Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!

[Wolfgang of Borg]

Guillermo del Toro is to direct an adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness!

If you haven't read this H.P. Lovecraft classic you can do so here.

(Also i must just plug Charles Stross's kinda-sequel A Colder War which is very different but excellent in its own way.)

[Tha_Pig]

Not among my favorite Lovecraft stories, but I love Guillermo del Toro's style and his ability to create otherworldly scenarios and creepy ruins.

[Wolfgang of Borg]

Really? I liked it, but then it was quite possibly the first one i read, plus i've got a Thing about Antarctica anyway.
Yeah del Toro seems like the perfect choice for this. I wonder how he's going to handle all the bas-relief based revelation, tho..

...

Ooh look a draft script! (Co-authored with the Mimic screenwriter, so it's probably quite old.)

[MatthiasRat]

Interesting! I just finished reading Edgar Allen Poe's "A Narrative of A. Gordon Pym" in which the title character journeys to the South Polar Region and meets a group of savages who scream "Tekeli-li" anytime they saw anything white. Where did Lovecraft use this?

Dominus tecum

[Tha_Pig]

Really? I liked it, but then it was quite possibly the first one i read, plus i've got a Thing about Antarctica anyway.
Yeah del Toro seems like the perfect choice for this. I wonder how he's going to handle all the bas-relief based revelation, tho..

...

Ooh look a draft script! (Co-authored with the Mimic screenwriter, so it's probably quite old.)

I think Lovecraft's best stories are the short ones with a twist ending. In his short stories the monster or horror element is only insinuated, not described in detail, so the rest it left to the reader's imagination.

In "Mountains of Madness" the story goes too long and too much is revealed and explained in length, so I feel the mystery element is missing. Another element that I found missing is the inner psychology transformation that the characters suffer in other stories, when the character ends up realizing he or his family is related or involved to the very horror he was trying to escape or fight.

Thanks for the link, I'll read the script when I have some time.

[Wolfgang of Borg]

Hmm you're right, his stories are better when less is made explicit. I never really liked the "OMG the narrator was a ____ all along!" thing, but characters doubting their own sanity is always good.
(Um, being a fan of Mignola you've probably already seen this but in case not: The Amazing Screw-On Head.)

Matthias:
Oh yeah Lovecraft was always dropping references to Poe and Ambrose Bierce and that. He used "Tekeli-li!" for the cry of an excited shoggoth.

[Tha_Pig]

I loved the Amazing Screw-on Head. It's a shame that they made only that one episode.

But maybe it's better for Mignola's creation to die there than to continue under someone else's direction. I would hate to see it turn into yet another mediocre cartoon full of pop culture references like every so-called comedy TV show today. Ugh!

[Tha_Pig]

I just found this:

http://www.deadline.com/2010/07/guil...-at-universal/

[MatthiasRat]

Matthias:
Oh yeah Lovecraft was always dropping references to Poe and Ambrose Bierce and that. He used "Tekeli-li!" for the cry of an excited shoggoth.

Well, I guess I'll have to go reread some Lovecraft then! I read almost everything he wrote back when I was a kid, but only just recently started work on Poe. Dang these guys were amazing. Poe's "Cask of Amontillado" and Lovecraft's "The Thing on the Doorstep" still leave me with chills!

It'd be really cool if they could do a good quality production of "At The Mountains of Madness". I recall that one was well deserving of more treatment!

Dominus tecum