It’s Lovecraft week here with the Horror Guys. We’ve got five adaptations of stories from H.P. Lovecraft. We’ve done many others in the past, but if you know of any that we haven’t talked about, drop us a note! This time, we’ll do “The Call of Cthulhu,” a unique film from 2005. The next four are all from the 90s: “The Resurrected” from 1991, “Necronomicon: Book of the Dead” from 1993, “Lurking Fear” from 1995, and “Castle Freak” from 1995.
Why Lovecraft week? Because we’ve got a new book out: “H.P. Lovecraft: A Biography,” which you can pick up right here: https://amzn.to/435mJQJ
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Mainstream Films:
2005 The Call of Cthulhu
Directed by Andrew Leman
Written by H.P. Lovecraft, Sean Branney
Stars Matt Foyer, John Bolen, Ralph Lucas
Run Time: 47 Minutes
Trailer:
Buy it: https://amzn.to/3ETYIEg
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This version was like a trip to the old days of silent films. It’s black and white, interspaced with speech panels instead of dialogue, with a music soundtrack. They did capture the look and feel of a movie from the 20s, though the film speed and quality didn’t quite match how it used to be. It’s a pretty good telling of the story, it’s short, and it’s worth checking out.
Spoilery Synopsis
Two men talk about one of their great-uncle’s life work. The man wants the other man to burn the stories. He tells us that he was the executor of the old man’s estate, including a locked box full of folders and news clippings.
It tells the story of Henry Wilcox, who has a new wood carving of something he saw in a dream last night and takes it to the narrator’s great uncle. He felt the earthquake last night very strongly. All through his dream last night, something was calling to him with a name he couldn’t pronounce.
The doctor asks Wilcox to start writing down his dreams. He does this, along with many pictures, which greatly upsets him. He continues to show the great-uncle what he’s seen. Henry falls into a fever, and the old man tries to care for him, but once the fever broke, he didn’t get any more visions, nor could he remember the old ones.
We cut to the American Archaeological Society, where a detective talks to a professor. He shows them an object, and one man there recognizes it. We get a flashback to a tribe that worshipped a god named Cthulhu. That’s where the man lost his eye. The inspector tells the men his tale from last year, when he investigated some disappearances in the New Orleans swamp. “This ain’t just some Voodoo cult, this is the devil hisself,” says one witness. The cultists were chanting the Cthulhu ritual as the policemen watched. Forty-seven cultists were arrested, and one explains that they worship the Great Old Ones, who sleep now, but will reclaim their world soon. Great Cthulhu lies sleeping in R’yLeh, and he’ll awaken soon.
Back in the present, the nephew starts getting strange dreams. Anyone he asked about the cult either knew nothing or was dead. He reads a new article about the Emma, a ship that ran into a storm at sea and started to sink. They all boarded the Alert, an abandoned fishing vessel. The log says the crew went ashore on an island three days ago, but there’s nothing on the map. They found a strange tentacled idol and soon the whole crew was lost except for one man who went mad.
The nephew starts putting his dates and facts together, and it’s all very terrifying. He tracks down the idol at a museum and follows the sole survivor of the Alert to Oslo. The man was dead by the time he arrived, but the nephew managed to read the man’s logbook and learned what really happened on the island.
The island was covered with jagged peaks and terrifying statuary. One man falls off a tower and dies, and immediately after, there’s an earthquake, and Cthulhu himself shows up. Everyone runs, but only two men make it to the boat. The one who got a good look at the monster goes mad, bleeds from the eyes, and dies. The other is the one man who escaped with the log.
The nephew tells all this to his psychiatrist, and we’re back at the beginning, when he told the man to burn all the notebooks. Cthulhu is still out there, waiting to rise. The doctor, naturally, doesn’t burn them, he starts reading…
Brian’s Commentary
It’s a black-and-white silent film, done in the style of a movie from Lovecraft’s day, the 1920s and 30s. It’s done in the style of the old German Expressionist films, and it looks pretty good considering. It was released through the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, essentially a fan film. The story, probably Lovecraft’s most famous, has long been considered unfilmable, so this is a good attempt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Call_of_Cthulhu_(film)
Kevin’s Commentary
This was an interesting novelty, and it was worth seeing it for that. It’s short, which is a plus, so we got through it before that novelty wore off. I thought it was well done overall, and it does tell the story.
1991 The Resurrected
Directed by Dan O’Bannon
Written by H.P. Lovecraft, Brent Friedman
Stars John Terry, Jane Sibbett, Chris Sarandon
Run Time: 1 Hour, 48 Minutes
Trailer:
Get it: https://amzn.to/42XRuqO
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s a detective story, with a bit of mystery, as a private investigator and his sidekicks put things together. We start out seeing the end, then get to see what led to that ending. The movie bogs down a bit in parts, but it’s got a good story, and the conclusion is satisfying.
Spoilery Synopsis
Charles Ward escaped from the asylum, and the doctor isn’t happy about it. There’s an orderly in his room without a head, and it’s a real mess.
At the March Agency, John March, a P.I., dictates his story about Charles Dexter Ward. He flashes back a ways and talks about the city of Providence and the case…
Claire Ward comes to discuss a case. Her husband, Charles, was arrested for hiding some human remains. Since then, he’s been avoiding her. She tells a story about him abandoning a party to work in his laboratory in the carriage house. He had been working with Doctor Ash, who is creepy, but she wanted him to move his lab somewhere else, which he did. Not long after, Charles was arrested for having bodies in his possession. John agrees to check out Charles before he agrees to take the case.
John goes to a gas station and talks to a man cleaning up a dead dog. The gas man is weird and creepy, but John finds his way to the Ward house. He talks to Charles, and he’s evasive, but not excessively so, so John leaves. Later, he reads about “Vandalism at Cemetery” in the paper. His assistant Lonnie calls and reports that the police found eight bodies in Charles’s old lab. All the bodies were from dead occultists, wizards, and magical scholars.
John tells Claire what he’s learned so far, and she explains that he found old family papers and which sparked interest in Joseph Curwen, a reputed magician who lived in an old house in the country. They went to the house and found a painting of Curwen, who looks just like Charles. Right after that, Charles started working late nights in the lab and got weird.
Claire shows John the painting and the carriage house, which has old bloody IV bags and animal blood in the fridge.
Mr. Fenner, the man across the street from Charles’s new place, calls John, but when John arrives, the old man is dead. There’s not much left of the body, and the police think it was a wild animal attack. John has weird dreams that night.
Claire comes by in the morning with a cassette tape from Charles. He says he’s made a terrible mistake, and he’s afraid of her. “Keep away from Dr. Ash. Don’t even talk to him.” The two go out to the farmhouse again, and Charles has changed. He even talks differently now; he sounds British now.
Charles says he’ll show them what he’s been working on in six weeks. He’s very intense about it and uses antiquated language. John suggests that Charles has become convinced that he’s this Curwen character.
John and Lonnie do their detective work and learn a lot about Charles’s assistant Raymond. They can’t find out anything about Dr. Ash.
John goes back to Ward’s place with the police to have him committed briefly, and they arrest Raymond. When they get outside, Charles has a knife to Claire’s throat. John gets cut, but they get Charles into a straitjacket and into the ambulance.
At the mental hospital, the doctor examines Charles, who is still speaking old-time British and looks very sickly. He wants to eat raw, bloody meat. The doctor talks to Claire and John, explaining that Charles has homicidal and cannibalistic urges.
John finds the diary of Ezra Ward from 1771. He came to America and started a shipping business. He lived at the same time as Curwen, who stole Ezra’s girlfriend Eliza. He came to the conclusion that Curwen was practicing witchcraft on corpses. A hundred men stormed Curwen’s house, but Eliza admits that she’s carrying Curwen’s child. That’s the end of the book.
Claire wants to go back to the house and really go through what’s in the basement. They bring explosives, just in case. They find a passageway down under the basement, and it smells terrible. There’s a whole series of tunnels and doors down there, and they look around.
They find Charles’s notes, where Charles bragged that he’s beaten Death itself. The lab is full of interesting things. Including dead animals that aren’t really dead.
Suddenly, the light goes out, and the creatures pull Lonie down into the darkness and eat him. There are weird deformed, slimy, inhuman monsters all over the place, and they’re down to one single match. As they make their way out, John drops little explosives along the way. As they get in the car, he blows up everything.
John takes Claire to the hospital with a concussion and learns that she’s pregnant. John opens Charles’s suitcase and finds a disguise in there that looks like Dr. Ash. And there are human bones in there as well.
John goes to see Charles at the mental hospital. John knows that he’s been taken over by Curwen. The bones in the suitcase are what's left of the real Charles Dexter Ward. Curwen reveals everything. Charles raised Curwen from the dead, who put on a disguise and pretended to be Ash. After doing away with Charles, he’s been eating flesh to continue being immortal. He’s learned things he’s not supposed to know.
Curwen then rips off the straitjacket and kills the orderly, pulling his head off. John throws some of the super chemical on Charles’ bones and brings him back to life as an angry skeleton. The skeleton rips the skin off Curwen, and both disappear. John then arranges things to look like Charles simply escaped, walks out of the hospital, and goes back to his office to tell the story as we saw at the beginning.
Brian’s Commentary
This one is loosely based on H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.” There is a lot of slow meandering through the dungeon in this one, to the point of boredom. Despite the really slow middle, it had a good story, a good mystery, and a very cool conclusion.
For another version of the story, check out 1963’s “The Haunted Palace.”
Kevin’s Commentary
I enjoyed this the most of the Lovecraft movies we’ve seen lately, though it does have some slow points. Overall, it was entertaining with a good script, creepy effects, and a strong cast.
1994 Lurking Fear
Directed by C. Courtney Joyner
Written by H.P. Lovecraft, C. Courtney Joyner
Stars Jon Finch, Blake Adams, Ashley Laurence, Jeffrey Combs
Run Time: 1 Hour, 16 Minutes
Trailer:
Watch it: https://amzn.to/3RRWpEF
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was kind of a mishmash of action, horror, and crime drama. It wasn’t stronger for the mix, it almost seemed like it didn’t know what it wanted to be. We thought it was watchable, but not really great.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on two women and a baby. They have guns, and Cathryn doesn’t approve. We see something with big claws reach through an air vent and try to kidnap the baby. It pulls Cathryn’s sister Leigh through the tiny vent instead, breaking her apart. Credits roll.
We cut to John Martense, who’s just been released from prison. He goes to see Knaggs, a mortician. They both have matching maps of a cemetery where a man is buried. That man is stuffed with money; Martense’s father buried him and Knaggs is the man who stuffed him.
Meanwhile, at the Leffert’s Corners Cemetery, Cathryn’s there burying a bundle of dynamite. “I got a surprise for you tonight!” Later, she helps Dr. Haggis subdue a recovering addict. He helps her load more dynamite onto a truck.
Back at the mortuary, Knaggs meets Mrs. Marlowe, a recent widow. She pulls a gun on him; she works for Bennett, a gangster. They cut open his current customer and fish out bags of drugs. They steal his copy of the map, shoot him, and head after Martense.
Cathryn, Haggis, and her people talk to Father Poole at the church. “These damned things have been living under our feet and tearing us apart for years,” yells Dr. Haggis. The group is gearing up to battle against something really bad tonight.
Martense arrives just after dark and is quickly grabbed by Cathryn. Bennett and his people are right behind him. There’s a quick scuffle as everyone gets to know each other. Bennett says he wants the money, but no one knows what he’s talking about except Martense, who plays dumb. His people disable all the bombs spread around the cemetery.
They all go out into the very well-lit cemetery and start digging as it begins to rain. We cut to a monster under the surface who knows the storm has begun and starts to get excited. The monsters come up through the bottom of a grave and pull Martense down a long shaft into their cave network. He pops back up through the opening in the church floor.
The locals explain the monsters to the mobsters. These creatures have tunnels all over town and eat the townspeople occasionally. Martense is threatened by Pierce, one of the baddies, but then one of the monsters pulls Pierce out the window.
We get some quiet time as Cathryn goes out for a gasoline truck and Haggis keeps guard on the others, needing more booze.
Father Poole calls to the monster and tells him the situation. The monster tears his heart out and then grabs Dr. Haggis.
Bennett gets the drop on Martense, and they go back outside to dig some more. Marlowe and Cathryn fight in the rain outside, which soon turns into a mud-wrestling match, at least until things start exploding.
The monsters grab Cathryn and pull her down underground where Martense and Barrett are. The creatures see Martense’s birthmark; he’s one of them. Martense lights up a dismembered arm as a torch and leads the good guys out of the caves. Barnnett gets the money he came for, but it’s not going to do him much good.
The gas truck explodes, which ignites everything, blowing up the church, the crypts and many of the buildings in town. Martense, Cathryn, and Beth walk out of the cemetery in the morning.
Brian’s Commentary
This is based on the H.P. Lovecraft story of the same name.
The creature effects are good, there’s lots of action, but this one just didn’t do it for me. It’s like they were aiming more for an action-vibe than a horror movie, and didn’t quite achieve either.
Kevin’s Commentary
The creature effects are decent, but they kind of lost me when one of them started to speak, and it sounded like the Cookie Monster. It’s hard to be scared when you’re snickering. And the action attempts took too much away from the horror. I thought it was just okay, though I liked it more than I disliked it.
1995 Castle Freak
Directed by Stuart Gordon
Written by Stuart Gordon, H.P. Lovecraft, Dennis Paoli
Stars Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Jonathan Fuller
Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes
Trailer:
Buy it: https://amzn.to/3EWGAcT
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s loosely based on a Lovecraft short story, different enough to be interesting. The cast does a nice job with it, and the setting is great in a real castle. It’s decently made and moves well, with oodles of practical gore effects. We’d call it quite good.
Spoilery Synopsis
An old woman cuts up her unappetizing food. She then crosses the courtyard to the big castle and walks down to the dungeon. She opens the cell door and whips the screaming creature inside. After, she slides the plate of food inside and walks away. The whipping took a lot out of her, and she staggers back to the house, where she dies from an apparent heart attack. Credits roll.
John Reilly, Susan, and Rebecca drive to the castle the family just inherited. It’s seven hundred years old and has the rats to prove it. Mr. Giannetti is the local man who shows them around; he will be in charge of liquidating the assets and selling the place. Agnese is the housekeeper, and she seems eager for them to sell and go away.
John and Susan are having some marital issues. Rebecca, the daughter, is blind and can hear them arguing. We get a flashback to a drunken John causing a traffic accident that blinded Rebecca and killed their son, JJ. Susan hasn’t forgiven him for it.
That night, John wakes up to hear wailing from the basement and thinks it might be JJ. He finds a huge wine cellar, and he cuts his hand on a broken bottle. Agnese talks about the Duchess’s son, Georgio, who died when he was five years old. The Duchess fired all the servants and didn’t leave the castle for the next 42 years. Everyone says the old Duchess was crazy, and they say that even today, you can hear Giorgio crying at night.
In the morning, John and Rebecca go through the rooms to do an inventory. They find a nursery. He also finds a big bloody whip under the bed. Rebecca finds the Duchess’s old cat and follows it downstairs to the cell where the creature lives. The creature eats the cat, but being blind, she doesn’t see anything. She thinks there’s someone else in the castle, but her parents don’t believe her.
Meanwhile, downstairs, the creature breaks free. It smashes a mirror, and everyone hears that. That night, the creature comes into Rebecca’s bedroom and gives her a good scare. John finally starts to search and soon finds the dungeon where the creature had been locked up. He also finds some tombs with a photo of little Giorgio, who looks just like his dead JJ.
John tells Susan about the photo, but it’s gone when he shows her. This results in an argument about him killing their son. Soon after, John starts drinking again. He goes to the bar in town and brings a hooker home with him to raid their wine cellar. The creature watches as they make out, and he likes it. As the prostitute tries to find her way out, the creature follows her and has his way with her as well.
In the morning, the policeman comes to the door, looking for the girl, who was last seen with John. Meanwhile, the girl awakens, chained up in the dungeon with the creature. She tries to flirt with him, but he doesn’t have a tongue or penis.
John talks to the lawyer, Giannetti, who gets a call from Agnese; she’s found the hooker’s handbag. It doesn’t look good for John. Giannetti wants to raise his fee in order to make it all go away. Giannett explains that John’s father and the Duchess got together back in the day; if Giorgio had lived, they would be brothers.
Back at the castle, Agnese finds the missing Sylvana, dead, half alive and partly chewed up. The monster then beats the old housekeeper to death.
After hearing about John and the hooker, Susan packs the car to leave town. They are stopped by the police on the way out; they aren’t allowed to leave. By the time they all track down John, he’s opened up Giorgio’s tomb and found it empty. John has it all figured out, but by this point, no one believes him. Suddenly, they find the two women’s bodies in the next room, and that goes really badly for John. The policeman was dating the hooker and the lawyer was the housekeeper’s sister.
They take John away and leave to officers to watch Susan and the castle overnight. One of the policemen soon dies, and then so does the other a few minutes later. Giorgio sneaks in and helps Rebecca undress, and then he grabs her and carries her off. Susan grabs a knife and follows them.
In town, John knocks out the cop and breaks loose.
The creature, Giorgio, soon figures out that Rebecca can’t see him and takes off his mask; he is a mess. He starts biting her just as Susan comes in. “Take me!” she shouts as she starts to undress. The creature goes for her now, and she stabs him in the back. The two women run upstairs as Giorgio screams and chases them with the whip.
They all make it up to the roof, in the rain, as John catches up with all of them. He gets up on the loose tiles and lures Giorgio to follow him. They fight, but John doesn’t finish him off. Giorgio goes berserk with his chain and John is out. No- John grabs the chain, connects it to his own wrist then jumps off the roof, killing them both.
Brian’s Commentary
This one is loosely based on the H.P. Lovecraft story “The Outsider.” Very loosely based.
The creature effects are very good, the plot moves along pretty quickly, although it’s nothing especially innovative. It’s a fine example of mid-90’s Full Moon Horror.
Kevin’s Commentary
I was kind of surprised how much I enjoyed this one. Though I should have known that with Jeffrey Combs in it, it would be good. It’s a fine specimen of 90s horror, with gore and effects better than I expected. I’d recommend giving this one a watch if you haven’t seen it.
1993 Necronomicon: Book of the Dead
Directed by Christophe Gans, Shusuke Kaneko, Brian Yuzna
Written by Brent Friedman, Christophe Gans, Kazunori Ito
Stars Jeffrey Combs, Tony Azito, Juan Fernandez
Run Time: 1 Hour, 36 Minutes
Trailer:
Get it: https://amzn.to/3Z3rLMl
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was quite a good anthology of three tales with a number of recognizable faces, so the acting is consistently good throughout. The writing and effects are decent. None of the three or the wraparound are directly H.P. Lovecraft stories, it’s more a story of him discovering these events in the real world and then adapting them later to his tales. We enjoyed it.
Spoilery Synopsis
Wraparound Story: The Library
We hear H.P. Lovecraft talking about a time when he found out about the Necronomicon, and he needed it for his writings. It was supposed to hold the secrets of the universe. He talks to a creepy librarian and steals his keys. An attendant watches Howard sneak downstairs and unlock the vault using the stolen keys. The vault is surprisingly cooperative, and he finds the book quickly.
As he reads the book, something opens in the back of the vault… Yes, it’s an anthology!
Part 1; The Drowned
Nancy talks to Edward, who has inherited this old hotel. As they wander around, we see there’s a huge sub-basement in the place. She recommends that he sell the place, as it’s all going to collapse someday soon. They admire a painting of Emma, Edward’s aunt. Her husband, Jethro, died just a few days later, probably of suicide diving off the balcony. We flash back to Edward and Clara driving. There was a crash, and she died.
Old Jethro left a letter for Edward from sixty years ago. He tells his story. Their ship crashed into rocks, and he was the only survivor. When Jethro wakes up, his wife and child are on display downstairs for the funeral. He burns the Bible and throws all the mourners out. He also banishes… God.
That night, a seaweed-covered stranger comes to visit. It’s some kind of fish-man who says, “You are not alone.” The fish-man leaves quickly, but leaves a book behind– it’s the Necronomicon. It tells him a “Remedy for Untimely Death.”
Jethro does the spell from the book, and it works. Emma and Jon wake up, but their eyes glow evilly. Their mouths sprout tentacles; they are monsters. They watch as Jethro jumps to his death.
Back in the present, Edward uncovers the pentagram that Jethro once used. That night, as he sleeps, we see green light and tentacles from the pit below the house. Edward wants the book so he can bring back Clara. It takes a while, but he finds it. Edward reads from the book, and we soon see Clara walking up the steps to his room.
Edward tells Clara that the accident was his fault and that he’s sorry. When the tentacles start to sprout, she seems surprised. He attacks her with a sword, and she goes back down into the basement, where Edward gets a hint of what’s down there.
The giant tentacle monster below breaks through the floor, it seems that “Clara” was really only part of the monster. Edward cuts the rope to the chandelier, which impales the thing right through its eye as he escapes out the skylight dome.
Back in the library, Howard notices that there’s something odd under the floor of the library’s vault. Outside, the librarian and the attendant wonder if Howard is brainless enough to read the book. “Of course. He’s human.”
Part 2: Cold Air
Dale, a reporter, comes to see Emily, who is allergic to heat and sunlight. The house is like a freezer. The house is supposedly owned by Dr. Richard Madden, who’s super old, but there’s no record of his death. He thinks Madden is dead and Emily had something to do with that. And he’s suspicious about the number of local deaths there have been.
Emily tells the story. Twenty-two years ago, her mother rented a room in this building. Lena lived there alone and rented the room to her mother. There was also a mysterious tennant on the third floor, Dr. Madden.
Her stepfather, Sam, tracks her down, and he’s abusive. She fights back, and there’s lots of screaming as she crawls upstairs. Dr. Madden comes out of his room and stabs Sam in the hand. Madden takes her into his apartment and explains that he’s got a disease that requires an unreasonably cold environment. He sends her downstairs but invites her to come back again. When she leaves, we see that his forehead is leaking orange goo. Lena starts giving her “vitamin” pills that are sketchy at best.
Emily then goes upstairs and sees Lena and Madden disposing of Sam’s body; she faints. In the morning, she thinks she dreamed that. Madden accidentally cuts himself, and his blood is orange. Emily gets a job at the diner across the street, and the owner says old Dr. Madden must be nearly a hundred by now. Two policemen in the diner have “Missing” posters for Sam.
Emily confronts Madden; he follows her downstairs, where it’s warm, and he doesn’t react well. After getting patched up, Madden explains the science behind his life. It requires him to live at a reduced temperature, but he has cheated death. He really is over a hundred years old. He demonstrates by bringing a rose back to life.
Emily and the doctor fall in love and have sex, which annoys Lena. Lena’s jealous and pulls a knife. Emily runs away.
She comes back and finds a man in Madden’s freeze chamber; Madden and Lena are trying to kill him. Another price of Madden’s extended life is that he has to regularly harvest spinal fluid from people. They struggle, and a fire starts. Madden’s face looks terrible after that; he starts to melt and rip flesh off. He literally falls to pieces. Lena comes in and shoots Emily in retaliation. Emily tells Lena that she’s pregnant with Madden’s baby.
Back in the present, Dale wants to know why there were three more bodies even after Madden’s death. He suspects that Emily and her mother are the same person. She admits it, but then she mentions that the tea he’s been drinking is drugged. She got the disease from Madden and didn’t survive the gunshot, but she’s still got eternal life. And she’s still got that baby inside her that she wants out someday. Lena is still there, still a minion, but Emily’s now…
Lovecraft notices the temperature in the library is going up. The librarian watches through a peephole to see what’s transpiring inside.
Part 3: Whispers
Two cops pursue a suspect in their car. Sarah and Paul argue as they drive; she’s afraid to be a mother. Their patrol car flips over, and Sarah watches as someone drags Paul’s body out of the wreckage. She follows the blood trail into an industrial-looking building.
Paul’s not dead, but when he sees who’s dragging him along, he screams. Sarah runs into Mr. Benedict, who says “I’ve never seen him grab a cop before. The man you’re looking for is called The Butcher.” He says the building has a bad habit of just swallowing things up. They run into Benedict’s wife on the way downstairs.
Sarah follows the couple, who show her to their apartment, which has the Necronomicon on a table. They’re very strange and warn her against the Butcher. They mention that the Butcher is an alien, who’s been down here since before the dinosaurs. They show her to the entrance of a cave system under the building
Sarah and Mr. Benedict wander through the tunnels, and it does all look very ancient. The old couple sets Sarah on fire and pushes her into a pit, where she soon finds a whole pile of skeletons and corpses… and Paul, who is being animated by The Butcher, a big worm-thing.
Turns out, there are many of the creatures down here, and they want her baby. No, wait– Sarah wakes up in a hospital room with the Benedicts, who are now doctors. Did she hallucinate all that? Mrs. Benedict is actually Sarah’s mother, and she wants Sarah to keep the baby. Things get weird, and we see that the earlier bits weren’t a dream after all.
Back in the library, Howard closes the book. The librarian tells him everything is going to be fine so long as he opens the door. The book glows red, and the librarian screams for him to put the book back. The librarian squeezes through the bars as Howard fights with the creature under the floor. “Consider your privileges revoked, Mr. Lovecraft.”
The monster bites the librarian’s head off and everything resets. Lovecraft goes outside and drives away in a cab. He’s got the book, and he has stories to write.
Brian’s Commentary
H.P. Lovecraft looks like Jeffery Combs with a prosthetic nose and chin.
Jeffrey Combs, Richard Lynch, David Warner, and Don Calfa– it’s got a great cast of 90s horror people, and they all do a great job here.
All the stories are good, but I thought the third one dragged on a bit too long while the second was a little too short. Overall, a worthy viewing.
Kevin’s Commentary
Who knew that H.P. Lovecraft wrote his stories from real-world inspirations. The quality was pretty consistent throughout, though I think I enjoyed the second tale the most. The heavily practical effects worked well, and I enjoyed the viewing. I’d never even heard of this one before. It’s worth checking out.
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