Binary Bonsai

It isn’t quite an official announcement, even if every single film blog out there is treating it as such, as per usual, but it does seem more and more likely that that Guillermo Del Toro is directing with James Cameron producing, an adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness.

First of all, I’m just happy he isn’t doing The Hobbit, okay? He seems like a great guy, I think his heart is really in his films, but apart from Pans Labyrinth, I’ve thoroughly hated most of his other films, with particular emphasis on the two Hellboy films.

Those two, are as a matter of fact, exactly what came to mind as I read through the screenplay, which has been floating around for a while. I can only imagine the part of Larsen, a rough-and-tumble Canadian, about as un-Lovecraftian as they come, having been written for Ron Perlman, whom in the hands of Del Toro, I’ve grown to dislike as well (he does well in his old French parts, but man, Hellboy. Then, those films were so far from their source-comic as to rival League of Extraordinary Gentlemen).

There’s the small stuff: Nevermind that Tekeli-li is misspelled in the screenplay, but the two huskie drivers are introduced as the aforementioned Larsen and Gunnarson. Larsen is a Danish surname, he’s Canadian. Gunnarson is a Norwegian surname, he’s Danish… Hmm? And they’re both named Ian/Jan… I guess I should be happy that there’s a Dane in the film (hell, there’s even a danish drinking song!)

Now it’s very likely to be rewritten at least once or twice, and I don’t know specifically how old the draft I’ve read is; but as it stands it’s a mess of unmotivated characters, and some odd choices for turning points (Dyer’s telegram makes absolutely no sense to me; I would have played it exactly opposite, but then since I haven’t written a single screenplay, nor directed a film to critical acclaim, I should really just STFU).

Seriously though, this isn’t the At the Mountains of Madness as you know it. Or if it is, it’s the original story seen through a kaleidoscope of The Thing (from which it draws much inspiration, oddly, since a remake is in the works… ugh) and Hellboy II, that chaotic all-singing-all-dancing carnival of suck.

If there’s one thing that defines Lovecraftian horror, and in particular Mountains of Madness, it’s inquisitive, but timid, protagonists and creeping, cosmic horror in comparison to which we are but specks of dust.

Now there’s about as much creeping horror in this screenplay as in the first half hour of Saving Private Ryan. Lucky, as I otherwise don’t know why they would have bothered importing Larsen, that one-liner slingin’ man of action, from his home in an unknown 80’s action flick, onto the ice of Antarctica, 1931.

Danforth in the book goes mad because he caught a glimpse, perhaps, of something.

The screenplay on the other hand reads more like a monster manual…

I can appreciate that Lovecraft’s writing can be slow and awkward — I’m no Lovecraft scholar by a long stretch of the imagination, but that much is clear to anyone who’s ever flipped through one of his stories — and I’m not arguing that the story shouldn’t be rearranged and adjusted to make it fit the mold of the large screen better.

But when you have Ron Perlman shooting dynamite with a shotgun and firing off one-liners and — I kid you not — Cthulhu crushing ships like beercans, in the climax of a story which never explicits anything about what Danforth sees, and in which no ships are crushed in any way, shape, manner or form, like a beercan…

It’s all just a little much.

No. It’s all just a lot much.

But then not too long ago, when Del Toro was being set up for The Hobbit, he stated in an interview that he hadn’t even read it, and I’m beginning to think the same might be the case with At the Mountains…

On the other hand that makes him the perfect choice to push this hundred million dollar tentpole 3D extravaganza with James Cameron riding the bomb and yellin’ yeehaw all the way into your local cinemas…

I’m predicting that Yoggie won’t be pleased with this particular sacrifice.

I guess my point is, that if you’re going to do this. To take one of Lovecraft’s most beloved and well-known (or well-known of), stories, then do it right! Don’t morph it into a generic action/horror/yawn flick, of which there are enough already.

Make it into something the likes of Alien.

That, my furry friends, is creeping, cosmic, horror.

For such a rich and vast library of material, ripe for film, it’s puzzling how the mythos have been neglected a proper big screen debut. In a way I’d like to keep it that way. On the one hand because ‘man wasn’t meant to know’, and on the other because somehow the snob in me still likes to feel a little special whenever I see a Cthulhu reference and know that not everyone gets it just because it’s been in some stupid blockbuster.

But mostly because man wasn’t meant to know. Shouldn’t know. No, you shouldn’t.

Move along.

That’s a good meatbag.

PS: You can download Lovecrafts stories, for use with iBooks for free.