Final(?) H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival Begins in Portland

The 2010 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon is set to begin tomorrow at Portland's Hollywood Theater, its habitual rallying point for over half a decade. As reported on their website, the festival's director is stepping down after this year, meaning there's a very real possibility that another Portland event may not be held for some time. Although other festivals and Lovecraftian gatherings are sure to crop up across the United States, as is already happening with new conventions like MythosCon, a Cyclopean fissure will certainly be left by the HPL Film Festival disappearing from its home turf.

Fortunately, the screenings lined up indicate that the old ritual will make an elegant departure, if it does indeed shut down indefinitely. Old favorites like Stuart Gordon's Dagon and Pan's Labyrinth will get screen time amid an exotic plethora of new short movies, readings, and talks related to H.P. Lovecraft's life and works over the weekend. As always, a rich selection of shorts mostly produced by amateur film makers may offer the newest examples of Lovecraftian cinema. And not exclusively Lovecraftian at that, as several pictures pay tribute to Edgar Allan Poe and other weird fiction outposts.

The best Lovecraftian convention goers can hope for is that the festival's untimely demise will scatter its energies to the four winds, enlivening other celebrations of strange fiction and art far from Portland. Still, the Hollywood Theater's important legacy will not be forgotten, and the next few days should feature nothing less than a potent extravaganza that will clarify the character of a changing time in Lovecraftiana.

-Grim Blogger