Joe Smith OK so this movie is nauseating, horrible and makes you feel like your soul has been through a wringer and spat on by evil itself.So basically Lovecraft would probably have liked this movie. It does follow the script of his story "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" close enough to actually deserve the descriptor of movie adaptation, though there are some obvious deviations.Unfortunately, most of the deviations do not improve the story and likely leave both fans and non-Lovecraft fans wondering what is going on.In his novel, there isn't a single sea monster that tries to procreate. It's an entire RACE of human sized sea-frog-people things. They don't even rape, they convince humans to willingly mate with them. That is of a much better class of horror than the low stab of rape. They are preparing to take over the planet and sacrifice humanity. Is Dagon's plan the same? Who can tell. It's not explained in the movie at all! Where is the gold even coming from? Does Dagon make it himself with his tentacle fingers to give to his human followers? No, the human sized fish creatures made it for themselves. It's their haute couture. Again not explained.There are more gory attempts at cheap horror, like the human face masks, which don't make sense in light of the original story. The hybrids are supposed to be PROUD of their ethnicity. Not hide it in shame behind a human face.The drunk hobo is completely unintelligible. Perhaps this is intentional and a reference to something I am not familiar with. Perhaps it's just crappy acting and directing. You'll notice I have given this movie an 8 nonetheless.I'd have preferred to give an 8.5 (and perhaps higher) if not for the unnecessary amount of cheap horror sauce that this movie was dipped in. Although there are a few Lovecraft stories where gore plays an important part, his stories mainly try to instil a feeling of 'cosmic despair' through good story telling. A true movie adaptation should follow the same device.Yet, it has enough of that cosmic despair and nauseating weirdness to impress me into giving it an 8 at least..

Nigel P There have been several film adaptions of the stories of HP Lovecraft over the years, some considerably more successful than others. Of those I have seen, I would say that this Spanish (though English-speaking) version is the best of them all to date. In fact, this is superb, although the story is really an adaption of HP's 'The Shadow over Innsmouth' than 'Dagon'.After running into trouble on their small boat, Paul and Barbara (Ezra Godden and Raquel Merono) and another couple drift towards hopeful salvation in a remote fishing town, Imboca. Immediately, there is a sense of forbidding about this town – it seems deserted, the clouds above are heavier and greyer, the streets are dripping with a permanent mould. As they enter Imboca, the atmosphere becomes thicker and fouler. Figures, half-seen, scuttle about the streets, behind ruined windows.This intense atmosphere is sustained brilliantly throughout and creates such a web of dark fantasy that the occasional, very convincing gore effects (the character Ezequiel (Pablo Rabal) having his face peeled off is the most extreme) actually threaten to spoil such a beautifully macabre mood. The subtlety of much of the make-up for the residents (glimpses of livid gills on the morose hotel proprietor for example, unnaturally oily skin, hooded eyelids) is hugely successful. So too is the overall stink of the place, the rancid decay in the hotel through which Paul tries to make his escape from the terrifying fish-people and the inescapable feeling of doom conveyed through skillful direction and storytelling.A word too for Macarena Gómez as Uxía Cambarro, who combines intense beauty with startling and exotic vampire-like persuasiveness as she convinces Paul that his fate and hers are unavoidably intertwined. This, and some very good effects, combine to ensure she is truly demonic.

dragokin The problem with H.P. Lovecraft's work whether it should be labeled pulp fiction or art. Either way, he was the father of contemporary horror genre. For some reason there hasn't been any major studio production inspired by his work, apart from occasional mentioning in, for example, Pacific Rim.Dagon answered the dilemma about H.P. Lovecraft's writing with resolution: It was a trash flick. It has some atmosphere, though, but it remains a jewel for B and C movies aficionados.So, if you're not into horror movies, this might be to much for you. And if you've read Lovecraft work, Dagon wouldn't be the ultimate treat. The best part, in my opinion, was the scene with topless Raquel Meroño.

gulag *** 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.