Dagon (2001, dir. Stuart Gordon)
Dagon isn't as fun as Reanimator, or as delirious as From Beyond, but I still love it. It's got terrible acting from the lead, backed by a mostly Spanish cast with a loose grip on the English language, and no real villain character to pick up the slack. It needed a Jeffery Combs to give it a little more heft. It's got some really unfortunate early 00's CGI. Those flaws aren't enough to completely take away from Stuart Gordon still had enough to deliver a really interesting movie here.
The story is basically
Shadow Over Innsmouth, moved to modern times and set in Spain. Moving it to Spain was basically the cost of doing business; Brian Yuzna was the only person willing to produce Dagon, and the only people willing to give Brian Yuzna any money were in Spain. The Spanish village they got to stand-in for Innsmouth was a really great location however, they were really able to nail the crumbling, foreboding sea port. The two main interiors locations, the Hotel (named "Hotel") and the Dagon Temple were both really cool. It was close to what I imagined when reading Shadows Over Innsmouth.
The cast is mostly Spanish as well, and Ezra Godden as our protagonist Paul was just bad. It's not surprising this is one of his first and last roles, outside of some minor videogame VA work. I did like the Fish Priestess Uxia, though. She may not be a good actress, but she was super creepy looking. Doing those Battle Angel Alita eyes, without CG.
The guy that played Ezequiel is actually supposed to be a pretty famous Spanish actor, but unfortunately his accent was so thick, you couldn't understand a word he was saying without subtitles. The Priest is the only other person from the town that has much dialogue other than grunting and "Get him!", so I guess he's kind of the villain by default and his English is at least decent, but he's not exactly killing it in the screen presences department.
The CGI is just trash, it's not good at all even by 2001 standards. The above screenshot is Dagon eating a lady; you can barely tell what's going on and that's for the best. They knew it wasn't good, and try to hide it as best as they could. Fortunately there are only three scenes that I can think of that used heavy CGI; the opening storm, Uxia trying to walk on her tentacles, and Dagon. Most of the movie still used practical effects. Nothing on the level of From Beyond, but there was some decent costume work on the Fish Folk.
Anyway, just wanted to make a post about this because it's a movie that I really liked, although I hadn't seen it in a while. The Blu-Ray came out last week and I was eager to rewatch it for the first time in ~10 years and see if it still holds up, and yeah I did still really enjoy it. So
Iä Iä Cthulhu fhtagn and stuff.
