Ravenloft: The Movie

[The Giamarga]

The movie Deathwatch (Four out of Five Stars in the Drawing Room Review) has the main characters taken away by the mists. I havn't seen it yet though..

[Stygian Inquirer]

Well, the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society made their own silent version of the tale Call of Cthulhu. You can find info about it here. Check out the trailer, it is kinda cool.

[Charney]

If there was to be a RL movie, I would only hope it did like the Stargate movie did: it was a good movie then followed by a VERY GOOD serie.

[Undead Cabbage]

If there was to be a RL movie, I would only hope it did like the Stargate movie did: it was a good movie then followed by a VERY GOOD serie.

This in mind, any thoughts on the idea of it being perhaps a macabre cartoon as opposed to live action? Live action leads to cheesy effects; cartoons lead to darranged creative artists that are pissed off at the world due to under-pay (just the type we need).

[Charney]

I prefer live action to cartoon. Just my personnal taste.

[Samael Hands of Stone]

Some great replies so far ladies&gents, keep 'em coming.

Making it a series definitely has its advantages from a story-development perspective, and not a bad idea at all. Still, I have always had a more motion picture image in mind for the world of Ravenloft.

I definitely agree with Barbarossa that the source material would be best served if it were disassociated from the trademark Ravenloft names and locations. Make it a kind of dead-on Ravenloft-looking, sounding movie that has subtle references and hints, all while refraining from meddling with direct canon material. I'm sure that I would feel comfortable simply juicing the existing modules and supplements to build a screenplay; it would feel like more of an exercise in cataloguing than creating something in the way of a tribute to this magnificent setting.

But keep those comments coming, they are definitely providing great food for thought.


...

[Boccaccio Barbarossa]

Some great replies so far ladies&gents, keep 'em coming.

Making it a series definitely has its advantages from a story-development perspective, and not a bad idea at all. Still, I have always had a more motion picture image in mind for the world of Ravenloft.

I definitely agree with Barbarossa that the source material would be best served if it were disassociated from the trademark Ravenloft names and locations. Make it a kind of dead-on Ravenloft-looking, sounding movie that has subtle references and hints, all while refraining from meddling with direct canon material. I'm sure that I would feel comfortable simply juicing the existing modules and supplements to build a screenplay; it would feel like more of an exercise in cataloguing than creating something in the way of a tribute to this magnificent setting.

But keep those comments coming, they are definitely providing great food for thought.


...

A quick note on this: only mention dissassociating the Ravenloft brand, not the movie itself, which will be just as good regardless of the names, but because this D+D connection will be jumped on by marketing guys. And you'll have cheezy posters of "from the makers of Dungeons and Dragons the Movie" and then NO ONE in their right mind will come and see it.

[Shoon VII]

if i were a film-maker i would:

write a short-story/ story arc that features a protagonist in the classic Gothic mode (no 20th level fighters/wizards/rogues/clerics as central characters),

only feature a Darklord peripherally as a manipulator/behind-the-scenes arch-villian,

skip CG character effects in favor of digital set extensions,

avoid cheesy one-liners in the dialogue

hire a good crew that believes in the project.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

I found that introducing players to Ravenloft and having them play as outlanders really works. Why not try and use that? Remember that the mists can take anyone from any time, and so maybe somone from today's area is swept into Mordent.

An even more intriguing option might be to base the story around a new domain which has been swept away from a Material Plane world (perhaps even our IRL Earth, if that's what marketing the film demands) due to one of its residents' being chosen by the DPs as a new darklord. The protagonists would be the newbie darklord -- we'd see the tale of his or her fall from grace, before the Mist-napping of the realm, and witness this villain first beginning to exert his/her influence over the land, afterward -- and some ordinary folks forced to become heroes, as they fight to stay alive and to save their families in "a world gone mad" (to quote CMOT Dibbler ).

What's fun about this approach is that it'd allow the script to introduce the basic concepts of Ravenloft -- domains, darklords, borders, and the role of the Mists in snatching stuff from other worlds -- from the P.O.V. of characters who (like the non-gaming majority of the audience) have no clue what the hairy heck's going on. It'd also allow for this initial film to concoct its own domain and darklord, to suit the needs of this opening storyline, before delving into the established Ravenloft characters: folks who might well be watching the new realm's development, but aren't yet taking much of an active hand in events there.

That's not to say that the signature NPCs of Ravenloft might not meddle with events indirectly. Picture a "cut scene" of Strahd or Azalin scrying on this new chunk of real estate, and perhaps dispatching spies to "help" the human protagonists, the better to turn this latest domain into a weapon in their own feud! But the film's main storyline could be fairly self-contained, for simplicity's sake and to better illustrate the fundamental nature of the Land of Mists; indeed, the heroes might even succeed in bringing about the newbie darklord's downfall, dispersing the domain and returning its inhabitants to their homeworld (and incidentally returning the Core back to its published geography, ensuring all our maps don't need to be revised again ).

Of course, there's no rule that says that the film's heroes -- who, after all, will have just crossed the Dark Powers by sabotaging the demiplane's latest acquisition -- get to go back with their families. The Mists can be awfully vindictive at times, and having a bunch of characters whom an audience has previously encountered set forth on a classic "How do we get back home?" quest through the published domains would give us a running theme for any hypothetical sequal(s).

[Samael Hands of Stone]

Perhaps I should describe the visual/pacing style that I had in mind for this "hypothetical project" to give you guys a better idea of what I'd be aiming for.

I am a fan of scene development through the use of facial expressions and lighting over lengthy dialogue and understatement (which is a Hollywod disease!). I refuse to hold the viewer's hand throughout the whole plot, explaining every little detail to him/her, or worse, play music with lyrics that tell the viewer how they should feel at that particular moment. Subtlety and ambiguity are my favorite tools; I like playing with expectations, creating optical illusions using lighting tricks, etc.

Being that Ravenloft is for the most part an amalgam of Euro-centric myths, legends, geography and history, I believe that a touch of European cinematography is in order. The "less is more" approach Shoon so eloquently discussed.

Another important aspect for me is texture and color. I'd play with colored lenses and atmosphere to create a "Ravcam" that would be immediately recognizable. I'd keep the color tones bland and avoid gloss or shine, emphasize decay and entropy. You get the picture.

Dialogue-wise I'd keep it simple and classy. Definitely no one-liners or anachronisms. I also detest revisionist thinking that portrays colonial slave traders as "really nice guys living in bad times", or are overbearingly politically correct with their world views. This is not to say that I intend on being blatantly vulgar, but I'd want it to sound believable.

more thoughts as they develop...

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Another important aspect for me is texture and color. I'd play with colored lenses and atmosphere to create a "Ravcam" that would be immediately recognizable. I'd keep the color tones bland and avoid gloss or shine, emphasize decay and entropy. You get the picture.

"Ravcam" ... heh, I like it!

OTOH, it wouldn't hurt to do quite the opposite for a select minority of scenes, filming in ways that bring out the lush color and drama of the landscape, of a grand ball in progress, etc. Assuming you're spurning the cheap-laugh-as-tension-breaker cliche of bad horror flicks, playing up the beauty and richness of the setting by day (a DMing staple for Ravenloft) would be a more-serious contrast to its nocturnal malignance. This would go a long way to evoking the Land of Mists' inherent contradictions -- that islands of precious beauty still eke out a fragile existence within an ocean of dread -- and could help to build empathy for the characters and their environment, on the audience's part. Innocence and beauty play a vital role in Gothic themes, after all, by way of contrast; leave these out, and what should be dramatic can wind up feeling excessively sordid and morose.

[ballsetto]

this needs to happen...if I make my fortune sooner than later I will consider putting up some money, because horror movies are one of the most effecting of genres and there is so much potential in these themes...as opposed to the monthly cliche teen horror and cop horror (saw, etc.) Give me the gothic steez

[Boccaccio Barbarossa]

"Ravcam" ... heh, I like it!

OTOH, it wouldn't hurt to do quite the opposite for a select minority of scenes, filming in ways that bring out the lush color and drama of the landscape, of a grand ball in progress, etc. Assuming you're spurning the cheap-laugh-as-tension-breaker cliche of bad horror flicks, playing up the beauty and richness of the setting by day (a DMing staple for Ravenloft) would be a more-serious contrast to its nocturnal malignance. This would go a long way to evoking the Land of Mists' inherent contradictions -- that islands of precious beauty still eke out a fragile existence within an ocean of dread -- and could help to build empathy for the characters and their environment, on the audience's part. Innocence and beauty play a vital role in Gothic themes, after all, by way of contrast; leave these out, and what should be dramatic can wind up feeling excessively sordid and morose.[/quote]

I'm very much about that. Because, as much as Ravenloft is "steeped in eveil", many people are able to be born, live and die and not have TOO rough of a time about it.

The beauty of the land is SUPER important - it reminds us that this is a "real place" (sort of) and not just a den of darkness. (It is that too, but...)

[alhoon]

I would stay away from S, Strahd, the twins and all published Ravenloft material.

I would write a script about an isolated village somewhere that is surrounded by mist. A despotic evil lord rules from his castle and he plows the streets of the village at nights.

In the screen I would out put mists everywhere in the background as a grim reminder. I would make the village seem beautiful in the morning and scary at night to show the antithesis.

The "PCs" are" lost" in the mists from somewhere and reach the place and every time they try to leave, they are lost again and again returning to the same place. I would put also the trick that Strahd tried in I Strahd, the war against Azalin; traveling tied on a rope keeping it tight and then emerging from the mists a few feet from the original tree with the rope still tight!

For Mist travel I would work along the lines of the WW1 film (I don't recall the name) that ScS has proposed some months ago. The one where the actors after a battle are lost in the mists and end up in an abandoned trench that claims them one by one.

[ScS of the Fraternity]

A despotic evil lord rules from his castle and he plows the streets of the village at nights.

Oh my god, I think that's where I used to live!
Trapped in the wastes of Northern Ontario, we were trapped under the fell hand of the dreaded Mr. Macleaod and his horrible snow plow.
He overlooked our tiny town from the haunted hockey areana on the hill.
They say he ground up his victims and made road salt from their bones.