Movie Review: The Whisperer in Darkness

By Angela Roberts

Aug. 22, 2011

whisperer darkness poster

I’ll be up front about this: I’m not a fan of H.P. Lovecraft. I’ve tried; I really have. I even own an annotated collection of his stories. But I just can’t get through a single story. Perhaps it’s just that I find the entire style of that period, which Lovecraft cannot be said to have broken entirely away from, to be a bit boring. I have trouble with Poe sometimes too, and he was a huge influence on Lovecraft, but I still think Poe had a greater understanding of pacing and suspenseful language than Lovecraft did. So, suffice it to say, I didn’t really go into The HP Lovecraft Historical Society’s film adaptation of The Whisperer in Darkness (not even one of Lovecraft’s more famous stories) with the eye of a great aficionado of Lovecraft. More like a noob. But I’d been intrigued by the idea of the film and the write-up it had received in the Fantasia catalogue. What I came out with, though, were mixed feelings. This was probably the only film at the Festival this year that gave me that.

I say mixed, because while I can’t be extremely complimentary of the production, I can say that it has its good points. The plot, for one, actually works quite well, and is something of an improvement on the source. The original text is a lengthy work of prose told in a matter-of-fact reportage style almost entirely in epistolary form. It takes forever to get anywhere, especially the setting of the story’s action. The film, instead, moves ahead rather purposefully, inventing the device of a radio debate between our skeptical main character and a paranormal expert, and then upending that with the introduction of George Akeley, come to Miskatonic University (Lovecraft’s fictional university in his fictional New England town) to convince our hero, Albert Wilmarth, that the creatures his father has been writing to Wilmarth about are real and need to be investigated. In creating an actually interesting yarn out of a dreadfully slow and boring story, the writers ought to be commended. It’s not perfect, but it captures your attention, and that’s important.

The atmosphere is good too, and the costuming. I think they do a good job of portraying the exterior trappings of New England in the 1920s and of black-and-white Universal films. Oh yeah, it’s worth noting that this film is in black-and-white. Which is something that both works for and against the filmmakers. Black-and-white isn’t very popular with mass audiences for modern films; it’s often a sign that you’re some artsy-fartsy film school student when you use black-and-white film. On the other hand, it’s also clear that’s not what they did here, so what they gain from the presence of black-and-white is lost in the lack of texture and mood that actual black-and-white film gives you. Unclear? I mean, essentially, that it looks a lot like they shot it with a digital camera and then changed the colour in editing. It’s just too clean, too digital.

And here’s where the mixed feelings start to present themselves. I think the film is a good effort, but it’s just a bit too amateurish. It’s a problem that occurs when diehard fans try to capture their favourite cultural artifact on film; they try just a little too hard. And things just start to look a bit like a production of amateur dramatics. Yes, I’m going to say that the acting is bad. Because it is. But that’s more because they ham it up a little too much; they try to present some sort of stylized, stereotypical version of 1920s New Englanders. The film can’t stop from descending into camp, and this causes two things: it’s not scary, and laughs are elicited at inappropriate moments. In fact, it’s played with such earnestness that you’re probably not expected to laugh at all. But there are so many cringe-worthy moments that you have to laugh. Or roll your eyes. Fortunately, most people choose laughter.

I think this film is worth seeing if you’re into fan films with all of their foibles. It won’t play well at any presentation where people expecting a professional-quality film are watching. But see it at a convention or at a genre film festival, and you’ll appreciate it for what it is. Still, I think people will continue to have to wait for an accomplished adaptation of Lovecraft’s works.

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