Dagon [DVD]

Product Description

Paul (Ezra Godden) and his girlfriend Barbara (Raquel Rabal) are on a boating holiday off the coast of Spain. Following an accident they pitch up at the small village of Imboca to seek assistance. But there is something strange about the people of the town and, as night falls, Paul finds himself the target of occult worshippers. Will Imboca's darker secret envelope both Paul and Barbara or can they find a way to evade the ancient god of the sea, Dagon?

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With Dagon, director Stuart (Re-Animator) Gordon returns once more to author HP Lovecraft, this time for an adaptation of the novella The Shadow Over Innsmouth, with the setting switched from the coast of New England to the creepy Spanish fishing village of Inboca. After a sudden storm and a yacht-wreck, a bespectacled and bewildered Paul Marsh (Ezra Gooden) finds himself stranded in the literally fishy town, which has thrown over Catholicism to devote itself to the worship of the Philistine sea-god Dagon. His influence means that the inhabitants are transforming into pop-eyed, tentacled and gilled creatures.

Though Gooden perhaps strikes too strident a note to convince as an everyday guy, director Gordon orchestrates the rising terrors well. These range from a supremely damp and uncomfortable hotel room through an impressive flashback about the rise of the Esoteric Order of Dagon to some sinister business with a mad-eyed mermaid (Macarena Gomez), human sacrifice and nasty surprises all round. Unfortunately, Gordon still can't quite distinguish between acceptably gruesome and downright nasty, especially when it comes to disposing of secondary female characters. On the plus side, Dagon boasts an excellent score, which even tries to set to music some of Lovecraft's invented language ("Ia Ia Cthulhu fh'tagn"). --Kim Newman