Necronomicon

I am quite sure there are some artistic snobs out there who will gush about how this is some esoteric masterpiece, and if you are one, go for it.

Otherwise, what crap.

The first 15 minutes is just painful to sit through. If I hadn't kept going I would only have given a single star as a drama school video class project, one where they were trying to copy Sin City ... but sooo badly. The script was abominable. The special effects were simply horrible. The lighting was high school at best ... or someone tryin to create an 'artistic masterpiece' (yeah right) and failing miserably. Once the big names started in with their cameos it got SLIGHTLY better, but I also hope a few agents are going to get an earful after they see the finished project.

For you artsy types, go for it. I am sure you will say thigs like "you just don't understand the ... (fill in the blank)". For me, I know street crud when I see it ... or step in it.

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.

As a card carrying member of the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, I will start by saying this is a hard pass. The makers of this film clearly have ZERO knowledge of the source material. Numerous characters in the film mispronounce the name of the Necromonicon... The titular tome... Multiple times. Also, aside from a character at the beginning of the film seemingly reading off the biography of H. P. Lovecraft from Wikipedia, there is virtually no mention of Lovecraft or Lovecraftian themes, tropes, etc. As a matter of fact, it's almost like the writers of the film wanted to make a film about Aleister Crowley instead but wanted to use the Lovecraft name to snag unsuspecting viewers like me. I can safely say, Aleister Crowley had nothing to do with Lovecraft's fictional Necromonicon, as it was written by the mad Arab Al Alhazzared. Also, the film is all wrapped up in Christian demonography which has zero to do with the elder beings and old gods of the actual Lovecraftian Necromonicon.

All of that aside, even as an enthusiast of schlocky B movies, I found this film to be horribly written, terribly paced, it had awful washed out audio throughout. The entire first twelve minutes is a weird Sin City-esque CGI car chase, complete with awful rear projection behind the driver who delivers a Frank Miller style monologue the entire time. There's also an awkward sex scene shoehorned in where you get to see Bai Ling's nipples if you're patient enough to get a half hour in. A lot of the "bigger name" actors don't even appear in the film and are simply dubbed into conversations with the main character.

If I could give this film a zero out of ten I would.

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.

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.