Excellent read about Guillermo del Toro

[Rakido]

including lots of stuff from Pan's Labyrinth and his ideas for Smaug in the Hobbit movies and for his new Madness movie ... but be warned, it's quite a long article

I paused at what looked like an image of a double-bitted medieval hatchet. “That’s Smaug,” del Toro said. It was an overhead view: “See, he’s like a flying axe.” Del Toro thinks that monsters should appear transformed when viewed from a fresh angle, lest the audience lose a sense of awe. Defining silhouettes is the first step in good monster design, he said. “Then you start playing with movement. The next element of design is color. And then finally—finally—comes detail. A lot of people go the other way, and just pile up a lot of detail.”

He pointed at the notebook drawing, which depicted a wizened creature. Originally, he said, the ogre was “going to have an old man’s face,” to indicate that he had been cursed for centuries, but he “didn’t like how trivial it seemed.” To emphasize the Pale Man’s monomaniacal hunger, del Toro asked his designers to render the ogre’s face blank, except for a mouth and tiny nasal punctures. He told them, “Let’s take out the eyes and put them on a platter before him.” The eyes are an allusion to St. Lucy: “I saw a statue when I was a kid where she had the eyes on a little plate. That was pretty freaky, and I liked it.”

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...urrentPage=all


R.

[Dr Mordrid]

At the Mountains of Madness (2013), H. P. Lovecraft's demythologization of the Cthulhu. Guillermo del Toro is the perfect director for that film. Can't wait

[KRSESQ]

At the Mountains of Madness (2013), H. P. Lovecraft's demythologization of the Cthulhu. Guillermo del Toro is the perfect director for that film. Can't wait

Ambitious.

Doc, you might be interested in this. These guys have done a film version of The Call of Cthulhu in the style of a 1920s silent movie that's actually quite good, considering their budget. They're currently working on The Whisperer in Darkness in the style of a '40's film noir.

They were in town a couple of years ago showing Cthulhu at the local college and selling DVDs. I bought a copy for my collection and let them autograph it. They commented that Lovecraft is very difficult to adapt to the screen and keep it interesting. They also commented that The Color out of Space is probably unfilmable (which immediately made me want to try )

My niece's ex-husband does their musical scores right out of his home in New Salem, ND.

[Dr Mordrid]

They also commented that The Color out of Space is probably unfilmable

And yet it's been adapted at least 4 times -

1965: Die, Monster! Die! by Roger Corman's American International Pictures, starring Boris Karloff

1987: The Curse by David Keith, starring Claude Akins (my mother-in-laws 2nd cousin) & Wil Wheaton

2008: Die Farbe by Huan Vu (Germany)

2008: Colour from the Dark by Ivan Zuccon (Italy)

[KRSESQ]

Didn't know Die Monster Die was a Lovecraft adaptation. The others truthfully I hadn't heard about. Is that an indication of their quality as representitives of the horror genre?

[Dr Mordrid]

The Curse wasn't too bad for its day & budget, but I haven't seen the European ones.