tells his friends "Paprika Chicken, baby!" as he boards his flight. His first real interaction with Abe is when he gets tired of the scientists keeping him in the container they found him in, so he pulls him out and makes him a ham sandwich. His first interaction with Liz was when she was a scared 8 yr old girl who lost her family and saw only people in huge scary flame proof suits. So he sits next to her, offers her a lollypop, and treats her like a person.

Hellboy is more human than most other characters and his humanity is what brings the team together and makes them a family. Kind of hard to do that when hes moping over a pile on pancakes and cats.

The making him a child in an adult demon body is what disconnects him for me. Trying to make him more relatable by making him less mature. More annoying. As though that would be endearing.

I'd say that Hellboy behaves like a *good* dude. But he isn't a *regular* dude. He doesn't spend his time worrying about his mortgage or his lawn or bowling night or SO troubles or his fantasy football team in the books. His stories are mostly either quick, self-contained one-shots, or extended storylines focused on his struggles with his terrible destiny. And personally I think it's a mistake to 'ground' the character with all that regular dude baggage. He's the beast of the apocalypse in a trench coat. Yeah, he behaves like a pretty nice guy. But he's still the beast of the apocalypse.

But thats the point, you saddle a regular, good, dude with the beast of the apocalypse stuff. Remove the regular dude aspect and... he's a weird eccentric anime character or some gak.