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H.P Lovercraft's short story 'The Unnamable' is brought to the screen in a low-rent looking, small-scale production by first time writer/director Jean-Paul Ouellette. Maybe not as commanding as the likes of 'Re-Animator', 'From Beyond' and even 'Necronomicon', but Ouellette manages to invoke a twisted Gothic monster tale filled with menacing atmosphere and dripping with modest blood and gore. The latter actually surprised me how competently it was achieved, and the demon design is a horrifically creative design. Special effects/make-up artists R. Christopher Biggs and Camille Calvet did an excellent job, and I have healthy resume to back up their professional work.

Other than being quite graphic and stemming with eerily howling sound effects, the whole supernatural set-up for the story is quite conventionally light (little in the way of exploring the back-history and the climax is quite sudden) with the usual shocks and developments within an secluded rundown house that breathes spookiness. Really the premise's outline seemed more interesting than what Ouellette's execution could make of it, although the 90 minutes do breeze by with compact editing and the creaky roughness gives it some grit. Ouellette's systematic script is dramatically thin and strictly serious, save some dark humorous spots.

Legend has it that Joshua Winthrop kept in his family's house locked away his demon child that he and his wife were so ashamed about that called it 'the Unnamable'. It trying to keep it hidden, the creature turns on him and brutally murders him. Now in the present, students at the nearby Miskatonic College spend a night in the supposedly haunted house, which there only chance of survival rests on the open-mind of Randolph Carter.

Mark Kinsey Stephenson installs a brash, self-assured attitude to the Randolph Carter character, even though his screen time is limited it's always felt. While surrounding him are appealing turns by Charles Klausmeyer, Alexandra Durrell and Laura Albert.

David Bergeaud's racy, unhinged score is a shamble. One second it's nervously ominous then it changes to something playfully cute. Obviously these sudden shifts in the score were to match up to the moods of the characters/situation (from gruesome activities, suspense driven or humorous inclusion), but more often it felt forced upon. Ouellette's tightly staged handling relies on dim lighting with blue filtering to etch out an imposingly forlorn house and surroundings (like the graveyard) thanks to art director Ann Job. The demon is mainly kept hidden with sweeping POV shots, silhouette outlining, and glimpses of legs until we see it in full glory towards the end… but what stays with you is constant high-pitch screaming it unleashes.

Nothing formidable, but acceptable 80s monster gruel.

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

Students from Miskatonic University pay a visit to an abandoned old house that, as legend has it, was once home to a creature so ugly that it was dubbed 'The Unnamable'. Surprise, surprise... the monster is still there, trapped by a magic spell cast by its father, and it's not a happy bunny!

After the success of Re-animator and From Beyond, H. P. Lovecraft was hot property. The Unnamable is based one of the horror author's short stories, which is padded out to feature length by lots of aimless wandering around the film's spooky house by the protagonists. The filler material is rather pedestrian, but director Jean-Paul Ouellette livens things up sporadically with some gnarly gore (best moments: a juicy torn throat, and a mangled body falling to the floor, brains spilling from its open cranium) and a spot of nudity (courtesy of Laura Albert, as freshman hottie Wendy), all guaranteed to keep the audience watching until the final reveal of the monster, which looks a lot better than I had expected given how long it had remained hidden: with vicious fangs, wings, and horns, and a natty pair of cloven Ugg boots for good measure, it's a creepy looking creature that is worth the wait.

The fun ending sees bookish student Randolph Carter (Mark Kinsey Stephenson) reading from the Necronomicon (which just happens to be lying around the house) to invoke tree spirits that defeat the monster, allowing fellow students Howard Damon (Charles Klausmeyer) and Tanya Heller (Alexandra Durrell) to escape from the house.

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!...

H.P. Lovecraft's stories as a rule don't film well, and this is no exception. Considering that the original was really more of a short little episode than a story, that shouldn't be a surprise. It winds up being a pretty standard/mediocre monster story. It's a lot like "In the Woods", in that it looks like it's made by first-time filmmakers who don't know what they're doing, but unlike that abortion, this one actually has some things going for it. It's fairly gory, so if that's your thing, you won't be disappointed. The filmmakers wisely keep the monster off-camera for most of the film, and then when they finally reveal it, it's actually not bad. There's not a ton of suspense, though: it's the kind of movie where you know exactly who's going to die and who isn't, and all the characters are so hateful that you'd like to see all of them killed slowly. The dialog is insipid, even by horror standards, and seems to have been written by a confused person with lots of issues. Given how bad the script is, it might not be fair to point out the lousy acting. If you can get past the embarrassing script, it's got some entertaining qualities, but it's best recommended for teenagers.

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".

It was hard to get behind the characters not just because they were annoying and weak, but because some of the acting was terrible. Particularly the actress playing Tanya was bad. I'm guessing she was someone's girlfriend.

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.

I watched this movie on Monsters HD, which usually show the best part right before the movie starts. There wasn't a darn thing on, so I decided to watch. I really have to say this is a class 'A' clunker! The main actor wasn't that bad, but everybody, I mean EVERYBODY else in the entire cast was absolutely atrocious! Right about the time I had re-named it "unwatchable", there was a gratuitous topless sex scene. The girl was hot, so I watched a little bit more. Then came the murders, and they were pretty cool, but WAY too few to hold a feature-length flick. If only there was a bit more plot and A LOT more monster scenes, even the cheezoid acting would've been tolerable. I gave the movie a three because of the boobs, the kills and the monster.

I know lovecraft is hard to transfer to the screen but even taking in account that this is an 80's movie (not 2018 as listed on Amazon), it fails to be remotely scary. The only part of Lovecraft it follows is the very beginning then, it's down hill. I want my 2.99 back

The basic set-up here is simple enough: college students get caught in a house of horror in the woods, falling victim to a creature that is more than mere legend. Randolph Carter (Mark Kinsey Stephenson) seems to know the score, but the focus is more on Randolphs' friend Howard (Charles Klausmeyer) and the serious-minded Tanya (Alexandra Durrell).

The back story garners more interest than the balance of the yarn in this okay but unspectacular low-budget attempt at an H.P. Lovecraft story. It's not terrible or anything, but it certainly lacks any truly interesting features. Director Jean-Paul Ouellette, who also wrote the screenplay, fails to generate much tension or atmosphere. In the end, his film is pretty generic stuff, albeit featuring a fairly imaginatively conceived "unnamable" monster (played by Katrin Alexandre). Fortunately, Ouellette is wise not to give the monster too much screen time until near the end. He delivers the goods when it comes to gore: there is some effective nastiness on display here. R. Christopher Biggs, the man behind the makeup effects, can take a well-deserved bow. But the tale being told here is just too familiar to carry much weight for anybody other than die hard horror buffs.

The main debit here is a pretty charmless and not overly talented cast. Durrell is particularly bad. Klausmeyer, at least, is earnest and moderately likeable as the hero. The most amusing performer here is Stephenson, who does appear to be well cast. But the way he just sort of disappears from the film for a while only serves to keep things from being completely satisfying.

If you are an avid horror fanatic, and particularly enjoy seeing filmmakers attempt to film Lovecraft's stories, there is some entertainment to be had here. But, overall, it lacks a little pizzazz.

Six out of 10.

Oh jolly, another H.P. Lovecraft horror adaptation! In the vein of the successful "Re-Animator", these adaptations were extremely popular during the late 80's and early 90's but most of them were only very loosely inspired by Lovecraft and furthermore just an excuse to bring to the screen hideous demons and cheesy gore. "The Unnamable" is the best example of this, actually, as the opening fifteen minutes still attempt to create an atmosphere of mystery and morbidity reminiscent of H.P. Lovecraft's finest works, but afterwards the film quickly degenerates into a typically 80's teenybopper flick with fraternity initiation rites and really dumb dialogs. 200 years ago, Joshua Winthrop's wife gave birth to a female demon and he kept it locked away in the attic for a long time until the creature eventually killed him. The film opens with this storytelling, as the concerned house still exists and is now located nearby the Miskatonic University and three male students challenge each other to spend the night. Two of them refuse and the third one is never heard from again. The next day, the two others go back to search for their missing friend, but they're unaware than another group of brainless students already broke into the house. "The Unnamable" is far from a great horror film but, in all fairness, you could do a lot worse in case you're just looking to kill an hour and a half of time. The titular demon, which as it turns out in the end had a name all along, isn't seen until 50 minutes in the film even though there's an illustration of it on the DVD-cover. Before that, we just hear a lot of screeching, growling and thumping on doors. There are quite a few weird characters in the film, like the alleged Lovecraft alter ego Randolph Carter who talks funnily and pretends to be an expert in demonology even though he spends most of the film in a library looking things up. The gore effects are delightfully cheesy and grotesque, with a couple of torn open throats, decapitations and the repeated smashing off a person's head against a hard wooden floor. "The Unnamable" is insignificant, forgettable and quite dumb, but nevertheless okay entertainment for fans of rancid 80's horror.

Okay this film cost me £2 in some second hand store but it was worth it just as a lesson to aspiring film makers everywhere not what to do when making a horror film. So although its completely lame we can judge it on its superb script with classic lines such as 'ITS A BAT' as a piece of black cloth moves across the screen. Or 'What did you see something Unnamable perhaps?, however nothing beats the quiet girls reply to why all the guys fancy her friend Wendy 'its her big tits isn't it' before she looks down sadly and says damn. Also featuring such 80's classic characters as sweater wearing jock guy and mysterious guy with dodgy english accent. Get a group of friends together and this film will make you laugh more than most comedies today, and then check out...The Unnamable Returns....

It's really hard to screw up an H.P. Lovecraft story. Even if your movie is low-budget and you can't afford too many luxuries (i.e. good effects, acting, etc.), the film would probably still end up entertaining just because the man's work is so entertaining in itself. Unfortunately, not even that could save THE UNNAMABLE.

Two college couples decide to check out the old Winthrop place for initiation into the fraternity/sorority. However, they discover that a hideous monster resides in the house and it soon begins to kill them off one by one. Can they stop it before it's too late?

Granted, I have not read the seven-page short story by Mr. Lovecraft, but I'm rather certain something got lost in translation here. I mean, almost everything about the film is great, with great gore, great effects, a great score, good actors, and good camera-work. The problem is that the film simply cannot utilize all these things productively. The score is good, but completely out of place. The gore was good, but the deaths weren't too inventive. The monster effects are good, but the monster is not frightening. The actors are capable of good things, but the writing they have to work with is putrid. And the camera-work…well, that can't be the saving grace for a film.

What angers me about THE UNNAMABLE is that it could have been great. There was a time in the beginning where I began to feel fear, but the score completely ruined it for me (at times it sounds exactly like Zelda). Also, the film just cannot decide whether it wants to be a fun popcorn flick or a serious horror movie, which leads to scenes that should either be fun or scary, and I can't tell which. Overall, this gives the film a very bland feel.

Towards the end, the film takes a bizarre left turn into stuff like magical spells and even underground skeleton attacks! It sounds fun, but its relevance is never explained and it all happens in the blink of an eye! Then there's the non-reactivity of the characters. One girl sees a boy with his throat ripped out, and when help comes, she begins asking the other boy why people are more attracted to her friend than to her (?!?). Hello; you just saw someone BRUTALLY KILLED! REACT!!!

Overall, THE UNNAMABLE is just a monster movie that's trying too hard to stand out, when all it needs to be entertaining is just play it like a straight monster movie. It's like those inspirational movies where someone goes looking for happiness when all that person really needs is right under his/her nose. Only THE UNNAMABLE never discovers that, and the audience pays for it. Fortunately, there's a sequel that looks, and, from what I have heard, is better than this.

For the moment, this one's alright if you have nothing better to do.

The film isn't that good! But the creature, it's reveal, and all the creatures scenes left an indelible mark on me!

I'm not going to review this film, but will offer a few comments for those wondering about content.

I saw this shortly after its release and remember liking it very much. I've always been a fan of occult themes, especially when combined with blood and gore. In 1988, this was considered one of the less tame films, though it was not widely released, being more of a B-movie. There is a fair amount of blood and gore (for the time) but it doesn't hold up well, as the story is very cookie cutter and offers little original content. That's not to say it's a bad flick, It's just doesn't hold up as well as some of the classic occult flicks of the day.

If you're looking for a good horror flick to watch, especially one with blood and/or gore, this is not for you. If you enjoy horror tales with occult themes, regardless of the era produced, and are ok with the technology of 1988 (not even break-through or emblematic tech, but "just ok"), it's not a bad watch. There is simply nothing break-through or original to the flick, making it just another average 1988 horror flick.

Back in the 1800s a lady gives birth to a monster. They decide that the baby is too ugly to name, therefore the monster is known as the "Unnamable"...

While this film may only be casually connected to the Lovecraft story whose name it has, that really should not be held against it. Heck, many Lovecraft adaptations are quite loose and the 1930s film "The Black Cat" claims to be based on Poe, when it has no connection whatsoever.

On its merits alone, this is a pretty entertaining and fun film, with a strange narration from one character who talks like a fictional pilgrim, a woman who claims to have an accent but is obviously just deaf, and a monster that is something between a goat and a woman, with demon characteristics mixed in.

All in all, not a bad one... they might have shown the "unnamable" just a bit too much, giving it less mystery than it probably required. I have not yet seen the sequel, but now I am curious to see where it goes...

It's a shame that they couldn't get a better budget and better acting for this. This is a classic Lovecraft story but the acting is really bad and the script weak. The story itself is frightening and creepy. Wish it was better executed.

This low-budget horror picture inspired by a Lovecraft short story benefits from the sincere effort that went into making it. Also nobody seems to be taking things too seriously until the University student fun and games have gone past the point of no return. Corny and non-sensical elements can be overlooked in the name of entertainment here. The lovely monster (if you've read the story you have an idea of what it is like) is only the tip of the iceburg, for the story has one foot in Bluto Blutarski's universe and one in H. P. Lovecraft's. The effect, taken together, is charming if neither laugh-out-loud funny or terrifying.

I always try to find something positive to say about a film, make allowances for small budgets and the like, but I cannot say one good thing about this film, it is utterly dreadful, it has no redeeming features whatsoever. It can't even be put into the 'so bad it's good' category, it's just plain boring and poor.