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In the 1920s, impoverished horror writer Randolph Carter rents a room from Mrs. Caprezzi, an elderly land lady. Not long after settling into the shabby and almost bare room, he discovers a pool of ammonia on the floor that has leaked down the wall from the room above. Mrs. Caprezzi, while cleaning up the ammonia, regales Randolph with strange stories of Dr. Muñoz (Jack Donner, Stigmata, Star Trek, Mission Impossible), the eccentric old gentleman who lives in the room upstairs. Later, Randolph suffers a heart attack and painfully makes his way to the doctor's room, where he is treated with an unconventional medicine and makes a remarkable recovery. Befriending the doctor, Carter soon discovers the awful truth about the doctor's condition, why his room is kept intensely cold, and the fragile line that separates life and death. Featuring a stellar performance by Jack Donner as Dr. Muñoz, "Cool Air" remains a haunting reminder of the power of the human will.
Plus the Short Films:
"Nyarlathotep" 13min B&W by Christian Matzke,
"An Imperfect Solution" 17min B&W by Christian Matzke
"The Hound" 18min B&W by Anthony Penta
"The Hapless Antiquarian" 6min B&W by Anthony Penta
"Behind the Machine: The Making of the Cool Air" featurette,
"Some Notes on Lovecraft with scholar S.T. Joshi" short interview
plus bonus trailers
| Catalog Number: MC-801 |
Type: Feature |
Genre: Horror / Bizarre |
| Copyright: 2004 |
Length: 140 |
Format:
DVD Region: 0 (All) |
| TV System: NTSC |
ISBN: |
UPC: 892586002017 |
| Label: Lurker Films, Inc. |
This is a microcinema exclusive title.
Wholesale Purchasing:
Program MC-801 is available for wholesale from Microcinema DVD. Contact info[at]microcinema.com or call at +1-415-447-9750
Exhibition:
Microcinema is not authorized to represent this title for exhibition. Write us for this contact information.
Films In Compilation
Cool Air directed by
Bryan
Moore
USA,
Science Fiction,
2004,
B&W/Color,
Magnetic Stereo,
00:00:00
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2008-06-10 Curled up with a Good DVD
By Trent Daniel
The centerpiece of Volume 1 of The H.P. Lovecraft Collection is an adaptation of Lovecraft’s, “Cool Air,” along with short film versions of “Herbert West - Re-Animator,” Nyarlahotep” and “The Hound.” Of these films, the centerpiece, Cool Air, clearly dominates the others in terms of quality and effectiveness.
The story: in the hot summer of 1925, writer Randolph Carter (Bryan Moore) moves into a boardinghouse run by a cantankerous old woman (Vera Lockwood). When the young writer is struck with a heart attack, he is saved by unconventional means by the mysterious physician who lives upstairs, one Dr. Munoz (Jack Donner). Randolph befriends the doctor, who seems to truly appreciate the young man’s company. However, Randolph cannot help but notice that the Doctor (1) never leaves his apartment, and (2) somehow keeps his room frigid with the help of a strange machine. Randolph soon learns the sad, haunting truth about the doctor’s condition, why his apartment is so cold and, finally, the true meaning behind the doctor’s phrase, “Never underestimate the power of the human will.”
This film won the 1999 Lovecraft Festival, and the award seems well deserved. The film is outstanding, especially considering its shoestring budget. I expect a film based on a Lovecraft work to be creepy, yet I did not expect one to be so poignant and sad as well.
The strengths of this film are not special effects, but the writing and the acting. As Dr. Munoz (who apparently was not a particularly sympathetic character in Lovecraft’s original), Jack Donner is unforgettable as a figure who clings to his dignity in the face of almost perverse tragedy. Near the end of the film, he gives an eloquent, moving account of the tragic events that led him to his small apartment. I doubt there are many other actors who could have delivered this soliloquy and made it as effective, as heartbreaking, as Donner does. As for the rest of the small cast, director Moore plays Randolph and does well making him likeable and sympathetic - especially considering his role is basically to be the thankless “straight man” to Dr. Munoz and the rest of the cast. My only minor complaint: the landlady (Vera Lockwood) was likely intended for some comedy relief, but her character comes off a bit too sour and whiny for me.
The other short films on the disc, unfortunately, are nowhere near as accomplished as Cool Air. Two of the shorts are by Anthony Penta. One, “The Hound,” involves a pair of grave robbers who come to a gruesome end. The film has no dialogue spoken on screen by the actors, only off-screen narration: the narrator basically recites the story. This style simply does not work for me, as often the actors seem to be standing around, almost waiting for the narration to catch up to them in order to react. The other by Penta, “The Hapless Antiquarian,” is a six-minute short done in the style of a 1920s silent film, including a sepia tint and garish overacting. The premise is somewhat clever - the story advances as a romantic couplet narrated letter by letter through the alphabet as the narration is acted out on screen. However, the film is pretty much fluff and doesn’t have a real tie-in with a Lovecraft story.
The other two shorts are by Christian Matzke. “Nyarlathotep,” like Pant’s “The Hounds,” has no spoken dialogue on-screen and instead features a word-for-word reading of the short story. To be honest, the film is hard to follow (and I did watch it more than once). It appears to be about a resurrected mummy who travels to a small town as a magician and brings about the apocalypse, but I’m not sure. I was also distracted by the laughably fake Egyptian “beard” worn by Nyarlathotep. Matzke’s other film, “An Imperfect Solution,” interprets part of Lovecraft’s serialized horror adventure “Herbert West: Re-Animator.” Save for a few moments of rather expected amateurish acting, it’s a significant improvement over his other film as it is more clearly plotted and easy to follow. The story is quite similar to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in theme: a brilliant doctor goes mad and homicidal in pursuit of his goal to re-animate the dead.
All of the features on this disc were made on shoe-string budgets by people who made these films as true labors of love rather than for monetary gain. Still, Cool Air is hands-down the most accomplished work on this disc, and it alone makes the disc worth seeing (the quite moving final shot of the film will stay with me for awhile).
Extras:
* Scene selection for Cool Air
* An informative interview with Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi
* Two short introductions to the Lovecraft Film Festival
* An eight-page printed booklet
The best extra: a very entertaining, informative set of interviews with the cast and crew of Cool Air. Moore and crew discuss the many obstacles they had to hurdle to get this film presented. (Note: the cast and crew actually trespassed onto the boardinghouse property in order to film the movie!)
| 2008-02-28 Filmfax Magazine
By
The respectful care taken on both the packaging and the video content of these DVDs recommends them highly.
| 2008-02-28
By Chris Conlon
I teach a class in Horror Fiction and have long wished to find some decent adaptations of Lovecraft. Your films will go into my syllabus next year, guaranteed!
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