Dreams, Madness, and Monsters: Translating Lovecraft to the Screen
Panelists Gretchen Brooks, Daniel Gildark, Monstark, Mark Schneider, Eric Morgret, and Kelly Young. From the cosmic horrors of The Call of Cthulhu to the existential dread of The Shadow Over Innsmouth, H.P. Lovecraft’s work has haunted literature for over a century. But adapting his dense, often unfilmable prose to a visual medium presents unique creative challenges. This panel brings together filmmakers, screenwriters, and genre specialists who have tackled Lovecraftian themes directly or indirectly in their work.
Gretchen has volunteered at Portland Horror Film Festival and the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival since 2016, and helps judge films for both. As a lifelong fan of horror movies, she loves found footage films and exorcism movies. She is a co-host for Gwen & Gretchen Watch Movies, Check The Gate podcast, co-hosted the Kaijucast podcast, and was a frequent guest on Horror Brew podcast.
Monstark is an award-winning filmmaker and monster artist living in Portland, Oregon as a human cat dad. His Lovecraftian puppet film adaptations include "Night-Gaunts" (2023) and "The Outsider "(2024), the latter Co-Produced with Portland artist Schneider under the name Pagan Circus. Pagan Circus is currently developing more Lovecraftian and dark fantasy puppet films and episodic content.
Eric is co-owner of Maelstrom Productions. He has produced/directed/edited several shorts and features including the award-winning films H.P. Lovecraft's Strange Aeons: The Thing on the Doorstep and the short “The Shunned House”. He has worked with Crypticon Seattle, The Seattle International Film Festival, TheFilmSchool, and Strange Aeons Magazine.
K.L. Young is an award-winning filmmaker, podcaster, and publisher. He is the author of The Secret Language of Spiders. He lives in a pop-culture museum in Washington State.
Director - "Bucolic"
Daniel’s life has been driven by storytelling. Moving to Seattle in the 90s to focus on writing, he found himself immersed in the world of fringe theatre. The Balkan War called, and Daniel traveled to document the conflict. He moved to Portland, Oregon, with a focus on film. In 2007, he directed and produced his first feature, CTHULHU, which won ‘best of festival’ at the Eerie and H.P. Lovecraft Film Festivals, and earned Daniel a nomination for The Stranger's Genius Award. 2014 marked a return to theatre, where he directed and starred in the play Whackjob. Over the past five years, Daniel has produced and/or directed five features and several shorts, including "The Paper Tigers," a kung fu comedy, and most recently, "A Dying Art," which is set to be released next year.
Mark Schneider is a mask maker, puppet fabricator and fantasy creature/character artist based in Portland, OR. Over the last 15 years his workshop “Faust and Company” has contributed to theme parks, movies, television and live theatre companies across the globe. In 2025 he started the puppet film production company PAGAN CIRCUS (with fellow Portland artist Monstark) to further their shared passion for fantasy puppet cinema.