Like Ray Bradbury, H.P. Lovecraft is almost impossible to get right. Stuart Gordon made two decent attempts (Re-Animator and Dagon), fine films, but they don’t really qualify as Lovecraft.
The Dunwich Horror comes pretty close at times, but Dean Stockwell’s mustache gets in the way.
In the end it’s Dan O’Bannon’s The Ancestor, an adaptation of Lovecraft’s "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward", that comes the closest. There are stretches (especially towards the end in the underground laboratory, where it gets amazingly close.), with a real “feeling” of dread, the same feeling Dan managed to bring to the original draft of Alien, (despite everyone’s attempts to take that away from him.)
The Ancestor you say..?
Don’t bother heading over to IMDB to look it up. You won’t find it. The film was taken away, re-edited and butchered beyond belief. You can find it a full screen DVD of the film under the title The Resurrected.
Dan was working on his version right up to the end, unfortunately it isn’t in any shape to show. There was an extremely ROUGH cut, a work print, sans music and missing some effects shots and 2nd unit shots, from before the film was taken away, that’s the version you can see tonight at the Egyptian Theatre’s Tribute To Dan O’Bannon. (Along with Dark Star)
This will be a digital projection of a REALLY REALLY rough cut, no music, stretches without sound, fill in narration at times and 50% more “Damone”. Which in a strange way, adds to the atmosphere. This might not be the way Dan wanted us to see the film, but it’s as close as we’ll ever get.
Here is a brief clip from Dan’s acceptance speech for the Lovecraft Film Festival last year, where he talks about The Ancestor. (see the full video here courtesy of Jason Brock.)
And if that isn’t enough to make you come out tonight, we follow it up with a rare archival print of John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon’s DARK STAR!
Thursday, March 25 – 7:30 PM Egyptian Theatre
Dan O’Bannon Tribute: When filmmaker Dan O’Bannon died in December at the age of 63, the American genre cinema lost one of its most entertaining, unique voices. The Cinematheque pays tribute to O’Bannon with two of his best films, DARK STAR and THE RESURRECTED.
Double Feature: Director’s Cut World Premiere! THE RESURRECTED, 1992, Scotti Brothers Picture Distribution, 108 min. Dir. Dan O’Bannon. Private detective John March (John Terry) investigates the mysterious activities of Charles Dexter Ward (Chris Sarandon), an occultist obsessed with finding the secret to resurrecting the dead. It soon becomes apparent that Ward is using his neighbors as guinea pigs. Dan O’Bannon was working on the film, but was not able to finish it before he died. It is a never-before-seen work print.
Rare Archival Print! DARK STAR, 1974, Jack H. Harris Enterprises, 83 min. Director John Carpenter’s first feature is a hilariously lo-fi space epic about a shaggy-dog crew stuck on a spaceship with an alien that resembles a walking beach ball and a thinking time-bomb intent on blowing itself to smithereens. Co-screenwriter Dan O’Bannon co-stars as Pinback.
