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Moviecut—Dagon

Dagon

After reading all the positive comments about this film, and reviewing the synopsis, which sounded very original and offbeat...I rented this DVD with moderate hopes. I didn't like it. I do not understand the comments like, "relax, it's a horror flick; if you're not a horror fan, you won't understand." In my opinion, it shouldn't matter if you're a horror film fan or not. If a movie is good, it's good...no matter what. You shouldn't have to make concessions for it. I love B films. I like some horror films that are B films. But in this one, at least 2/3 of the movie is spent in one relentless chase. It is not bad because the chase scene lasts so long. The problem I have with it is that it is boring. The same thing over and over again: fish people chasing inept and bumbling lead actor with nothing new added to the mix. Chase in hotel, chase in street, chase in a car, chase in another building. The plot isn't advanced by any of this. The lead doesn't learn much in these scenes, for the most part. The real plot starts when he finds his friends in the arroyo, but I have to confess the first time I watched the movie, I shut the thing down long before. Yes, I watched it twice, trying to see what the other reviewers saw that made this film redeemable. From the arroyo scene forward, it is mildly interesting...yes. It is fun to see the lead actor make his metamorphosis into Rambo. And the fish woman (Macarena) becomes interesting; she does a fine job with a ridiculous role. But sloppy effects (the CGI Dagon creature we see for all of 3 seconds) and a slap dash ending quickly capsizes the enterprise. (He is burned into a glob, his friends are dead, and yet he is thrilled to be underwater with his fish sister in a matter of minutes?) It is just a big disappointment for me, especially since I admired the originality of the idea.

Based on two short stories ("Dagon" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth") by horror author H.P. Lovecraft, Dagon tells the story of Paul Marsh (Ezra Godden), who has just made a bundle of money from stocks. While vacationing on a small boat with his girlfriend, Barbara (Raquel Merono), and an older couple, they run into trouble off the coast of a seemingly deserted, small Spanish fishing town of Imboca. Paul and his Barbara make it to shore to look for help, but things turn from bad to worse as they discover the town's evil secrets. This is director Stuart Gordon's third Lovecraft related film, after Re-Animator (1985) and From Beyond (1986). All were also at least co-produced by Brian Yuzna and co-written by Dennis Paoli. While I can't say Dagon is the best, it is just as good, finishing as a solid 10 out of 10 for me. What really puts Dagon over the top early on is the incredible atmosphere that Gordon achieves from the beginning of the film. We see a prologue of sorts with Marsh diving beneath the ocean, coming across bizarre, creepy ruins, and finally running into a beautiful mermaid who just happens to have a set of shark teeth. This turns out to be a dream, but shortly after, it gets even better when our heroes spot the deserted Spanish town and the ominous weather that's quickly approaching. By the time Paul begins exploring the spooky town, I wanted to spend an eternity there. It has all the atmosphere of Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's superb Delicatessen (1991), with the addition of creepy, freakish townspeople. The more we learn about everything, the more strange it becomes, until we're finally in the middle of a nightmare that seems like a melding of Federico Fellini, David Cronenberg and Frank Henenlotter--we get visceral horror, captivating dark fantasy, and beautiful surrealism. There couldn't be a much more exquisite mix for my tastes. Don't miss this one.

(Sorry for my English) Dagon is a cheaper B movie with some interesting elements but not satisfactory. Lovecraft is a very difficult author to translate to big screen and Stuart Gordon is not the perfect director to do this. The script translate insmouth from New England to Galicia (Spain) and introduce some gore and humor not very funny. Good elements: the cast is correct especially a actor master: Paco Rabal and very beauty Raquel Meroño spanish actress than i can see all naked in the film(in USA suposse not than censurated this). The Music is great and the fotografhy and some FX are very well. But is not a good film perhaps some funny to make some laughs.

*** Major Spoiler Alert *** Stuart Gordon's Dagon is an intense and unique film based mostly on H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth and his much shorter work entitled Dagon. This is really epic material in a strangely soaked Spanish environment. A Lovecraftian cult worshiping the underwater deity Dagon have taken over a small town on the Atlantic coast of Spain. A sailboat on pleasure cruise ends wrecked there. They will not be leaving anytime soon. Now situationally this is a fairly obvious menu. Gordon does, at one point, dive off the gory edge, but this is a Stuart Gordon film after all. Meanwhile the chase through dripping dampness of the town is really a pulse quickener. What makes this work is the danker than dank waterlogged environment and the extraordinarily emotional relationship of Dagon's daughter played in a one of a kind performance by Spanish actress Macarena Gomez to our trapped nerd, played by Ezra Godden. Macarena plays the part of tentacled siren princess with real fish-eyed believability. She was given instructions by Gordon (whose previous Lovecraft works include From Beyond and Re-Animator) to keep her eyes from blinking. When in the end Uxía (Gomez) craves Paul (Godden), whom she calls Pablo, she calls out to him with such an urgent imploring sad doomed yet loving tone in her voice she becomes perhaps the ultimate mermaid nightmare: Her eyes filled with wells of tearful salt water, her robes of gilded Symbolist splendor. She reveals the dark secrets of the unholy sect. Uxía: Pablo, it is your destiny... We had different mothers, but the same father... We are children of Dagon. Your dreams. Remember your dreams, Pablo. They brought you here. Paul: No. They were nightmares. They weren't real. Uxía: Every dream is a wish. Paul: Somebody help me! What's happening to me? Uxía: You are my brother. You will be my lover - forever. The tone Macarena hits here is the crescendo of the entire film, that sense of hopeless beauty and tragic certainty. I don't agree philosophically with the fatalism of that black romance, but who hasn't felt that temptation to give into it. And as Paul sets himself on fire and plunges into the sea Uxía follows. And together they descend into the depths of the tentacled God Dagon's realm. One feels the drowning, yet liberation. Yet we know to follow is to be annihilated. I can't think of another film to present the darker aesthetics aspects of the antique Symbolist dream so vividly. For those with strong stomachs yet sensitive hearts I strongly recommend Dagon.

Just by the law of averages you would expect that sooner or later someone would make a movie based on a H.P. Lovecraft story, which has something to do with the original story. Or that it captures something of the original atmosphere. Forget it. This is yet another entry in the seemingly endless pantheon of bad European 80's style schlock flicks which has about as much to do with H.P. Lovecraft as a nanny goat does with Yuri Gagarin. The film seems more based on 'The Shadow over Innsmouth' than anything else, but that connection is fairly tenuous. There is some reasonably atmospheric cinematography (this is easily one of the dampest movies ever made), but none of this saves it from the idiotic script and laughable major characters, who seem more like Brad and Janet from 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' than something Lovecraft would have approved of. When is somebody going to get the hang of a Lovecraft story? Is it impossible? Is there some occult force preventing it from happening? I'm beginning to think so. 3 out of 10. - and that's because the director slipped me a few bills.

TINY SPOILER ...when heaps like THE CAVE, THE CORE, WHEN A STRANGER CALLS (remake)get spread over every other cinema (UK experience)? It has budget related flaws and couple of cheesy moments, but when you compare it in the imagination and shear stick-to-a-weird-story spirit department it piddles all over most movies, never mind recent offerings from a 'fringe' genre like fantasy/horror. This captures HP Lovecraft ideals with a mix of tongue in check cheese, sincere homage, inspired interpretation and a measure of terror and gore that fits the mood perfectly. The acting is... passionate, the prosthetics competent and the pace/plot/script often inspiring (seriously - apart from the Star Wars moment... you'll know when it happens). Good looking - good effort - so why am I more likely to see a sequel to THE CAVE on the big screen than a film of this ilk? Makes me want to take up reading.