Guillermo del Toro, the visionary director behind Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, and many of my nightmares, is going to be busy for a while. The Internet, being the all-knowing, gossipy bitch that it is (like all women, right guys? Hiyo!) has splayed del Toro’s schedule for the near (and distant) future all over the web. It would appear that if you wanted to grab a beer with the Mexican filmmaker or take him out for a fancy dinner, you’ll be waiting for about 9 years and by then you probably won’t be that into him anymore. (Just like all women, right guys? Hiyo!).
Yes, del Toro, who signed a three-year, first-look deal with Universal Pictures back in June ’07, is making a long term commitment with the studio, planning to direct updates of “Frankenstein,” “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” “Slaughterhouse-Five,” and an adaptation of the novel “Drood.” This, of course, is only after he’s finished work on the much-anticipated The Hobbit film with used-to-be roly-poly Peter Jackson. On top of all those high profile gigs, Universal also aims to please del Toro by producing his pet project, an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness.”
This news upsets me. My quarrel lies not with his audacity at remaking so many classics (let’s be honest – with his “Muppets On Acid” imagination, who’s better suited for the job?), nor with the idea that he won’t have any time to hang out with me soon (or ever). I’m slightly put off because one of these projects – I’m looking at YOU “Mountains” – could very well lead to the eradication of mankind by triggering the Apocalypse.
Think I’m daft? Probably, but hear me out anyway. Chances are if you’re reading my blog, you’ve got nothing better to do anyway. Anyone who’s ever read H.P. Lovecraft, knows that the macabre American author didn’t exactly crap rainbows and lollipops. The man had a very nihilistic view on life, adhering to the views of cosmicism – the belief that greater powers control the functioning of the universe and no matter how hard we try, we can’t change one damn iota of it. The ideas found their embodiment within his short stories in the Great Old Ones – ancient, god-like, extraterrestrial beings that are colossal in size and power and can pretty much destroy anything and everything on a whim. Wikipedia describes them as such:
They also go by Scrabble-dominating names like Cthulhu, Baoht Z’uqqa-Mogg, Tsathoggua, and Ythogtha. Time and time again the finite human characters in Lovecraft’s stories cross paths with these entities resulting in one of three possible consequences:
1. The Good – faced with a finiteness, weakness, and insignificance on a cosmic scale that their puny minds cannot possibly comprehend, they go irreversibly insane
2. The Bad – they die of fright
3. The Ugly – they commit suicide
Without exception, nobody in an H.P. Lovecraft tale has a happy ending. Nobody survives by the skin of his teeth, walks home, hugs his wife and kids when he gets in the door, and thanks the Lord for the blessings he’s been given. No, they go bat-shit crazy insane. Brando during Apocalyspe Now insane times 100. Guillermo del Toro, being the aesthetically macabre visual artist that he is, will no doubt do his best to bring the horrific mind-fucks – known as Shoggoths – from “At the Mountains of Madness” to life.
Does anyone else see the problem here? BRING THEM TO LIFE!!!
del Toro’s crafting could very well result in Lovecraftian creatures that are so true to life they ACTUALLY DO induce fits of insanity, fear-induced heart failure, and mass suicides. Imagine 3000 screens across the U.S. where theater patrons are ripping out their own hair, throwing feces, babbling about the Necronomica, and hanging themselves by their own entrails. Still fail to see where the Apocalypse, the war to end mankind’s existence, comes into play? According to the research I’ve done*, this is how the End Times may ultimately play out:
- The widespread hysteria resembles horrors depicted in the Old Testament involving “weeping and gnashing of teeth” prompting hyperbolic journalists (probably from the New York Post) to question: Are We in the End Times?
- Satan, sitting back leisurely and congratulating himself on a job well done with “that Sarah Pallin thing,” sees the news and spits out his soft drink in surprise in hilarious sitcom fashion. “Shit,” he says. “Already? I’m not prepared for this.” In a flurry, Satan wakes up the troops, scrapes together a ragtag End Times army and proceeds to invade Earth.
- The Archangel Michael, seated in a lofty position in heaven, sees that Satan and his cronies are launching an assault on earth with all those multi-headed beasts, numbers inscribed on foreheads, and raining fire and shit. Checking his calendar, he sees the Lord of Darkness is early and gives God a ring on his personal line.
- “Already? He’s early” God quips. Not wanting to disappoint those who’ve put money on the Vegas odds that the God vs. Satan doubt is 2:1 in His favor, the Almighty gathers his sleepy-eyed angels and heads to Earth to counter the assault.
After everything is said and done and the world has been ravaged by the cosmic battle and Satan and his followers have been sentenced to life without parole in an eternal lake of burning sulfur, God will have a heart-to-heart with Guillermo that will probably end with Him patting the director on the head and telling him “not to do it again**” before patting the lovable little scamp on the head and ushering him off to go play with his friends…who are now all dead, along with you and I, thanks to the global destruction brought on by the Apocalypse. Thanks, del Toro – I haven’t even seen Paris yet.***
This is all assuming, of course, that the Large Hadron Collider doesn’t destroy the entire universe first. Thanks, science.
* Which is none
** Idib
*** Yes I have