All roads lead to an abandoned house and a city of voids. Run, baby, you know they're waiting for you. Memory-eaten thresholds remember your life, even if you have been running away from yourself for many years. The house is still waiting.
Mr. Band knew the best years when auxiliary substances ruled the ball, and he did not feel constrained in the creative process. So I could film whatever my soul wanted. That is why the head of Full Moon produced and released a film adaptation of Howard Lovecraft. The latter, like Stephen King, needs a lot of shoveling before you can capture the spirit of the atmosphere of the work with subsequent adaptation. But Band wouldn’t be a Band if he didn’t turn a story full of mysticism into something convenient and tailored for his beloved, but specifically taking into account commercial preferences and personal cunning chips.
Lovecraft was furiously adapted to criminal thrash, where the protagonist is a pretty young man who is pursued by grotesque villains typical of Charles' films, with the obligatory thug and sexy blonde. What's at home? In the region of the native guy is waiting for a landing of B-class stars led by a drunk and talented Jeffrey Combs, and an extremely unexpected Schiavally. And then there's the sunset county town, an old enclave filled with secrets. Where the only busy place is the funeral home. And the rest of the world seems to exist, there is a wasteland and turmoil around, which is probably why Combs drinks, and there is a secret more terrible than criminal showdowns. Oda, the cemetery lives its own life, and before solving its problem, the new receiver will need to admit a frightening secret.
Collaborations of Lovecraft’s plot moves and influences familiar to the Full Moon world, which alas are few, give a plus, because minus is minus. It can be considered purely as an easy crime with a participant and high-quality, and they are quality, monsters, suddenly not even puppets. Plus a fiercely delivering grotesque and dialogue in the very translation that refers to nostalgia for fact. There are kakbe monsters and kakbe crime, but Lovecraft doesn't smell like it. In principle, you don’t need a full moon to stand on the contradictions. Kakbe atmosphere is, but it is different, it is terrible but with the taste of the video salon, which means that lovers and lost will have to taste.
- It's gonna be just fine. - No, it won't. You keep telling me it's going to be okay, and then you give me one of my dad's "toys" from Vietnam and tell me to just push the spa.
Howard F. Lovecraft. A man who was still alive has earned himself a reputation for being eccentric, if not insane. But as soon as he died, he was immediately recognized as a genius, and the works that he wrote almost masterpieces of world literature. I would not say that I share the general hype around his person, but I cannot but agree that Lovecraft was a genius of madmen and his madness was contagious, in a good way, if at all possible. After all, people who have not read the works of this author, and most of them, are always happy to answer Cthulhu’s question “vhtagn”. Although this is usually limited to the knowledge of the average individual and what is famous for Nyarlatotep and the King in yellow they no longer know. Maybe for the best. Today we will talk about the little-known novel of this ambiguous writer, as well as about people who decided to challenge the ancient evil. So, this is "Hidden Horror."
The main character of the film John Martin is a criminal. When he gets out of prison, he tries to find a place to live. Immediately on the stage appears a family friend who says that there is an old cemetery, where buried the corpse of some criminal tycoon along with all the capital. Apparently, the deceased adhered to the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, but I was distracted. So John, without feeling the trick, goes to the old cemetery, where he finds dynamite stretch marks on the graves and a bunch of people who resemble patients in a madhouse. Rigid patients, for nothing that they have guns. But a bunch of crazy people is not the biggest problem because Morlocks live under the cemetery, hunting for human meat, and so that life does not seem like honey at all, an armed gang approaches the cemetery whose leader hopes that John will help him get rich.
A mess, isn't it? And given such a short duration, you expect that something will always happen in the picture. Five minutes wait, ten, half an hour and only towards the end of the picture begins to occur at least some action. And the blame for this lies entirely on the screenwriter, and part-time and the director of the picture, who decided not to reinvent the wheel, but to shift the story of old Lovecraut as it is. But the director did not take into account the fact that in the story a good part of the atmosphere was created by the thoughts and feelings of the characters, and there is nothing like this. Heroes go from side to side, occasionally pointing weapons at each other and throwing mutual accusations, and from time to time Morlocks appear to kill the hero who ceased to be important to the plot. In general, the longing is green.
As for the actors, in general, the guys play either below average or do not play at all. But it was that the actors had good chances to pull this film out of the cloaca where the director drove it. But they did not, alas, do so. Not paid enough? Sounds like it.
The musical accompaniment is puzzling at all, because oppressive motifs play only at the very beginning and at the very end of the picture, while most of the film takes place in complete silence. What were you thinking?
To sum up, this is perhaps the worst adaptation of Lovecraft’s novel I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen more than enough. There is no intrigue, acting and musical accompaniment. Operator’s work is quite average, but the installer’s hands would have to be cut off altogether and stuck in the causal place, because the frames were glued together as necessary. The story is not worth a good word at all. Therefore, I strongly recommend avoiding this movie even the most loyal fans of Lovecraft, because there is absolutely nothing to catch.
3 out of 10
This film is an adaptation of the classic Howard Phillips Lovecraft from the story of the same name. At the same time, as is quite clear, there is almost no trace of the original - there are an extreme number of liberties. By the way, the story was transferred to the screen a total of three times, and the most famous will be “Hemoglobin” (“Bleeders”), perhaps, and more successful than the one considered today.
The whole point is in the inability of the director-screenwriter to build the right pace of storytelling, where most of the timekeeping is abstracted, firstly, from horror, and secondly, significantly sags from inaction. Of course, if the movie has a fascinating base of dialogue, psychology, intricate plot device, then a quick rhythm is not necessary, but when, as now, the film demonstrates a straightforward plot, then it just needs a rich action. The production itself comes from the fact that under one small town there is a whole network of underground catacombs, passages, and inhabited crypts, where a terrible tribe of monsters lives, feeding on captured residents. However, these creatures keep bags full of money, so a group of people who want to blow up the abode of terror are confronted by visiting bandits. There is also another guest - a young man who has just been released from prison, having views of the treasure.
From this it turns out at first quite exciting groundwork, not yet setting up for disappointment. The scene is excellent: a rainy dead night, a sinister old church surrounded by tombstones, under which hide the underground burrows of pale monsters with bulging eyes, trying to break into the locked people. Different characters are divided into groups that either dream to undermine hung dynamite checkers and save the city from the curse of creatures, or to get hidden money, preventing the former. To this it is worth adding a special entourage from the glow of the moon, fog under the feet, shabby church walls, fluttering lights of candles, dusty icons, hung crosses, constant camera shooting from bottom to top through a gap in the floor, as if from there the eyes of a monster ready to attack at any moment are observed.
Only, it seems that the director did not understand what he should do with the above: absolutely up to the last ten minutes (!) before the viewer of the conversation-threat bandits with their hostages, and the frequent transition of the management of the situation from one to another. Consequently, there are no confrontations between people and monsters, and only at the end the plot gains momentum in the direction of horror, when the action is transferred to the underworld with no less terrible creatures.
From the above it turns out that after a small prologue, the core of the picture resembles an unpretentious criminal action movie, flavored with the expected clichés of the characters, their characters, and interactions, namely the climax provides a horror film. As for small horror strokes in the form of intelligible camera work in places to create an intimidating atmosphere through decent scenery, you need to put in a positive word for the makeup of monsters, whose image turned out to be full. However, it is a pity that on the screen they are extremely small, as well as the frightening bloodthirsty effect.
As a result, the film adaptation came out original-detached from the original, with a good entourage, but skillfully not playing it, significantly sagging in the plot. It is still possible to recommend a viewing, but with a knowing knowledge of directorial failures, because for fans of horror, the work has an additional “plus” – it is an actor’s participation in the main roles of recognizable characters of the genre, like Jeffrey Combs and Ashley Lawrence. They largely serve as an attractive segment, in principle, protracted inexpressive story, often forgetting the well-trodden literary field of the original, woven directly out of horror.
6 out of 10
“I think first of all it’s fucking important to get out of here.”
The film from the company Full Moon (as far as I know, also with a large budget of as much as $ 1 million for its creations), based on the story of the same name by H. F. Lovecraft “The Hidden Horror” (Lurking Fear, 1922). It was originally planned to be directed by Stewart Gordon for Charles Band's Empire Pictures. But S. Courtney Joyner (known to me as a co-writer for R. Harlin’s Prison and Mark L. Lester’s Class 1999) was appointed as director and screenwriter. This film is the second adaptation of this story out of three currently available. The first little-known and hard-to-reach “Dark Heritage” (Dark Heritage, 1989), and the third on the contrary, the most famous of the three “Hemoglobin” (Bleeders, 1997) was actually him and I watched first.
From a positive note the participation of such pleasant to the eye of the horror man, people like Ashley Lawrence (" The Rebel from Hell) and Jeffrey Combs, famous for his roles in the film adaptations of Lovecraft and almost never get out of the image of the “scientist / doctor” (" Reanimator, “Outside”). Also of more or less famous actors can be mentioned Vincent Schiavelli, with such a bright, quickly memorable appearance (" Curse over the Cuckoo's Nest, "Amadeus") - he only employees of the funeral home and play. And I also want to highlight Allison Mackie, who, unfortunately, has not been particularly lit up anywhere else, well, in horror so exactly, but the image she has here turned out to be very attractive, a kind of sexy gangster.
In addition to the cast, the main culprits of the celebration were also liked - cannibal mutants (or zombie-like creatures, whoever you like). Outwardly, I was reminded of a favorite character from the first Hellboy, Karl Ruprecht Kronen, when he showed his face without a mask. Bulging white eyes without pupils and eyelids above them and teeth protruding from under the deformed upper lip, but the lower one is not at all. It looks pretty sinister. However, it is worth clarifying that although these eccentrics will be several, only one looked good, the rest somehow remained in his shadow. In fact, this is all that I knew before seeing this creation and because of what I saw it.
The plot turned out to be a mixture of a monster-movie (the survivors, residents of a small town fight with creatures that live underground) and a criminal action movie (gangsters are looking for a round sum of money hidden in a corpse buried in a cemetery). According to the description, it is already clear that the time of action, as in the vast majority of Lovecraft films, is postponed much later than what is described in the story (roughly speaking, in our time), and again it is clear that the film has little in common with the original source. Although the selected locations (a shattered church near an abandoned cemetery, shrouded in fog) tried very well to show the sinister atmosphere, but the creators did not particularly use it. There are very few horrors as such. Monsters are rarely shown and do not frequent their attacks. If we talk about the murders, they are thin-blooded, perhaps only one scene with the tearing of the heart looks at least somehow spectacular, otherwise everything faded.
And although I understand perfectly well that for Lovecraft, the lack of blood can not be considered a minus, but here for some reason I would like more of it. Perhaps because it would help smooth the impression of passing moments, filled with chatter, which did not help the development of the plot. Here I consider this, if you do not want to bother with the plot - show spectacular murders, that is, take the visual side, or else then be kind enough to present an interesting story, for the enthusiasm of which I as a lover of "meat" in its complete absence, he would not remember. There's neither here. A small timekeeping (76 min.) would seem to suggest that all the actions will fly quickly, but in fact it turns out that the film is sometimes delayed, and when it comes to its completion, it seems to abruptly stop. When you want to say, “Is that all?”
In general, such a feature in the adaptations of Lovecraft, they are all (well, almost all) very far from the original source and are completely clogged with “scarlet” and it would seem possible for everyone to safely put the lowest ratings, but there is a strange thing – as individual works they look very good. The same “Reanimator” is considered almost a cult low-budget, although it does not convey the branded Lovecraft atmosphere, but is a bloody horror film, which the writer simply could not be. Perhaps someone who looks for the spirit of Lovecraft in these films can immediately pass by and not bother, because he will be frankly disappointed. But those who like horror in general, including the banal and crazy thrash, and not only its classic “restrained” style, can easily take a risk and get acquainted, while not paying attention to the postscript “taken from the story...” This is me, generalized about acquaintance with the film adaptations of Lovecraft.
Well, about this particular film, summing up, I will say that it is quite possible to watch it, both lovers of Lovecraft (while again knowing how the film adaptations are far from his creations) and lovers of old horrors. Despite the fact that the film was released in the mid-90s, in spirit it is closer to the horror of the 80s. On the one hand, it seems to be nothing special, but I can’t call this movie, an outright rubbish that can make you angry either. The main thing is not to expect much. Let's just say average lousy. It's pretty good, but no more.