Seeing as how it seems a little lonely lately, especially with Cerpts not doing his traditional (if something is done once is it still considered a tradition? well it is now) October Halloween Themed Blog I decided to try and pick up some of the slack. That's what you do when you are a friend. Make no mistake, my Halloween blog posts won't be anywhere near as good as Cerpts' are/were or will be again but hopefully I can hold you over for a bit. My sister blog over at the Dharma and Greg Project is kind of on a holding pattern so it goes without saying that I have a little time on my hands. Russ, who I usually do this blog with, decided to go and blow up his computer so he won't be posting any time soon, at least that was what I was told a few days ago. So that leaves my dance card wide open. With all that being said, I wanted to begin with a review of a movie that Cerpts recently reviewed on his blog. The Resurrected.
Based on a novella or short story, depending on which side of the bed you get out of, by H.P. Lovecraft, The Resurrected stars a LOST favorite John Terry as private detective John March. One fine morning while waiting for coffee or maybe tea, Claire Ward walks into March's office and needs his services. It seems the forlorn bride wants to know what her hubby, Charles Dexter Ward (played to the creepy hilt by Chris Sarandon, it's no wonder Susan couldn't stay married to him!) is up to. Fun time Charlie is following a path of darkness and learning that genealogy has a price. Too bad that price involves his life and a lot, and I mean a lot of blood. Now I'm not a big H.P. fan when it comes to his stories making the big screen. That's not his fault. With that being said, this has to be my favorite movie based on a Lovecraft story. It builds slowly but not enough to make you reach for the remote to fast forward a bit into the movie. The dread builds at a nice even pace and even though the movie was made on a shoestring budget and was released direct to video (which usually makes me very leery), it still does a fairly good job of delivering the suspense.
There's gore too, poor Lonnie, March's assistant, played by Robert Ramanus (yes, Mike Damone from Fast Times at Ridgemont High) gets eaten when he falls into a pit filled with the abominations that were Charlie's failed experiments. Maybe when you go into a creepy dark crypt it's a good idea to bring more than one flashlight. We all can learn that from this movie. And never drop a lantern! Never! Like I said, poor Lonnie, and he had just stopped smoking so he could live longer.
When I say Sarandon plays a creepy Charles Dexter Ward, I really mean he plays a really creepy Joseph Curwen. Curwen is Ward's recently reincarnated ancestor who needs to feast on raw meat and a lot of blood to stay alive. I told you there was a lot of blood in this movie.
The movie starts very promising; Orderlies and a doctor are summoned to a room in a mental hospital. A janitor with a mop (they need a mop - not good) repeats over and over that he refuses to go inside. The room is a mess; blood and gore cover most of the floor and an inexplicable pile of black ash is near the center of the room. How did this come to pass? Brace yourself, because the remainder of the story is a flashback. I can almost hear the whooshing LOST flashback music.
Claire describes her husband as acting strangely and working late at night in the old carriage house that he turned into a laboratory. Only, he was not just working late. Strange lights would flicker in the windows and howling cries would issue from the place. After Claire had confronted her husband, he abruptly moved out and took everything to a dilapidated old house in the country. His only companion was the strange man he called "Doctor Ash." Who by the way is also played by Sarandon. Did he get extra pay for all these parts? The old house in the country has been in the Ward family for generations, and a miasma hangs in the air around the dwelling. In addition to disturbing the neighbors with dreadful sounds in the night, Charles has been ordering prodigious quantities of raw meat and blood from slaughterhouses. After the neighbor is found dead and missing most of his flesh, the private investigator and Claire know that something is horribly wrong. Distraught as she might be, the little lady is able to tell John about the mysterious trunk that was mailed to her husband. Its contents were what started Charles down his dark road. The house is downright eerie, good thing they have a lot of those houses in New England no props had to be built for that.
The Revolutionary flashback is also very disturbing especially the fleshy, still kind of alive, thing they fish out of the swollen river. But the best part of the movie is when the trio is in the deepest parts of the cellar. The "what's waiting around the corner" feeling was very strong and the actors conveyed the feeling very well. I would be remiss if I did not add that the music was low key, not overbearing but just added the appropriate touch to give it a little extra dread.
The movie ends in the padded cell where the movie began. March goes to confront Ward/Curwen who is in the loony bin. For a movie that did what most other Lovecraft movies could not do which is hold my interest, scare me a bit and impress me with how the story translated to the screen, the last scene with March and Curwen fell short for me. It almost felt like they were running out of time to shoot the film and just went with their first couple of takes. It felt rushed and although it didn't ruin the movie for me, it did make it feel like an episode of Tales From the Crypt instead of a movie. The last ten minutes should have been better the first 90 minutes deserved it to be.
All in all not a bad flick and like I said in the realm of H.P. Lovecraft stories that hit the big screen, this one is fairly well done. I give it two and a half fangs out of four. Hopefully I have done a good job of giving you my review of this movie. My apologies to Cerpts, Weaverman, and others who I have read their reviews through links on Cerpts' blog, hope I didn't do too bad of a job at being a reviewer. Thanks for letting me give it a shot.
