DVD Review | Dagon
Written by: Kage Alan

Film Rating: B
DVD Special Features: B

In the midst of less-than-terrifying sequels like "Jason X" and "Halloween:
Resurrection" plaguing the theatres lately comes a grassroots attempt to
return to the heart of horror and those wet squishy things that brush up
against you in the dark.  And there's nobody better to take us on this
journey than Director Stuart Gordon, the man responsible for "Re-Animator," a film I still have a difficult time watching.  Has Gordon mellowed in his old
age?  Not a chance, though we may have thought senility was setting in with
"Robot Jox" and "Space Truckers." Still, the man is as classic as the source
material for the film, which is based on two stories by H.P. Lovecraft.

Rich skinny guy Paul (Ezra Godden, "Band of Brothers") is vacationing on a
boat with his tough-as-nails girlfriend Barbara (Raquel Merono) and their
hosts, Howard (Brendan Price) and Vicki (Birgit Bofarull).  A freak storm
takes them by surprise somewhere off the coast of Spain and the boat gets
caught up on a reef.  Gilligan?  Is that you, Gilligan?  Oh, yeah, this ain't
no 3 hour tour.  To make matters worse, Vicki's leg is trapped in a tear in
the ship and it's up to Paul and Barbara to take the raft over and ask for
help.  Once there, they make their way through the deserted town and finally
find help in the form of the local priest sporting webbed fingers.

Paul travels back out to the yacht with the help of some fisherman, but
Howard and Vicki are nowhere to be found.  I think we have a mystery on our
hands, folks.  When he gets back to the mainland, he discovers Barbara is
gone too and the priest suggests he wait at the local hotel.  We're not
talking a four star place either.  AAA would not be amused.  The locks don't
work, the water hasn't been used in years and the beds haven't been changed
in just as long.  Things get stranger yet for Paul as he witnesses a mob
outside his window lumbering around and making very odd sounds, sounds that just aren't quite human.  What does Paul do?  He stands there until they
notice him watching them.  Is that ever a good thing?

A huge chunk of the film from that point has Paul running from the local
townspeople who aren't really people at all.  For some reason that does get
explained later on, they are a combination of aquatic creatures and human,
mutations of a sort.  They worship Dagon, the god that saved them years
before by providing them with fish and gold.  Hell, for the price they paid
later on in life, I'd have requested lobster and crab or just opened up my
own Red Lobster restaurant.  It also appears that Dagon requires the
occasional sacrifice (doesn't that just figure) and guess who's on the menu?  
Kibbles and bits anyone?

The action moves along quite rapidly and little bits of information are
revealed at a time, which is the best way in this kind of film.  At first
glance, "Dagon" might appear to be a fairly bad movie.  However, as with most of Lovecraft's stories, it's all in the atmosphere and discovering all the
icky things underneath.  It's all here too and in very imaginative and
grotesquely beautiful ways.  There is a bit of gore in certain scenes, but
not as much as one would imagine (though one scene takes the cake in
particular).  If there's a downfall, it's in the CGI effects.  Had Gordon
been given a bigger budget, I'm sure they would have been looked much better. There is so much nit and grit in this film that the effects just don't
always look natural or as good as they could.

Lions Gate has released "Dagon" in a decent looking Widescreen transfer that
lovingly shows just how much attention went into setting the mood of the
movie.  Colors are vibrant and there's very little grain or specs visible.  
The audio is a Dolby Digital that sounds quite creepy with all the inhuman
sound effects added in and enhances the film score.  As for extras, there are
a few.  Aside from the theatrical trailer (and a few others for Lions Gate
films), there are storyboards (for a few sequences), Production Artwork and
two audio commentaries.  The first is with Director Stuart Gordon and Writer
Dennis Paoli and the second Gordon with actor Ezra Godden.  Both commentaries take different approaches to the film and contain excellent information. Very enjoyable.

After having recently watched a number of older Italian horror films, this
was a welcome departure.  Some of it reminded me of sequences in John
Carpenter's "In The Mouth Of Madness" and some of it went way beyond even that.  It was a true nightmare come true and things were rarely as they first seemed.  The end, though not what we'd expect or hope for, does actually make sense when considering the source material.  Doing anything else would have been cheating.  For what it was and for the creepy factor it elicited, I
thoroughly enjoyed myself.