Guillermo del Toro's At the Mountains of Madness [Complete] - Unmade Masterpieces

The Complete Production History of Guillermo del Toro's most famous dream project. We cover the rise of author H.P Lovecraft, the cinematic attempts to translate his vision, and del Toro's lifelong mission to adapt one his greatest stories.
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[@kernsanders3973]

The concept art that an artist made for del Toro they posted on deviant art was absolutely mind blowing, the ancient cities looks perfect, its so alien, ancient and "seems" abandoned

[@CapoRip]

I love the word "cyclopean". It specifically describes tightly fitted stonework for buildings, walls, etc., but HPL routinely lost control and applied it to almost everything Eldritch, abominable or non-euclidean.

[@stevetheduck1425]

The ancient Greeks used to describe large stone structures as 'Cyclopean', apparently. Even back then, they believed ancient giants built the larger temples and walls. Stone Age structures like the temples on Ibiza and Stonehenge in Britain were old at the start of recorded history. This is the sort of idea that started Lovecraft writing.

[@TheJoshuamooney]

Just ten minutes in, will finish tonight. Wanted to quickly note that your persona, voice and obvious command of your ideas is exactly what this fan of crucial works of seminal horror is always looking for, often not finding.

[@daleanderson1727]

You have a good voice for this kind of work. Pleasant, easy to listen to and doesn't wear you out. Keep up the good work, please. Finding a good 'voice' person is oddly very hard.

[@TheMrEcks]

Lovecraft thought of this as the Azathoth Mythos. Cthulhu is a minor character in his universe, though his reaching people thru dreams likely resonated moreso, despite Azathoth ultimately being the blind idiot god who dreams the entire universe, and upon whose waking, all ceases to exist. It's like Douglas Adams' "Coming of the Great Handkerchief" since our universe is merely a sneeze

[@musclestruts5032]

He actually called it his "Yog-Sothothery", since Yog-Sothoth gets mentioned so much.

[@NeganSmash420]

H.P. Lovecraft: not a fan of penguins

[@JamesJoy-yc8vs]

"Tekili-li! Tekili-li!" 😏

[@kitfitzgeraldgiu4148]

You have presented an excellent and erudite coverage of both At the Mountains of Madness, and Lovecraft's creative sources that he brought to bear on this works. The Mountains of Madness is probably one of the best of his works.

[@MawGinBoo]

I really hope this happens. I actually had a dream somewhat a while ago about a Mountains movie. It was of an opening with a huge snow flurry obscuring the researchers trekking through the snow while John Carpenter style music, similar to that of The Thing, was playing. It almost inspired me to try and write a screenplay at least of just that opening because it was so vivid

[@Kaledarkwind6151]

The amount of work to put all this together man. Good Job! Very well put together. I hope this does get adapted one day and honestly i hope he gets to fully realize the original vision of the R rated version. Maybe we get lucky and Cameron comes back on board. A man can dream lol.

[@melancholoid]

Awesome Vid! Thank You very much for Your Work! Greetings from Germany

[@thatmovieguy7778]

I miss the Stuart Gordon/Brian Yuzna era of Lovecraft adaptations..

[@codyt821]

YES.

[@amniote69]

I was so looking forward to this film😢.

[@MikeSmith-bn1qr]

The resurrected was an awesome movie.

[@daniellewillis2767]

Especially the two practical fx "imperfect saltes" creatures. The one they end up burning on the riverbank is especially awful, with the walking evisceration in Curwens cellar not much easier to look at

[@NathanTarantlawriter]

Oh yeah. Very underappreciated.

[@kazeem6419]

Lovecraft Country was the biggest pile of you know what.... I actually forgot about it until this video.

[@jack02krauser]

It was indeed a pile of crap

[@NathanTarantlawriter]

I tend to agree.

[@remydixon]

No one asked.

[@kazeem6419]

@@remydixon more like "no one asked you"

[@residentpotato6023]

It should have been titled Whitey Bad.

[@bonejuice4280]

There’s another aspect to his racism that people don’t talk about and that is the fact in his later years after moving away from province but later, returning is the fact that he gave up most of his bigotry and he never personally published the shadow over innsmouth because he saw the implications of it just goes to show that people can change.

[@rainiwakura2430]

I think what people neglect to mention is that he was very much a product of his time, but also a product of very sheltered upbringing. Raised within his own family, sickly, and probably very anxious and scared of the outside world, it's no wonder that moving to NYC would make him conjure up all sorts of racist things because of that same fear of the unknown and new. It doesn't justify any of it, but definitely sheds light on his disposition. Even his racism (lol) ended up feeding his imagination and moving away from narrowness of our bigotry into the realm of unimaginable.

[@dieyng]

@@rainiwakura2430 People act like he was immensely racist even for his time, when the only thing that was different was that he was basically afraid of and loathed every thing but his own New England Anglo-Saxons. And even that wasn't so rare that it would have raised much of a stir. As you suggest, his racism was born completely out of his fears and insecurities, I've long since considered his work impossible, were he not the scared, sad little man that he was. I could never close my eyes to the racism of his work, because it is very much entwined with it. The problem he faces today is that many people can't accept anything out of their comfort zone. Instead of accepting that he was a very flawed human being, but that without those flaws he might not have been able to create his work, they are ashamed that they like/love/are inspired by someone who clearly held ideas (at least for a long time) that they despise (and of course rightly so, still feels weird that you basically have to write that out nowadays, when it should be a given) and so they can't let anything related to him stay without constantly going on about his racism and the name of his cat and and and. I wouldn't care about that at all, if it wasn't for the attempts to devalue his legacy by claiming that in reality Robert W. Chambers" four horror stories in The King in Yellow are the birth of cosmic horror and that Lovecraft just expanded upon it, which is kinda ridiculous to claim that four short stories create a whole genre. Or that Lovecraft's work itself is weak and far exceeded by what others have created inspired by it (though I do think that mostly these are people who haven't read his work extensively). For someone that didn't get any respect and acknowledgement for his genius during his life, to get the place in horror history he was due so many decades after his death and now be threatened with being relegated to the backseats again, because of his troublesome flaws and traits. I find that infuriating tbh.

[@Jay-mp7ir]

Shadow is definitely my favorite story. Only later did I find out he wrote it after finding out about his Welsh ancestry. I think horror at red hook is more racist

[@TheDarkchum1]

It’s pretty disgusting that these days more people seem more intent on canceling brilliant artist for something like racism, rather than acknowledging how beautiful it is someone can actually grow past it and develop into a better human being.

[@MawGinBoo]

@@rainiwakura2430 maybe his writing turned into a form of therapy, a way for him to deal with his fears and insecurities. Once he got it out on paper and had time to process it, he was able to see how ridiculous his beliefs were

[@randallbesch2424]

Lovecraft was being humorous becoming more extravagant at every turn of it.

[@beatlemaniaciii]

Great video....so many wipes

[@richardowen808]

If you want to checkout Lovecraft inspired authors, try Brian Lumley.

[@geraldmartin7703]

How about an author that inspired Lovecraft? The House on the Borderland (1908), by William Hope Hodgson. Lovecraft praised the novel. It deserved the praise.

[@rainiwakura2430]

A little sad you didn't mention Bloodborne which essentially adapts all of Lovecraft at once somehow weaving in older gothic horror into it as well.

[@smoss9813]

Those wipes between cuts is horribly distracting. And 20 minutes in, still no del torro

[@jos3goodkid]

Thank you !!! You should combine the Clair Noto’s Tourist videos and the interstellar by Spielberg videos !! Keep up the great work !

[@DeepEye1994]

If it 100% won't happen, at least I hope we'll get a Jodorowsky's Dune-level of in depth documentary about it.

[@purefoldnz3070]

I bet he could get this made now via Apple or Amazon.

[@craigdvance]

I wonder if the shooting script from the original pitch is floating around

[@RBEO22]

I mean how do you visualize something that the human mind can't even comprehend?

[@Kneon_Knight]

AI. Just saying.

[@GeneticResearch]

That's not a challenge. Look at The Thing from 1982 and 2011, The Mist, From Beyond, Cloverfield, Harbinger Down, Lovecraft Country, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities and many more movies that were also mentioned in this video. Apart from that the 'unimaginable' was also often described very accurately in Lovecraft's stories so that you can imagine it. That's the reason in the first place why there are pictures, series and films about it.

[@craiganderson7986]

The visualization of Wilbur’s monstrous brother in “The Dunwich Horror” is pretty difficult to comprehend. And the opening credits are a lot of fun!

[@randallbesch2424]

The only special effects would be the city and the purple Leng mountains. Simpler animations for the history of ancient Earth as recounted.

[@drjekyllmshyde]

Good content but I can’t handle transitions. It’s like a bad 2007 PowerPoint, and constant. Gives me a headache

[@frnz1943]

Thank you, I have been telling him this for years. 😂

[@Kneon_Knight]

@@frnz1943 How do either of you even manage to watch a movie? In case you haven't noticed, they are full of transitions.

[@thecocktailian2091]

What? You dont like the cut for EVERY single sentence?!?!?!?! ugh.

[@patrickking3124]

Now I can't unsee it

[@Eldritch-1]

A studio attributing H.P's work to Poe would have pleased him...He worshipped Poe. Additonally he wrote pastiche badly until he found his voice. Hilariously all the writers considered better at the time are forgotten.

[@M-M-D-C]

Faulkner, Hemingway, and Steinbeck were writing at around the same time as HPL. All were more respected, and I wouldn't call them forgotten. Not to take away from Lovecraft, mind you. I do consider him one of the greatest horror writers of all time and a phenomenally inventive mind.

[@AvvieLanche]

This has been a frustrating journey, as GdT keeps churning out obligatory material while ignoring or diminishing the dream project, and while he keeps dealing with Hollywood studios who repeatedly show they are mired in a culture of capitalist appeals to the lowest common denominator. Why would you deal with anyone who says something so patently absurd as "we wont do a Lovecraft story because it's rated R and there's no love interest"? How many classics that keep paying dividends are rated R and have no love interest?...

[@dieyng]

I admit, I kind of wanted the big scale epic blockbuster version of the story, to make an impact upon the regular cinema-crowd and while I think a stop-motion version could be great, I think in regard to making the first big Lovecraft adaptation, this will be taking a huge step back and will certainly not be as impressive as a Pacific Rim like blockbuster would have been. I'll take what I can get, I guess.

[@leesimmons5453]

A David Lean type epic would have been so much more impressive.

[@briankentpirrie5228]

unmade masterpiece david lean film's nostromo.

[@randallbesch2424]

The hulking brother that look closest to human was the titular focal point.

[@lordshell]

I wanted this so very much.

[@hafaball]

Just like Shoggoth this movie is in waiting for the day it may rise. Also I thought Annihilation with Natalie Portman was a good Lovecraftian film, just to add one more

[@jonnywatts2970]

God I want this movie SO SO BAD!

[@nownowpippo]

you are my new fav channel DRH

[@deadpilled2942]

Universal was stupid to set up their Dark Universe without him.

[@Wishbone1977]

The thing is that when something is described as "impossible to describe or even visualize" or "simply seeing it will drive you insane", any visualization of it is bound to fall flat in comparison since it is immediately obvious that it is none of those things.

[@patreekotime4578]

Idk. Something we hear again and again about "creature feature" movies is that the *suggestion* of the monster in the beginning is often much scarier than the "big reveal" later on. An adaptation that really plays with the suggestion of a thing, and ramps up the terror the old fashioned way could be really effective IMO. But most of the directors attracted to Lovecraft seem to just want to make monsters, and studios probably cant really understand a monster story without monsters. Would Del Toro make a horror movie without monsters in it?

[@thomasalexanian927]

After watching Cabinet of curiosities, Netflix better pick this up

[@Haydenthemaker1000]

Yes

[@Elayzee]

I never bought GDT lame excuse that Prometheus killed his movie. The story itself, At the Mountains of Madness, doesn’t have ANYTHING in it that would require the kind of huge budget he was requesting. And suddenly he CAN indeed make it smaller and weirder with his Netflix deal. Talk about coincidence, he could’ve stripped it down far below his original budget.

[@jamescardello6173]

The producers, investors r only interested in the money this film can make for them . They need more than a top director, film star, etc. Something more than a James C. Endorsement. U have to prove and i mean shove it up their butts that Lovecraft is a moneymaker. U need a top salesman with a heart for horror to woo these investors. Build the story, the wonder of the abandoned structures under the snow and ice. The mystery of who,what happened here and the horror that follows. Use artists, paintings of the story and explain in detail that audiences will be hooked with this sense of frightening terrors. Wow them with the special effects. God, if only Jerry Goldsmith was still alive to do the music. Keep pushing the story. Eventually someone will listen .

[@johnmclackland3435]

Interesting - surprised that some actor with limited range, Tomas Cruise, was assigned to the movie.

[@jasoncaldwell5627]

It's an absolute crime that Prometheus killed At The Mountains Of Madness. Prometheus is a turd of poor characters and stolen ideas (particularly from Chris Carter's The X-Files).

[@Kroggnagch]

Y'know, i bet H.P. had a cat. I wonder what someone like him would name a kitty. Probably something cute like Snicker.

[@OddHominum]

I live and work in the areas the filmed the show. I had just learned about the king in yellow as I was going through lovecraft. I’m a progressive atheist in the south. Everyone tells me to stuf all the time. This was perfect

[@VictorReynolds]

Looking forward to “Mountains!”

[@Visual_Writer]

When you think about the project had been stopped because of the lame „Prometheus“ movie, it hurts 2 times.

[@sub-jec-tiv]

The script seems cool, read it, it seems like The Thing vs the original story. It works better as a movie, and it shows how much Del Toro loves Carpenter’s film.

[@NuevoExistence]

How could you not include the English/Spanish film Dagon?😮

[@Esoteric_SciFi]

sry, but king is a totally over hyped hack.

[@gurpreetbajwa4490]

I just got finished reading the script and while it is very good it does seem a little bit derivative of John Carpenter's the thing especially as it gets into the third act which is a shame because it is very good.

[@WilliamStreiff]

It's all about the bottom line

[@Killer_Kovacs]

He didn't finish his contract with searchlight

[@jakerys_bakery]

Loving the content and coverage but those wipe transitions after each sentence are nauseating

[@targe762]

The Color out of Space was a servicable effort, Nick Cage at his finest 😂

[@haruruben]

That’s the German title, it’s “The monster the”

[@anachronistofer]

So easy even a caveman can do it.

[@robertfliss2584]

This is far from fair to indicate Lovecraft was a bigot and a racist……..bigotry was a common attitude of the time,it was not his alone.Personal,I could not care less…..I’m in it for the story…….enough already.

[@jimbelton]

"Lovecraft Country" sucked. Alan Moore's Providence is a cool riff on Lovecraft.

[@prehistorichero2755]

Too bad he didn’t made this movie, but at least we have Pacific Rim, one of my all time favorite films.

[@robi6317]

mediocre and not at all Lovecraftian

[@DavidMacDowellBlue]

I wrote a ten minute Lovecraft-esque play titled WE ARE NOT DEAD.

[@venga3]

I hope to never come across it.

[@caiuscosades362]

As a fellow geico caveman, here’s my sub.

[@savage75_]

A Color Out Of Space (2019) is a good representation of Lovecraftian horror

[@darrenscrowston9386]

So is the Dunwich Horror 1970: with the Dungeons and Dragons-style ‘Beholder’ appearing at the end

[@Kneon_Knight]

@@darrenscrowston9386 Dungeons&Dragons-style? That movie came out 4 years before the very first D&D rulebooks were published by Tactical Studies Rules.

[@darrenscrowston9386]

@@Kneon_Knightthanks learned colleague for his clarification. But can witness clarify whether Wilbur’s brother (resembling as it has been established “more like its father Yog Soggoth than Wilbur”) indeed resemble a Beyonder, or not? Being as it was made up (and I read from the notes my lord) of “a single large eye with smaller eyes around it on tentacles”? That, my lord, is the clarification on which the prosecution and the court rests.

[@robertfliss2584]

I personally could care less about race issues I do not conform my attitudes with what others think.

[@organicketchup5171]

Great video! Unfortunately, it's documented that Del Toro announces more projects than he completes. I don't really dislike him but he's overrated and talks too much.

[@j_shelby_damnwird]

There already exists an awesome MOM - inspired movie directed by John Carpenter.

[@stevetheduck1425]

'The Thing' 1982 was based upon a 1948 film 'The Thing From Another World', which in turn was based upon a novel by Joseph Campbell 'Who Goes There?', which may be ATMOM boiled down to a simple story.

[@j_shelby_damnwird]

@@stevetheduck1425 Yup exactly. A stripped down version of Lovecraft's story, who btw isn't exactly suited for movie adaptations because it's basically 90% the description of an alien civilization's history carved on a bas relief.

[@robi6317]

Lighthouse kicked ass

[@afroahmed3989]

Lovecraft was very talented and imaginative, but the details he mentioned in his stories and the world building and the characters, made you think , is this really his imagination or did he really had a connection to the other side , and then i found out that his wife was Aleister Crowley's ex girlfriend, and this is someone who've definitely seen someshit .

[@luserdroog]

All I care about is the telegraph scene. Gotta have them dits and dots.

[@sebastiaan805]

fastest sub ever!

[@anachronistofer]

del Toro started out as a promising auteur filmmaker. The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth were brilliant. Then he fell off the map in an indefinite sophomoric slump and made only mediocre movies, following the same unfortunate path as Tarantino. Dreck like Hellboy, Pacific Rim, and The Shape of Water. Meh and ugh. His Cabinet of Curiosities TV series is also forgettable. I'd rather see a director like Nolan take on At The Mountain of Madness.

[@stevetheduck1425]

Prometheus and Covenant are pretty close to the first two thirds of 'At The Mountains Of Madness'. The Engineers create humans, leave clues, expedition sets out into new places, finds the historical account and living tools of the engineers. The slasher-film disease / body horror stuff distracts, then the servant / soldier of the engineers, the alien, does it's job, while the last of the engineers / elder things appears and falls victim to it's servant. Second expedition finds first on a world made by the engineers life forms, fall victim to the necessary slasher / disease / thing distraction... are we really sure that Del Toro's script/s of that time wasn't bought and adapted by Ridley Scott?

[@Luke-db9fc]

Hey man, dont forget about Alien, Aliens, Predator, Predator 2, Predators etc

[@monumentlandscapeservicesl6464]

I got turned onto HPL over 50 years ago. I've seen many of the "film adaptations" and most of them are total shit. Still love "The Thing," and "The Colour out of Space" wasn't terrible, but it was still a bit weak. "The Mist" combined SK with HPL, a great combination. I fervently wish Mr. Del Toro could do justice to MoM, but I fear it can never come to pass. Too bad, "The Hobbit" and LOTR were very good, and with the CGI available today--not to mention a large pile of money--it could work... Still, the best way to consume Lovecraft is to read the works. If your vocabulary is limited, have a dictionary handy--a fat one. Either these stories will hook you or they won't. They hooked me hard, and I still read them today with great relish. Let your mind make the movie.

[@whoobibi]

Anytime somebody virtue-signals by calling Lovecraft a racist, I give the video a thumbs-down and stop watching. Lovecraft was a Modernist and his ideas on race, as well as other topics in science and philosophy, were typical of the time. He was a Darwinist and that was a big part of his bleak outlook. He was a reluctant agnostic, forced to confront a pitiless universe and ideas that tended either to madness or nihilism. So he wrote about these things as cosmic horrors. That's WHY cosmic horror is different from gothic horror. Cosmic horror isn't just a fear of the unknown. It's a fear of the unknowable, the emptiness hiding behind everything in a universe where we are just an irrelevant speck of dust that has a beginning and inevitable end in a brief flicker of time. Disappointing.

[@0Hammerhead0]

HPL said some REALLY vile shit, even for his time. And he dwelled on it.

[@notme9816]

New weird. Read The Kraken by China Mieville.

[@laurenwasinger9436]

I’m sorry… did you say scientific rigor? I think you mean scientific misunderstanding…

[@randallbesch2424]

Such as? I hate it when someone makes a vague dig without proof.

[@laurenwasinger9436]

@@randallbesch2424 well most of the sci-fi elements in his writing fundamentally misconstrue the tech or science they are talking about for their horror. Which is fine, it’s a great read, but not what I’d describe as scientific rigor. Non-Euclidean geometry is just Euclidean geometry on a curved surface so … ya know… Earth in a nutshell. Air conditioning was new technology when he wrote cold air and I’m fairly sure that’s not how it works. It’s sort of hard to have scientific rigor in scientific fiction, because that’s sort of the point. It plays with the information to make it entertaining. It’s always impressive when sci-fi has a core of real science going on, but I don’t think that’s the sandbox Lovecraft was playing in. Not even sure he was trying to, really. And that’s ignoring all the deeply racist and eugenicist takes he worked in there.

[@laurenwasinger9436]

@@randallbesch2424and, btw, that’s assuming Lovecraft himself was in on it. His actual scientific knowledge is up for debate. He loved the sciences, but complained that math gave him headaches so he couldn’t study physics and chemistry, and he reported that he gave up on studying anatomy when he learned about human reproduction and was too grossed out to continue. He had long absences from school and never completed high school, although he was doing well in school so it’s hard to say exactly how well he was able to grasp the scientific concepts he was learning. Did he learn about the spectrum of visible and non-visible light and think “it would be cool if…” or did he learn it and think “gah, what do those other colors DO!?”

[@MykePagan]

Great video! But: “Lovecraft’s meticulous attention to scientific accuracy”? Ummm, nope. Lovecraft had a very loose relationship to science and mathematics. And that means 1920s and 1930s science. It does not detract from his genius, but he nmade up his “science” from very thin cloth.

[@JamesJoy-yc8vs]

True enough, but he didn't put on a facile "I know all the science!" act. Contemporary stories would insert self-important gobbledygook like "His index is over zero point five!" or some such. What I'm saying is, he knew his limitations. Possibly because he didn't know how to make friends. Just casual acquaintances. Something I can identify with