Dagon (film)

Dagon
Directed by	Stuart Gordon
Produced by	Julio Fernández Brian Yuzna
Screenplay by	Dennis Paoli
Based on	The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H. P. Lovecraft
Starring	Ezra Godden Francisco Rabal Raquel Meroño
Music by	Carles Cases
Cinematography	Carlos Suárez
Editing by	Jaume Vilalta
Studio	Castelao Producciones Estudios Picasso Fantastic Factory ICCA Generalitat de Catalunya, Institut Català de Finances Televisió de Catalunya Televisión de Galicia S.A. Vía Digital Xunta de Galicia
Distributed by	Filmax International (Spain) Lions Gate Entertainment (United States)
Release date(s)	October 12, 2001 (2001-10-12) (Sitges Film Festival) July 23, 2002 (2002-07-23) (United States)
Running time	98 minutes
Country	Spain
Language	English Galician Spanish
Budget	$4,800,000

Dagon is a 2001 horror movie directed by Stuart Gordon and written by Dennis Paoli. Despite the title, the plot is actually based on H. P. Lovecraft's novella The Shadow Over Innsmouth (1932) rather than on his earlier short story titled Dagon (1919).

Plot

Two young American tourists, Barbara and Paul, seek help in a small town called Imboca on the coast of Galicia in Spain after their boat becomes shipwrecked and Howard and Vicki, their friends, are trapped. However, the inhabitants turn out to be far from friendly, and, as they discover, not even human, apart from a drunken tramp named Ezequiel. This latter (played by veteran Spanish actor Francisco Rabal in what would be his last role), tells Paul how the denizens of the town have overthrown Christianity in favour of the fish god Dagon, who has brought them wealth from the sea in the form of fish and gold. Since that time, they have mutated into fish-like forms and are obedient to the beautiful, mermaid-like Uxía. Eerily, she has appeared to Paul in his dreams even before they met, and she saves him from being murdered by the locals.

While running for his life, Paul is captured and reunited with Barbara, Ezequiel, and Vicki, who survived the shipwreck. Howard was killed by the locals. Vicki kills herself after learning that she is pregnant with Dagon's offspring. The townsfolk capture the remaining three. Ezequiel has his face flayed and Paul is about to be next until Uxía orders his release, telling him Barbara's sacrifice to Dagon will produce a child that will be immortal. After Paul kills Ezequiel's murderers, he makes his way to the church and finds a secret passage that leads to the catacombs. As Paul make his way through, Barbara's skin is slowly slashed by Uxía, who offers her as a sacrifice to Dagon. Uxía watches while the whole town lowers Barbara down to her doom in a pit. Paul arrives, killing some of the chanting inhabitants, and reaches Barbara, but tentacles rise out of the pit, wrapping around Barbara and dragging her down.

Paul is then attacked by the Imbocans; however, Uxía saves him again, revealing that everyone in Imboca had different mothers, but the same father: Dagon. Uxía reveals she and Paul, despite being siblings, are to be together for eternity. Seeing no way out, Paul sets himself on fire in despair, but Uxía drags him into the water, where he develops gills. The ending shows the both of them swimming toward a huge hole made of stones covered with gold symbols; a destination Paul had seen in his dreams.

The ending dialogue reads, "We shall dive down through black abysses, and in that lair of the Deep Ones, we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever." This is the final line of Lovecraft's famous short story The Shadow over Innsmouth, where the main character accepts his Deep One heritage and anticipates his eventual homecoming in his grandmother's city of Y'ha-nthlei.

The film also dedicated the memory of Francisco Rabal: "A wonderful actor and even better human being."

Cast

• Ezra Godden as Paul Marsh
• Francisco Rabal as Ezequiel
• Raquel Meroño as Barbara
• Macarena Gómez as Uxía Cambarro
• Brendan Price as Howard
• Birgit Bofarull as Vicki
• Uxía Blanco as Ezequiel's Mother
• Ferran Lahoz as Priest
• Joan Minguell as Xavier Cambarro
• Alfredo Villa as Captain Orpheus Cambarro
• José Lifante as Desk Clerk
• Javier Sandoval as Ezequiel's Father
• Victor Barreira as Young Ezequiel
• Fernando Gil as Catholic Priest
• Jorge Luis Pérez as Boy

Novel equivalences

The following is a list of characters and elements from the film and their corresponding counterpart in the original novel:

• Paul Marsh - Robert Olmstead
• Ezequiel - Zadok Allen
• Captain Orpheus Cambarro - Obed Marsh
• Javier Cambarro - Barnabas Marsh
• Imboca - Innsmouth
• Hotel del Mar - Gilman House
• Esotérica Orden de Dagón - Esoteric Order of Dagon ^[1]

^ This name is still faithful to the novel as it is a literal translation to Spanish of the original name.

Details

The plot presents several differences from Lovecraft's original story, such as:

• The setting is switched to Galicia, Spain instead of the fictional town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts.
• The Spanish town is fictional too, and is called "Imboca". En boca is Spanish for "in mouth" and is apparently a pun on the name "Innsmouth." Imboca, as well, sounds similar to Invoca, Spanish for "He/She invokes". Others – such as the movie reviewer for the Biloxi newspaper Sun Herald – have suggested that the literal translation of Imboca is actually "in the mouth" and is thus also a reference to the Lovecraftian John Carpenter movie In the Mouth of Madness (1995).
• The story is updated to modern times, with the appearance of devices such as mobile phones and laptop computers.
• The tone of the novella itself is much more serious and foretold as a narration rather than a bleak plot.
• The number of characters is increased.
• The villagers in Lovecraft's story are the offspring of human breeding with sea creatures called Deep Ones. In the movie, their origin is vaguely explained. Also, in Gordon's version, the appearance of the creatures is quite exaggerated when compared to the original story, as they have additional tentacles or have them as replacements for their limbs.
• The villagers skin and wear their victims' faces; while Stuart Gordon based this habit on research he had done about the ancient worshippers of Dagon, who wore fish heads, this doesn't occur in the original story.
• Dagon itself does not appear in The Shadow Over Innsmouth; it does in the homonymous short story, even though it is only vaguely described. Its appearance in the movie seems to be inspired by another creation of Lovecraft, the tentacled Cthulhu.
• It is worth noting that the main character wears a Miskatonic University t-shirt.

Dennis Paoli wrote the screenplay back in the 1980s, but he and Stuart Gordon never managed to get the movie off the ground. In early 2000, Brian Yuzna founded the Fantastic Factory division of Filmax and called them back to finally shoot the movie. The original draft was more faithful to Lovecraft's short story, being based in New England. The movie was shot at Combarro, a small fishing village near Pontevedra in Galicia. The film is dedicated to actor Francisco Rabal immediately before the credits.

External links

• Entry on imdb.com
• Horror Express review of Dagon
• Dagon at AllRovi