Brooklyn Daily:
An expert movie-maker will reveal his secrets for adapting writer H.P. Lovecraft’s tales of ghoulish fish-men and faceless flying devils for the Silver Screen during a talk at the Morbid Anatomy Museum on Oct. 21. The instructor of “Adapting Lovecraft For The Screen,” part of a lecture series from the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies, says that Lovecraft’s eldritch tales pose unique challenges for a visual medium.
“His work is highly suggestive. He’s very good at shadowing things and the horror is almost imagined in some cases,” said Dennis Paoli, whose teenage love for Lovecraft’s work matured into a lifelong fascination. “But for film you have to show that horror, show that creature, create that monster.”
Not necessarily. A really skilled filmmaker can do what Lovecraft did in many of his stories: Create a superb atmosphere by not revealing too much directly. But of course I’m no screenwriter turned college professor, so I’m not claiming to be an expert.
“You’re not going on some fantastic adventures in his stories — it’s a grim set of possibilities you’re faced with,” said Paoli. “You get tossed in his world and it is a truly frightening world. It’s a world where man is part of a number of equal, and equally vulnerable, forms of life.”
The lecture will be held October 20 (not October 21).
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