Dir: Andrew Lehman.A year or so back, I acquired Timothy Hines 'War of the Worlds'. At that time it was the only 'amateur fan film' I had bought on DVD (and I only bought it because it was an adaption of War of the Worlds!). I doubt Hines would accept being called an amateur but that film was so dire he deserves nothing better, I've only seen it the one time.
Now here is another 'amateur fan film' on DVD. This one is shorter (45 mins as opposed to Hines's, 3+ hour yawn fest) almost certainly filmed on a smaller budget, filmed in a black and white 1920's style, silent! and yet 99% superior.
Its not a stunning work of cinema that will blow your socks off. In fact, unless your a Cthulhu cultist, or have a soft spot for film noir it might not appeal to you at all. But as the work of a group of amateur enthusiasts, this film is genius. Using black & white and going for a period feel has pulled off what Hines so horribly failed to do. Suddenly the panto style special effects don't matter. Its the actors faces, the heavy contrasts and the dramatic music that make the impressions.The story is taken straight from the books
There are some weak moments certainly. Some of the special effects are terrible; the sea, the ships and the stop motion Cthulhu leave much to be desired (I would have used traditional animation for Cthulhu and I never would have shown him in his entirety since he goes from being a lurking terror in the shadows to a writhing mass of plastecene). There are also some great moments too. The swamp is really well done and the city of Cthulhu prior to his appearance is ...okay.
5 comments:
fine, we get it you are not a War of the World as adapted by Timothey Hines, fan. You use every opportunity possible to make this point. hehe it [i]reeeaallly[/i] mustve bothered you didn't it?
Never heard of this new silent film, I think so much now is so assaultive on my senses, and not in a good affective way, more or less jarring and painful... and too unreal, too perfect, too clean that the stories become so far removed from any human experience.
I just have no interest to see Transformers, or TMNT and the like.
This looks like something interesting in contrast
Ill look for it on netflix
You have to have seen Hines's film to appreciate just how disapointing it was!
I havent seen it, I saw the Tom Cruise one, of course.
I haven't seen any movies lately because I been watching the whole Deadwood series (12 episodes) have you ever heard of this?
sorri just thought it would be good idea to include a link if you have no idea what i am rambling on about...
http://www.hbo.com/deadwood/
ps It has lovejoy it it
I know of it but I was never a fan of Lovejoy so I never watched Deadwood either.
2006 was a poor year for War of the Worlds fans I'm afraid. We got three adaptations, and they were all crap.
Spielbergs was the best, simply because he's a better film maker, with a biger budget, but he still missed the point, completely, and the whole Spielberg trademark father & children stuff was so horrendously in the way that every one I know was hoping the Martians would just kill them all.
And what was the big deal with turning people to dust anyway? The Martians used heat rays. Beams of pure heat. The whole story rests on certain... no, actually, I think I'll write a blog post about this! Its too important to me to hide away in the comments!
Post a Comment