Stuart Gordon Talks DAGON Part Two

By: John Thonen
Date: Wednesday, July 31, 2002

The works of horror author H.P. Lovecraft have proven hugely difficult to film over the years, though cult director Stuart Gordon is the rare example of a filmmaker who has had some measure of success in the area, specifically with the delightfully dark comic takes on Lovecraft RE-ANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND. Now Lovecraft is back, courtesy of Gordon, with the new release DAGON. Today we continue our chat with Gordon about his latest Lovecraftian film.

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In DAGON, a young couple find themselves stranded in the isolated fishing village of Imboca in the Galician region of Spain. The town seemed rather picturesque when glimpsed by binoculars from their sailboat, but Paul and Barbara soon find that this remote little village is inhabited by a hideous breed of mutant, the half-human, half-fish offspring of Dagon, an ancient god who lives in the stormy ocean nearby.

Like most of Lovecraft's work, the film offers the idea that there are worlds beyond human knowledge or comprehension, places where the cosmic rules we believe explain the universe are as far from the truth as the belief in a "flat Earth" of only a mere five hundred years ago. "Man is awash on island of ignorance," the writer once stated, and DAGON director Gordon concurs. "I do believe that is true. I think man is kind of blissfully unaware of a lot of stuff that is going on around him. I think it's hardly one to argue with that philosophy." In his latest film, Gordon offers a part of our world transformed by contact with the world of Dagon, who resides deep beneath the ocean. "I think the idea that there's this whole underwater kind of world is a great one, and it makes the story kind of huge and gets your imagination spinning. They're still discovering new life forms as they get deeper and deeper into the ocean. I mean, who knows what's really down there?"


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While the part of Paul was originally written, some fifteen years ago, for Gordon regular Jeffrey (RE-ANIMATOR, FROM BEYOND) Combs, the director found up-and-coming actor Ezra Godden brought elements to the role which he hadn't initially considered. "He, told me when we first met that one of his idols is [silent film comic daredevil] Harold Lloyd, so I told him, 'Why don't you play this as Harold Lloyd?' So there's a lot of kind of physical comedy in it." Humor is one of the elements which distinguishes Gordon's films. "It's kind of hard for me not to be funny," Gordon shares, and Godden's fascination with Lloyd gave him ample opportunity to employ it in DAGON. "He's a terrific actor. But, when I first met him, I thought, 'This guy looks just like Daniel Day Lewis.' But, when he puts on those glasses, it just transforms him. We had him in some very precarious situations, which was what Harold Lloyd was known for. There was one scene where he's in a life raft on the ocean and the waves were enormous. You kept thinking to yourself, 'It's the PERFECT STORM.' And I was getting scared, thinking we needed to bring him in because this is our lead actor and these waves are really gigantic, and all of the sudden he starts doing schtick and it was hilarious."

From early stages of pre-production, Gordon and producer Brian Yuzna wanted to immerse the film in an atmosphere which suggested that its setting truly was a world halfway between our own and the undersea realm of Dagon. "This is the wettest movie I think I've ever made," he says. "We're either out on the sea in boats or we're in rain, or standing in water or actually underwater in just about every scene in this movie. It's very effective for the film, very oppressive, to have it always raining, but after eight weeks of it I was cursing that idea. There we are, soaking wet every moment of every day, and we're manufacturing rain to soak us even more. What was I thinking?"

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While he seems flattered that this writer thinks he is one of the few filmmakers ever to bring Lovecraft successfully to the screen, Gordon doesn't agree with the compliment. "I like THE RESURRECTED, Dan O'Bannon's film, and I think there's some good films that have been kind of Lovecraft influenced. I think ALIEN is very Lovecraftian and I would even say THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT is kind of Lovecraftian. And, of course, THE THING, both versions, borrow very heavily from his 'At the Mountains of Madness.' It just depends on the story. There are some which would be very hard to adapt because they are so internal, but there are others of his which are very cinematic and that's sort of the ones that I go for."

Even as he's talking with CINESCAPE, Gordon is prepping his next film, a crime-thriller with some Tarantino elements called KING OF THE ANTS. The filmmaker has also recently optioned another Dennis Paoli scripted Lovecraft adaptation based on the writer's "The Thing On the Doorstep," a film he expects to executive produce rather than direct. Gordon also recently made his first foray into the world of digital filmmaking as a producer on DEATHBED, which was directed by Full Moon/Tempe Video disciple Danny (HORRORVISION) Draven. "I thought it came out great," Gordon says of the experience. "Danny did a great job with it. It's a scary little movie about a haunted bed. It's got a kind of feeling kind of like THE SHINING. I'd never done a movie that quickly; it was really an eye opener. We shot it in nine days and I think the whole process took about three months. It was really fast."

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