Customer Reviews

Necronomicon: Book of the Dead [VHS]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

For some reason, people give this movie such low marks without giving actually viewing the movie as a movie. Perhaps its because the name HP Lovecraft was attached to yet another adaptation failure, and they thought, quite foolishly, that this meant that there would be a Lovecraftian film that was actually Lovecraftian. Well, that never happens and the H.P. is almost always attached to sell more movies and to get more bad reviews. Still, while not a standout jewel in the forum of monster movies (and what really is in the true monstrosity arena?), it does hits 4.5 star highs and 2.2 star lows to make it worth seeing. You just have to forget that nefarious little label.
This movie is set in 1932 with everyone's favorite actor, the immortal Jeffrey Combs, as a strangle Indiana Joneseque version of H.P. Lovecraft. In it, Lovecraft decides to steal a view (and the book itself later) of the infamous Necronomicon despite the wishes (and warnings of its keepers). Taking a key from one of its monk keepers, he finds his way to a secretive chamber where he finds the book and begins to transcribe three stories - The Drowned, The Cold, and The Whispers - from what he sees here.
The Drowned, a story borrowing from Lovecraftian themes and mingling in some ideas from differing stories, is about a man returning to an inherited hotel and finding more than he bargained for. Our main character looks over a letter from his Uncle that, in flashback sequencing, finds his family dead and denouncing God for it. After throwing his bible to the ground, he is visited by a good looking Deep One who replaces the book with another. Reading from it, he finds his family returned, but only in a small sense of the word. Well, our main character, seeing only the "raising the dead" and not the lesson in the tale, decides to liberate the book from its hiding place and resurrect his long lost wife, leading us to a showdown with a huge one-eyed monster (I can't call the thing great cthulhu).
The Cold, a good piece adapted from Cool Air, begins with a reporter who is investigating a series of murders going to a house and speaking to the current owner. After loosing her tongue her with a series of threats, she reveals a story involving her mother and a doctor with a "Skin condition" that first owned this place. This story's ending is actual good, plus the body of the tale is also an interesting piece. I would have to say it also pulls its weight with a 3.5 to a 4.0 rating.
Wanting to forget The Whispers, I'll only break it down briefly. Here is a tale about a female officer chasing a criminal who turns out not to be a criminal unto a cavern (more like an abandoned sewer) of terror (and yawning). It has a little gore, some scary homeless people - one of which is blind -, a lot of crawling and chasing, and some really, really bad acting. I would give it a 2.2 only because I had to spit on the other two pieces here.
If you haven't seen this movie before, its not really a bad addition to anyone's growing horror selection. Just don't build a house of expectations on it.

I got this on the cheap, and if you're a fan of cheesy, B movie horror with lots of gooey special effects and can find it cheap, do so. Don't expect a legitimate Lovecraft tie-in: Lovecraft appears as a character in a "wraparound" uniting three unrelated stories, but it's not Lovecraft the historical character--there's a disclaimer at the end of the film admitting as much--nor do the stories themselves reflect Lovecraft's ethos. Lovecraft was about understatement and suggestion; this film takes the opposite track with dripping gore and monsters in full view. To me, that's no bad thing, but as you can tell from the reviews here, plenty of hard-core Lovecraft fans disagree. What the movie does offer is plenty of slime covered latex masks and monsters, and you get good views of them; one pretty good story, one mediocre story, and one gross-out fairly stupid story; lots of mediocre to bad acting, and a quick, totally gratuitous and titillating (so to speak) shot of one of the actresses naked in the shower. If that's what you want to pay your money for, go for it. I admit to my own amusement and entertainment.

This has all the makings of a good Lovecraft adatpion, namely Jeffery Combs and the Necronomicon. 3 stories linked together by the mysterious black book called Necronomicon. Really gory, but doesn't take itself too seriously. Combs is the actor king of H.P. Lovecraft adaptions and Brian Yuzna is also a really good contributor to Lovecraft films, namely his skills as a producer and the more recent Beyond Re-Animator. Worth a look for anyone even casually interested in modern horror films.

What a film. While not a great film in Acamedy Award level production values, this is a really good movie. Seldom has this reviewer seen the power and atmosphere of Lovecraft's work placed on film. HPL purists have good reason to complain that the 3 stories in this anthology style treatment have very little to do with any specific Lovecraft work, but the overall chemistry of the film has captured the distilled essence of HPL even better than Re-Animator did. It is as if HPL himself was left to do the cinematography, set decoration, casting, foley, ADR and scoring to this film. Those not familiar with Lovecraft might be quite confused, but more open-minded fans of his work will recognize elements from a dozen or more HPL stories permiating the film. The venerable Jeff Coombs plays HPL himself who locates the evil book in a library. Other great faces include David Warner in an unforgettable role as well as Richard Lynch and Bruce Payne. SFX are above passible and the whole film is a gory joyride. Necronomicon is an overlooked gem of a horror film that deserves a view. Can't wait till it makes it to DVD!

Aside from the Lovecraftian aspects, this movie is good for entertainment value. If you want to watch a horror movie that is different from the rest, Lovecraftian adaptations seem to be a lot more interesting than the average flick.

However, on the Lovecraftian aspects, the movie title is misleading. The plot may be constructed around the book itself, but the movie gives absolutely no audience to the story Lovecraft put behind it. I give it three out of five - the movie impliments Lovecraftian ideas, but does not deliver the actual story Lovecraft wrote about the Necronomicon.

I happen to have the Necronomicon book, and if you didn't know what it was, this movie would be very confusing. So it's not a good Lovecraft adaptation, that doesn't mean you can't still enjoy it. I personally enjoyed this more than From Beyond, and so did my friends. This also really didn't have that much to do with the Necronomicon. They talked about it in the first story, and then it dissapeared. They didn't need Lovecraft reading the book either, because he claimed it didn't exist. If you haven't read Lovecraft, this is for you, but if you have, bypass this.

Although I enjoyed seeing David Warner and Richard Lynch in this video, I had to ask "why, why, why, won't *anyone* do a faithful adaptation of a Lovecraft story?" Great effects, nice music, but terrible to watch if pure HPL is your thing.

Good b side horror movie cheap effects and unique way of putting the plot together everything I expected but really hard to come by on dvd from a reliable source but Im happy to have this one up in my horror dvd collection anyway lovecraft is a genius and has broken new ground with every one of his movies and this one doesnt fall short for true horror fans

I've read H.P Lovecraft I like Lovecraft I've seen this movie It's not that bad

I just rented the movie tonight... though it wasn't the "greatest" of films, visually... it's representation of subject matter was very well done, in my opinion... I think it is a definate need to check out END