JOHN CARPENTER’S CANCELED 1988 REMAKE OF THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON: IN-DEPTH SCRIPT REVIEW – The internet is crawling with all manner of scripts for movies that didn’t get made, but this is the first time I’m mentioning one. That’s because I feel this one could have been a hit. Maybe not a cash cow but a solid hit.
It would have been directed by a John Carpenter still in his relative prime, for one thing. The screenplay gets a detailed break down below, but if you want a quick overview this 1988 Creature from the Black Lagoon would have taken the story in the inevitable direction needed to avoid nothing but quick underwater fights with the title menace.
At this point the term “Lovecraftian” has been incredibly overused but let’s face it, that atmosphere is needed to breathe new life into this long-dormant franchise. Lovecraft’s tales of Dagon and Innsmouth and the underwater ruins in The Temple would fit this franchise like a glove.
In addition to a scientific expedition on the Amazon River like in the original film, the script featured an underwater structure in the Black Lagoon’s depths.
Artwork and hieroglyphics in the pyramid/ temple indicate a prehistoric time when Gill-Men and humans coexisted. Bones of countless sacrificial victims are found by the expedition members as well as multiple fossils of Gill-Men, a species of which the Creature is the last living representative. Continue reading
IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1994) – Directed by John Carpenter and written by Michael De Luca, this movie was an unabashed valentine to H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King’s imitations of Lovecraft, and The King in Yellow by Robert W Chambers. The King in Yellow, of course, is the 1895 book 
Soon, Trent is visited in his padded cell, where he has used a black crayon to cover his body and the padded walls with crucifixes for protection. His visitor is Dr Wrenn, played by David Warner, the panicked, crucifix-surrounded man from The Omen, now talking to the panicked, crucifix-surrounded Sam Neill in this film. (I admit that’s a sly touch in keeping with the style of the movie. It even has echoes of the victim in the 1970s film Equinox fixating on his protective crucifix.) 
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