The more I talk with my friends, it’s pretty apparent that I’m not the ‘movie buff’ of my circle. At the least, I’m not when it comes to movies that actually come up in conversation regularly. Now, when it comes to weird movies that most people just laugh at the cover of and move on, I am drawn like a moth to a flame. Want to discuss the meaning of Inception, or Harry Potter? Sorry, I can’t hear you over all this BRUCE GOD DAMNED CAMPBELL FIGHTING TERMITE ALIENS. Plus, movies people actually like are pretty expensive. Crap like ICE SPIDERS can be had for less than a McDonald’s Value Meal, and arguably get you further along toward your goal of a stroke. Now that I have Netflix to pump an unlimited supply of free movies straight into my TV, I’ve sort of made strides against my film illiteracy by taking in some “normal” movies. Mostly, I’ve been enjoying catch-up time with mid quality anime and wonderful schlock like Robo Geisha and Birdemic: Shock and Terror.
Which brings us to another in the series of films that Netflix thinks are “Like” a movie I saw who knows when- The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulu. H.P. Lovecraft, if you’re on the Internet and don’t already know somehow, was a writer who specialized in a special brand of psychological horror that preys on the reader’s imagination to eat itself trying to make sense of its cosmic-scale, abstract horrors. Of course, the Cthulu you know probably isn’t exactly what he had in mind, as many many many authors have taken his legacy and ran with it, creating a mythos of all sorts of creatures who have nothing better to do with their powers than drive random people mad. Most Lovecraft derived works are relentlessly grim studies of man’s insignificance in the grand scheme of things. For fuck’s sake, the movie Dagon ends with the hero horribly burnt from a failed ‘noble sacrifice’ scene, shackled to the ocean floor but unable to drown because he’s found out he’s half fish, and about to receive some nonconsentual loving from. From his sister. Who is half octopus. One of the most depressing endings I can really think of.
The Last Lovecraft is not one of these movies.
This movie is kind of a tongue in cheek action-comedy movie, like Shaun of the Dead, except not as understated and clever. We have a skeptical hero, Jeff, who is as the title suggests, the last descendent of H.P. Lovecraft. Or maybe his name was Charlie or something. His wacky friend brings McFarlane toys to work and gets yelled at by the boss. What this movie proposes is that the late Lovecraft was telling the truth all along, but had his work published as fiction as a way to spread awareness to the public since it wouldn’t be treated seriously, then formed a secret organization to keep watch in case anyone tried to wake the sleeping cosmosquid. Unfortunately, the Cult of Cthulu, led by the Starspawn, his fashion-challenged offspring has half the talisman needed to do so, forcing Lovecraft’s council to take the other talisman to Kevin. A cross-country chase ensues, interspersed with comic book style cutscenes- wait, can I use the term cutscene in a movie review? Along the way, they enlist the help of the Lovecraft-obsessed nerd they used to bully in high school for an idea of what they’re doing, and eventually former seafarer Cap’n Olaf and his pet fish man.
Seriously, this movie isn’t awful. If nothing else, it’s kind of funny for the fact it’s taking the piss out of material that is basically to psuedo-intellectuals what slasher flicks are to people who aren’t insufferable. The basic moral of this story is that the fiction section is full of true stories that the authors thought too insane to be seriously researched, and if you are being pursued by insanity-inducing fish people, hide out in the middle of the desert to dry them out and pick them off with a normal garden-variety shotgun. Use this knowledge well.
