Some stories are just better in the written form than as a movie. There are varying reasons for this, of course. Sometimes it's because technology can't duplicate something that words can easily describe, other times it's because much of the story's appeal lies in how it's told rather than the plot itself. I think it's safe to say that the work of HP Lovecraft easily falls into both of those categories. His stories are full of "indescribable horrors" and dense, wordy language. There are colors from beyond space and beings with shifting forms. And there's a lot of thinking and brooding and monolog-ing. Lots and lots of narrating, too. But sometimes people just can't resist, and they have to make a Lovecraft movie anyways. "Lovecraft is awesome!" they say, "Surely his stories would be even more awesome if we made them into a movie!" Now, they don't always fail. The HP Lovecraft Historical Society's "Call of Cthulhu" has been a big hit with my friends and I. And then there's this movie. "Beyond the Wall of Sleep." Even though it was released this year, you might not have heard of it; it's one of those direct-to-DVD deals, and for good reason. This movie sucks in new and inventive ways. It is BAD, I say. Bad bad bad. From what I'd been told, I expected some campy movie from the 90s or 80s or whatever; instead I got a modern movie which takes itself way too seriously. This leaves the audience with the burden of laughing at it, and boy did we laugh. My neighbors wisely wanted to avoid the movie. We bribed them with free pizza and they relented. We were almost saved when their PS2 didn't want to play the disc, but we were able to force the computer to accept it, and we were off on a journey into new realms of terror. Or laughter. Or loathing. Ah hell, why not all three? I swear, the first 20 minutes of this movie consists of 10-30 second clips, all filmed through different filters, all jiggly and jumpy and full of gore. That's the first two problems right there: music video style filming, and gore. Lovecraft's stories were not about the gross-out, they were about madness, the psychological aspects of horror. Let me be honest with you: the most Lovecraftian thing about this entire movie is the portrait of the man himself which hangs on the wall in one scene (I think I saw the portrait roll its eyes, but that might have been wishful thinking). The rest is pure modern horror of the cheapest sort. You see, the problem is that when you try to make a movie out of a short story, you have the opposite problem as when you try to make a novel into a movie. Instead of choosing what to cut out, you have to come up with things to fill the movie out. In the case of the creators of this little monstrosity, they chose to add plenty of gore, a few creepy children, one catatonic girl with a brain flap who serves as the main character's object of twisted affection, an angry little alienist, and the director of the asylum, who has the prerequisite poofy white hair and bad German accent. My husband wanted me to dedicate two paragraphs to the director, but I don't think I can. I will say that some of our best laughs came from him, and if for some crazy reason you decide to actually watch this movie, you have to wait for the moment when he snaps. It's awesome. Oh yes, I forgot the other thing they added: random scenes of asylum inmates freaking out, and then sometimes being beat or otherwise subdued by the orderlies. More than once, random patients in the hallway get kicked by angry doctors walking by. And then there's the language. Plenty of cursing, and a surprising amount of men making threats towards other men's genitalia. It was quickly decided that the makers of this movie must be pretty sexually repressed. There is just some bizarre, bizarre stuff going on in this movie. Now, truth be told, "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" is not one of my favorite Lovecraft stories. In fact, I'm not even sure that I liked it. That's why I'm not bothering to read it to double-check just how far they departed from the original plot. Suffice it to say that 3 of the 4 of us had read the story, and we all agreed that it wasn't even close. They changed the beginning, the middle, and the end. It had only the slightest connection to the original story. Honestly people! If you want to change the story so much, then change the damn name and say that it was "Inspired by the works of HP Lovecraft." When the end product doesn't even closely resemble the original in plot, style, or resolution, then they shouldn't bear the same name. I'm not going to bother giving credit where credit is due. If you're really curious about this movie, you can look it up on IMDB. Then, like me, you can find yourself not at all shocked that the main actor hasn't been in any other movies. Oh yes, did I forget to mention the hideous over-acting by almost every player in the film? I don't think I've ever used the term "scenery chewing" before, but if I did, I would use it for these guys. And the wigs deserve a mention. Oh, the terrible wigs! Yes, this review is disjointed. I blame the movie. In closing, I would just like to say: "My brains!!!"

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Copyright © 2006 By AJ Reardon E-mail AJ at: ErtheFae@aol.com Visit AJ at: www.erthefae.com