The H.P. Lovecraft Collection Volume 3: Out of Mind

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Great films! And scary too!, 2008-04-30
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

An amusing and interesting film with some good content, 2007-05-05
This is the third film in the series from Lurker Films collecting several minor parts and one relatively major part into a DVD. Being quite disappointed in the previous volume, I was very pleased with this particular one, at least the main feature. It's been adequately reviewed here before, so I won't say much about it, but I felt it was an interesting "experiment" in "mainstreaming" Lovecraft a bit. I absolutely loved the acting by Heyerdahl in portraying Lovecraft's manners and mode of speech, and I quite forgot that it was only an actor. There's not really much of a "story", just fragments of "interviews" with Lovecraft intertwining with some modern day artist that has inherited a most famous book and is having some trouble with this fact. All in all a nice and highly amusing main feature, and the ending was very well made. br / br /The third and final part of the interview with the charismatic Indian-American Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi is also included, and is as always highly interesting and the wealth of knowledge which Joshi has inside his head is very impressing. The interviews would be worth the price of the DVD alone, in my opinion, but there were some hints on the DVD that there's going to be a full feature DVD about Lovecraft as a person, so I look forward to that. br / br /I was so disappointed in the short film "The Music of Erich Zann" that was included, being one of my favourite stories by HPL after all. I quite enjoyed everything in the film, but the supposedly spectacular end-scene was turned into something so crude and silly I felt like throwing the DVD in the garbage. I recognize that they were on a limited budget, but this was quite bad. The other minor films included are so silly and non-Lovecraftian that I won't comment much on them. All in all the bonus material was quite poor this time around, but the main feature and the Joshi interview almost redeems this. br / br /Recommended, at least partly!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

All bow!!!!!, 2006-12-29
I'm with everybody else. This, made for Canadian TV special is one of the best Lovecraft movies (actually combining a few of his stories to make one movie). Excellent! Cthulhu would be proud. This one definitely is on my collection. If you are a Lovecraft fanatic, get it, you'll like it. It gets four tentacles up PLUS two clicking pincers on the elder god-o-meter.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

The best film translation of Lovecraft ever!, 2005-10-05
The Story: br / br /The film opens with H.P. Lovecraft (Christopher Heyerdahl) in both live action and interview format discussing his opinions on writing then switches to the story of Randolph Carter (Art Kitching), a young man who has just found that he has inherited a box from a uncle that he never knew he had. Given strict instructions to only open the box while alone, he finds it contains a book called the Necronomicon. Within it's pages are a letter to a professor and two faded pictures, one of his uncle, the other of H.P. Lovecraft. br / br /Speaking some of the words written on back of the picture of his uncle, Carter is then sent on a journey between dreams and reality. When dreaming he is in the past as his uncle, while retaining his own memory. The story is then intertwined with scenes of Lovecraft talking and Carter's own perilous dreams. Discovering as much as he can about his uncle and Lovecraft, Carter must wonder if he is simply a pawn in something much more sinister? br / br /The Picture: br / br /Out of Mind was shot on Super 16mm film and was framed for a 16x9 presentation. However the DVD from Lurker is non-anamorphic, so that viewing on a 16x9 TV will still show the black bars and stretch the images. Also my DVD player indicated that the source for the DVD was from video not the film elements. This is the only criticism you will read from me about this DVD. Having been shot on film, it has the grainy feel that is so enjoyable from 16mm. The colors are a bit faded which works to a tee for the traveling between time. There was times when watching the film you become the camera and move with it through the story. Serge Ladouceur is a veteran cinematographer who does some amazing work on this movie. br / br /The Sound: br / br /Out of Mind is presented in a Dolby 2.0 stereo soundtrack. The music is a perfect companion to the visuals. While on a empty street or looking down a dark tunnel, the sound enhances the image and really make you feel like you are there with the characters. Strangely though, one of the bonus films on the DVD The Music of Erich Zann has a Dolby 5.1 soundtrack. Lack of 5.1 doesn't hamper Out of Mind in any way. br / br /Extras: br / br /As usual Lurker Films goes all out when it comes to extras with their HP Lovecraft collections. There's three short films, The Music of Erich Zann, The Outsider and My Necronomicon. All three are excellent short features and while they in no way rival the main title, they easily could have been the feature of a DVD of their own! S.T. Joshi is also back again for his third in a series of interviews on Lovecraft. There is two commentaries for Out of Mind and a cast interview featurette for The Music of Erich Zann. Lurker also includes some trailers for upcoming films and teasers from the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. In a business where liner notes are becoming a rare item, Lurker gives us an informative eight page booklet on Lovecraft and the films. br / br /An interesting thing to note is the two commentary tracks for Out of Mind. The first includes director Raymond Saint-Jean and star Christopher Heyerdahl, the second has Saint-Jean, Heyerdahl and cinematographer Serge Ladouceur. Personally I like the second one better, both are good though! br / br /Summary: br / br /One of the biggest knocks on the works of Lovecraft is that they don't translate well to the screen. Out of Mind blows that commonly held assumption away! Only Stuart Gordon has ever succeeded in translating to the screen stories from Lovecraft and he did that by making major facelifts to the stories. Even Gordon has not always succeeded in translating Lovecraft and every other director attempting Lovecraft has in my opinion fallen flat on their face. Raymond Saint-Jean in what I can only call genius has taken the man himself, his words, his poems, his personality and brought Lovecraft to life in this film. Mixing an original story with bits and pieces of Lovecraft's stories, Saint-Jean has given us the best adaptation of Lovecraft ever! br / br /During his lifetime Lovecraft was an obscure writer, little known outside of the readers of Weird Tales and Astounding Stories. There's no film or audio record of the man. However Lovecraft, through his correspondence (over 20,000 letters of his are know to exist) gives us a unique look into the man which the tandem of Saint-Jean and Heyerdahl bring to life in a way that is almost erie. While not having much of a budget (the film was funded by the Canadian government and was originally made for the Bravo TV network), Saint-Jean extracts performances from the actors that are exemplary! br / br /This film is a perfect place for those unfamiliar with Lovecraft to start appreciating his work and for those like myself that are hard-core Lovecraft fans, this is the ultimate Lovecraft film. While most films of today rely on what you see and what is said, Out of Mind touches on the true fears that we human beings have. What we fear most is what we can't see, true horror cannot be described in mere words. If H.P Lovecraft was alive today he himself would be humbled by Saint-Jean's adaptation of his stories. Then he would dismiss it as a fluke...... My overall rating 5/5 br / br / br /

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

A real masterpiece, 2005-05-05
I have no doubt that, along with Carpenter's "In the mouth of madness", "Out of mind" is the masterpiece in the weird and fascinating field of the so-called Lovecraftian cinema, being in itself an excellent homage to the man and writer who now peacefully rests at Swan Point Cemetery. It doesn't have the visionary and apocalyptic qualities of Carpenter's movie, but it really expresses the sense of the world and, I dare say, the philosophy conceived by H.P. Lovecraft. br / br /"Out of mind" deals with dreams and reality, life and art, fictional characters meeting their author, in a surprisingly subtle, intelligent and unprecedented way (at least as far as Lovecraft is concerned). Some sequences are really worth of their literary model, even if the movie can't be considered a real adaptation of any of Lovecraft's tales. Seeing the magnificent Heyerdahl playing (somehow "being") Lovecraft, speaking his own words and in his own accent, always leaves me happily amazed. The final sequence is particularly unforgettable and, in a very peculiar way, touching, especially if one, like me, spent some minutes in front of the real grave of Mr. Lovecraft in Providence, RI. br / br /As always in Lurker Films, the dvd is rich in other short movies (John Strysik's "The Music of Erich Zann", a kind of classic in the genre, would deserve another review...), audio comments (two comments for "Out of mind"!), trailers, etc., not to say the most interesting interview with S.T. Joshi. "The Call of Cthulhu" trailer is specially beautiful and funny. By the way, in the useful and well-written booklet of the dvd you find the name Cthulhu written "Cthuhlu": it's not a problem, but maybe in future editions this little mistake could be corrected. br / br /Luca C. Foffano (Milan, Italy)