c_hookham Of all of America's great writers HP Lovecraft, and his eerie tales of cosmic horror, has suffered from not being given a decent film treatment. Or so I thought until I stumbled on this gem-a labour of love from the HP Lovecraft Historical Society. Filmed in lovingly recreated 1930's RKO style this tells the tale of strange alien goings on in the remote mountains of Vermont and an ancient evil hidden there. Considering this is no Hollywood big budget film the production values are impeccable and by using the 1930's feel even the limited budget's SFX look and feel a perfect fit. If you are a fan of Lovecraft's work or any decent Scifi or horror this really is a treat and until Hollywood at least tries to better it -easily the best screen version of Lovecraft's large body of work.

siderite It is notoriously difficult to bring a Lovecraft story to the screens without reinventing pretty much everything. The reason for that is that the emotional tension in his stories is all based on what he tells you the characters feel. He doesn't really construct a horror environment as much as place people who are easily scared, disgusted or appalled in circumstances that are usually light sci-fi.Created by the same team that did The Call of Cthulhu in 2005, it is a black and white movie, only this time not a mute one. The story it is based on is also longer, but then so is the movie.I liked it, but then I kind of understand what H.P.Lovecraft was all about. For other people I think this would be a waste of time.

Mohammad Umair Khan First off, this is my first review I have ever bothered to write on IMDb. And the reason is simply this...This is a pretty damn good movie. I loved "Dagon" the movie, my first exposer to HP Lovecraft freshman year of college and then started reading his stuff. 8 years later, I keep all his work proudly displayed on my book shelf so my daughter does not have to wait till freshmen year to hear about HP Lovecraft. As people who have read his work already know, the stories are impossible to translate into a movie, hence, terrible movies. I kept coming across weird horror movies that advertised themselves as "From the mind of HP Lovecraft" (one that is just called Lovecraft) and found them to be entirely lame, cheesy and an insult to the awesomeness that is Lovecraft. This movie however was a lot of fun. So fun in fact that around 20 min in, i decided to pause it and get myself a drink and change of cloths and turned my phone to vibrate which is kind of my ritual for movies that I get into and a nod that the movie truly has caught my attention and no more distractions will be tolerated. The acting is pretty good and the whole black and white deal gives it more of a "Twilight Zone special written by HP Lovecraft" feel. The creatures aren't Avatar standard CGI but honestly, Lovecraft monsters live in your head and to manifest them and visualize them only ends up diminishing the true horror of it all. All is all, I highly recommend this movie...HP Lovecraft fan or not.p.s. "From Beyond" isn't too bad either.

Sandy Petersen I'm Sandy Petersen, and some people know me as a game designer (I wrote the original game Call of Cthulhu, for instance). I helped fund The Whisperer in Darkness, though I had no creative input (and expected none). The movie is, in my obviously prejudiced opinion, a masterwork of taking an unfilmable Lovecraft story, and getting it not only on film, but in such a way to make it accessible to those who have not yet read the tale. I don't understand the reviewer who says it seems like a mishmash of Lovecraft - has he even read the original tale? This movie was taken straight from it. Some characters are added to dramatize events which, in the story, are in the form of posted letters, but that certainly doesn't hurt the film. Yes there is a lot of dialog, but the camera is not static - things move, shadows lurk, and the dialog itself is terrifically ominous. It does not follow the near-standard Hollywood 3-act-play sequence, to its everlasting credit. Instead the sinister elements keep building steadily until they reach a climax and even feature an artsy epilogic montage. Just as with the story, the evidence before Albert Wilmarth (the main character) keeps growing until he can no longer deny his eyes. Even the revelation of the alien horrors is done bit by bit. First we see a footprint, then a blurred photo, then a shadow on a wall, then on a curtain, then a single leg, then a brief shot of one walking offscreen behind some humans. Ultimately we see them fully and they are worth the wait. But it's not just the aliens - every element of the story grows in this manner. As you learn the alien plan bit by bit, the horror and tension mounts. Every death in the movie was unexpected to me. As a long-term expert in horror films, I'm used to being able to peg who lives and who dies often in the opening credits, so this was a nice surprise. The movie has subtlety and class. One good example is the scene with the young girl, Hannah. Albert Wilmarth is hiding out with her in a barn, trying to avoid detection. He converses with her, and tells her of his own daughter, who died of influenza years ago. The scene is touching, but just before it degenerates into bathos, he offers to sing Hannah a song which he once sang to his own child, and Hannah shakes her head, and says, "No". Just in the nick of time! I saw an early version of the film, and this scene with the child is what convinced me to invest my money in this movie. The whole thing is very professional. It is not an action film, though it contains action. It is a cerebral horror film. There are no "boo" moments, and every moment segues logically into every other. It is a tightly knit coherent hole.