This is definitely a different take on the Lovecraft story than the 1970 version with Dean Stockwell. But holy Shitsnacks, this one stars...Dean Stockwell too! Fortunately, in a much less creepier and quite different role. The Wilbur Whateley character is actually covered by Lovecraft Film Stalwart….Jeffrey Combs! Hooly shitsnacks x 2! Unfortunately, neither Brian Yuzna nor Stuart Gordon are involved so it does lack some gravitas they’ve brought to this very particular genre in the past.
We start out with a birthing. Yay! Something goes wrong. Boo! Then, totally unrelated, we find Dr. Armitage 10 years later (played by Dean Stockwell), called into an exorcism kinda situation. His assistant Professor Chick helps his old ass get shit taken care of. But is does signal something more significant is going down. Totally like Keanu’s Constantine, but on a much much smaller budget. Then it curves hard into the Lovecraft side of the mythos and we see the investigators investigate the shit outta that damn Necronomicon and missing page #751. I bet Sam Neil ate it so they could make a sequel to In the Mouth of Madness! But now I’m just fan-fictioning so will shut the fuck up.
I dunno, overall it is okay enough modern telling of the story, with their little extra subplots worked in to pad the story enough to make it movie length. Given the built-in breaks, this was totally edited as a made-for-tv endeavor. Some of the actors weren’t the best (Momma Whately, I’m lookin at you), and, well, the special effects can be a bit of an eye-roller. It’s hard to do a movie like this without all the exposition, and some scenes were handled...better than others. At least Combs brought the goods as the lurking weirdo Whateley, and Stockwell didn’t totally phone it in. The lead chick and the other Nerd they bring along on the adventure are adequate. For being basically a PG-13 made-for-tv version of the story, I guess it doesn’t completely suck. But it can be a bit of a rough watch, given that framing.
