Go, Yog-Sothoth, Go!!

Someday, H.P. Lovecraft might get a big-budget adaptation, but until then, it’s B-movies all the way (and the more-or-less amateur short films that have been done). This is as “B” as you can get, and I actually admire it for not trying to be more than that. Unfortunately, except for some interesting ideas buried in the narrative and some good effects late in the film, there’s not much here worth recommending. The 1970 film of the same title was mostly just inspired by the Lovecraft story; this version sticks a bit more closely to the original tale about the awful Whateley family and their blasphemous breeding of human woman and the demonic monster Yog-Sothoth in an attempt at opening up a portal for the horrific Old Ones to return to Earth. The original film made Wilbur Whateley (Dean Stockwell), human twin of the monster spawn, into a nerdy romantic anti-hero who tries to lose his virginity to Tuesday Weld. In this film, Wilbur, played by Re-Animator’s Jeffrey Combs, is a drooling backwoods idiot (supposedly a 10-year-old who has aged 40 years physically) looking for a missing page in the evil book The Necronomicon which will allow him to finish the rite of re-entry.

What’s been added here is a genuine romantic couple, played by Griff Furst (at right) and Sarah Lieving, who are helping a Miskatonic University professor (played by Stockwell) find the missing page before Combs does. There’s lots of Lovecraft name-dropping; in addition to Miskatonic University and the Necronomicon, we meet Alhazred the Mad Arab, the author of that evil book, and Olaus Wormius, a decadent Necronomicon scholar. The decent opening sequence is right out of The Exorcist, there are nice effects in the climactic scene involving Yog-Sothoth’s appearance, and an effective brief shot of an ancient Lovecraftian landscape. Furst, who sometimes looks like Peter Sarsgaard or the early Mickey Rourke, is good, but the rest of the cast is mediocre, including Stockwell who practically sleepwalks through his part. Very bad dialogue doesn’t help anyone, and why they felt the need to transport Lovecraft’s New England towns to the Bayou is beyond me--the change adds nothing interesting. Not worth going our of your way for, but if it pops up on the Sci-Fi Channel and you have some popcorn in front of you, it’ll do.