Innsmouth

The algorithm can be annoying as you get thrown loads of stuff in your filter bubble that is tangentially linked to something you once looked up by accident. I think mine is still recovering after my youngest daughter got on my laptop and started to look up Teeniepigs (check out the opening credits- it’s pretty bad) as I still get loads of bad CGI animation clips with questionable voice acting in my feed.

Occasionally thought, the algorithm throws you a bone that is so very you and that is what happened this time with Innsmouth.  A classic H.P. Lovecraft tale given a Japanese twist by Chiaki Konaka, the writer who would go on to write the cult classic anime Serial Experiment Lain? Yes please! Where have you been all my life?

I didn't even know this TV movie even existed until it popped up on my feed but diving in blind was blown away by how me it was.

A travel photojournalist, Hirata Takuyoshi, heads to Innsmouth to see if there is a potentially untapped holiday spot in the making for his travel magazine. He discovers a quaint old fishing village which seems to have fallen into state of disrepair. The locals are unfriendly and he struggles to find anything redeeming about the village, until he meets a beautiful widow. They chat and kiss and things are going well but when Hirata discovers his used camera rolls taken and the local police unhelpful maybe the town is working against him. It all comes to a head one night, during the festival of Lord Dagon, when Hirata must escape from the village with his sanity intact.

The setting of Japan seems like a perfect fit for the story as many of the coastal fishing villages have been abandoned by the youth who have headed to the big cities, leaving behind the older generations. A sense of decay pervades the show and adds a feeling of otherworldliness to proceedings as our protagonist explores the port, museum, and local sites.

The music of Zbigniew Preisner, with his title score from The Double Life of Veronique, complements the film as a man struggles for his life against eldritch beings of which he has no knowledge.

For the budget of about a fiver, this hour long made for TV short film is effective and well worth your time.