Indie Cthulhu Doesn’t have the Scares
Seattle history professor Russ (Jason Cottle) is drawn back to his secluded Oregon coast home after the mysterious death of his mother. While there he is reunited with his estranged father and plunged back into mysterious small town secrets he’d really rather forget.
Jason Cottle in Regent Releasing's Cthulhu
But after a chance encounter at a local liquor store sparks his curiosity, Russ starts diving into the many disappearances which have plagued the township for decades. What he discovers is a watery horror unlike any he could have ever imagined, his father’s New Age cult right at the center of an apocalyptic maelstrom that could very well change the face of the Earth forever.
The independent horror movie Cthulhu had its first screenings during the 2007 Seattle International Film Festival to admittedly disastrous response. Since then, it has been heavily re-edited and reconstructed by director and co-writer Dan Gildark and, while certainly a much better movie, it’s still a poorly realized murky muddle. No matter which way you want to look at it the picture just isn’t very good, and while certain scenes and moments have their sparks overall this one’s nothing more than 90-plus minute snooze.
The basic problem? It just doesn’t make any sense, and even though the filmmakers are working from the ambiguous and misty mind of author H.P. Lovecraft, they never find the suspenseful nuance and terrifying carnality of the blossoming unknown the writer could accomplish in just a few priceless sentences. Their film is darkly lit disaster on just about every level, the whole thing a David Lynch meets John Carpenter meets Larry Fessenden quagmire going nowhere while also bringing very little to the table.
Worse than all that, however, is the fact that it just isn’t very scary. Cottle looks suitably stressed and he certainly goes all out trying to convey Russ’ growing hysteria, but everything he is doing feels so disconnected from anything even close to resembling a concrete reality that when said reality begins to crumble I couldn’t have cared less.
This is a story where the wall between the real world and the carnal abode of the creatures unknown should slowly dissolve and crumble leading to pin-prickly eeriness that slowly blossoms into full-blown terror. Carpenter did that in what was arguably his last great film, the Lovecraft inspired In the Mouth of Madness, and while no one would ever accuse him of subtlety it goes without saying that Stuart Gordon did exactly the same with his cult gross-out classic Re-Animator.
Gildark just doesn’t have the chops to follow in their footsteps. The movie feels like a series of silly coincidences building to a freakish implausibility, and even if a mid-movie chase through the dankly lit bowels of town gave me the willies the rest of it just left me cold. In short, I just don’t see what the fuss about this one is, Cthulhu nothing more than another horrific disaster in a 2008 already full of them.
Film Rating: ê1/2 (out of 4)
Additional Links:
- Cthulhu Theatrical Trailer
