By Brian M. Sammons
In Search of Lovecraft. Director: David J. Hohl. Stars: Renee Sweet, Denise Amrikhas, Tytus Bergstrom.
If you do not have Netflix, then I pity you. Not only have the little red envelopes all but killed video stores (at least, here in the U.S.), but they have quite a few great old movies in the vaults that you would never find at your local Blockbuster. Case in point: I just had them send me the awesomely bad, and totally 80s-tastic, The Stuff, and that killer yogurt movie had lost none of its cheesy goodness. Hmm, formless alien evil bubbling up out of the earth and corrupting everything it touches? You know, I never thought of the Lovecraftian implications of that movie, but I’m here to tell you about a different film and I digress. Another aspect of the mighty Netflix that I love is the ability to stream movies. While their selection of flicks available for streaming is still kind of limited, you can sometimes stumble upon some truly weird films you would otherwise never see or even hear of. A prime example of that is this movie that I happened upon quite by chance. While the naked chick on the cover is what first caught my eye (Hey, marketing guys, kudos on that), it was the title, In Search of Lovecraft, that had me saying, “What the hell?”
I am a huge horrorhead. I live and breathe the spooky stuff in all its forms. To whittle that down to a finer point, I am also a cyclopean fan of H. P. Lovecraft. Yet, with that said, I had never, ever heard of this movie. While that’s not inconceivable in the realm of low-budget, independent films, it is exceptionally rare. So, with no idea on what to expect, I clicked on this film and let fly. The good thing about watching movies like that is that it’s hard to be disappointed and you can often be pleasantly surprised.
Like all good investigations into the unknown, let’s start with the backstory. This flick begins with a young local reporter, named ‘Rebecca Marsh’ (wink, wink), shooting a puff piece on Halloween. While there, she hears about of our favourite author, H. P. Lovecraft, and decides to run with the story. In doing so, she learns of Nyarlathotep and all sorts of mythology about the lovable Crawling Chaos. She soon runs afoul of Nyarlathotep’s very-much-alive-and-well cult, culminating in a showdown that will decide the fate of the entire world. Rebecca is aided in her quest by a ditzy high school intern, a war vet cameraman, a professor of mythology who believes that Lovecraft wrote about real things, and later, a sexy witch even joins the party.
Now, if you ever played the Role Playing Game, Call of Cthulhu, then you might be thinking that the above synopsis kind of sounds like one of those adventures. Not a particularly good or original one, but it does have all the hallmarks. For me, as a fan of the CoC game for many years, that was one of the things I liked best about this movie. I could almost hear the dice rolling as I watched the film and that put a smile on my face. I have seen RPG-ers run Lovecraftian scenarios like this for eager players hundreds of times. Things are a bit awkward, certain liberties are taken with the source material, some of the players (or, in this case, actors) overplay their parts, and the story rambles and loses focus from time to time. The story is doled out a tiny piece at a time, the investigative team learns a few things and researches more, and strangers in robes pop up every so often, as does the occasional unseen monster for a quick boo scare. The whole thing struck me as more Call of Cthulhu 101 than any of the Lovecraft stories that inspired that game. But you know what else? Everything is done with the best of intentions and everyone has a lot of fun.
Hand-in-tentacle with the above are the obvious love and knowledge writer/director David J. Hohl has for and about HPL and his mythos. While the plot is poorly-paced, with large chunks of padding used to fill up runtime, the acting is amateurish for the most part, and the special effects are laughable instead of frightening, Mr. Hohl seems to know his Lovecraft lore pretty well. Names are not only dropped aplenty, but used correctly. If you are new to the world that HPL made – then I’ve got to wonder why you are here – this movie will act as a pretty good primer. Just seeing Lovecraft’s works cited correctly, instead of being bastardized as they so often are, was enough for me to cut the movie some slack on the missteps and boo-boos that could be chalked up to a new filmmaker learning as he went, and doing the best he could with the budget and talent he had to work with.
There is a lot of good to be had in this little movie. The Haunter of the Dark (admittedly, a very-bad-looking CGI effect); the Shining Trapezohedron; the Black Man (admittedly, a bald man in black greasepaint with bad-CGI glowing eyes); diabolical tomes and texts; old-timey investigations by lamplight; people going crazy after learning too much; black magic; and evil cults are just some of the Lovecraftian touches to be found here. Sure the movie does some silly things. Early on in the investigation, before becoming personally invested, Rebecca and her Scooby Gang find a guy they had just talked to the day before, blown apart all over his kitchen by evil magic, and yet, continue with their meddling without so much as a “Hey, wasn’t that weird?” There were a few more moments like that, that had me going “Ooookaaayyy,” but if you don’t mind watching a film with an advanced stage of low-budget-itis, that occasionally stubs its toe on logic, then you might get some grins and giggles out of In Search Of Lovecraft. I know I did.
Final Verdict: While not a great film, its heart is in the right place and it is exceptionally Lovecraftian. Like a deformed Deep-One hybrid baby, at times, it may be hard to look at, but it just wants some love and it has so much to give. If you want to check out In Search of Lovecraft for yourself, then I’ve got some good news for you: you can catch it right now, streaming on Netflix. The bad news is that you have to have Netflix to see it because the movie has yet to come out on DVD and as far as I know, it’s not playing in any theater or on cable. So, this movie is yet one more reason to join the growing Cult of Netflix.
In Search of Lovecraft is available from Amazon.com