The Yellow Sign (2001)

Best movie ever!

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The Yellow Sign was a short film that played like an episode of "Twilight Zone," or maybe "Tales From The Darkside." It is about a young woman who works at an art gallery and has dreams about an artist and his work. She seeks him out, hoping to get him to do a show at her gallery, but he behaves very strangely. He agrees to show his work at her gallery if she poses for a portrait, which she does over a period of time. With each visit, they talk more about her dreams, and how they are connected. Finally, the painting is finished and we find out that he is somehow exchanging her for the freedom of his own soul, or something. She escapes by tearing up a contract they had together, and he is pulled back into some dark dimension. It ends with her gaining success, but she appears to be evil now. It did a good job establishing an atmosphere, but I wasn't very interested in the characters or anything that happened to them. I didn't really understand everything that happened, or all the details of the backstory.

The Yellow Sign, another of Aaron Vanek's creepy shorts, deserves the acclaim it has won from various film festivals. Without using gratuitous nudity or gore, Vanek has crafted a film that remains disturbing long after the final credits have rolled. All of the actors are excellent, especially Dale Snowberger as the charismatic, Mephistophelean artist. Snowberger is both menacing and sexy and delivers his complex dialogue in a sonorous baritone that makes one shiver. David Reynolds, a fine and underrated actor, is truly ominous as the Watchman. The DVD also comes with several other shorter films that are weird and fascinating - well worth the investment!

Aaron Vanek's terrific adaptation of "The King in Yellow" is a bone-chilling story about a woman caught between two worlds and her relationship to a mad artist. This is sure to please any fan of Lovecraft, especially those enamored of Robert Chambers' work. Vanek successfully captures the atmosphere of Chambers' work like never before. He is in no small way assisted by Tynes' clever script, which superbly translates to the screen all the elements of what makes Chambers so great on the page. (Lovecraft fans who might not be familiar with Vaneks' other films might be familiar with the sublime Pagan Publishing, which Tynes founded.) The best performance was by Shawna Waldron as Tess. She was charming, even mesmerizing, although all the performances were terrifyingly good. The film was shot on HD and is of surprisingly high quality -- no small feat and certainly a feather in Vanek's cap for working so deftly in the medium.I can't wait to see what Vanek scares up next!

Indie director Aaron Vanek has previously done several short H.P. Lovecraft adaptations, including "The Outsider" and "Return to Innsmouth". "The Yellow Sign" is his longest film to date (47m), and probably his most finely-polished work. It is not yet in general release, but he's working on fixing that. Meanwhile, you might get lucky enough to catch a showing at a horror convention or film festival, especially if you're on the West Coast.This film is inspired by the Robert W. Chambers story of the same title. Like H.P. Lovecraft, Chambers is a difficult author to adapt to film. "The Yellow Sign" is one of a set of loosely connected stories about sensitive individuals discovering an obscure play, "The King in Yellow", then becoming obsessed with the story's intrusion into their own lives. The emphasis is less on plot and characterization than on creating a eerie, disturbing atmosphere. Vanek, with colleague John Tynes of Pagan Publishing fame, have taken the sketchy plot of Chambers' story and built a more complete screenplay around it, while still capturing the proper weird, disconnected, dream-like fantasy feel.The main character, Tess, is a struggling gallery owner who dreams about an artist and his work, then learns that he is a real man. She tries to persuade this recluse to exhibit at her gallery, but he only acquiesces after she agrees to pose for him. They chat as Aubrey works, and his statements challenge Tess's very identity and sense of reality. Interspersed with all these events are strange glimpses into Tess's dreams that, like Aubrey and his work, hint at dark secrets behind her comfortable, boring life. There is a sort of mystical journey at the heart of this story, but the revelations it promises are not reassuring. "Have you seen the Yellow Sign?" If you have, you will not be the same ever again...Vanek has done an excellent job with difficult source material. He is showing steady improvement in his craft and vision over his previous work, and I look forward to seeing his future weird tales.