The Dark Below

But still think it was worth a watch despite the somewhat bad acting.

What kept running through my mind as I watched this movie was "what motivates someone, anyone, to make a movie like this?" I'm not speaking about the genre or subject of the movie, but rather a very legitimate question of what is the driving force to make a movie with the primary actress having no acting ability, the writing being almost non-existent, no real direction, and the lowest production value imaginable. Essentially it seemed like not a single person involved had any desire to make this movie.

My review isn't even regarding whether this movie is good or bad, as it's clearly meant to be a campy movie, as that's perfectly fine and often quite enjoyable. But rather there's something so completely off about this movie that it strikes me as extremely out of place. Like when you see a business in your town that seems to never have any customers, nor even seems to want any, but has been around forever supposedly making plenty of money and you get the idea that there might be something more to their business model. That is this movie. It wasn't made to be watched.

Really I'd give it a 1 but I did make it completely through the film, and there was 1 redeeming line near the end which I won't spoil but I presume was the only tag line planned for this entire film.

"The Creature Below" is a movie that I had not heard about prior to finding it by sheer random luck. And with the prospect of not having anything else at hand to watch in the horror genre, I gave "The Creature Below" a go, without knowing what it was about. I was lured in by the title of the movie alone.

The movie starts out quite nicely and does throw the audience straight into the storyline, and you are up to speed with the intention of director Stewart Sparke right away, which was quite nice.

Almost from the very beginning there is a Lovecraftian influence permeating "The Creature Below". However that influence is cemented as something solid when you see Olive Crown (played by Anna Dawson) put her Miskatonic University diploma on the wall, so the movie apparently take place in the world as dictated by master writer H. P. Lovecraft.

The story, briefly summarized is about a marine biologist who is fired from her job, but in her haste she decides to take away an egg of some unknown original from her workplace. As the egg hatch in her basement at home, Olive forms a symbiont bond with the creature.

The music in the movie is quite fitting the genre, as it is subtle, yet noticeable in its own way, given the uniqueness and slightly odd placement it has. At times the music actually takes on an ethereal quality, not unlike that you find on the Nox Arcana CD "Necronomicon", which really bolsters the atmosphere of the movie.

And the setting of the movie, being a very rural setting with a sort of reclusive feel to it, also emanates the alienation that H. P. Lovecraft had incorporated into his stories. So it is clear that the director or writer of this movie must have been heavily influenced by Lovecraft's work in some way.

Olive's descent down the path that leads to madness and insanity is one well-fleshed out on the screen. And for that I must applaud the director on his accomplishment.

As for the actors and actresses in the movie, then I can't claim to be familiar with their prior work, but they did quite good jobs with their given roles and characters.

As for the mysterious tentacled creature, well it was believable and had functional effects to make it look fairly realistic. However, the movie could have fared much better with a bigger budget for special effects, no doubt about it. But still, taking the budget and the aspiration of the movie makers into account, they actually did quite well.

Granted that "The Creature Below" is a low budget movie, then it is still a nice foray into the eldritch and cosmic horrors dreamed up by H. P. Lovecraft and this movie is actually sort of a hidden gem, that I fear many people will never even give a chance. Which is a shame, because it is entertaining. And if you enjoy the writing of H. P. Lovecraft, then you should definitely check out "The Creature Below".

The movie is entertaining, but it just lacked that spice to make it remarkably unique and outstanding. But all in all a good movie. The ending of the movie, however, well I wasn't a fan of that particular way to round up the movie...

This movie has some bad, but really bad, CG. well, all the CG in this movie are bad, not just some.... and there's not a lot, most of the "creature" parts are made with the old puppet way, seems to be cheaper from using CG.... music is not bad, but sometimes completely different types of music got into the main score, and we just paused the DVD to make sure none of the neighbors is listening to the radio...acting is terrible, OMG it is SO terrible, the lead actress is a disaster, and this is what might turn this garbage into a cult film, the other actress, the sister of the heroine is better, she is actually trying to act, which is not so good, because if she was as bad as her sister - this movie would surely get an Oscar for worst acting.

Despite the awful acting

Zero budget

Weak story

Uninspired direction

Awful special effects

And did I mention just how terrible the lead 'actress' is?

I somehow made it to the end!

There is nothing to recommend this film and it has few redeeming qualities. But it is watchable (just), and the premise could be interesting if ALL the above faults were fixed. I've not seen a good Lovecraft inspired film for a long time - and this does not change that!