Country and Year: USA and Canada
Directors: Raymond St. Jean, John Strysik, Aaron Vanek
Starring: various

Review By: David Austin
Rating: 3 out of 4 stars (good)

Out of Mind is the third collection of H.P. Lovecraft adaptations from Lurker Films (a fourth volume is coming soon). Lurker has found an interesting niche for itself diligently gathering cinematic odds and ends focusing on several authors of the macabre and the mysterious (Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe, and Robert W. Chambers) and presenting them on anthology DVDs. The films themselves range from television specials to student short films, and the budgets and technical quality vary accordingly. However, at least based on my experience with this collection, all treat their subjects in a literary manner rather than an exploitative one - certainly a welcome and atypical trait with regard to Lovecraft at least (not that I don’t enjoy the collected works of Stuart Gordon). Volume 3 has as its centerpiece the fiction/biographical piece “Out of Mind,” and also includes three short films, “The Music of Erich Zann,” “The Outsider,” and “My Necromicon,” two of which are drawn directly from Lovecraft’ short stories.

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Out of Mind: The Stories of H.P. Lovecraft (1998, 56 minutes, color, 1.33:1)
Dir: Raymond Saint-Jean
Starring: Christopher Heyerdahl, Art Kitching, Peter Farbridge

Out of Mind, a special created for Bravo Canada, is not an adaptation, but rather a tribute and study of Lovecraft himself. Out of Mind deliberately commingles aspects of Lovecraft’s fiction and life into an entirely new entity that is part thriller and part autobiography. In fact, director Raymond Saint-Jean takes a very similar approach to David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch, in more ways than one. And, as in Naked Lunch, the end result is that the viewer gains a good feel for the man and his work, without the gloss of a traditional Hollywood biopic.

Out of Mind opens with antiqued footage of H.P. Lovecraft (an eerily, effective Christopher Heyerdahl, bringing a detached, alien air to the author) reading from his writings. Throughout the film, footage of Heyerdahl and extensive quotes from Lovecraft are interspersed with a modern-day narrative, which follows a young Randolph Carter (played by Art Kitching) as he is introduced to the works of Lovecraft and finds himself entangled in a sinister underworld. While the Carter storyline is a little scattershot, it contains some scenes of genuine beauty that effectively evoke the old New England feel of Lovecraft’s work. Moreover, while the film generally relies on subtle atmospherics and suggestion, there are also some effective animatronics that add an element of physical horror reminiscent of Naked Lunch’s latex centipedes or Re-Animator’s monstrosities.

Primarily, though, Out of Mind is a literary work, packed to the gills with allusions to Lovecraft’s canon. The name Randolph Carter is taken from Lovecraft’s frequent alter ego and the protagonist of stories like “The Dream-quest of Unknown Kadath” and “The Statement of Randolph Carter.” Similarly, other plot elements, like Harley Warren’s name and fate, Professor Henry Armitage, and Professor Angel, are derived from famous stories like “The Call of Cthulhu” and “The Dunwich Horror.” All these elements are well mixed and serve as both as a fitting tribute to the master and a good introduction for a beginner.

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The Music of Erich Zann (1980, 17 minutes, color, 1.33:1)
Dir: John Strysik
Starring: Robert Ruevain, Robert Alexander

Adapted from the short story of the same title, Music is the closest piece in this collection to a direct adaptation of Lovecraft’s work. The original story told the tale of a student who becomes acquainted with an odd lodger in his Parisian boarding house. Every night, this secretive musician produces beautiful but otherworldly music in his garret apartment. Eventually, the student learns that Zann’s frenzied playing served an uncanny purpose when an open window reveals not a view of Paris, but something else entirely.

Director John Strysik, working on a tiny budget, makes the most of his resources. His adaptation follows the original story faithfully, with the exception of the cute touch of giving the narrator (anonymous in the original as in so many of Lovecraft’s tales) the name of Charles Dexter Ward, borrowed from a different story.

Two challenges inherent to the material loom before any would-be adaptor of this particular story: how to essay the “unearthly” music of Erich Zann, and how to depict the climactic scene. For the music, so integral to the story, Strysik turned to Andre Caporaso, a composer who has since gone on to an Emmy award-winning career in television sound work. Caporaso created a lovely classical score that is more than serviceable, though inevitably one’s imagination of Zann’s work cannot be matched by reality. For the finale, Strysik borrowed from Kubrick’s page, and gives us a metaphysical light show comparable to that in 2001. While these choices are only intermittently effective, Strysik scores visually by imbuing the film with a lovely sepia tone that successfully evokes the past era of the original.

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The Outsider (1994, 8 minutes, color, 1.33:1)
Dir: Aaron Vanek
Starring: Herb Lichtenstein, Kathryn Grady

Director Aaron Vanek created The Outsider as a student short, despite his professor’s discouragement of anything that was not what he terms (far from unfairly) “art wank.” A number of liberties are taken with the original tale of a nameless outsider who tries to enter society only to come face to face with a horror of which he was previously unaware, including the moderately successful introduction of a love and revenge plot, altering the focus of the original. While the resulting story is so-so and relies heavily on “Evil Dead”-inspired visuals, the makeup work is surprisingly good and leads to a memorable denouement.

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My Necronomicon (1:15 minutes, black and white, 1.33:1)
Dir: Aaron Vanek
Starring: Page Hearn

Clocking in at under two minutes, My Necronomicon is an Lovecraft-themed short in the style of Pi that Vanek literally created with a fifteen-minute script and leftover film stock. There’s no point in describing the plot – suffice it to say it’s an amusing piece with an effective prop.

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Recommended? Yes, fans of Lovecraft will find much to enjoy here.

If you like this, you might like: The Call of Cthulhu, Naked Lunch, Dark Waters, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tomb of Ligeia, Nosferatu (Murnau and Herzog versions), Dreyer’s Vampyr, Re-Animator, From Beyond

DVD DETAILS

DVD Production Company: Lurker Films ( www.lurkerfilms.com)
Release Date: February 7, 2005
Extras: Booklet, Commentaries, Trailers, Interviews

The four features are accompanied by an extensive selection of extras gathered by Lurker Films. First up is a booklet with essays on each film by Andrew Migliore of Lurker, and directors Strysik and Vanek. Both The Outsider and My Necronomicon are also accompanied by commentary tracks recorded by Vanek, while both director St. Jean and actor Heyerdahl recorded commentaries for Out of Mind. Music includes eleven minutes of interviews with cast and crew.

In addition to those pieces focusing on the films included in Vol. 3, there are a number additional promos for Lovecraftiana, including trailers for the silent film The Call of Cthulhu (see our review here and our interview with Sean Branney here) and The Unnamable, a promo for the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, and a mock ad for “Myth-Os” breakfast cereal. Finally, the disc contains part three of an interview by Migliore with Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi. The interview segment focuses on Lovecraft’s prodigious correspondence, and will definitely be of interest to Lovecraft fans, though Joshi is a touch dry and pedantic.

© David Austin