Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Powerful

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

A Boston archaeologist sorts through his dead great-uncle's papers. He finds information about the Cthulhu Cult. The great-uncle was a psychiatrist. One of his patients was a young man named Henry Wilcox. Wilcox reported dreams; the shrink asked that he record the dreams for discussion. When Wilcox failed to appear one day, the great-uncle tracks him down to a mental ward. Wilcox had lost his memory of his obsession.The present day nephew skips to other parts of the great-uncle's stored papers, which included newspaper clippings, and visits to conferences. At one conference, a policeman presents an artifact to some scholars. One man had seen the same sort of piece in Greenland in Esquimaux (sic) territory. Another described odd goings-on in a swamp near New Orleans where children were disappearing. In both cases, there was a chant that named Cthulhu. A similar artifact was at the site of a cult fire dance where cannibalism was being practiced. The investigator came with police; the dance was dispersed; arrests were made.The nephew keeps reading. This seems to be a common mistake made by actors in Cthulhu films.He follows the notebooks, and goes to places described in the notebooks. He locates a Cthulu statue, and gains more information than what was in the notebooks.The effort eventually drives the nephew mad. -----Scores------Cinematography: 4/10 Presented in black and white in the 4:3 aspect ratio. Full of simulated scratches and floating dust. Ugly.Sound: 6/10 This is a silent film with musical accompaniment and inter-titles. The music was fairly good for the on screen action.Acting: 4/10 Without voice, these actors seemed to be lost.Screenplay: 4/10 Too many dream sequences and flashbacks. A lot of this looks like Freudian themes with visuals in the style of Dali.-----Post Script-----In graduate school at Indiana University, I saw a dozen or so silent black and white films at the Auditorium, which had a large screen and a huge pipe organ of fine sound quality. The organ player was not only a skilled musician, but also a BW film buff of broad experience. The films were A list when they were released, and were often in 1.85 or wider format. They looked like movie films, not television. The film actors and directors were experienced and skilled at making the best silent films. These experiences were rather rich; I felt like I was catching a glimpse of the silent era during its height.Why go to so much effort to make something that looks so bad? The black and white silent era is over. Go the route of The Artist instead.

What a wonderful effort by a creative team. I've always been disappointed with Lovecraft inspired films. They tend to ignore the master's plots and the fear of the unknown, which is at the center of every story. Having read the canon several times, I went into this thinking, "OK. Another novelty film. What has transpired here is masterwork, using movie techniques from another era (ala "The Artist). The creation of dark shadows and the ongoing threat after discovery of documents that we should not see, sets this up so well. I had not heard of this production so will put it on the shelf with the great cinema surprises of my life. Cthulhu is there in many of the Lovecraft stories. All we know is that seeing him can induce horror that will drive one to madness (don't you just love it). Cthulhu hangs over every element, as the character bumble their respective ways from discovery to discovery. The scenes of terror are masterfully underplayed and are still designed to grasp us by the throat. I am hoping that someone else has the courage to try something like this again. Perhaps to do "The Dunwich Horror" properly.

First things first. Silent, b/w technology, jerky monsters and actors with exaggerated facial expressions do not automatically translate into cinematographic excellence. Had it been so, all films of the silent era would have been masterpieces. Which they were not.Talented authors like Lovecraft have had the misfortune of having their works turned into cinematographic trash. Lovecraftian stories have a lot of imagery (and savagery), and its utter bunkum to state that the same cannot be converted to true cinematographic form. They can.. only the will and the budget should be there.Coming back to this piece of travesty, I would like to sadly say that I deleted this film from my computer's hard disk, as promptly as I had loaded it. Need I say more?

I was born in the era of CGI so watching a black and white, silent movie with awful special effects is rare. I only watched this because I'm a budding Lovecraft fan and an admirer of cosmicism. The fact that it's a silent movie actually aids it,I think. It was a better ploy than going for dialogue , which, I think, would have made it too long drawn and complex. The fact that it's length is really short also means that the punch is greater than it would have been otherwise. The direction is good, the performances are good. The movie is made very well, but this is where the small budget hinders it. The effects are almost comical, and they do lower the punch. The scare factor would have been much more, for example, if the cyclopean cities would have been shown as something other than just props and Cthullu looking, well, less kiddish. But other than that, it was a very well made film.A solid 7.5 out of 10