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If William Hope Hodgson’s The Boats of the ‘Glen Carrig’<\/em> represents the Sublime of tentacular sea fiction then The Lost Continent<\/em><\/a>, a 1968 Hammer film based on Dennis Wheatley’s 1938 novel Uncharted Seas<\/em>, is the correspondingly Ridiculous end of the subgenre. The Lost Continent<\/em> is an irritating film for Hodgson enthusiasts since it’s still the most Hodgsonian film out there, at least where the Sargasso side of things is concerned.<\/p>\n Illustration by SR Boldero (1960).<\/em><\/p>\n Despite its Wheatley origins the similarities to Hodgson’s sea stories are no coincidence: Wheatley chose two Hodgson titles\u2014Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder<\/em> and The Ghost Pirates<\/em>\u2014for the Dennis Wheatley Library of the Occult<\/em><\/a> series that Sphere Books published in the 1970s. In the introductions Wheatley notes that Hodgson was a favourite writer whose work he discovered in the 1920s; he also mentions having collected a set of Hodgson first editions. Wheatley could have justifiably claimed that the “Weed-World” as a location wasn’t unique to Hodgson but Uncharted Seas<\/em> also features the giant crabs, marauding octopuses and besieged castaways familiar from The Boats of the ‘Glen Carrig’<\/em> and the short stories.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This film starts out like The Love Boat<\/em> on acid, as a cast of varied characters, with various issues, take Captain Eric Portman’s leaky cargo ship to escape their troubles. When a violent storm strikes, the ship is swept into the Sargasso Sea and our heroes find themselves trapped on an island of man-eating seaweed, populated by giant monster crabs and some Spanish conquistadors who think the Inquisition is still on. Features songs and music by ’60s “cool group”, The Peddlers.<\/p>\n Pr\u00e9cis for The Lost Continent at IMDB<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Hammer made The Lost Continent<\/em> in the same year as their other Wheatley adaptation, The Devil Rides Out<\/em><\/a>, a superior film in every way. The Lost Continent<\/em> suffers by promising much not only in its title\u2014there’s no continent at all, merely a large tank filled with weed and a wrecked ship\u2014but also in the poster art where the grasping tentacles look a lot more convincing than the rubbery reality that comes lurching out of the studio mist. The last half-hour is an improvement on the first hour at least, most of which is occupied by the actors bickering their way through a bad script while they sail into trouble. Consequently it’s a relief when they start getting killed off. Eric Porter, my favourite Professor Moriarty<\/a>, does a commendable job of staying resolutely serious in the face of some ridiculous sights.<\/p>\n Oh look, a signifying text! Nigel Stock, fresh from appearing in The Prisoner, checks the novel to find out what fate will befall him and his daughter (Suzanna Leigh, left).<\/em><\/p>\n Suzanna<\/em> Leigh isn’t impressed with her date.<\/em><\/p>\n “The cemetery of the oceans.”<\/em><\/p>\n It’s worth staying with The Lost Continent<\/em> mostly for the Sargasso atmosphere unless you’re a Hammer completist or watching it for Dana Gillespie<\/a>. Thinking about this film in relation to William Hope Hodgson makes me wonder what other films might be labelled Hodgsonian. The ghost pirates in John Carpenter’s excellent The Fog<\/em><\/a> (1980) come to mind although that film is on dry land for most of its running time. There’s the Pirates of the Caribbean<\/em> films, of course, although\u2014Kraken aside\u2014they’re too light-hearted. Anyone have any other suggestions?<\/p>\n Ms. Leigh and tentacled friend in post-coital embrace? Probably best not to ask…<\/em><\/p>\n Previously on { feuilleton } If William Hope Hodgson’s The Boats of the ‘Glen Carrig’ represents the Sublime of tentacular sea fiction then The Lost Continent, a 1968 Hammer film based on Dennis Wheatley’s 1938 novel Uncharted Seas, is the correspondingly Ridiculous end of the subgenre. The Lost Continent is an irritating film for Hodgson enthusiasts since it’s still the … Continue reading “Tentacles #2: The Lost Continent”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[42,7,22],"tags":[1952,4080,3710,4077,680,4078,76,85,4083,4076,4079,1951],"class_list":["post-12052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-film","category-horror","tag-cephalopods","tag-dana-gillespie","tag-dennis-wheatley","tag-eric-portman","tag-john-carpenter","tag-nigel-stock","tag-pirates","tag-pirates-of-the-caribbean","tag-sargasso-sea","tag-sr-boldero","tag-suzanna-leigh","tag-william-hope-hodgson"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-38o","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12052\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"uncharted1.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/uncharted1.jpg\")
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\n\u2022 Tentacles #1: The Boats of the \u2018Glen Carrig\u2019<\/a>
\n\u2022 S. Latitude 47\u00b09′, W. Longitude 126\u00b043′<\/a>
\n\u2022 The art of Robert Lawson, 1892\u20131957<\/a>
\n\u2022 Weekend links: Hodgson edition<\/a>
\n\u2022 Octopulps<\/a>
\n\u2022 Druillet meets Hodgson<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"