DVD Review: The Last Lovecraft: Relic Of Cthulhu
The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu (2009)
Studio: Dark Sky
Release Date: February 15, 2011
Directed By: Henry Saine
Cast: Kyle Davis, Devin McGinn, Barak Hardley, Gregg Lawrence & Ethan Wilde.
Review By: Annie Riordan
It was bad news for Lovecraft fans this week as Universal studios announced that Guillermo Del Toro’s long awaited and much anticipated film adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness” had been unceremoniously euthanized. Normally I would find such news devastatingly disappointing. I pride myself on being a Lovecraft nerd. I will watch any film based on a Lovecraft tale, no matter how loose the translation or abysmal the budget. I remain hopeful that, someday, the ATMOM film project will be resurrected and that enough time will have elapsed by then to make Tom Cruise’s involvement unfeasible. In the meantime however, I have plenty to keep me occupied. Perhaps the HPLHS will finally finish “The Whisperer In Darkness.” Maybe those plush Cthulhu slippers on Amazon I’ve had my eye on for months now will finally drop in price. Shit, I’m still hoping to pitch my idea for an Innsmouth Look surgical procedure to the plastic surgery industry. Botox is for pussies; I’m mainlining the Norwegian Omega 3, bitches.
So, what to do when you have caviar tastes on a tuna fish budget, bad fish pun definitely intended? Never fear, there’s a constant supply of no-budget Lovecraftian horror washing up on the shores of Netflix. Hey look! Here’s one bloating and stinking in the sun now as we speak! It’s called The Last Lovecraft and it’s about as far from Del Toro’s vision as the Great Old Ones are from a Euclidean dimension of time and space.
The Last Lovecraft of the title is Jeff Phillips, a troll-doll faced, dishraggy dweeb comparable in both appearance and personality to a can of unbaked Pillsbury crescent rolls. Jeff has fully devoted himself to mediocrity, excelling as much as one can excel at a company called Squirrely Gift Baskets and obliviously turning down a date with a reasonably attractive office babe in order to assist best buddy Charlie with his comic book writing. And Jeff doesn’t even like comic books. Jeff seems destined for a future filled with Top Ramen, reruns of Seinfeld and lonely masturbation…until the day he arrives home to find some old dude waiting for him in his apartment.
The old guy is a member of a secret society dedicated to keeping the Earth safe from hostile Elder God takeovers. Realizing that the stars are as close to being right as they’re going to get, and that arch-villain Star Spawn is organizing an army of Deep Ones to usher in a new era of cosmic insanity, the society has dispatched old guy to turn over one half of a super secret powerful relic to Jeff which, when combined with its other half, becomes a key to unlock the gates of R’lyeh, the city beneath the sea where Cthulhu Himself sleeps. Why must Jeff bear this awesome burden? Well, turns out he’s the long lost descendant of H.P. himself and, as such, has inherited the awesome ability to withstand the deadly telekinetic abilities of Star Spawn, thereby making him the only one who can keep the relic half from their evil clutches and ensure that the gates remain forever closed.
Now, Jeff and Charlie are on the run. Sort of. First they stop off at Paul’s house, that guy from high school who knew all about Lovecraft stuff. After apologizing for having broken both his arms back in the day, the guys persuade Paul to leave his grandma (aka the peanut butter whore) behind and join them on their quest. With Star Spawn in hot pursuit and Paul’s neediness threatening to smother them, the guys head deep into the desert in search of the mysterious Captain Olaf, the one man who may be able to save them.
It’s unlikely that anything other than blind luck will save these yabbos, and rest assured a happy ending awaits. Hey, it’s an Indie Comedy first and foremost – don’t act like I ruined shit for you. Thankfully, the Lovecraftian aspects of the story never seem to come in a close second to the comedy. These guys know their Mythos and none of the nerdiness depicted seems like much of a stretch for the cast. Um, that was a compliment. No, really.
My only gripe with the film is that some of the scenes go on just a few seconds longer than is comfortable, causing some of the humor to come off as stiff and forced, and generating an atmosphere of slightly squirmy awkwardness usually reserved for family reunions when semi-senile Uncle Gary cracks that joke about “colored folk” that hasn’t gotten a laugh since 1956. Just a smidge more editing would have made this run tighter and smoother.
But it’s a petty gripe, I admit. All in all, Last Lovecraft kept me amused to the end with its corny animation, its gamer nerdspeak inspired script and its unicorn T-shirt wearing villain Star Spawn, who looks and sounds an awful lot like Peloquin from Nightbreed…except he’s red. There’s even a hint of a sequel, which may (if it doesn’t get shelved next to Del Toro’s) take us to The Mountains of Madness at long last! Granted, it’ll be a bargain bin version of the Mountains of Madness (the hills of slight but treatable psychosis, maybe?) and the Shoggoth’s will be rubber rather than CGI…but hey, the odds are good that Tom Cruise won’t be in it.
