Finally a big-screen break for the writer whose work has usually defeated Hollywood's efforts to adapt it. But at what cost...?

It has recently been revealed by producer Don Murphy that Tom Cruise has been tapped for the lead in Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness, set to start filming this June. The film has been long awaited by horror fans and fans of the writer, is being co-produced by James Cameron (Titanic, Avatar), and is going to be released in 3D. As a rabid fan of Lovecraft’s work, I have to wonder if this is the right choice.

It’s not that I hate Cruise, but I’ve never been a big fan of the man. In fact, there’s little before 1994’s Interview with the Vampire that I actually consider worth watching (I will admit, one of these days, I do plan on giving Legend a second chance). There have been few performances of his that have just “wowed” me enough to consider him as great an actor as all of Hollywood has. Couple that with the fact that Cruise tends to take over any production he’s a part of, and it makes me more than a little leery.

There’s also the fact that Lovecraft’s work has had little success in translation to motion pictures. There are those movies based on his works that are enjoyable, like the Re-Animator films, Necronomicon (even with its obvious right wing political slant), and several of his stories were adapted for Mick Garris’ Masters of Horror television series. Part of the trouble is that his stories work very well on the page, but are mostly exposition. The action of his stories doesn’t typically happen until the very end, which doesn’t work for a movie. His prose has always been more in the vein of psychological terror. Like Poe before him, his writing plays on innermost fears, not going for the jugular with gore and quick scares. Hollywood has a poor track record with films of that sort, always wanting to throw in the cheap pops and blood that have become staples of horror.

Another issue is Lovecraft’s rampant racism, which comes through his writing (although, those comments can always be written out as they usually have little to do with the workings of the story). With the right director, such a story could work as a movie, and del Toro has the talent to bring it to life, and do it the right way.

The novella At the Mountains of Madness is the story of William Dyer, a geologist and professor at Miskatonic University (a fictional New England university invented by Lovecraft). He and several colleagues travel to Antarctica after already being part of a failed expedition to the continent. There they find the mountains, which are actually a wall to an ancient city, where they find evidence of the “Elder Things”, which resemble creatures described in the mystical Necronomicon. It was also an attempt to “demythologize” his Cthulhu Mythos, giving scientific explanations for his supernatural creatures (Lovecraft was an avowed atheist). Lovecraft wrote it in 1931, and was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, as well as recent expeditions to Antarctica, which at the time was the last really unexplored frontier. Others have claimed that the author’s own hypersensitivity to cold inspired him to write of such terror in such a frozen, desolate place.

Given Cruise’s propensity of using film promotion as a soapbox of sorts to express his own views, and his ability to seem to hijack a movie for his own needs, it makes me wonder if he is the right choice for this project. Add to that the fact that the writing of Lovecraft doesn’t exactly lend itself to the screen. I still have hope that this film will turn out to be great, placing all of my faith in del Toro’s capable hands. But having been let down before by adaptations, I hope that faith isn’t misplaced.

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