The Yellow Sign

2001
5.9| 0h47m| en
Details

A young art gallery owner, Tess Reardon, is looking for new talent to spark life into her failing business. Haunted by nightmares, she discovers that an artist she dreamt about, Aubrey Scott, actually exists, and she seeks him out. The eccentric painter agrees to a showing of his art, but only if Tess will model for his new work. She grudgingly agrees and begins to regress into a past life from a parallel world, and that everything is not at all as it seems.

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Reviews

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.
StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
jfgibson73 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.
Steven Kaye I saw a poorer-quality version of this at a World Horror Convention, so I was excited to see how the remastered DVD was. Vanek's direction was sound, evoking a foreboding atmosphere and growing uncertainty as to the dividing line between reality and the world of Carcosa and dreams. The dialog did not seem forced or unlikely (though perhaps I would have liked to have seen that the gallery needed a successful show, rather than having a throwaway line to that effect). But equal credit must go to the actors and to Jason Voss' evocative paintings. Dale Snowberger could easily have overplayed Aubrey Scott, but he was sinister without being hammy.
Charlie2300 Aaron Vanek took up the poison chalice for this film project because "The Yellow Sign" is an adaptation of themes within the collection of loosely connected short stories that make up "The King in Yellow" by Robert W. Chambers. This book is rightly famous and, indeed, revered within the 'Weird tales' genre because it is genuinely disturbing and hints at horrors beyond what is written therein. It is profoundly Lovecraftian in feel and works at the level of dread, suspense and terror that can only be attained where the nature and origin of fear is hidden, covert, implied. The problem with attempting to translate a Lovecraftian tale into film is simple; you can have as many special effects as you like, but show the monster and you lose all the tension and dread built up by the imagination of the reader/viewer. It is not therefore surprising that the vast majority of the Lovecraft tales 'adapted' for films to date have failed miserably to do justice to the original stories. That being said, "the Yellow Sign" is a worthy exception to the general rule. This is a genuinely disturbing and downright creepy film, a very rare commodity indeed. Just like the book, there are elements missing and the lack of coherence leaves your imagination to fill in the gaps. I seriously considered giving this a full 10 out of 10 but for the fact that a 'director's cut' is shortly to be released! Recommended without reservation.
thastygliax 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.