My thanks to davidh for this item…
In Search of Lovecraft is a feature horror motion picture shot in San Francisco. Based upon the Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft, but keeping a completely original story, we take the audience on a nightmarish trip blending reality and science fiction. An intense, mysterious plot, outstanding special effects, and a top notch cast create an exciting, heartstopping energy in the picture. Consultants also brought something to the project that has never been done to our knowledge: An actual occult ritual is performed within the picture, one that is absolutely authentic. Perhaps it let something into our world during filming!
Scream Queen Rachael Robbins plays the sexy occultist Keja, and Renee Sweet plays the sceptic reporter Rebecca Marsh. This is a true delight for all horror and Lovecraft fans. Talk has already started on the net anticipating its release.
Hohlographic Productions, LLC
June 3, 2008
Comments by David J. Hohl, Director
93! Greetings to the Thelemic community worldwide! I feel the movie will be of interest to you all for two main reasons. One being that most occult students are fans of H.P. Lovecraft and secondly, we included a complete thelemic ritual, unedited within the feature. As far as I know, this is a first for a horror movie! Also hidden throughout are various symbolic “inside gems” which you, being knowledgeable in the occult, may find. The average viewer will be in the dark, but you may find a couple of my hidden treasures.
How it got started: In Search of Lovecraft (ISOL) had it’s genesis in a script idea I got while watching a war movie called 84 Charlie Mopic about twelve years ago. It was an original movie shot in the POV of an army cameraman. Actually, if you watch this movie and Blair Witch, you’ll see they probably saw the same thing. The second factor was my love of Lovecraft stories and an interest in occult subjects. Over the last few years I learned of a subculture in the Magick world that believes that Lovecraft was a prophet and pulled truth from the Akashic record (a primal place where all knowledge exists) through his dreams. In other words, the Mythos he created was real! One such society is the E.’.O.’.D.’. named after Lovecraft’s Esoteric Order of Dagon. The current incarnation is led by a Frater Obed Marsh of Oregon. The EOD has some informal connections with Kenneth Grant I believe. My idea was to take this idea and create a story where the news reporter doing a Halloween piece on the real Lovecraft soon falls into this world where reality and fiction are blurred. She discovers the Mythos is true and she and her crew are marked for death because of their new found knowledge.
The movie is thus filmed with a mix of reality and fiction, cutting between camera POV, normal third person filming, and old, scratchy film footage found by our heros. The lost footage from the 1930’s helps piece together the modern day events of the cult and creatures that hunt our protagonists. We also had an occult expert to supervise a complete and unedited, authentic magick ritual conducted by Scream Queen Rachael Robbins. As far as I know, this is the first time a complete, real ritual was put to film.
Cast and Production: We were really lucky to get such a great cast and crew. Even working 20 hours per day (no joke!) for 10 straight days and a 3 day weekend, we didn’t lose one member to mutiny. Yes, that’s right, 13 days! The most challenging part of filming was all the major San Francisco landmarks we shot at which required extensive organization, permits, and crowd control. At one point we shot on the corner of Market and Castro during Halloween with a crowd of 300,000 people – the busiest location in the city on the busiest day of the year. It was very exciting though and fortunately we wrapped before knife attacks closed down the parade. Another highlight was the shooting of a complicated effects shot in a park that required police supervision. We were supposed to wrap by 10pm and ended up getting out at 3am. The next morning the city called me to complain about police overtime which we “happily” paid.
Rachael Robbins played a 400 year old “witch”, Keja, who helped the other characters battle the Mythos creatures. She was a joy to work with and very professional, not to mention sexy! Renee Sweet played Rebecca Marsh, our news reporter who discovered the truth behind Lovecraft. Her cameraman Mike was manifested by actor Tytus Bergstrom (former U.S. Latin dance champion) who did a bang up job. Saqib Mausoof, and Denise Amrikhas adeptly played occultist D’Souza and news intern Amber Martin respectively. Back in the 1930’s our British Investigators were creatively portrayed by Cameron Weston and Sue Ramsey. The movie seems to be a hit with test audiences and many mention their favorite parts are the old 1930’s footage of the cult investigators.
The project culminated in the on-line editing and post production at ZAP-Zoetrope in San Francisco who also helped create the old, damaged 16mm film look on the ancient footage. Our outstanding composer Troy Sterling Nies (Call of Cthulhu) finished off the project with an incredible, haunting score. And of course, we had a reliable occult expert supervising the rituals, tarot, and other occult subjects. Of course it is just a movie, but sometime I wonder if we accidentally released something during that climactic ritual!