Dagon (2001)

 

There is something incredibly difficult in bringing stories by HP Lovecraft to the big screen. One of the reasons for this is that cosmic horror is not the easiest subject matter to try and show, as most of it is by default vague or too vast to pull off reasonably. One person who has tried several times to bring us Lovecraftian tales, was director Stuart Gordon. Sure, he made those stories his own and gave us slightly different takes, but they all have that creepy atmosphere. 'Re-Animator', 'From Beyond', ... and here's 'Dagon', which bears the title of one tale, but is in fact a loose adaptation of 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth'. 

But is it any good? 

Yes. Yes, it is. 

Paul and his girlfriend Barbara are on holiday with Paul's boss Howard and his girlfriend Vicky. They are on a sailyacht near the coast of Spain and a small fishing village called Imboca when a storm violently hits and Vicky gets trapped below decks. Paul and Barbara head to the village in search for help, but the few people they come across are a bit weird and don't seem too keen to help. While Paul heads out to the yacht with some fishermen, Barbara is kidnapped by the priest and hotel owner and so Paul finds no one when he returns. 

Howard and Vicky have mysteriously disappeared, by the way. 

When Paul is told Barbara went to get help in the closest town (which is 50 kms away), he waits in what is probably the dirtiest hotel imaginable. Things soon take a turn for the worse when the villagers come after him for some reason. Paul discovers a great many bizarre things about the town, such as that most of the townspeople are mutating. 

When Paul runs into Ezequiel, an old drunkard, he is told the full story of how Imboca slowly but surely came under the influence of the cult of Dagon and they gathered a lot of wealth, but also gave away their humanity to return to the sea. It is at this point that Paul comes across Uxia, who is a beautiful girl whom he has dreams about, even if he has never seen her before in real life. 

And things just get crazier and crazier... 

It was an excellent choice to relocate the story from the US to some small, secluded Spanish hamlet, because you can actually imagine small towns like this still existing. The cinematography is cool, with everything turned a hue of blue or green to further emphasize the theme of the sea. It is also raining all the time, so uplifting this is most assuredly not. 

Most of the actors are good. It takes a while to like Paul, as he is a bit of a douche at first, but he does come around towards the end, just give him some time. The best actor by far is legendary Spanish actor Francisco Rabal as the old drunkard Ezequiel. His story about how Imboca turned the way it did, is truly gripping and his fate is by far the worst in almost any horrorfilm.

No really: there is one scene in this film that will absolutely make anyone cringe and holler. It is that brutal. Double because it happens to a nice, old man. 

Bonus point for casting Macarena Gomez as Uxia: she is one of those rare ethereal beauties, where you have no problem believing she truly is a princess from another world. Sure, it's a pretty wonky world this time around, but she has that mix of alluring and frightening at the same time. 

By now, it should come as no surprise that Stuart Gordon enjoys his practical effects and most of them are well done. Several people in several stages of mutation and most of them look great, in that icky sort of way. Most have very pale skin, subtle webbing between the fingers and they all have these fish-like eyes, which apparently was done through some rather painful contact lenses, so they never blink. It works, as it is most disconcerting. 

Sure, the ending is a bit weird and the 'twist' comes pretty far out of left field, but all in all, this is an excellent horrorfilm and one of the better Lovecraftian tales out there. If you like it a little twisted and bizarre, you could do a lot worse.