An upcoming Lovecraftian The film seems incredibly suspenseful, but I’m disappointed that it’s not a television series. While each horror subgenre has its own strengths and weaknesses, I’m particularly fascinated by cosmic horror because of how it attempts to capture intangible terrors and ideas through fictional storytelling. As HP Lovecraft’s stories demonstrate, written storytelling is usually better at capturing the existential dread that comes with cosmic horror, as it relies heavily on the power of suggestion and leaves much to the reader’s imagination.

Movies, video games, and television shows, on the other hand, must always stimulate the viewer’s senses through direct visual and aural stimuli. This leaves little room for audiovisual storytelling to fully capture the unspeakable elements of Lovecraft’s tales. Every now and then, however, a movie, show, or video game comes along that manages to capture the horror of Lovecraft despite the limitations of its medium. One of these brilliant Lovecraft horror video games is now being made into a movie, but would have worked better as a television show.

Dredge would be better suited as a miniseries, not a film

The game’s slow-burn approach could easily be transferred to the TV format

The Indie Lovecraftian Game Dredge is being adapted as a live-action film, which is exciting because the game combines the Lovecraft stories with the fishing game setup in an incredible way. However, I think it would have worked much better as a mini-series. The reason for this is that It is a slow game that initially disguises itself as a normal fishing simulation video game. Only gradually does it reveal its cosmic elements and become scarier as the player realizes that there is something wrong with the fish they catch and the mysterious ship they discover.

What begins as an attempt to catch more fish eventually takes a dark turn as the game takes on more and more Lovecraftian aspects as it progresses. Even in its scary moments Dredge is oddly relaxing because it slowly immerses the player in the spooky atmosphere by introducing bizarre fishing tales and strange fish mutations. A film adaptation would struggle to achieve something similar due to its limited runtime. While the film would risk being too rushed, the episodic format of a TV adaptation would allow the story to unfold at a more measured pace, like in the original game.

One Dredge movie may not be enough to explore the game’s extensive story

The Dredge movie needs more sequels

Now that a film adaptation of Dredge has already been confirmed, it must proceed with caution and avoid stuffing its narrative with too much lore. Rather than cramming all the plot developments from the game’s story into its limited running time, The film can only adapt part of the game and at the same time pave the way for further partsIf everything works well, Dredge could be turned into a full-fledged film series that not only serves the Lovecraftian elements of the original game, but expands its universe in many ways. Hopefully the film will live up to the high standards of its source material.