Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The first must-see film of the year.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Excellent story, being based on Lovecraft's Dunwich Horror, poorly Executed.The actors' incredulity I can excuse, being caught up in what must have been clear to them was a travesty. The effects and dramatic music I cannot excuse. Why keep blacking out the light at every suspenseful moment, like a child playing with a light switch? Why have special effects expected in a film from the 1950's in a film from 2009 instead of CGI? Low budget I guess.Horrific rather than horrifying best describes this movie. It is a shame, hardly redeemed by giving it a new title other than the story it was based on, because the original would make an excellent remake in the right hands. This could not hold a torch to the 1970's version.

Pros - Good props, good scenery, good music; and a cast that included people of color. Cons - everything else.This movie will appeal to pop culture Lovecraft "fans" that read a few things on the Internet (maybe even saw a couple comics and thought, "yeah, that's cool!") and like the idea of Lovecraft's work without actually downloading .txt's or cracking the spine of a book to find out more. There's a lot I can look past in a low budget movie. I'm not an FX snob. I understand that there is so much you can do to "wow" the audience visually. But there's no excuse for lack of substance and intellectually stunted scriptwriting. If the plot is coherent, the characters complex and relatable, and the theme pays respectful homage to Lovecraft's works; you can count my vote in. However, like many of "Lovecraft" adaptations, I cannot throw my lot in with this one; mostly because of the abysmal portrayal of women.Women in this movie are either possessed, barefoot and pregnant, naked and/or sexualized in some other way, or just plain ornamental tag-alongs that have no identity outside the men they are accompanying at any given time. Not only are the men in this movie condescending, smug, and quick to put women in their "place" in this movie (or at least what the screenwriter believes is a "woman's place"); there's also a helping of ritualized rape, domestic battery, and allusions to incest. And then there's Jeffrey Combs. An ongoing legend in Lovecraft films. Yet he's cast into a minor, annoying role that any community college drama student could have filled. Such a disappointment.Wow what a waste. Could have been salvageable in a few respects - one, actually respecting the spirit of Lovecraft's work and two, not relying on cheap plot devices that alienate the female half of the audience. This is what happens when immature egotism gathers enough money and sycophants to attempt to rewrite a science fiction tradition that is almost a hundred years strong. Thanks for nothing.

I used to read Lovecraft in my early days and I remember being absolutely fascinated by the creepy atmosphere of his dark, menacing world. Movie adaptations never fail to disappoint me however, probably it's very difficult to translate his grotesque fantasies to the big screen. With this one it's no different. You can applaud them for trying to stick close to Lovecraft, but the flaws of this production are so abundant that it's hard to find anything positive to say.First of all: the special effects are terrible on all accounts, from the silly fake tentacles of the supposed monster that stretch out to the victims, and the flashes of a big sharp-toothed jaw that's supposed to belong to the mighty monster Cthulhu, up to the CGI in the last half hour that's supposed to conjure up an orgiastic climax but turns out even faker than fake.The acting seemed over all mediocre and uninspired. Dean Stockwell obviously didn't want to bother too much and just went through the (few) motions that were required of him. Jeffrey Combs is like a piece of Lovecraft furniture that you apparently cannot do without when you do a Lovecraft-adaptation, and in this capacity he did okay. The main parts are for Sarah Lieving and Griff Furst as a love couple (is that genuine Lovecraft material?? I doubt that!). Sarah Lieving is (or has to play) a bit of a stern and stiff lady, she sure is good-looking but didn't convince me a bit as the supposed fanatic supernatural witch-hunter, she's far too restrained and civilized.But I was pleasantly surprised with Griff Furst. I didn't know him yet but he impressed me as a talented and very natural actor with a good sense of timing and a definite sparkle of humour in his eyes - and very good-looking to boot! The part of the well-bred and educated professor who's reluctant to get drawn into this supernatural adventure but at last bravely makes the best of it, fitted him like a glove.All in all this seems like a waste of some good material (original story, Stockwell and Furst), I rank it a meagre 3 out of 10.

Someday, H.P. Lovecraft might get a big-budget adaptation, but until then, it's B-movies all the way and this is as "B" as you can get, and I actually admire it for not trying to be more than that. Unfortunately, except for some good effects late in the film, there's not much here worth recommending. The 1970 film of the same title was mostly just inspired by the Lovecraft story; this version sticks a bit more closely to the original tale about the awful Whateley family and their blasphemous breeding of human woman and the demonic monster Yog-Sothoth in an attempt at opening up a portal for the horrific Old Ones to return to Earth. Wilbur Whateley (Re-Animator's Jeffrey Combs) is a drooling backwoods idiot (supposedly a 10-year-old who has aged 40 years physically) looking for a missing page in the evil book The Necronomicon which will allow him to finish the rite of re-entry.What's been added to this version is a romantic lead couple, played by Griff Furst and Sarah Lieving, who are helping a Miskatonic University professor (Dean Stockwell) find the missing page before Combs does. There's lots of Lovecraft name-dropping; in addition to Miskatonic University and the Necronomicon, we meet Alhazred the Mad Arab, the author of that evil book, and Olaus Wormius, a decadent Necronomicon scholar. The decent opening sequence is right out of The Exorcist, there are nice effects in the climactic scene involving Yog-Sothoth's appearance, and an effective brief shot of an ancient Lovecraftian landscape. Furst, who sometimes looks like Peter Sarsgaard or the early Mickey Rourke, is good, but the rest of the cast is mediocre, including Stockwell (who played Wilbur in the 1970 film) who practically sleepwalks through his part. Very bad dialogue doesn't help anyone, and why they felt the need to transport Lovecraft's New England towns to the Bayou is beyond me--the change adds nothing interesting.