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Saturday, January 21, 2012

In Search of Lovecraft (2009)

   In Search of Lovecraft...interesting title right?Interesting movie?Not so much!Being a fan of H.P. Lovecraft I couldn't resist checking out this movie.Netflix gave it 2.4 out of 5 stars so I didn't think it was going to be fantastic, but occasionally a low rated movie can be better than expected.This movie definitely was not.If anything it was worse.
   Rebecca Marsh (Renee Sweet) is a reporter for a local television station who is assigned a Halloween segment on writer H.P. Lovecraft.Rebecca interviews occult expert Dr. D'Souza (Saqib Mausoof) who gives her the diary of an institutionalized woman whose grandmother investigated a cult who worshiped one of Lovecraft's characters ( The Black Man). As Rebecca starts to further investigate the cult she begins to have nightmares and eventually comes to know that Lovecraft's characters are not merely fiction.
   The plot of In Search of Lovecraft is actually a somewhat interesting plot, however it seemed this movie was made on a budget of maybe a couple of hundred dollars.The best acting in the movie was a scene in which Rebecca visits Martha (Bonnie Steiger), the author of the diary I mentioned earlier, in the insane asylum.Bonnie Steiger did an excellent job of acting like a psych ward patient (I guess it's pretty hard to screw up acting insane, but I have to try to give someone in this movie credit for doing something well).
   It's usually a lot of fun for me to write about bad horror movies, but I had a really hard time giving this movie my full attention.I caught my mind wandering quite a few times (I would often find myself focusing on the bad haircut of Rebecca's cameraman,Mike (Tytus Bergstrom)). I was also constantly checking to see if it was almost over.I usually like to reveal as much as I can about a stinker like In Search of Lovecraft, but the truth is, this movie wasn't just bad, it was boring beyond belief.By the time I was halfway through it I was ready to pop open a beer in the hopes that it would make it more interesting.
    I really have nothing more to say about this disaster of a movie except that you should steer clear of it.I'm sure there are some brave souls out there that would like to check it out anyway, but believe me when I say it's a waste of time.I would rather have spent the 98 minutes I wasted on this movie cleaning a crap splattered gas station bathroom stall.I mean that literally by the way!!

3 comments:

  1. Agreed. I saw this on Netflix and chose to watch it based on H.P. Lovecraft being the subject matter. I watched about fifteen minutes, then realized life is too short to waste on this movie. It's not good-bad or fun-bad, its just boring-bad.

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  2. Thank you for your comment DJ.Boring-bad is an excellent description.If I hadn't promised to sit through any movie no matter how terrible I also would have only made it 15 minutes before turning it off.

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  3. Decent script, bad execution....A+ for even trying to put Lovecraft on film. I think they did the best they could within their obvious budgetary restraints. Aside from the often cringe-worthy acting (Amber, I am looking at you) the decision (probably also budget related) to go with a Cinéma vérité style of filming was probably their biggest mistake. It resulted in overlit shots with boring camera angles and scenes with little visual tension as a result; which is bad, especially in a horror movie. But then again no-one else has ever been able to put Lovecraft successfully on screen either and at least these people had the balls to try and in my book that covers a multitude of sins.

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