Ah, H.P. Lovecraft. My favorite author. The father of modern horror (look, I know Edgar Allen Poe was cool, but his stories were NOT scary and NOT horror, they were mystery/suspense stories and there IS a difference, so fuck off). Some (okay, me) compare him to Black Sabbath. Both innovators in their field. Black Sabbath invented metal, the greatest music genre since traditional folk music. Lovecraft invented dimension-jumping demons who want to rule the Earth and will devour anyone and anything to gain power. Okay, so some ancient culture probably came up with that when religion was created, but Lovecraft at least perfected it.
Before we get too far into the review, however, let’s take a moment to examine the endless runaround I experienced trying to get my copy of Dagon. I’ve known about the making of this movie for many years (it’s been shape shifting in production limbo for something like fifteen years, but I didn’t really care when I was five), and have been anxiously awaiting its release. The day it came out I went a-searching. It shouldn’t be that hard. It’s a real movie. It’s not like trying to hunt down Manos: Hands of Fate on DVD or that one last trading card to complete your First Edition Doctor Who Trading Card set. Actually, I’m missing more than one card. One of these days I’m going to have to sit down and go through the deck to make a list of what I need from the local comic shop. But let’s not dwell on how pathetic I am, shall we?
First in my search for the movie I went to the crappy little Sam Goody in our crappy little mall. I knew this was folly, since it was unlikely they had it and if they did it would probably cost me forty bucks. Dagon-less and none too surprised, Brother Fistula and I took a special trip down to Waterloo that weekend. Waterloo has a kickass Best Buy and I figured they’d have it no problem. They carry lots of strange stuff. It existed in their computer, but not in their store. Dammit. I went to work at CDGB’s the next day discouraged and remarked on it only to have the owner tell me "Hey, we can get DVD’s too, you know. We can get pretty much anything." My hopes high again, I put a copy on the order to come in on Tuesday. When I came in on Tuesday morning, nothing. Turns out the warehouse had somehow run out within a week and had some sixty units of it on back order. "God damn it, am I ever going to see this movie!?" I asked myself. True they had a copy at the rental place next door, but I didn’t want to spoil the magic of opening a new movie and watching it for the first time. I know you all know what I mean and you do it too, so stop laughing or I’ll hunt you down and cast a plague of spike-covered alien hemorrhoids on you and your families. Finally, after nearly a month of torture, the order went through and I got my Dagon. Was it worth the wait? Was it everything I hoped for? Is Cthulhu the biggest, baddest multidimensional slime-glopola tentacle monster in all the universes? HELLFIRE YES!
Beneath the ocean (but not smiling with the mouth of it), Paul (choo is a wharwilf!) swims up to a gigantic tunnel shaped like an eye and covered with esoteric symbols. Before he can swim into it, he’s confronted by a raven-haired mermaid. Kiddies, take note, that clamshell bra thing is bullshit. I’m sure Paul is thinking this dream is going to be wet in more ways than one, but before he can let his eel out to play, the mermaid grows multiple rows of shark teeth and tries to eat his face off. With his morning wood crashing fast enough to make shock waves, Paul wakes up to find that he’s safe and sound on a yacht off the coast of Spain, celebrating the Bill Gatesian success of his fledgling computer company. When his girlfriend starts giving him head, he can’t think of anything but business. Considering his girlfriend looks like a hotter version of Paulina Rubio, I can only imagine he has some deep-seated neuroses that shocks his brain into computer geek software design land whenever a gorgeous woman tries to pleasure him. What kind of childhood trauma could cause such a tragic condition, I have no idea. I’m just glad it never happened to me.
Angered over his inability to fill her luscious lips with his man juice, she runs above deck to launch his laptop into the ocean. Here we meet Howard and Vicki. I’m not entirely sure what the hell they’re doing here. They’re a good twenty years older than Paul and Barbara. I just chalk ‘em up to pathetic old people reliving past glories by proxy and am thankful that they go away very soon.
A storm comes up (one of the two coolest shots in the movie) and smashes the U.S.S. Yuppie against a huge reef that they so wisely parked the boat next to. Sadly for Vicki and fortunately for us, she was in her room downstairs when it happened. When the coral came through the boat it pinned her leg to the floor. Howard decides to stay with her while Paul and Barbara take their crappy leaky raft (production note: I accidentally wrote "fart" four times in a row while trying to write the word "raft") to the nearby town of Imboca for help. Check out the DVD commentary with Stuart Gordon and Ezra Godden for some really funny stories of how Brendan Price kept coming up with really stupid ideas to keep Howard in the movie longer.
While the raft sets off for shore, blood is leaking into the water from the bottom of the boat (the other coolest shot in the movie). It isn’t long before black ink fills the water and ol’ Dagon comes sniffin’ around. I can see the warning signs on the beach now. SWIMMERS TAKE NOTE: DO NOT SWIM IF WOUNDED OR ON YOUR PERIOD. YOUR BLOOD MAY ENRAGE THE ANCIENT GOD THAT LIVES IN THE OCEAN FLOOR.
Paul and Babs just make it to shore before their raft sinks, and make a beeline for the church to find help. First hint that something isn’t quite right (I was originally going to say "something is fishy," but I fear eternal retribution): the sign above the door says Esoterica Order De Dagon. If you see any religious group with the word "esoteric" in their name, run. Run far away. L. Ron Hubbard may or may not have had something to do with it. Sidebar # 1: Scientology is really dumb and sounds like a bad comic book plot. Shazam!
Around the corner comes L. Ron Hubbard. AGH! Ha ha. Just kidding. It’s not him, it’s just Sacerdote, the high priest of Dagon. From now on, we’ll call him Sac. Heh heh. Second hint that something is wrong - no one here blinks. Ever. It makes your eyes water if you pay too close attention to it. He sends Paul off with a fisherman who bears a disturbing similarity to Michael Berryman to go back to the boat to rescue Howard and Vicki. Barbara goes to the town hotel to find a phone and call for help, and is captured by Sac and the desk clerk.
From here, the movie kicks into high gear and doesn’t let up until the credits roll. If the Gordon/Yuzna/Paoli team do one thing well, it’s badass Lovecraft movies that lose control fast and just keep getting crazier until it’s time to go home. Paul gets back empty-handed in the yuppie search and discovers Barbara’s lighter in the hotel. Failing to get any info from the clerk, but noticing he has gills, Paul gets a room by busting out his crazy Spanish-speaking skills, "Room-o, please-o." He barely has time to enjoy the putrid gunk in the sink or the body-shaped mold in the bed ("Colour Out of Space", anyone?) before he hallucinates the mermaid walking into his room dressed as Barbara ("Honey, I dreamed you were a fish. Is that weird?") and the villagers come squealing and growling at his door. I guess demonic fish people don’t give a shit about Do Not Disturb signs.
He jumps from the second story window, crashes through a greenhouse roof, and finds himself in Leatherface’s playpen. Among the crispy human skins, he finds a fresh bloody one with Howard’s executive-old-guy-trying-to-be-young-and-hip haircut on top. His yelp of surprise and fear brings the not-so-human Imbocans squelching and squirbling towards him. After dousing the floor in kerosene and lighting it up with Babs’ lighter, he escapes hiding behind one of the skins. Once out of the building, he runs down an alley and straight into Ezequiel ("There’s one thing I can do well, and that’s stink!").
Zeke tells him of how a mysterious man named Xavier came to Imboca when he was a boy. They were catching no fish, but Xavier said he’d bring the great god Dagon to Imboca and with him would come prosperity. The townsfolk agree to let X toss a pyramid with Dagon’s sigil (which looks remarkably like the AOL logo) into their waters. The next day, their catch is the biggest they’ve ever had. Of course, the villagers know a good thing when they see it and give the finger to their previous "God". Did Jesus give you any fish? Didn’t think so. He hasn’t done a damn thing for his people since that whole "drop your nets on the other side of the boat, guys" thing. Next order of business: DESTROY ALL THE OLD RELIGIOUS ICONS! I can’t think of anything that looks like more fun than destroying an entire church full of Jesus statues. Gimme that sledgehammer, boy! When Xavier kills dad in front of little Zeke, he’s traumatized and pretty much ends up the village drunk from there on out. The fish people don’t bother him because he just drinks and stinks and stays out of their way.
Zeke also tells him that he saw the fish men take two women and kill them along with a man. His worst fears confirmed, Paul and Zeke go to avail themselves of the transportation of the fish king. Once at the mansion, Zeke distracts them while Paul tries to steal the car. His hotwiring abilities must have been gained from a box of Jiffy Pop, because he manages to honk the horn. He narrowly escapes into the house, where he runs into Uxia, the mermaid from the beginning. She conceals him from her father, and to show his appreciation they begin to make the sign of the many-tentacled long-distance operator. The mood is ruined, however, when he discovers that under the covers are not gorgeous pale-skinned legs, but gills and slime-covered tentacles.
After yet another narrow escape from the Piscean chauffer, Paul gets the car moving and escapes to freedom with Barbara to live a long and happy life! Just kidding. He manages to royally whiz what should be a perfect opportunity by spinning the car off the road. Luckily there’s a house nearby where he can take refuge. What Paul doesn’t know is that inside there s a fish-man whose only goal in life is to give feeble, impotent, dorky American men swirlies in disgusting toilets! Graargh! After some quick-thinking and a bit of toilet lid fu, he runs from the house and straight into a net. BONK!
Paul awakes in a cage with Babs, Vicki, and Ezequiel. Turns out ol’ Dagon put the moves on Vicki and she’s going to squirt out a squid in a few months. They make what is the best escape attempt so far in the movie before being overcome by sheer numbers. Vicki hara-kiris herself, wiggling the knife around to make sure Dagon isn’t going to need to spend any money on baby clothes with eight arm-holes any time soon. Babs is dragged away while Paul and Zeke are taken and chained up back in the skinning room. Zeke is skinned alive in what is one of the most painful and unsettling scenes I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some nasty shit.
Once more, Paul’s scrawny hide is saved by the intervention of Uxia, just before Sac pulls his face off. When he shoots down her "come join me in service of the big slimy one" speech, she rolls out in her gilded wheel chair, leaving Paul to his devices. He finally gets it together and kicks some ass to avenge Ezequiel before heading into the catacombs under the town with a can of kerosene and a plan.
Uxia carves up Babs so she smells all bloody and nice for Dagon, and hangs her from a block and tackle over a huge pit. As the gathered Imbocans chant my favorite tune, "Ia, Ia, Cthulhu f’taghn!", Barbara is lowered into the pit to meet her new boyfriend. You wouldn’t think she’d complain. Girls like oral sex so much, imagine what you could do with a tentacle. Of course, there is the tiny drawback that the sex alone, not to mention birthing a demon, would kill you, but what a way to go! I’ll bet ol’ Shub-Niggurath knows a few tricks in bed. To have a thousand kids, you have to have lots and lots of practice in the things it takes to have kids. Kids. Black Goat. Ha ha ha.
Well, Paul doesn’t take kindly to having the love of his life fed to a trans-dimensional sea monster, so he starts setting all the Imbocans on fire. While they’re worrying about putting themselves out, he pulls Barbara up, but it’s too late. Dagon must be a two-pump chump, because in the mere seconds she was in the pit, Babs is covered in demon-goop and begging for death. Before Paul has a chance to mention that he’s pro-choice, the big D himself rises from the water to claim his bride.
When Uxia tells Paul that they are siblings through the same father, Xavier, who now looks like Cthulhu himself, he doesn’t take the information very well. In fact, he starts himself on fire. It would have worked too, if it weren’t for that damn squid-girl and her well, she doesn’t have a dog, but you get the point. She tackles Paul over the side of the pit, and the waters below save him from a fate worse than potted meat food product. Gills sprout from the places where he’s been sporting huge bruises throughout the movie, and they swim together into the giant eye-shaped cavern that he dreamed of during the opening credits. Don’t worry, Paul. You’ll have the eternal protection of one of the most powerful gods in the Cthulhu Mythos, and you can have incestuous fishy sex with your lovely sister until the end of time. Unless octopussy isn’t your thing.
It took long enough, but we finally got this beast on here, and an impressive beast it is. Grabs you by the scrotum and drags you through burning, broken glass and filthy toilet bowls right to the end with nary a dull moment to be seen. Makes me even more anxious for the new Re-Animator.
Second Opinion: Check out what Anubis had to think...
FEEDBACK
All materials found within this review are the intellectual properties and opinions of the original writer. The Tomb of Anubis claims no responsibility for the views expressed in this review, but we do lay a copyright claim on it beeyotch, so don't steal from this shit or we'll have to go all Farmer Vincent on your silly asses. © March 5th 2006 and beyond, not to be reproduced in any way without the express written consent of the reviewer and the Tomb of Anubis or pain of a physical and legal nature will follow. Touch not lest ye be touched.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
