Stuart Gordon gave us Re-Animator and From Beyond, so naturally, when he said, “Let’s adapt Lovecraft again, but this time in Spain with three euros and a dream,” we said, “Sure, why not.” The result is Dagon—a film that takes Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth and stuffs it through a blender of bad dubbing, cheap CGI tentacles, and more soggy atmosphere than a seafood restaurant dumpster.
This is supposed to be horror. What it is instead is ninety-eight minutes of watching damp fish-people waddle around like rejected extras from The Shape of Water’s porno parody.
The Wettest Opening Ever
We begin with Paul Marsh (Ezra Godden), a man whose haircut alone should have been a warning from Dagon. He dreams of a mermaid with razor-sharp teeth and wakes up on a boat with his girlfriend Barbara (Raquel Meroño) and two soon-to-be calamari platters named Vicki and Howard.
A storm wrecks their yacht, pinning Vicki like a tuna melt while Paul and Barbara row into the nearest fishing village: Imboca. Imboca looks like Innsmouth’s Mediterranean cousin who chain-smokes, prays to squid gods, and hasn’t seen sunlight since Franco was in office.
From here, the movie proceeds exactly as you’d expect: the locals are ugly, they smell like bad sardines, and they keep looking at Paul like he’s the last can of tuna on discount.
The Cast of the Fish Market
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Paul Marsh (Ezra Godden): Supposed to be our hero, but he plays the whole movie like a nervous substitute teacher who got lost in a fish cannery.
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Barbara (Raquel Meroño): Girlfriend, swimsuit model, sacrificial bait. She exists solely to scream and later volunteer as Dagon’s baby incubator. Progress!
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Ezequiel (Francisco Rabal): The town drunk who somehow survived worshipping a squid god by staying perpetually hammered. Honestly, the most relatable character.
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Uxía (Macarena Gómez): The tentacle-legged mermaid who saves Paul multiple times, not because she loves him, but because incest apparently plays better in Galicia than in Alabama.
The rest of the villagers? Just moist background noise, like extras pulled straight from a Red Lobster kitchen staff.
Revelations in Fish Theology
Through Ezequiel’s drunken exposition, we learn that Imboca sold out to Dagon years ago. Instead of sticking with boring old Catholicism, they decided, “Hey, why not worship a squid who demands blood sacrifices and occasional interspecies breeding?” Because when your cod harvest fails, turning your daughters into bait for a sea monster is clearly the logical next step.
Of course, the villagers are now all half-fish abominations, complete with bulging eyes, slimy skin, and the kind of dental hygiene you’d expect from creatures who floss with kelp.
Death by Produce, Death by Tentacle
Some highlights of the kill count:
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Howard: Skinned alive off-screen. When Paul finds his flayed corpse in a tannery, it’s less scary and more like someone left their Halloween prop too close to the radiator.
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Vicki: Impregnated by Dagon and then offs herself, because clearly the only thing worse than dying in this movie is raising a seafood platter for a child.
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Ezequiel: Flayed alive while reciting the 23rd Psalm. Honestly, if you’re going to be murdered by a squid cult, quoting scripture seems like the least effective Yelp review imaginable.
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Barbara: Handcuffed, dangled over Dagon’s pit like bait on a hook, and eventually dragged down by tentacles after begging Paul to let her go. At least she got to check “participate in Lovecraft cosplay” off her bucket list.
Tentacle Porn Without the Porn
The mermaid Uxía is introduced like a sexy dream girl. Then Paul sees she has tentacles instead of legs, and he bolts faster than a tourist who just realized paella isn’t supposed to taste like microwave rice. This could have been erotic in a twisted, Lovecraftian way—but nope. Instead, it’s as if Guillermo del Toro’s wet dreams were filmed on a camcorder from 1994.
By the time Paul finally embraces his tentacle destiny, sprouting gills and diving into the sea with his fish-sister-lover, you don’t feel horror. You feel like you’ve been slimed by Nickelodeon’s darkest secret.
Why This Fails Harder Than a Beached Whale
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CGI Tentacles: They look like PlayStation 1 cutscenes. Every time one shows up, you expect Lara Croft to appear and start shooting.
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Paul’s Acting: Ezra Godden spends the entire movie shrieking in a voice that makes Woody Allen sound like Clint Eastwood. If hysteria were an Olympic sport, he’d still come in last.
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Lovecraft Abuse: Lovecraftian horror is supposed to be about cosmic dread and unknowable terror. Here, it’s about soggy makeup and villagers who look like they lost a fight with a tilapia.
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Moist Everything: Every set, every character, every prop is dripping. By the end, you feel like you need antibiotics just for watching.
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Incest Reveal: The “shocking twist” is that Paul is secretly related to Uxía and destined to be her lover. Somewhere, Lovecraft is spinning in his grave fast enough to power New England.
The “Climax”
The final act has Paul storming the cult’s basement to save Barbara, setting a few people on fire, and proving once again that gasoline solves all problems. But it doesn’t matter. Tentacles rise, Barbara gets dragged away, and Paul learns he’s half-fish anyway. He tries to set himself on fire but fails, because even suicide won’t let him escape this plot.
So he accepts his destiny, grows some gills, and swims away with Uxía, sealing his fate as the world’s wettest romantic tragedy. It’s like The Little Mermaid, if Ariel wanted to bang her brother and feed her enemies to a squid god.
Final Thoughts: Fried Calamari Would’ve Been Scarier
Dagon is what happens when you take Lovecraft’s creeping dread and replace it with bad lighting, endless rain, and an acting style best described as “drowned rat.” It’s too ugly to be scary, too stupid to be profound, and too soggy to be fun.
The only revelation is that Stuart Gordon should’ve left this one at the bottom of the sea. Watching this isn’t horror—it’s waterboarding with subtitles.
