The White Monster

Howard Philipps Lovecraft was a remarkable author, and it's often an acquired taste to enjoy many of his stories. It's my opinion that the duller the original Lovecraft story, the more entertaining the film, and vice versa.

This story is middle-of-the-road, and so is the film. It bears all the hallmarks of a standard 1980s horror film, but it has little allusions and touches that those who read Lovecraft would be familiar with would be entertained by. In-jokes, if you will.

The original story was relatively short, and expanding it to feature length probably required the mortising in of the standard horror elements found in 1980s type films. There have been some pretty good films that use these elements -- Pumpkinhead springs to mind -- that even if this film uses those elements, that shouldn't detract from the overall story.

Apparently, in olden times (the 1800's?) a monster killed its human father in gory fashion. Fast-forward to modern times (1988), and a group of college students decide to spend the night in the creaky house where the awfulness took place. Bloody horror soon unfolds.

Let's face facts, in a movie such as this it's all about the monster. So, is this particular beastie up to snuff? Well, yes. It's clear that 99% of the low budget went into the costume / makeup and gore effects, which explains the ultra-cheap sets and pitifully bad "flashback" sequences.

Of course, before we get a good look at the creature, we must endure an eternity of dullness, and a dump truck load of malarkey, mostly provided by the idiot behavior of the victims. The only semi-interesting character is Randolph Carter (Mark Kinsey Stephenson), a role that the likes of Jeffrey Combs would have played to the hilt! Overall, not a terrible way to waste an evening.

EXTRA POINTS FOR: The Miskatonic University sweatshirt, that any true Lovecraft fan would want!...

Weak adaption turns the classic Lovecraft story into another run of the mill teenagers are in danger flick. It also suffers from a poor creature effects and a laughable ending. Film has a group of college students going to a mansion that local legend has it is haunted by an unnameable creature lurking in the attic. Unrated; Graphic Violence and Nudity.

If I start writing all that's wrong with this movie, it would be faster for you to watch the movie and make your own conclusions than to read my review. So, I'll just make a few notes about what's good in it:

• The movie is based on H.P. Lovecraft and, although this is one of the worst adaptations, Lovecraft is still Lovecraft, and it is very hard to destroy it so much to be unwatchable.

• Dancer Katrin Alexandre and team that takes credits for the look of The Unnamable did an excellent job and made one of the best monsters in the history of cinematography. Unfortunately, it's shown in its full glory just briefly.

• Few moments of naked Laura Albert.

Everything else is mediocre and boring, so I recommend this only to the most hardcore fans of Lovecraft and '80s B-production horrors. For the rest of average audience this is just another crap.

5/10

I have heard some people say that H.P. Lovecraft's works are unfilmable. I guess that I would say that they did a worthy job with "The Unnamable", but aside from the fact that another movie with a grotesque monster's property getting invaded by horny teens seems a little silly, the people here can't really act (well duh; these movies don't star Katharine Hepburn). Particularly laughable is the line "You're very brave." And if you remember the rules laid out in "Scream", you can guess which people survive here.

So, this is pretty much a way to pass time. For better efforts at filming Lovecraft stories, there's "Die Monster Die!" and "The Dunwich Horror".