I need to talk about the Dagon movie
This horror movie is so campy, so insane, and so amazing that my friend and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it or quoting it.
There's no point in the movie where it stops getting insane, and I love it.
The film was released in 2001 by Flimax, a Spanish production company. First shown in Spain. This information becomes important later.
It's loosely based on H.P. Lovecraft's Dagon and Shadow Over Innsmouth.
This is a real interaction in the movie:
"Fuck Dagon!"
"Yes, and their child will be immortal!"
"Yeah, but there's a catch. It has to live the rest of its life as some kind of half-ass fish of the sea."
"In joy, with Dagon!"
You can't make this shit up. This was a real interaction written and acted by professionals.
The fact that the film keeps making you think "What the fuck?" as it progresses.
This film was made when we were still figuring out special effects and it shows.
There was a scene where the crazy old man (his words not mine) says "I am boy" and then his face morphs into his childself as the scene transitions to the past. My friend and I quote "I am boy" almost every day.
There's a scene where the main character (mentioned to have never learned Spanish) was speaking to the innkeeper in pseudo-Spanish (aka, putting an -o at the end of regular English words) and the innkeeper kept glaring at him without speaking.
The gore in this movie is grotesque.
I liked how the Innsmouth people all looked different (i.e. different stages of transformation).
The music was amazing and got me wanting to chant along.
The movie puts Innsmouth (Imboca) in Spain, alright? The main characters are English-speaking so I'll assume they came from an English-speaking country. The main character wears a Miskatonic University shirt, an American university in Lovecraft's stories. I am mildly confused about why they made it a Spanish town. Was this a way to make the fishmen more "mysterious?" Maybe the version I watched made those changes and the original was all Spanish? I have no idea. It's just a weird detail I can't stop thinking about. I should mention that the Imbocans (or at least the "higher" class ones) spoke both Spanish AND ENGLISH. There were no subtitles (not including the ones in the stream) in the one that I watched unless the subtitles I used didn't translate the Spanish. I mildly know Spanish so I was able to understand a bit of it. Unless I didn't watch the original version, the main characters spoke English while the Imbocans spoke mostly Spanish in a film made by a Spanish company, so you'd think they'd make the main characters also speak Spanish.
I don't know, it's just a weird detail that my brain can't ignore. Am I offended? Am I mad at this? Am I not bothered by it? I honestly don't know.
Nevertheless, this is a great movie to watch with friends, even if you don't know the stories they're based on. It has gore, it has nudity (no fullout sex scenes), and it has heavy topics, so keep that in mind when watching.
