NECRONOMICON

Film in episodes based on the writings of Master H. P. Lovecraft. To link them is Lovecraft himself (played by the great Jeffrey Combs) who reads the pages of the mysterious and dark Necronomicon. In the first episode "The Drowned" (rich in references to stories of the Cthulhu Mythos), by Cristopher Gans ("Brotherhood of the Wolf"), a man settles in an old manor on a cliff and there finds and reads the diary of the previous owner of the house. And as the pages follow, something under the floor of the house comes back to life. This first episode is not bad, it certainly has something Lovecraftian, like the setting, but the light effects (too flashy and retro) and the choice to show too clearly the creatures harm the atmosphere that ends up not fitting the "minimalism" of the author, who prefers to suggest rather than show. The second episode, "The Cold", is about a girl who, just moved into a boarding house in the city, finds herself caught up in a story of crazy experiments aimed at prolonging life. Okano signs an episode that, although inspired by several stories of the writer (for example "The Picture in the House" and "Cold Air") and offers good special effects, proves to be quite predictable in the staging. In the third episode, "Whispers", which bears the signature of Yuzna and is inspired by "The Whisperer in Darkness", we witness the descent into the nightmare of a policewoman in pursuit of the mysterious serial killer "The Butcher" in a dilapidated building. This last part refers to the more science fiction Lovecraft (of which the story on which it is based is an example) and succeeds quite well in transposing this vein of the writer. Very beautiful the initial part and interesting the creatures, which, with their bizarre appearance, seem to have come out of a writing by the Recluse of Providence. What to say at the end of this film? It is a good movie, affected by the flaw of having three episodes of unequal quality among themselves, which lowers the average rating. As an experiment, however, it is not bad. A curiosity: Brian Yuzna appears in the finale as Lovecraft's chauffeur, the latter having escaped with the Necronomicon to a horrible end at the hands of the Old Ones.