Another attempt at the H.P.Lovecraft classic. Stuart Gordon of course made the definitive HPL movie versions of Re-Animator, From Beyond and Dagon. You may know that Stuart also had a go at making this story, Dreams in the Witch House, for that Masters of Horror series on HBO in the early 2000s(?). That version is ok, but doesn’t even come close to rising to the heights of his other HPL movies, mostly because I don’t really like the guy who plays the lead, same lead guy as in Dagon. He’s just not a good fit for HPL movies. Dagon is good in spite of him, not because of him. Stuart Gordon’s Dreams in the Witch House would have been a hell of a lot better if somebody other than him played his part.
Anyways, this one. Two minutes in and I can tell it’s gonna be amateur hour the whole way. Cinematography is garbage. Acting is lacking. Do they not know that there’s more to lighting than just turning on the lights in somebody’s apartment? And what were they shooting, about 10000 ISO? I know that’s technical jargon that not everybody will know. But you know that sorta grainy look that vhs videos from the 80s have? Not the film look, but I mean like the tv news broadcasts from the old days? Shooting high ISO is sorta like that, and it’s unpleasant, and it’s the hallmark of beginners. Or at least crappy cameras and lenses, which pros know to not use.
Present day. A young woman skips town, escaping an abusive relationship. She finds a room for rent, actually the attic in a large house. She actually feels right at home there. She’s fascinated by the geometry of the attic. Pokes around, finds some blueprints. Also finds some religious looking parchment thing with a bunch of symbols on it, occult-y black magic type stuff.
It takes a while for anything to happen, but she starts having nightmares. The demon rape scene is actually pretty good, which is surprising considering how amateur everything else is.
And then it goes on and on. Nothing about it is particularly scary. None of it makes much sense.
I don’t want to rain on anybody’s parade. I know everybody has to start somewhere. I want every single aspiring filmmaker to gather their resources, gather some equipment, gather all their aspiring actor friends, find some time and make a movie, so that everybody can lose the ‘aspiring’ tag. That’s obviously what they did here, and that’s 100% kick ass. Problem is, nobody watching your film cares if it’s your first film or your one hundredth or one thousandth. Whatever it is, it had better be good. And good this one is not.
Hopefully this crew had some fun making this one, and learned a bunch of stuff in the process to apply to their next project.
B-movie Roundup 