LovecraCked! The Movie

The concept of an anthology film project comprised of humorous adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft material never would have occurred to me but obviously someone at BiFF JUGGERNAUT Productions was "cracked" enough to give birth to such a bizarre concept. Given that this film is a collection of other filmmaker's material with varying degrees of quality, shooting formats and aspect ratios, the whole thing meshes together surprisingly well and the wrap-around segments featuring Director Elias as a kind of eccentric roving reporter delving into...something...related to Lovecraft somehow manage to tie up a few loose ends while unraveling several dozen in the process. There's something very charming about films where your roving reporter and his subjects are all completely dubbed; I guess it satisfies that Mondo movie jones that I have.

Some years ago I heard about this movie and thought it sounded kind of interesting. I could not find it anywhere else, so I had to order it from the production companies website. For some reason, I don't really remember, I could only get the full package (the DVD, a poster, a T-shirt and a card signed by someone involved), which was of course more expensive than just the DVD. I was still going to school back then and for me it was a lot of money for a movie I didn't know much about. I eventually ordered it anyway and I have not regretted it.

It's certainly not for everyone. It's an independent movie and it shows. The movie consists of different short films, loosely based on H.P. Lovecrafts work, connected by a story about a journalist, who is researching Lovecraft. Some of the segments were a little...experimental. They are all quite different and I did not like all of them equally as much, but the good thing about films like this is that if you don't like one part you might like the next. I ended up liking most of them in one way or the other

I think it is not necessarily a horror movie in the traditional sense, some moments were rather funny or just plain weird.

Although I gave the movie 8 stars, I would not recommend it to everyone, but if you like Lovecraft, independent cinema or weird short films (or better yet, all of those things), give it a chance.

Imagine Monty Python directed by Dario Argento, and you have this crazy collection of nine gore/comedy skits. The linking thread for these surreal bloodbaths is a Monty Python like reporter doing an investigative report of famed horror author H.P Lovecraft. Cameos by famed Troma intern Lloyd Kaufmann and punk rock princess Joanna Angel pepper this savage bit of DVD fun. My only complaint here is that while Juggernaut made a film with a very original look, and format, leaping from dismemberment to giggles, he throws in some rather tired clichés. During the closing credits we see "funny" out-takes off in the corner. Some scenes are pretty much direct repeats of famous Python sketches. Biff, when somebody says, "You know, Biff how we see in all those movies where they (insert cliché here.) We can do that." Just ignore them, Biff. Anyway, fun, sick movie Biff.

This is cutting edge, avant-garde, underground, horror film-making. Scream XI this is not. Neither is this the next installment from Hollywood's digest of McHorror films. These are original pieces of art—like raw sugar cane. Like all things new and original there will be resistance to fully appreciate the films on this anthology. However, this is a compliment. Many of the short films in the anthology could easily be expanded into feature length films. There is no doubt many of the films will generate controversy and criticism. It's apparent the executive producers enjoyed successfully (unlike Cloverfield's gimmick) the act of unprocessed cinema. It is true that a 100 million dollar fat-cat budget would smooth out the edges—but then again look at Kevin Costner's Waterworld. One can even surmise that the producer's were satirizing the over-inflated, unnecessary budgets of Hollywood. There are hilarious flying fake bats on strings and an obviously unplugged microphone that the host absurdly pretends to talk into throughout. Alas, my only fear is that after the success of this anthology the producers may regress into another (lost soul) John Carpenter.

I have to suspect that some if not all of the previous five reviews are from people involved in the film. I have a hard time believing that five people all thought LoveCracked was that great with no one saying otherwise.

This is a collection of shorts from different directors/actors, all linked by an HP Lovecraft theme, and all done in different ways. In between the shorts are quick comedy segments.

For originality, you have to give it a high score. I haven't seen anything else like this or even close. Some of the shorts were pretty good, notably the "Randolph Carter" story. Some were pretty bad. That's what you get with an anthology.

The comedy in between shorts is lame. The "investigative reporter" bit got old about two minutes in and didn't get any better. It just wasn't funny. All he did was talk to people who knew nothing. That was supposed to be funny, the idea that nobody this guy interviewed actually knew anything about ol' HP; it might have sounded funny on paper. In practice, it just came off as a bad attempt at comedy.

There was a soft-core edit of "Re-Penetrator", which was totally lost on me. Since there is full frontal nudity and this is an indie collection, why bother to edit it down? Seems like they were trying to avoid the perceived stigma of porn. All they did was screw up what could have been one of the better shorts.

The production quality was good where it was supposed to be; some of the comedy bits had intentional bad production but that's as it should be. The soundtrack was OK, even good in places. The acting was better than most indie projects. Where the whole thing broke down was the comedy; they really need to find a better writer, otherwise it's just a bunch of non-funny bits added to what could have been a decent anthology.