"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...
