Those of us who write fiction, I suppose, often ponder what it would be like having a kind of writing named after us. Knowing that’s not likely to happen we might cast an envious eye toward, say Lovecraftian horror, which has become a sub-genre in its own right. When a friend pointed me to Older Gods, an independent Lovecraftian horror film shot in Wales, I was glad to see it already out on a free streaming site (with commercials, of course). Winner of several accolades, the movie isn’t easily understood although the plot is fairly simple. A man has gone to Wales to find answers regarding a lifelong friend’s suicide there. A recorded message tries to explain what this friend had stumbled upon that led him to his extreme act. A world-wide underground religion is attempting to awake one of the older gods to bring about the end of the world.
The problem is these devotees of the older gods—one deity in particular, called “The Origin”—hunt down anyone who learns about them. They give them the choice to join or to have their families killed, followed by themselves. If they do join, it hastens the end of the world. In other words, the engine driving this movie is religion. Shot with a very low budget over a very short span of time, it manages not to fall into the “bad movie” category, and actually edges into the “good” category. The film crew, reportedly, numbered only seven (no extensive credit roll here), and the story is based on a premise introduced by H. P. Lovecraft. The older gods, who care nothing for humans, are asleep beneath the sea, awaiting the signal to awake.
Since this movie was only recently released, not much in the way of online summaries is yet available. The reason this might be important is that Lovecraftian narrators not infrequently go insane. In other words, is our protagonist a reliable narrator or not? Did he, like his deceased best friend, go insane? This is never resolved. Those devoted to the religion of the older gods are unrelenting. Lovecraft, famously an atheist, knew the power of religious belief. His nihilistic universe included a scary place for believers. When these themes come together, with or without tentacles, we seem to be in territory named after its creator. Older Gods is a slower paced, thoughtful film that leaves you unsettled. And there’s no doubt regarding its true origin.
