Adapting Lovecraft to Film - Spotlight on the films of Stuart Gordon
Based on the works of Stuart Gordon: Of all the feature films based on Lovecraft’s work, few match the films of Stuart Gordon. Liberties are taken with the original stories, but Gordon adapts Lovecraft’s work with a surprising faithfulness, before adding in a few bits of his own. This panel will discuss how Gordon followed the basic outlines of The Re-Animator stories, From Beyond and Dreams in the Witch House to keep his adaptations true to the original work, while updating them for (or to assault) modern sensibilities. Migliore (M), Branney, Bullington, Gordon, Shirley, Stout
Film still from Re-Animator.
Andrew John Migliore (born 1966 in Washington D.C., United States) is the founder and original director of the annual H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland Oregon. Andrew is the co-author of Lurker in the Lobby: The Guide to the Cinema of H. P. Lovecraft published by Night Shade Books and was founder and producer at Lurker Films where he launched The H. P. Lovecraft Collection, The Weird Tale Collection, and The Edgar Allan Poe Collection on DVD.
Sean is a producer, actor, director and writer with the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society which he runs with his nefarious colleague, Andrew Leman. He was intimately involved in the creation of the motion pictures The Call of Cthulhu and The Whisperer in Darkness, nineteen episodes of Dark Adventure Radio Theatre, and many other Lovecraftian projects. With his work at the HPLHS, he's created many other Lovecraftian entertainments. Sean also produces and directs live theatre in Los Angeles. He plays ice hockey and has four chinchillas.
Jesse Bullington wears the influence of the Gentleman from Providence on the pages of his three weird historical novels: The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart, The Enterprise of Death, and The Folly of the World. Under the pen name Alex Marshall he is writing the Crimson Empire trilogy, which mixes epic fantasy with cosmic horror and gallows humor—the first volume, A Crown for Cold Silver, made the Tiptree Award Honor List, and the second, A Blade of Black Steel, dropped in May. He is also the editor of the Shirley Jackson Award-nominated anthology Letters to Lovecraft, and co-editor (with Molly Tanzer) of Swords v. Cthulhu. He’s published numerous short stories, some of them Mythos-themed, as well as various articles and reviews; a full bibliography can be found at www.jessebullington.com.
In 1985, winning the Critics’ Award at the Cannes Film Festival, Stuart Gordon surprised audiences with his first feature film RE-ANIMATOR based on stories by H.P. Lovecraft. With its stunning box office success, RE-ANIMATOR became the first of a series of Lovecraft inspired films utilizing screenplays by longtime writing partner Dennis Paoli. They include: FROM BEYOND (1986), CASTLE FREAK, based on “The Outsider” (1994), DAGON (2001) and DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE (2005) which was produced for THE MASTERS OF HORROR television series.
Last year he directed a radio play adaptation of Lovecraft’s THE HOUND for Larry Fessenden’s “Tales From Beyond the Pale.”
Stuart Gordon has developed a strong and loyal following and increased interest in the work of Mr. Lovecraft.
He is happy and honored to return to the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival.
Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!
John Shirley is an author, screenwriter, television writer, comics writer, singer, and songwriter. He is the author of more than forty novels and eight story collections. He won the Bram Stoker Award for the horror collection Black Butterflies: A Flock on the Dark Side. His novels include DEMONS, CELLARS, IN DARKNESS WAITING, CRAWLERS, BLEAK HISTORY, A SONG CALLED YOUTH, and CITY COME A-WALKIN'. He wrote the first four drafts of the screenplay for the movie THE CROW, and is co-writer with David Schow. He has written TV scripts for Poltergeist: The Legacy, Deep Space Nine, Sinbad, VR5 and other shows. He has written animation for Iron Man Armored Adventures and was nominated an Emmy for a recent episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He is a former Guest of Honor at the World Horror Convention. His most recent story collections are Living Shadows, In Extremis, and Lovecraft Alive (his Lovecraftian stories collected by Hippocampus Press). He also wrote the first novel based on the TV show GRIMM entitled GRIMM: THE ICY TOUCH, and the game tie-in novels Bioshock: Rapture and Halo: Broken Circle. Black October Records has brought out an album of John Shirley's own recordings, BROKEN MIRROR GLASS. He performs with his band, THE SCREAMING GEEZERS.
William Stout was born in Salt Lake City, Utah on the way to Los Angeles in 1949. At seventeen he won a full California State Scholarship to the Chouinard Art Institute (California Institute of the Arts) where he obtained his Bachelor's Degree. He began his professional career in 1968 with the cover for the first issue of Coven 13. While he is known mainly for his realist illustrations of dinosaurs (Michael Crichton acknowledged Stout's work as an inspiration for his book Jurassic Park), Stout's professional credits are numerious and varied, ranging from production design in film (he is slated to work on del Toro's At The Mountains of Madness), to fine art books, video games, magazines, and murals.
Perhaps most interesting to the Lovecraft fans in the room is Stout's journey to Antarctica and Patagonia in January of 1989. The profound spectacle of the "last continent" changed his life, leading to a 45 painting one man show "Dinosaurs, Penguins and Whales-The Wildlife of Antarctica." This effort by Stout to alert and inform the public consciousness as to the complex beauty of Antarctica and its past and present denizens, and to work as part of the international effort to make Antarctica the first World Park evolved into his book project, LOST CONTINENT-Modern and Prehistoric Life in Antarctica, the first visual overview of life in Antarctica. For his pioneering work in this field, William Stout was doubly honored in August of 1991. He was the chosen guest banquet speaker at the International Conference on the Role of the Southern Ocean and Antarctica in Global Change (Marine Science Institute, UCSB ). Stout also received a grant from the National Science Foundation to participate in their Antarctic Artists and Writers Program during the 1992-1993 austral summer.
For three months Stout was based at McMurdo Station and Palmer Station. He made several dives beneath the ice, climbed the active volcano Mt. Erebus, camped in the dry valleys and produced over 100 painted studies as he carefully observed the white continent's rich abundance of life. Upon his return he drove over 1000 miles through central southern Chile, documenting the rare prehistoric forests there for his book on Antarctic life. In May, 1993, at the invitation of the National Science Foundation, Stout participated in the Boulder, Colorado gathering of all of the previous recipients of the Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, the first such gathering in history.
William Stout resides in Pasadena, California with his perfect wife; they are occasionally visited by their two brilliant sons.