Necronomicon

So... I'll watch pretty much any b-horror movie, and I've definitely seen my share. I also go to the Lovecraft Film Festival so I'm used to indie films. This was something else entirely. Firstly, it's like the makers of this film said "Hey. Let's use Lovecraft's name to suck people into". Then, it was like they hired a bunch of actors and gave them no guidance or direction. The narrator has no real emotion or intonation, its like he's reading cue cards off camera, Tom Sizemore clearly has 0 pronunciation coaching, and the lead is just boring as hell.

This is a movie that keeps referencing Aleister Crowley but it feels like someone read a wikipedia entry on Crowley and thought that was good enough research. In fact, they just read the wikipedia entry out loud in the film and then go "Gee whiz golly. How will I ever fight out more?"

And I haven't even begun to talk about how the CGI just looks like Inshot overlays...

This is a terrible film but not in any fun or redeeming way. Like its no "Manos: Hands of Fate" or "Birdemic" which have their merits as "so bad it's good" its just... bad.

This popped up on in my suggested movies feed and I immediately dismissed it as direct-to-video trash. But upon further inspection, it has real actors in it...surely it can't be that bad. Bai Ling, Sylvester McCoy, Tom Sizemore...actual actors! Maybe this is a diamond in the rough? Yeah, nope.

It opens with a monologue that makes Ben Stein's voice seem enthusiastic and emotive. The rambling dialog is over what appears to be a video made in a video game engine--mostly an inexplicable car chase that makes the Fast & Furious franchise seem tame. Oh...and a random helicopter shooting into traffic. Who knows at this point? There are some "hell" scenes that look like they're pulled from Doom. That's kind of neat.

Somehow it tries to tie Lovecraft and Alistair Crowley together in some nonsensical plot about the creation of the Necronomicon. Any video not pulled from a game engine is wildly overexposed and accompanied by dialog more painful than the droning "music," if you can call it that.

It's only redeeming quality is that it's about 75 minutes long. Honestly, I'd rather have a root canal than watch this again.

I only watched this movie because the other reviewers regarded it so poorly. Surely, it couldn't be that bad? They were not wrong. Everything they wrote is accurate. I made it 6 minutes in before I started fast forwarding through the rest. While it never really got any better, I did notice some naked ladies about half way through it. So, it does have that going for it. I really can't think of any other reason to watch this movie. It is not satisfying on any real level. That being said, I am sure the people that made this movie had a fun time and learned a great deal in the process. Now, I need to type 11 more characters.

This is directed by a guy who has only made 4 films in his entire life and the last one was 30 years ago about Dolly Parton. This give you an idea where the movie is going.

In the dumpster.

The first 15 minutes is a voice over car chase done in CGI with a guy purported to be controlled by the devil. It's sleep inducing.

Cut to what they say is NY but nothing looks like NY and everybody is speaking with a British accent.

Cut to New Orleans. Supposedly some old Alester Crowley house but it's clearly a tourist spot. You can see the fees to get in and tour on the wall!

Lots of the shots were clearly filmed in England. You can tell by the electrical outlets.

30 minutes into this garbage and no Bai Ling or Michael Madson or Tom Sizemore yet. They are supposed to be the stars.

Finally, Sizemore arrives, as large as Orson Welles, filmed against a plain white background and obviously did this god know where but the guy he interacts with isn't there at the time of filming. He's a voice over! And cutaways of him were added at a later date!

Horrible. This is a train wreck. I would have shut this off by now but I thought I'd sit around for Ling and Madsen.

Glutton for punishment.

Bai Ling is next on the agenda, filmed so dark you can't see her.

It's so dark, I'm not sure what I saw. I'm not even sure what her segment is about or how it relates to the movie, but all of a sudden, the guy has a giant bird tattoo on his back. It wasn't there 5 minutes ago!

Then there's a bunch of voice overs with Sizemore that are complete duplicates of what he said before.

Bai shows up again and the guy doesn't seem to recognize her as the girl thatwas with him 10 minutes earlier.

50 minutes into this and Madsen finally comes in, looking like total crap. He's in it for no more than 3 minutes and back to NYC.

With 15 minutes to go Bai ling shows up a third time.

The movie made zero sense. I can't believe I stuck with it. It sucked big time. Don't Bother. Your Time is More Valuable.

I can see why this director has a total of 4 movies to his name, at least up until this one.

Other than the name, which the lead actor can't seem to pronounce correctly; there is so much not related to the H. P. Lovecraft or the Necronomicon. Not to mention the fact that I can't recall the last time a police helicopter fires heavy weapons in the middle of a city, taking out everyone but the bad guy. Who admittedly claims to not be driving his car, but still appears to be driving the car.

Aleister Crowley was not interested in the book, It's not bound in human skin and has nothing to do with Hell or demons. But then again as bad as this "movie" is I'm not surprised they just slapped the name on it just to get people to watch it. When characters can't say the name correctly, sorta points to the fact that the Director didn't know how to or just didn't care and was trying to churn out another movie.

I know less than nothing about making, directing movies but I know enough that when I hire someone and they say the name of what my movie is about, I would make the do it again; until they got it right.

Is it Necronomicon, Necromonicon, Necromomicron. When all else fails, lets just add boobs and ass, that'll make the movie so much better.