DAGON

Following a nautical accident, a couple of American tourists vacationing along the Spanish coast end up on a small island inhabited only by fishermen. The inhabitants of the small town will soon reveal themselves for what they really are: deformed beings, worshippers of a mysterious and cruel deity that lives in the depths of the sea... After "Re-Animator" and "From Beyond," Stuart Gordon returns to H.P. Lovecraft with a film different from the previous ones. The movie is indeed a general summary of the works of the Providence writer: the basis is the 1931 story "The Shadow over Innsmouth" (of which "Dagon," from 1917, was a sort of embryo), and it must be said that the director has striven to transpose onto film the decadent and squalid atmosphere that reigns in the writing, staging a dark and damp place constantly soaked by a cold-looking rain, creating a general sense of gloom. This is added to an excellent use of lights and the camera, which, almost always used with a steadycam or handheld supports, gives the film a liveliness of the image that is hard to find nowadays. For the special effects, it is mandatory to split between those of makeup and those in CGI: the former are excellent, with horrendous deformed and tentacled creatures, webbed fingers, and gills on the neck, while those made by computer, unfortunately due to the low budget, are not up to the latest wonders seen on the big screen; nevertheless, they hold their own. This is perhaps the only flaw of the film (and also one of the reasons why the god Dagon is not seen, replaced in the film, strictly speaking, with the much more famous Cthulhu), without which it could be defined as the first horror masterpiece of the new millennium. The fact remains that, ignoring this aspect (after all, scenes of this kind are only two), the film maintains high levels, also showing a considerable array of bloody scenes, with torn faces and disembowelments, not in excessive quantity but appropriately functional to the story. The actors are well cast in their respective roles, and in the well-assorted cast stands out the late Francisco Rabal, here in one of his last appearances. As for the citations, here the discourse splits (remember this concept because it recurs several times in the film as well): from the literary side, we have some ideas from other Lovecraft stories (one above all "The Events Concerning the Disappearance of Arthur Jermyn and His Family") and typical concepts of the writer (such as incest, the cult of obscene pagan deities, and degeneration), while from the cinematic side, there are references to cornerstones of the genre like "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" or (too often) forgotten works like "Freaks" by Tod Browning. The film, then, is unconventional with respect to the rules of the usual horror films, which want the protagonist and his girlfriend safe and the monsters dead: try to believe and, if you have ever read Lovecraft, you can also imagine what their different fate is. In short, a good film, more than good, but, unfortunately, not a masterpiece; anyway, if Gordon continues at these levels, we will see great things.