Review of Dagon

Introduction

The opening five minutes of this movie pretty much dictate how it will flow for the remaining ninety. With a terrible story, originally crafted by the much overrated H.P. Lovecraft and production values similar to Blakes Seven and Doctor Who it screams don`t bother watching from the start. The cover boasts "from the makers of Re-animator" which I love, but this just doesn`t hold a torch to the cult masterpiece.

We do get some CGi that looks as though it were created twenty years previous, and would be out shone by any Ray-Harryhausen stop-mation.
The whole thing comes across as amateur and undeveloped. The plot is weak and the acting is somewhere well below B-movie hell.

Video

A grainy 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer would add great depth and foreboding to a better film, but in this case it just emphasises the mediocre budget given over to this piece of nonsense. Colours are washed out and we get some scenes with very bad macro blocking. The blacks do remain solid though, and whites are clean and bright with minimal smear or haloing.

Audio

This terrible movie actually rocks big time. A great surround ambience with solid gut punching bass on this Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. Surrounds are used constantly to good effect. But what`s the point?

Features

A short making of documentary where everyone is so serious about the production. All I could do was laugh, sorry! You get a trailer too!

Conclusion

A DVD to be used as a coaster. Made on the tightest of budgets and it shows. But this is no excuse for poor production, bad acting and out-of-date effects. Donnie Darko recently pulled of low budget with ease, so enjoy putting coffee stains on this nasty piece of work called Dagon or better still just don`t buy it.