Post by Bartwald on Dec 1, 2005 13:20:05 GMT -5
NECRONOMICON (1994)
DIRECTORS: Brian Yuzna, Shusuke Kaneko, Christophe Gans
CAST: Jeffrey Combs, Tony Azito, Bruce Payne, Bess Meyer, Signy Coleman
GRADE: 5,5/10
Adapting this Lovercraft dude to the screen is a real pain in the ass. I mean, his stories are more like, uh, travel books describing a nightmare world than regular horror stuff with plot going from point A to B to C and then climaxing in D. You can always do that - more or less gracefully go from A to D; but what with a horror travel book? ‘Cause, you see, not everyone can afford Michael Palin to come and be a guide in his movie, right?
Brian Yuzna and friends decided to face the dangers of H.P.’s adaptations and... well, they failed, all right, but I must admit that watching them fail was kind of a pleasure; it’s not that I don’t like Yuzna or somebody else here and wish they all burned in hell and their movies sucked the hugest balls... no, it’s just that this movie ain’t that unpleasant to watch, after all. Or, if it is (especially in the final, Yuzna-directed, part), it’s because its subject matter is pretty disgusting in itself. But OK, enough introduction. Let me tell you what’s this ‘Necronomicon’ all about.
It consists of three separate stories and a wraparound segment set in a library housing the infamous Book of the Dead. H.P. Lovercraft himself (hey, do you recognise this actor here? oh yeah, it’s him!) visits the place and, pretending to be interested in some boring stuff, soon sneaks into the Necronomicon-hiding corner of the library and starts reading. What he reads – we can see.
The first story is called ‘The Drowned’ and was directed by Christophe Gans – the same nice buddy who’ll give us ‘Brotherhood Of The Wolf’ several years away from this. ‘The Drowned’ shows us a guy who inherits a creepy house on the edge of a suicide-inducing cliff, and thanks to the introductory shots you can tell there’s some kind of hell just under the floor. Now we only have to wait for an awful creature to rush out of this hell (whoa! Was it Cthulhu? Cool!) and some demons of the past to sneak out and explain the reasons for it all to happen. A nice story, with average acting and average-to-good special effects; also, you can see that the director is going to achieve something in the profession, as some of the shots here are truly ass-kicking (watch for the contrasts between the House and the Underneath World, especially!). However, such an avid horror-viewer as myself might argue that this part of the ‘Necronomicon’ movie is not as sexy as it should be: it shies away from full frontal nudity although the script actually gives it some perfect opportunities to use it.
The second part is sexier, though – if only because the main character is a woman and the plot includes a shower scene. It’s called ‘The Cold’, this part, and it is all about this woman renting a room next to a 'mysterious doctor’; let me just tell you that this son of a gun is hiding some dark secrets as he tries to trick the death into not taking him away from this world and all. As you’ve already guessed, the woman becomes his lover and is involuntarily introduced to all of the creepiness hidden in his closet. Now, I’m not a Lovecraft expert, but I really don’t think this story should be filed under the ‘Necronomicon’ label, should it? There’s nothing about the Ancient Race here, no trace of Cthulhu and no Mountains of Madness in sight; it’s just one of those rare stand-alone Lovercraftian stories which in fact do go from A to B, C and D, and – to be honest – I like this part of the movie more than ‘The Drowned’. It may be not fitting the Necronomicon moniker but it’s not a bad story at all. Then again, it’s still not "great" by any measure (even though the [very] short story it’s based on belongs to my favourite works by Lovercraft).
The final part I’m the fondest of: it’s the most disgusting, shocking, creepy and strange of all collected here, and it does have something to do with the Book of the Dead. As a bonus, the main heroine magically loses here trousers at the end of the movie; this Yuzna surely knows how to earn extra praise for his work... The story: a pair of cops are trying to catch a killer, but after a car crash they both end up in a creepy lair where it’s unclear who’s trying to help them and who’s trying to suck their bones dry. Some actual Necronomicon-suggested creatures appear here and, though the final scenes sometimes look a bit too cheap (flying silicone rugs want to suck human blood!), it’s fun all around. Were all the parts as good as this, the final grade would easily be 7/10.
The wraparound story, ‘The Library’, is also directed by Yuzna but there’s not enough plot in it to treat it as one of the parts of the movie. It’s just an excuse for all the three movies to jump at you – and sometimes, like in the case of ‘The Cold’, it’s quite far-fetched an excuse. But even this wraparound holds a nice surprise embodied in the final attack of a Creature Which Sucks Out Heads... uh, I mean, if you’ve read at least some parts of the Necronomicon-connected stories you surely were waiting to see this?
DIRECTORS: Brian Yuzna, Shusuke Kaneko, Christophe Gans
CAST: Jeffrey Combs, Tony Azito, Bruce Payne, Bess Meyer, Signy Coleman
GRADE: 5,5/10
Adapting this Lovercraft dude to the screen is a real pain in the ass. I mean, his stories are more like, uh, travel books describing a nightmare world than regular horror stuff with plot going from point A to B to C and then climaxing in D. You can always do that - more or less gracefully go from A to D; but what with a horror travel book? ‘Cause, you see, not everyone can afford Michael Palin to come and be a guide in his movie, right?
Brian Yuzna and friends decided to face the dangers of H.P.’s adaptations and... well, they failed, all right, but I must admit that watching them fail was kind of a pleasure; it’s not that I don’t like Yuzna or somebody else here and wish they all burned in hell and their movies sucked the hugest balls... no, it’s just that this movie ain’t that unpleasant to watch, after all. Or, if it is (especially in the final, Yuzna-directed, part), it’s because its subject matter is pretty disgusting in itself. But OK, enough introduction. Let me tell you what’s this ‘Necronomicon’ all about.
It consists of three separate stories and a wraparound segment set in a library housing the infamous Book of the Dead. H.P. Lovercraft himself (hey, do you recognise this actor here? oh yeah, it’s him!) visits the place and, pretending to be interested in some boring stuff, soon sneaks into the Necronomicon-hiding corner of the library and starts reading. What he reads – we can see.
The first story is called ‘The Drowned’ and was directed by Christophe Gans – the same nice buddy who’ll give us ‘Brotherhood Of The Wolf’ several years away from this. ‘The Drowned’ shows us a guy who inherits a creepy house on the edge of a suicide-inducing cliff, and thanks to the introductory shots you can tell there’s some kind of hell just under the floor. Now we only have to wait for an awful creature to rush out of this hell (whoa! Was it Cthulhu? Cool!) and some demons of the past to sneak out and explain the reasons for it all to happen. A nice story, with average acting and average-to-good special effects; also, you can see that the director is going to achieve something in the profession, as some of the shots here are truly ass-kicking (watch for the contrasts between the House and the Underneath World, especially!). However, such an avid horror-viewer as myself might argue that this part of the ‘Necronomicon’ movie is not as sexy as it should be: it shies away from full frontal nudity although the script actually gives it some perfect opportunities to use it.
The second part is sexier, though – if only because the main character is a woman and the plot includes a shower scene. It’s called ‘The Cold’, this part, and it is all about this woman renting a room next to a 'mysterious doctor’; let me just tell you that this son of a gun is hiding some dark secrets as he tries to trick the death into not taking him away from this world and all. As you’ve already guessed, the woman becomes his lover and is involuntarily introduced to all of the creepiness hidden in his closet. Now, I’m not a Lovecraft expert, but I really don’t think this story should be filed under the ‘Necronomicon’ label, should it? There’s nothing about the Ancient Race here, no trace of Cthulhu and no Mountains of Madness in sight; it’s just one of those rare stand-alone Lovercraftian stories which in fact do go from A to B, C and D, and – to be honest – I like this part of the movie more than ‘The Drowned’. It may be not fitting the Necronomicon moniker but it’s not a bad story at all. Then again, it’s still not "great" by any measure (even though the [very] short story it’s based on belongs to my favourite works by Lovercraft).
The final part I’m the fondest of: it’s the most disgusting, shocking, creepy and strange of all collected here, and it does have something to do with the Book of the Dead. As a bonus, the main heroine magically loses here trousers at the end of the movie; this Yuzna surely knows how to earn extra praise for his work... The story: a pair of cops are trying to catch a killer, but after a car crash they both end up in a creepy lair where it’s unclear who’s trying to help them and who’s trying to suck their bones dry. Some actual Necronomicon-suggested creatures appear here and, though the final scenes sometimes look a bit too cheap (flying silicone rugs want to suck human blood!), it’s fun all around. Were all the parts as good as this, the final grade would easily be 7/10.
The wraparound story, ‘The Library’, is also directed by Yuzna but there’s not enough plot in it to treat it as one of the parts of the movie. It’s just an excuse for all the three movies to jump at you – and sometimes, like in the case of ‘The Cold’, it’s quite far-fetched an excuse. But even this wraparound holds a nice surprise embodied in the final attack of a Creature Which Sucks Out Heads... uh, I mean, if you’ve read at least some parts of the Necronomicon-connected stories you surely were waiting to see this?
