10 Monster Movies That Totally Screw With Your Brain

No article like this would be complete without a nod to the man himself, the father of twentieth century weird fiction, Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

Unfortunately, very few of the movie adaptations of Lovecraft’s work adequately reflect the spirit of his work. In particular, the sense of existential terror that the best examples of Lovecraft’s fiction inspire tends to be replaced by schlocky special effects and acting from the Ed Wood school of drama.

Dagon is a little different, however. Directed by the redoubtable Stuart Gordon (of Re-Animator fame), this Spanish adaptation of Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth relocates the narrative to the coastal village of Imboca, where filthy rich American stockbroker Paul and three friends find themselves shipwrecked.

Naturally, Imboca isn’t a welcoming place for strangers: an ancient cult that worships the old Semitic god Dagon has taken over the town, and the monstrous fish-creature demands human sacrifice from its deformed devotees. Can Paul and his friends escape the horror beneath the surface of the sea?

Well, of course not - this is a Lovecraft story.

Gordon adds plenty of modern day gore, body horror and torture to the traditional Lovecraftian melange of sick paranoia and creeping dread to update Dagon for a twenty-first century audience, and this remains one of the few direct adaptations of the master’s work to succeed as a horror movie in and of itself.

It’s an evocative, deeply disturbing flick, almost ranking up there with some of the more extreme offerings that horror has had to offer in the last few decades. In the end, there’s no running from the inevitable. Dagon will have his sacrifice.