The Offering

Hey, I've got nothing against horror 'B-movies' - in fact, they make up a significant proportion of my DVD collection. You don't have to have major actors, great special effects, or even a particularly original story to make a movie enjoyable - as long as it entertains then it usually fits the bill. However...

If you make a film with the word 'monster' in the title, it does tend to set an audience's expectations. If you sat down to watch 'Snakes on a Plane' you'd probably not be expecting Shakespeare, but you'd be looking for something that's just a bit of harmless fun. If you got one sickly-looking adder ten minutes before then end, then you might feel just a little bit 'short-changed' from what the title promised.

'Monster Portal' is an adaptation of an HP Lovecraft story, which is fair enough, but it does relay on giant creatures as part of its central theme. Sadly, the movie doesn't have the budget to really pull it off. Yes, there are a couple of monsters sprinkled here and there, but not only is it not enough to justify the title, but they're rendered about as well as your average Playstation 2 cut scene.

Now, I'm happy enough to ignore the special effects if the story is overall engaging and fun (or in a horror movie's case 'scary' would suffice), but here the acting is bad. Yes, I've seen enough horror movies to know I'm never going to get 'Oscar-worthy' performances, but in this case it basically feels like the actors are reading their lines off a cue card which is just out of shot. I guess I shouldn't really put all the blame on the actors, this script is pretty basic and they're probably doing their best with the awfully generic lines they're given, plus you'd think the director might be able to coax something out of one or two of them.

It's not the main characters who are the (total) problem. They don't turn in very good performances, but I can just about excuse them. It's more the secondary cast-members who might as well be your average passers by who were roped in to read a line or two here and there.

As I say, B-movies can be fun, but this one just tries to bite off way more than it's capable of. With a higher budget, better actors and script it might have worked, but, ultimately, it couldn't make anything of its lofty goals.

How did this ultra-dull movie get financed? How did the director manage to make one hour and eighteen minutes seem to drag on...and on...and on? Did the several actors appearing in this stupid "Lovecraftian" tale drink codine cough syrup before every take? Everything moves in slow motion, the cult members are wearing cheap hooded taffeta costumes from Party City, and there are about 20 seconds of creature effects which you can see in the trailer. Avoid, this stinks like Cthulhu farts. One star, which is being generous.

This movie is slower than watching oil paint dry. The sound is off. The actors seem like they didn't even want to be there. This goes by 2 other names which you just know it gonna suck.

Right, well I stumbled upon the 2022 horror movie titled "Monster Portal", and seeing that the movie brandished H. P. Lovecraft's name on the cover, and having rather interesting cover, I must admit that I was intrigued.

Did I harbor much of any expectations to the movie? No, not really, because I had never heard about is before watching it.

And what a dumpster fire this was. First of all, this movie has nothing to do with H. P. Lovecraft, aside from the fact that writers Matthew B. C., Scott Jeffrey and Mario von Czapiewski opted to put Cthulhu into their movie. Yeah, this story has never even been anywhere near being spawned by the great H. P. Lovecraft himself. And just because you opt to put something that Lovecraft created into a movie doesn't really give you the right to put "H. P. Lovecraft's" as part of your movie title. But hey, anything to lure in the audience, right?

The storyline in "Monster Portal" was not a great one, not even by a longshot. It was sluggish and slow paced, with nothing overly exciting to offer the audience that manages to endure the staggering 80 minutes of nonsense that "Monster Portal" turned out to be.

The special effects and CGI in the movie were so-so. Some of the CGI was actually fair enough, while some was just taken straight out of a 1990s computer game. And how wonderfully clever to make the scenes so dark that you can hardly see any of the special effects when they were actually on the screen. Yeah, this formula doesn't really work, and if anything it just makes attempts of horror turn into a parody.

The acting performances in "Monster Portal" were fair enough, I will say that much. I wasn't familiar with the cast in the movie, and that is normally something I enjoy when I watch a movie. But the actors and actresses literally had nothing worthwhile to work with here.

I got suckered in by the "H. P. Lovecraft's" part of the title and ten tentacles and faceless creature on the cover. Make sure you don't do the same mistake, because "Monster Portal" is not worth the effort. And seeing a CGI rendering of Cthulhu's head shrouded in 90% darkness hardly constitutes a movie as being Lovecraftian.

My rating of "Monster Portal" lands on a two out of ten stars.

Good reviews on this one (for a change). Yes, it's a total snoozefest for 45 minutes. The only it has going for it in that time is a super creepy old lady. Then it switches from a grieving daughter returning to her family home yawn into a demonic cult story involving mindbending concepts. It does finally take on some atmospheric flavor at that point, as well as a horror story. And it's pretty good from that point forward. It's just brief, & hard to forgive the first 45 minutes. Script still wasn't great, but I liked the effects. I wish the whole movie had been that last 25 minutes & they had done more with that instead of rushing it.