H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival Site Lists New Films

It appears the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival has nearly finished finalizing its list of feature films and short movies slated to appear at next month's event in Portland, Oregon. As always, the lineup is irresistible draw for fans of weird fiction. A broad spectrum of eldritch delights are to be found on the Film Festival's website in its listings of Feature Films and Shorts. H.P. Lovecraft, with a few exceptions, was notoriously scornful of cinema. He would be speechless to find that an annual event highlighting movies based on his fiction is now in its seventh year.

The feature films this year are a balanced lineup of the old standbys and the new creations. Familiar spooky pictures "The Blair Witch Project" and "Hellboy" will be shown with new full length Lovecraftian productions like "The Dunwich Horror," "In Search of Lovecraft," "Alien Raiders," and several others. "In Search of Lovecraft" is an interesting film that takes the theme of Lovecraft himself as a horror force onto the big screen. Its description reads:

While doing a Halloween news story on horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, Rebecca Marsh discovers that a subculture of occultists and magicians think that Lovecraft wrote from his dreams and that these are in fact reality pulled from an akashic record. Her skepticism slowly leaves as she witnesses the mythos of Lovecraft first hand. She enlists the help of an occult expert, her cameraman, and a witch to uncover the truth about an old house once used by a cult of Nyarlethotep. Soon she finds the cosmic horror is true and the creatures and cults of the 'fictional' mythos are real and after her.

The short films are again set to occupy a prominent place at this year's film festival as well. In some respects, the shorts--created by amateurs and professional producers alike--are even more tantalizing than the feature films. This may be due to the variety of methods and extra-Lovecraftian themes used by the shorts. Beyond close adaptions of Lovecraft stories, this year you'll find "The Wendigo" adapted from Algernon Blackwood's celebrated tale, and "The Cave: An Adaptation of Plato's Allegory in Clay," among others. New versions of Lovecraft works already put to film multiple times will also appear. Another pictured based on the unforgettable story, "The Outsider," is listed with the rest of the shorts (pictured at the top of this post).

The 2008 HPL Film Festival isn't to be missed. For those who can't make it, however, all is not lost. As in previous years, the films exhibited here will enjoy broader distribution after their main showing at the Festival. Look for many of them, especially the shorts, to appear online or on DVD releases from Lurker Films in the near future.

-Grim Blogger