The Whisperer in Darkness

(Movie Review)

Why I Watched This Movie

            Since discussing The Cabin in the Woods with my co-workers, the name H. P. Lovecraft has come up a few times now in the office.

            I generally consider myself a fan of cheesy old pulpy horror/ sci-fi stories, but, I’m embarrassed to admit, I’d never heard of H.P. Lovecraft until a few weeks ago.

            Since I’ve become aware of Lovecraft, I’ve been keeping my eye open for his books, but English books are always in short supply in Cambodia.

            Cheap pirated DVDs, however, are not.  And so the other day when I was in the DVD store, I came across this film adaptation of one of H. P. Lovecraft’s stories, and decided to check it out.

The Review

          The first thing to note is that this film is not produced by a major Hollywood studio, but is instead the passion project of the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society (W).  Correspondingly, the film has no recognizable actors, and a small budget.

            That being said, it’s not quite as bad as you would expect.  It’s not in the same league as a major Hollywood release, of course, but it is about on par with other independent films, or a couple hours of network television.

            The key is to go in with low expectations.  Imagine you're just watching an episode of the old Outer Limits for example.  Just like the old Outer Limits, the acting and the production values might not be great, but there’s an old fashioned spooky story that you can get drawn into if you let yourself go with it.

            The producers of this movie decided to film it in the style of the old 1930s horror movies because the original story was from 1931 (the DVD jacket cites Dracula, Frankenstein, and King Kong in particular as influences).

              It’s a clever idea trying to mimic old horror movies, and the old school filming style also does a lot to cover up the low production values of the film.

            There were a couple things that kept me from fully immersing myself in the story however.

            1).The acting isn’t great, and a couple of the actors are probably miscast for their character, and this did keep pulling me out of the story. And

            2). Some of the homages to 1930s movies are a bit too clever for their own good, and this constantly reminded me I was watching a film production, and it also prevented me from getting fully involved in the story.

            The story itself is one of H.P. Lovecraft’s short stories that has been stretched out to a whole movie, and it feels like a short story that has been stretched out. 

            But then again, just tell yourself this is an episode of The Outer Limits that goes a little bit long, and it should be alright.

Notes (and spoilers):

* A number of things I didn’t fully understand about the story.  Either I missed something, or they never really explained how he managed to close the portal.  (What exactly was it that he threw into the portal?  And why did that cause it to close?)

            How exactly did these creatures manage to convert humans to their cause?  What did they do exactly?  And if they have this mysterious power, why wasn’t the old man ever fully converted?  I mean they clearly had him exactly where they wanted him as a brain in a jar?

            The ultimate purpose of these creatures was never fully explained, and in fact the film was being deliberately coy with this point.  I’m not sure if this was explained any better in H.P. Lovecraft’s original story or not.

Link of the Day

Q & A with Noam Chomsky

The Whisperer in Darkness: Movie Review (Scripted)