It is a performances centric movie

As Good As It Gets

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Blistering performances.

Usually I don't like movies that have three stories with a wrapper around them but here it works fine. The first story is pretty good, the second is pretty dull and the last is awesome. The wraparound is one of the best in this type of movie. The first story was good with a great amount of creepy monster effects and scary moments. The second story left me cold. The third story was great with like demons and stuff. The wraparound would have been better as a separate story but it is very entertaining with a great ending (just like the first and third stories). Four stories in one film and three of them are great! This is a gritty classic.

You know what's not a good thing in a movie? When you have a cave with big, massive rocks, and an actor bumps into said rock, and the rock moves, because it's a prop rock and weighs nothing. This is the kind of thing that really annoys me. How hard is it to re-shoot that short little scene? Or to make the rock heavier, or to bolt it to the floor. Come on! Anyway, I can let this kind of thing pass, if the movie is good. But if the movie is mediocre, well, it sure as hell is ain't not gon' help!Alright. This is a chaotic, slightly confusing mess of a movie. Three parts, by three different directors. I found the last one to be the best one. And of course the wraparound starring Jeffrey Combs. He was basically the main reason why I checked this out, I god damn love Jeffrey Combs.The stories are, well, alright. I won't say more about each one than the first one I didn't care much for. The second one had a slightly interesting story, and some decent makeup/effects. The last one had some cool imagery. The movie is pretty wild, and has it's really disgusting moments. A certain "melting-scene" was a highlight for me. Jeffrey Combs, and parts of the last segment keeps this from a really low score for me.

"Necronomicon" brought me good memories of two 1960s productions: Roger Corman's "Tales of Terror" (AIP, 1962), and Sidney Salkow's "Twice-Told Tales" (UA, 1963), based on stories by Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne, respectively. The old mansion by the sea was a location often seen in several AIP productions; and the first tale, "The Drowned", reminded me of "Morella", the first story in the Corman film. The next segment, "The Cold", seems like a version in modern times of "Rappaccini's Daughter", the second Hawthorne story in the UA release. Unfortunately, the third story (or fourth, strictly speaking), directed by Brian Yuzna, is too coarse, noisy, badly acted, filled with green sticky fluid, and too cheap visual effects, affecting the balance. Thankfully the film closes with the "wraparound" little story "The Library", slightly erasing the previous bad impression.

I really enjoyed this movie. Great stories done rather well.I just watched this movie today after trying to get my hands on it for several years, so here is my fresh dead review.This is truly a brave attempt at translating HP Lovecraft's works into film, a truly difficult and daunting task to do with any skill. Attempts to illustrate the alluded-to but barely observed horror of most of the genre tend to fail because the substance is not generally visual. It is a state of mind. But I was pleasantly surprised by this movie and I will explain why.The house we begin at where the Necronomicon is rediscovered is atmospheric and the directing is also rather visceral and refreshing. The camera work is very creative and flexible utilizing many different styles, a lot of askew profile shots or detached views from above, even the use of black and white to denote a tragic flashback is skillfully used here.The music is also quite nice. The casting equally talented. The story of a man whose family is taken from him, he turns from God, and a strange demonic creature comes to him, bringing strange solace in the form of the ancient book: The Necronomicon, where the man discovers a ritual to bring his family back from the dead. The man utters archaic iambic pentameter, tossing his own blood upon the pentagram. "That which is not dead can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die, In his lair Cthulhu waits dreaming."And though his family does return, they return in a monkey's paw sort of damnation and terror, but why? Why the extent of this just to say, "Gotcha!" in a truly horrifying manner? To extinguish the light, any semblance of hope, or effort. Indeed we are speaking of the Necronomicon, a cursed book brought to man by the truly damned.The third story has music I know I have heard somewhere before, somewhere not too long ago I might add, but I just can't place it! Maybe on an episode of Dexter? Some of the lines are so cheesy but entertaining, like this little jewel."I just came by to watch you practice your flute playing, only you're going to practice on my instrument."Also unlike most horror these days, it is not hidden it is not behind a screen it is not off camera, it is close up, visceral. You really feel it the way horror is meant to be felt.