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This full-length film is playing at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival this weekend.

I had a chance to watch a screen of this film last weekend. There are just some
observations and personal comments.

First the tile: It went from TTotD to STRANGE AEONS: TTotD. Perhaps SE was thought to
have a more recognizable Lovecraftian connection that just TTotD. Perhaps this is
intended to be part of a series of film with the SE heading. As it is, the SE concept
has nothing to do with the movie itself other than appearing briefly (and I mean get your
remote to pause the DVD) in the sentence, "That is not dead...etc.) written on the wall
behind one characters.

The opening credits have clips of newspaper articles running over them about a big
thunderstorm in Innsmouth that happened years ago. This seems very unrelated to the
movie itself through, for me, the entire film and I found myself only realizing what
these were intend to connect to until several days afterwards. Perhaps it was just me,
but I just feel this it not work to the film's benefit. It was more distracting if
anything. By the time the importance of this headlines had arrived, I had forgotten
them.

The settings and sets are very good. The campus that was used for Miskatonic University
I particularly liked.

Generally the changes to the story in adapting it to the movie are reasonable. The
change from the past to the present works well. There are some problems however.

First, this film suffers badly from Lovecraftian name-dropping overkill, something that I
find happens in bad pastiches. However, this was based on one of Lovecraft's OWN
stories. There was no need to add so much extra Mythos stuff into the film. There is a
Robert Black (i.e. Robert Blake, i.e. Robert Bloch). A "non-fiction" book about the navy
attack on Innsmouth is called THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH.

It is nice to add a *few* Mythos touches here and there to a Lovecraftian movie, even if
it is an HPL story that doesn't have them. But, please! Can't additional characters
have names that are NOT taken from Lovecraft? Can't we stop using HPL story titles in
inappropriate places in a story where to do so is *distracting* to the viewer? This type
of usage takes a viewer *out* of the film's story and "reality", and that is something I
think filmmakers would not want to happen.

Another example is the mention of several Mythos tomes, including the Necronomicon. What
was irksome about this was that the Necronomicon was mentioned as not being of much use
in a particular problem dealing with summoning Yog-Sothoth. I felt the filmmakers wanted
to, of course, mention the Necronomicon, but then to be different, to dismiss its Mythos
importance somewhat.

For the general public watching this film, it is not going to be anything of importance.
However, this is a Lovecraftian film that is going to be marketed in particular to
Lovecraftian fans. What is annoying for me is that of ALL books, the Necronomicon
*should* be the most useful in dealing with Yog-Sothoth. It is *the* book Wilbur
Whateley sought out to find out information *about* Yog-Sothoth, his father!

There are some illogical events in the story that hurt it. Too many characters are
wandering around a library clearly after it has clearly been closed for the night. A
professor who works in an entirely different department seems to have his office in the
library as well. This IS after all the Miskatonic University Library. They had a
security guard and dog when Wilbur broken in decades ago. Now it seems to be an open
house.

Mind you, there was an important reason to have these characters gather, but it really
needed to have been done some other way.

The acting is fairly good. The characters of Asenath Waite and "Richard Upton" (the
character who plays the story's unnamed narrator, and again, a needless Mythos name-drop)
are handled well. The weakness is with the actor playing Edward Derby. First, he does
not have the physical look or emotional weakness of Lovecraft's character. He is more
bland than anything.

The other big problem with the role of Edward is that the change between when he is
himself and when he is possessed by Asenath/Ephraim are lacking in any subtle. The
change is too obvious. He comes across a multiple personality (which he actually is),
but in a psychotic manner. Even when Upton should clearly know that Edward has being
mind-swapped, he misses it.

This aspect, I suspect, might be due to director's error than the actor's.

There are times when the concept of mind-swapping as offered in the film is logical and
then is not. One scene touches on the bizarre sexual undertones to HPL's own story that
he did not. (I wonder at times if Lovecraft himself fully realize them or not.)
However, even this is treated a little to casually. Given what happened, I would have
thought Edward would have been far more freaked out.)

Then with mind-swapping comes a scene that seemed to be taken from the movie FALLEN
(1998), where Asenath every 10-15 seconds swaps minds with individuals in a line of
students. This seems to be very out-of-place given the difficulty Asenath has given to
the ability to do this. Also the affect this would have on these students, suddenly
finding themselves out of then back in their bodies, seems never to have been considered.
All in all it is a weak sequence.

There are a number of dream sequences throughout the film that work well in telling the
story and that are very effectively done.

Also sadly weak is the Asenath-corpse possessed by Edward showing up on the doorstep --
and into the house. First, these is the fact Asenath was shot in the head, in the brain.
When introducing the supernatural or super-science into fiction, THE most important thing
is to be logically consistent. It becomes really silly for mind-swapping to be happening
when one of those involved doesn't have a brain!

Also, Asenath fairly-fresh corpse is in no way the horror it was in HPL's story, one of
the things that made HPL's story especially disturbing. I cannot think this was due to a
lack of money for make-up, given other special effects in the film, so I do not
understand why it was done this way.

The climax and the ending:

The climax of the film. the summoning of Yog-Sothoth is overall well-done. Again,
however, these is one thing in the middle of it that broke the mood for me and that was
when Ephraim begins to act like the Emperor in REVENGE OF THE SITH. Some other effect
really should have been used for that.

I won't go into detail, but the ending of the film, almost