Dagon
buy it at amazon.com
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Dagon |
buy it at amazon.com |
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DVD |
Scares/Tension  |
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Gore/Violence  |
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2001 Starring: *Spoiler alert* While I won't give away the twists at the end of the film, I found it impossible to not talk about the revelation made about a third of the way through the film. 'Da·gon' 'dagon' Director Stuart Gordon and producer Brian Yuzna, the infamous duo from Re-Animator and From Beyond fame, teamed up again in 2000 for another go-around with a story by H.P. Lovecraft. The 2001 release, Dagon, is based on two short stories by Lovecraft, "Dagon" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth". As mentioned in the commentary by Gordon and screenplay writer, Dennis Paoli, Lovecraft had a huge fear of fish which either seems ironic or fitting, as you watch the film. The movie starts out with a man scuba diving in blue water and checking out some sort of wreck. He finds bars of gold and then a beautiful woman appears. after a moment of focusing on her a fish tail appears and we see that she is a mermaid. She comes close to the man as if to kiss him, pulls his mask off, and then opens her mouth revealing sharp teeth. Just before she can clamp down on him, he wakes up.. The man dreaming is on a sailboat that has two couples on it. Paul (the guy who had the dream) and Barbara (newcomers Ezra Godden and Raquel Meroño) are the young couple and Howard and Vicki (Brendan Price and Birgit Bofarull) are a middle aged couple. Obviously no one on this boat is poor, but a point is made to show that Paul is a techno geek and investment wizard who has recently made piles of money. Barbara is somewhat fed up with his working while on vacation bit though and throws his laptop over the side of the boat. Just after Paul vocalizes his thoughts on the matter, a dark and swirling storm move in from the mainland. The storm quickly becomes violent and the boat is lashed against some rocks jutting out of the ocean and they become stuck there. During the outburst, Vicki is below decks and breaks one of her legs which then becomes trapped under some wreckage. Howard comes to her aid and decides to stay with her while Paul and Vicki take the dinghy to the mainland to get help. They are off the coast of Spain (The movie was filmed in Spain, near Barcelona) and the nearest land has a dock leading to a small town. The boat is taking on water so they move quickly. The storm is still raging while Paul and Barbara are on their way and something seems to attack their boat and poke a hole in it. They make it to the dock, but just barely. The town seems deserted so they head towards the church. Once inside, they see strange icons and after yelling for help a priest finally appears. Paul knows very little Spanish so Barbara does the talking. The priest does manage to help them find a man with a boat and Paul goes with him to rescue their friends and Barbara is to phone for help to government authorities. After telling Barbara he doesn't want to leave her alone with the "creepy" man, the priest announces he knows English and that she will be perfectly safe. So they separate and Paul heads off to rescue their friends. While Paul and Barbara were away Howard was with Vicki trying to comfort her, even with the boat slowly taking on water. Suddenly, something in the water grabs at Vicki. And again! After arriving at the wreck, Paul discovers that Howard and Vicki are missing with no sign of what happened to them. After a thorough search he gets the boatman to take him back to town. The boatman has said nothing and did not want to help Paul at first except the Priest's intervention got him to help. Paul really starts to notice how oddly this fellow has been acting but now all he wants to do is get back to his wife. While Paul was off trying to find their friends, the priest leads Barbara to the local hotel where after a futile attempt to get the man at the counter there to understand anything, she is grabbed from behind by the priest! The two men then overpower her and we do not find out what becomes of her (at least not yet). Paul is greeted at the dock by the priest and told to go to the hotel to meet his wife there. At the hotel, Paul runs into the same seemingly deaf man at the counter. Paul does find Barbara's lighter in the lobby though so he at least knows he is in the right place. He finally manages to get a key for a room though and decides to go there to wait for his wife. The room has obviously not been cleaned in years and Paul almost gags after seeing the green water come out of the faucet. But before he goes down to the lobby to complain he notices a crowd of people outside who look up and see him in the window. They start making strange sounds and seem to be coming into the hotel to come after him. Paul tries locking doors but the mass of people start breaking through them to get at him. He finally manages to jump out a window and successfully escapes, but twists his ankle a bit during the landing. Paul escapes to a slaughterhouse and while hiding, discovers what seems to be human skins. He finds a fresh skin that is attached to the face of a person that Paul realizes is his missing friend, Howard. Horrified, Paul staggers out of there just ahead of the horde that is now after him. He comes across an old, drunken man, Ezequiel, (Francisco Rabal) who doesn't seem to act like the others, but must know what is going on. Through a series of flashbacks we learn that when Ezequiel was a young boy, the town, dependent on fishing, had run out of fish. The people were deeply religious but after praying with the local priest did not help a man who appeared promised to help them if they would follow him and his new ways. Desperate, they agreed and after a dramatic display along the coast the next fishing day brought not only live fish, but small, golden statues of fish. The food shortage was handled and now everyone in town was rich. But not Ezequiel's parents who would not partake in the devils haul. So later on the townspeople kill off the local priest and also Ezequiel's father. Ezequiel has not joined these people and has survived only because over the years he has convinced them he is nothing more than a crazy drunk. Paul doesn't really believe the crazy guy telling him this fantastical tale, but decides to let him live after he agrees to help Paul get to a car so he can drive to another town to summon help. Their attempt to get the only car in town is discovered and Paul escapes into the mansion of the owner of the car. While escaping his pursuers, he runs into a room that has the girl from his dream (Macarena Gómez) sitting up in a bed. Her name is Uxía and he is instantly taken with her and after kissing for a moment, her sheet falls below her waist to reveal two large tentacles where legs should be! Paul is horrified and despite Uxía's pleas for him to remain he escapes the mansion. Of course he is quickly caught and is thrown into a hold where is wife, Vicki and Ezequiel are also being held. They show that Vicki had her leg torn off and she is pretty much in shock. She does however, recognize Paul, and she tries telling them what happened after being taken from the boat. She is screaming that it is inside of her and they don't know what she is talking about until Ezequiel bluntly exclaims that "he fucked her!" Who he is exactly though is a little harder to convey and all they know is it is a person or thing named Dagon. The people who have been slowly starting to reveal themselves appear and are going to take Vicki away. She manages to grab a knife though and slices her belly open as death is a better option than what they have in store for her. They then take Paul and Ezequiel off and tie them up in the slaughterhouse. The priest is there and starts telling Paul about how great Dagon is all the while cutting and peeling Ezequiel's skin off while he is still alive. Just before the priest can start in on Paul, Uxía arrives and forbids any harm to come to him. She is obviously a woman (fish) of considerable power and influence so the priest reluctantly withdraws. Uxía leaves and Paul manages to get a knife that was meant to peel his skin off and kills the priest and his assistant with it. Interestingly ,the knifes are made of gold as are many things in the town. (Paul had tried to bribe his captors with 10 million dollars before managing to kill them and was told that they had a hundred times that at their disposal.) We then go back to an underground area where Barbara has been taken to. She is tied up and being cut with a knife by Uxía and as we discover being prepped for sacrifice to Dagon. Paul arrives before the deed can be carried out though and along the way managed to get a can of gas which he douses several people/fish with. After setting them on fire there is mayhem and he tries to free Barbara from her bonds. This is where I end my synopsis of the story as to not reveal the twists at the end. The movie sounds completely stupid and implausible, but in the hands of Gordon it is actually a well crafted, gothic styled horror movie. It is dark, eerie, occasionally gory, and the entire film takes place almost in one night and it is raining most of the time so it has a damp feeling throughout. It actually reminds me of Ken Russell's Lair of the White Worm somewhat, which is quite a complement. Both movies are based on stories from turn of the century (1800s to 1900s) authors who specialized in the fantastic (Lair of the White Worm was a story by Bram Stoker). Both movies are also directed by men who have flirted with major Hollywood studios but have ended up sticking to what they like in more independent ventures. Stuart Gordon pays a nice tribute to his most well known effort, Re-Animator, by having Paul wear a sweatshirt that says "Miskatonic" on it through most of the movie. This is the university where Herbert West carried out his reanimation experiments in that film. But don't expect another Re-Animator type experience with this movie. It has none of the humor and over the top scenes like that film. Gordon decided to play it straight for the most part and this film succeeds despite the outlandishness of the story. The disk, to its credit, has not one but two commentaries. The first is with Stuart Gordon and screenplay writer Dennis Paoli, the second with Gordon and actor Ezra Godden, who plays the lead character Paul. I found the first commentary to be enlightening and entertaining. I must admit that I only listened to small parts of the second commentary, but really, who has the time to listen to a second one! The sound is Dolby 5.1 and the image is presented in a nice, but somewhat dark, 1.78:1 transfer. Other extras include storyboards, production art and a trailer. There are also optional Spanish and English subtitles. The scene index is broken down into 24 chapter stops, each with a different image from that stop in the movie. I personally found this film very enjoyable and am
glad to have it in my collection. |
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01 Aug 03 |
