Introduction

Welcome, dear friends and honored guests. I hope it’s been a nice October. Pray for any ghosts who have risen sober forth the underworld to find their rests. May Ceres, Dagon, and Circe grant us plenitude and mercy.

Fall is fit for Art and things alien, for looking beyond the cerulean, for traversing emerald realms of Sleep, for contemplating secrets of the deep.

Assemble hither, ye lorn wights who brood upon the cloudless nights, swathed in Pluto’s palls sable-hued, so obsidian in their mood, ye who as jet-black candles burn perceive Autumn’s most grand nocturne. Let’s honor Demeter’s season with tales of fright, not of reason.

The Review

In this article, I will be reviewing Dagon, a movie that was directed by Stuart Gordon and inspired by the works of H. P. Lovecraft.

During the conclusion section of this article, I will also try to recommend other movies to watch and other writings to read, for those who might be looking for something somewhat similar to Gordon’s Dagon.

Lo, beware for possible spoilers hereon.

Stuart Gordon’s From Beyond (1986) and Re-Animator (1985) are praiseworthy films, perfect to watch during the dark and cold seasons, but his Dagon (2001), regrettably, was not to my liking.

While there are a few interesting concepts and twists floundering around Gordon’s Dagon, I found the majority of Dagon to be uncomfortably mucky, without Beauty or expression, languishing in grossness. It is a movie whose clumsily misplaced elements of suspense, romance, comedy, tragedy, action, horror, and eroticism are all unpleasant, cumbersome, and confused. In Dagon, the lighting, costumes, makeup, sets, and colors are not beautiful; although, Uxia’s priestess costume and headdress were rather unique and captivating. But a kind of loathsomeness, as a piscine brininess, clings to the malodor of this movie with its overabundance of modernity, its gaudy special effects, and its utilization of what to me looked like distasteful CGI. The camera angles and shots in this picture are often awkward. Its torture scenes are revoltingly unpleasant. The acting in this motion picture is not very decent. Its characters are betwixt irritating and unmemorable, for the most part—except, maybe, Uxia?

Conclusion

Gordon’s Dagon is a movie I might recommend as something to watch only once upon the arrival of fall season. Its vulgar shocks and cheap scares are, perhaps, satisfying entertainment to some, ’tis fair, but it is a wholly inferior work, I should think, when compared to Lovecraft’s writings, and to many other pieces of weird-fiction.

If you’re looking for a much better movie that still moderately shares at least a vaguely similar kind of mood with Dagon (2001), I’d suggest the film Messiah of Evil (1974; directed by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz). Or, for something more different, why not watch Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls (1962)?

I prefer, however, Literature, and I’d say there’s real artistry to be found in Lovecraft’s “Dagon” and his The Shadow over Innsmouth.

H. P. Lovecraft’s weird short story “Dagon” is, to my mind, radically different and, in my opinion, vastly superior to Stuart Gordon’s movie-adaptation. The short story exhibits, fascinatingly, similarities with the Decadent: for example, the narrator is mentally unsound, poor, a drug-addict (morphine), unable to deal with life, contemplates suicide, worries he will be considered a degenerate, seeks oblivion, and lives on the brink of Death; additionally, both Poe and Satan are mentioned in the story; and, occasionally, it refers to War, the spectre of which has, in my humble belief, haunted long around the realms of the Decadence movement.

H. P. Lovecraft’s weird novella The Shadow Over Innsmouth displays slight resemblances to Decadent art as well: this is illuminated wherever it mentions or alludes to disease; concentration camps; a dying society; madness, suicide, and hallucinations; blasphemy, Satan, and devil-worship; deformities, hybridism, and odd forms; dandyism; outcasts; or decadence. This novella focuses heavily, nevertheless, on the Weird, on genealogical horror, a transgression on biology. Within the tale are mentions of October 31 and Hallowe’en.

Also, before we say adieu, I’d like to quickly recommend to those interested in mermaid-horror the film Night Tide (1961; directed by Curtis Harrington); it’s a film with Gothic, dreamy charm and a sophisticated sort of simplicity; so, if you haven’t yet, give it a watch.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, merwomen and mermen, thank you so much for reading my article, and do have a safe journey—bon voyage!

If you enjoyed what you have read here, you should read the other articles I have contributed to the DMR Books blog.

If you have read any of my writings, stories, or books, please leave a review of them, as it really would be a generous service and appreciated immensely.

Matthew Pungitore is the author of “The Tale of Marius the Avenging Imp” (DMR Books, Samhain Sorceries, 2022); The Report of Mr. Charles Aalmers and other stories; Fiendilkfjeld Castle; Midnight's Eternal Prisoner: Waiting For The Summer; and more.