The Whisperer in Darkness

After the floods in Vermont there is talk of strange bodies seen in the rivers. Albert Wilmarth, a professor of folklore, takes it for a country tale and says so in the newspaper. Then a farmer writes to him; the man lives up in the hills and describes what he has seen. The letters continue. Then their manner changes: the man now writes that everything is fine and there is no need to come. Wilmarth goes anyway. At the farm the man is waiting for him, sitting in a chair and moving very little. Sean Branney directs; he adapted the script with Andrew Leman from the story by H. P. Lovecraft. Matt Foyer plays Wilmarth. It is an American production. The film was made by a Lovecraft society; the same group had earlier filmed another of the author's stories as a silent picture. It is shot deliberately in the manner of the thirties; black and white images, the sound technique of the period and scenes built in the studio language of those years. The effects are handmade; machinery and models are used and computer work is kept out of sight. The narrative changes the story's ending and adds a section that is not in the original. The matter it treats is belief; the professor sees all the evidence and keeps trying to explain it by reason until the last moment. The film draws its fear from letters and sound recordings rather than from images. The budget was small and in some scenes it shows. The ending closes, without offering relief. Its limit is manner; the deliberate oldness will feel affected to some viewers and the pace is slow. Who it is for: readers of Lovecraft and viewers who like horror of the old kind. Who it is not for: it is slow, low budget, and the ending dark.