Eh. I've never really thought Lovecraft would translate terribly well into film (I did love "Mouth of Madness," though). I'll give this a shot for the helluva it, but I won't be holding my breath for it to be a horror masterpiece.
wth? though its briefly hints at Cthulhu this seems to be a remake of The Shadow over Innsmouth. if it was titled The Shadow over Innsmouth i might be abit more excited too.
IA-R'LYEH! CTHULHU FHTAGN! IA! IA! *cough* Uh. I mean. Looks... meh. I'm just going to go play Call of Cthulhu again.
I loved the shot of the things walking out of the ocean, but what is the box thing with all of the limbs flailing about? I have a collection of his work with the same image on the cover. I never read about this structure in his work. The thing is made out of wooden planks...? Very creepy..
I don't understand why people think it looks like crap. I know his work is hard to transcribe to film, and that no major studio wants any part of this, but it looks better than In the Mouth of Madness, which kinda, sorta, almost evokes the feeling of Lovecrafts' writing. I hope the guy goes crazy at the end.
Yup, looks like crap. *Goes back to waiting for Del Toro to finish the Hobbit and do that At the Mountains of Madness movie*
They actually already did a Shadow Over Innsmouth movie, named after another different Lovecraft story, Dagon. It was b quality at best, but not a bad watch if you're a Lovecraft fan. You're right that this certainly isn't based on Call of Cthulhu though. The also did a movie version of The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward, called The Ressurrected, which was average at best. The HP Lovecraft Historical Society did a 20's style version of Call of Cthulhu a while back, its available on DVD, and not bad. Nothing too terrifying, but they really did a good job of capturing the old-timeyness of Lovecraft. And there's an animated version of The Dream Quest for Unknown Kadath. It's very acid trippy. So yeah, Lovecraft doesn't have a good film history, which is a shame, but understandable, since he's not really well known enough to get big budgets, and because his writing style relies on the reader filling in the blanks visually.
That is the only story I've read from Lovecraft, "The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward" and the movie version was okay to me. I also seen another movie from a Lovecraft story called "From Beyond" and that made me wonder is that where Stephen King got the idea to write "The Mist".