Based on H.P. Lovecraft’s story “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,” I think this is one of the better quality adaptations out there. Kinda crazy this even got made? Dan O’Bannon had some cred after writing the script for Ridley Scott’s Alien and Verhoeven’s PKD classic Total Recall, plus his first directorial effort in The Return of the Living Dead, so despite having no real big name actors attached, was still able to get this made somehow as his second Directed feature. Straight to video? Shame. I can see it a hard sell for theater distro, but for late night HBO and VHS rentals of the time, yeah, great flick.
Gotta say, the opening here is just stellar. Insane Asylum, Escape, Pow! Blood EVERYWHERE. Fuck yeah. Then the ole Step-back mechanism, to 3 days prior. Usually I find that kind of annoying and a cheat, but here I think it’s to their benefit to know the pay-off that’s coming. Private Investigator (of course), hot dame (of course), Dead Bodies (of co...wait, fuckthewhatnow?!?). P.I. John March has a nice little office set up, good employees. This new case though? This Charles Dexter Ward guy is totally suspect. SUSPECT, I say!
Nice to see a ‘modern’ adaptation to the story here that does the origins justice. Looks great, actors are good, script is decent. Except maybe for the lack of extra flashlights. Really? Generally it is actually pretty straight forward investigations kinda story that just so happens to be some twisted shit that is being investigated. Like, not normal twisted shit, but like, otherkinds of twisted shit. I remember liking this overall from previous viewing a long time ago, glad to see my recollections proved true. Might be a hard find for some, but definitely worth a viewing for a good P.I. Horror kinda flick. Believe me, after watching a lot of sketchy Lovecraft adaptations this month, this one is definitely one of the better ones on multiple levels.
