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Cheesecake
The book is a hardcover weighing in at just under 200 pages. Its $34.95 price tag is low compared to similar books, only adding to its value. Jerome Huguenin supplies both the artwork and cover. The latter is much more lurid than the rest of his art for the Trail of Cthulhu line, and while this is keeping with the subject matter of the book, it lacks the effectiveness of some of his other contributions – too subtle here, and it would be lacking elsewhere. There is some great interior art in his photorealistic style, however.
Supporting Actors
The books starts out with the authors’ identification of the similarities between Lovecraft’s work and Thirties horror cinema. They approach the argument from both sides, starting once with the iconic horror movie villains and again from the themes of Lovecraft’s fiction. It’s OK for readers who didn’t mind similar content in the main book and Rough Magicks (I imagine these and Hite’s Tour of Lovecraft and “Lost in Lovecraft” article series in Weird Tales (q.v.) all mine the veins uncovered in his reexamination of the canon in preparation for writing Trail).
The next section outlines the setting of the Silver Nitrate Mythos: the gloomy, backlot Gothic world of these movies and how to run games in them. The location is largely a cinematic Europe that time forgot, set in a contemporary era but lacking the modernity of the developed world. Globetrotting – to Egypt, Haiti, the African jungle, and back to Hollywood for the final story – is decidedly off-screen for this same reason. A copious amount of “stock footage” comes next. These are capsule descriptions of interior and exterior locales in which scenes might take place, as well as thirty or so NPCs that can be inserted into a number of stories. They are a nice touch for adding quick depth to the stories, and for introducing a Keeper to the descriptive details necessary to sustain the mood. Along with a handful of additional story hooks, all of this material takes up the first 25 or so pages, leaving the rest of the book for the adventures.
Double Features
Applying some quick math with the data above, that leaves less than 15 pages per scenario. This means the individual adventures are shorter than the single adventure releases for Trail over the last few years. Of necessity, the motivations for getting a group of disparate investigators are largely left up to individual groups. This might result in a bit more preparation for Keepers wishing to insert one or more of them into a campaign.
The scenario design follows the typical GUMSHOE investigation: a list of potential scenes, with the core clues linking them together. Relevant NPCs are given the stats that should come into play, rather than complete descriptions, and there are many opportunities to for players to spend their investigator’s ability points for spotlight time.
Obviously, readers will encounter scenarios with most of the entries on anyone’s list of movie monsters – vampire, zombie, werewolf, mummy, invisible man, giant ape, jungle warrior, ghost, and a reanimated corpse (really, anything but a deep one-like, swamp monster, although they too may find a place in one tale). Two other tales feature likely locations with unusual secrets: a haunted house and an island where the most dangerous game is hunted. Where possible, direct links to the Mythos are created and exploited. For example, Dr. Frankenstein’s stand-in has acquired the lab notes of Herbert West. I particularly like that the vampire investigation does not hide Dracula’s involvement, saving the twist for something more useful than the obvious villain.
Several of the scenarios are purposely written to evoke particular movies or directors, as well as tropes one might expect, like reappearance of some of the villains in a sequel. Likewise, one or two characters might end up playing unsuspecting roles as mistaken love interests or the scion or a cursed bloodline. Refreshingly, one scenario has a potentially mundane solution, allowing a Keeper to eschew the occult or Mythos altogether. The final entry in the book involves the filming of “The Call of Cthulhu” in Hollywood: who is bankrolling the sinister movie, and what will they do to ensure its corrupting climax? This is an open-ended mystery with many potential culprits, allowing a Keeper to improvise the solution or riff of the players’ ideas as they develop.
The Critics Agree
Shadows over Filmland is an excellent product with something between its covers for any Keeper. The twelve scenarios are so varied in content and locations that many will fit into ongoing campaigns or run as one-shots. It may be that the wide spread works to its disadvantage, as fitting all the stories might require some extra travel or a shift in campaign tone.
Furthermore, the supplementary setting material is more than enough to run a straight horror campaign without any Lovecraftian content. Simply leaving out the Mythos would result in twelve entertaining mysteries that a group could run as a film festival.
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