I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

Yet Another H.P. Lovecraft Movie

Lurking Fear (1994)

Have I mentioned I'll watch anything with Jeffrey Combs in it? I have? You want me to stop you say? Sorry. After finding out that so far Jeffrey has starred in eight H.P. movie treatments, I'm determined to find and watch them all. Good, bad or very very bad. Now THIS one wasn't half bad, even though it is VERY loosely based on the H.P. story The Lurking Fear. It had a decent storyline, of course it had Jeffrey Combs, and the special effects and makeup was pretty good.

We have two storylines that converge and try to keep a steady pace throughout the film. We have our sort-of hero John Martense (Blake Bailey) just getting out of prison for being wrongly convicted and held for four years. Or five years. Depending on which part of the movie you pay  attention to. They seemed to get confused about that one. His deceased father, a thief by trade, left him half of a map with instructions to find his former 'partner' for the other half. The prize? A gruesome corpse bursting (literally) with money his father stole from a casino. It's in his childhood town of Leffets Corner. He drives a car with Massachusetts plates reading Arkham Imports, kind of an in-joke (that's where all the Re-Animator movies took place - never NEVER go to Arkham - oh wait, there's no such place except in Batman movies).

I have to inject somebody with... oops, this is a cigarette.

The other storyline is in Leffets Corner itself - for the past 20 years the residents have been steadily disappearing, being taken and consumed I guess by monsters - by their look I'd call them ghouls. Their 'lair' is below the cemetery, precisely where John needs to go. A doctor named Haggis (Jeffrey Combs), a militant type female and a pregnant woman are preparing to blow up the whole cemetery (well not the pregnant woman, I think she's just there so the doc can keep an eye on her). So of course they conflict, and things get worse when the casino owner and two of his cronies show up, having followed John, determined to get what was stolen from them.

Where you goin'? If I gotta be here, so do you.

The church adjacent to the cemetery is torn up and the priest has an uneasy truce with the creatures below. As survivors who were maimed by the creatures take 'communion' they kiss a book (the Necronomicon, not a Bible) and 'drink the blood of Christ'. Okay, we're trying hard to at least leave a little H.P. in the story here. The priest objects to all those there for their various reasons, but offers no resistance. We get the feeling that although he speaks of 'God', his version of who God is is the creatures residing below (which would fit into an H.P. scenario).

I'm tough, I just can't hang on to my gun.

Like I said the action is a bit uneven, the first real showing of a 'ghoul' as it takes its first victim is 52 minutes into the film, but it does pick up from there. John learns that the 'ghouls' are actually the entire Martense family, and that his father had 'escaped' when young. For some reason, he stayed human, as does John. Because of a birthmark on his shoulder which is a trademark of the Martense family, the ghouls don't hurt him. After lots of infighting, guns being traded between good and bad guys a lot (no one pays really close attention in this thing), an obligatory cat fight in the mud, and unfortunately the death of Dr. Haggis after the first hour, the story does move. John 'finds' a crypt with his 'family' in it (they kind of look like bug-eyed zombies) and the money-stuffed corpse. He has no interest but the remaining bad guy does, and starts stuffing his pockets, so greedy he doesn't realize that the ghouls are closing in around him. He's eaten.

You seem tense... let me adjust this for you.

John manages to climb out. Meanwhile the militant female gets to a gas station somehow, finds a gas tanker (very convenient) and then goes back, filling the crypt chamber and setting it off. This also sets off the explosives that were set around the cemetery toward the beginning and we get a sort of Michael Bay treatment for a few minutes (gotta show off that special effects budget). The movie ends with John pondering whether he is actually a killer - or something worse. 'Until I find out, I will always be a prisoner.' Hopefully that is not a teaser for a sequel.

Children can be SUCH a disappointment.