Necronomicon
More importantly than anything else, this completes the Alien Nation hat trick because Gary Graham is in one scene as an abusive boyfriend. I'm sure everyone at the local chapter of the Tenctonese labor union is very excited about this.
Onto the movie itself, it's pretty fun. It's an anthology of three Lovecraft-inspired stories (not exactly straight adaptations, but close) with a framing story centered around Lovecraft himself, played by an excellent Jeffrey Combs. Combs is so good that it made me want to see him in an actual Lovecraft biopic rather than just in the wraparound segments of a low-budget horror anthology.
The stories are pretty solid, and being Lovecraft they're full of all the darkness, gore, and squishy fish-monsters that you'd expect. There are also some strong performances from the likes of Bruce Payne (the villain in Passenger 57 who didn't bet on black), Richard Lynch, and David Warner.
Some of the effects are distractingly cheap, but each of the three stories has at least one standout moment of either memorable gore or extreme creepiness. The movie as a whole actually has a surprisingly consistent tone and allows for moments that are darkly humorous without descending into full-on camp, which can be pretty easy to do when your movie is stuffed to the gills (I'm so, so sorry) with Lovecraftian ocean creatures. While the movie is smart enough not to take itself too seriously, it never resorts to jokiness or anything that betrays the horrific tone. The stories don't overstay their welcome, and they're woven together in a way that feels cohesive which is all too rare in horror anthologies. It's no Amicus production, but it's a solidly old-school horror anthology in that vein. Cthulhu would be proud.
No comments:
Post a Comment