Maidgethma
Wonderfully offbeat film!
Libramedi
Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant
Tayloriona
Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
Rio Hayward
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
TheExpatriate700
Lurking Fear is a mediocre but still watchable adaptation of one of H. P. Lovecraft's more obscure stories. The film suffers from weak writing, less than compelling characters, and not especially threatening monsters, but benefits from some surprisingly strong performances, especially from the actors playing the human antagonists.Long story made short, an ex-convict learns of a stash of money hidden in a graveyard, left there by his father, a thief. When he comes to dig it up, he finds himself caught in a battle between the townsfolk and some unholy creatures that, unsurprisingly, he has a connection to.The pacing and writing in this film are poor. Most of the first half plays like a heist movie rather than a horror film, as a trio of gangsters crash the graveyard and try to take the ex-convict's loot. Furthermore, the creatures that stalk the graveyard aren't particularly menacing and easily fought off, leading one to wonder how they terrorized a town for twenty years. This isn't helped by the fact that the human protagonists, for the most part, come across as incompetent. Ashley Laurence's caustic action girl comes across as particularly obnoxious.However, the film is salvaged by a decent cast. Character actor Vincent Schiavelli has a small role as a shifty undertaker, while Paul Mantee does well as a priest in charge of the church and graveyard. The highlights of the film are Jon Finch and Allison Mackie as two of the gangsters. One wishes the film had cast them as anti-hero protagonists. It would have been much more interesting.
logantoxic
This movie has buried treasure, gangsters, monsters under a town, is based off of an H.P. Lovecraft story, and stars Jeffery Combs (Re-Animator). Sounds fun right? Wrong. This movie has everything going for it but it fails miserably. The lack of execution is pretty blatant, from the editing, directing and acting, it all falls flat. Even the great Jeffery Combs could not rescue this pile of not so pleasant things. Our main character is probably the worst actor in the film but hey whatever. His character is just released from prison and is in search for his Dad's long lost buried treasure that just so happens to be buried in a town with a bunch of monsters hiding beneath the local cemetery. Eventually are Hero, a bunch of gangsters and some locals barricaded them selves in a church trying to survive from the monsters. This movie should of been Night of the living dead mix with evil dead, but instead we get a boring snooze fest. The reason why it fails is because its trying to be an action horror comedy, but fails at all three. At first glance the film seems interesting but it gets bogged down by its convoluted plot in the second act and you don't even care how this movie ends by the time you get to the third act. The only entertainment in this movie is Jeffery Combs. He is plain awesome. This movie is for Jeffery Combs completist only.For more reviews visit my Youtube channel Logan Toxic and visit my blog: logantoxic.blogspot
Cujo108
Very loosely based on a story by H.P. Lovecraft, this Full Moon cheapie deals with an ex-con going to the town of Leffert's Corner to dig up a corpse that his late father stuffed with money. Unfortunately for him, his father's old partners are on his trail. On top of that, Leffert's Corner has been dealing with attacks from underground creatures for years, and they live beneath the very cemetery the money is buried in.Anyone going into this expecting a faithful Lovecraft adaptation certainly aren't going to find one here. Don't expect a good movie either. Right from the opening scene, we're immediately hit with some horrible acting, and it doesn't get much better from there. The lead (Blake Bailey), who also narrates on occasion, is particularly awful. The only actors who don't come off too poorly here are Allison Mackie as an eccentric femme fatale and Jeffrey Combs as the town doctor. Ashley Laurence (credited as Ashley Lauren for some reason), such a likable heroine in the "Hellraiser" films, is just annoying here as a bitchy Rambo wannabe.There's a lot of really bad editing in this thing, and the attempts at action suffer for it. What little story there is doesn't come together in any satisfactory manner either. The ending is laughable, especially when you throw in Bailey's final voice-over. Full Moon has managed to churn out a few good movies, but this isn't one of them. I bought the VHS for 50 cents at a video store that was going out of business, so at least it was cheap.
The_Void
Full Moon seem to have a rather poor reputation arising from the fact that many of their films are low budget and not exactly masterpieces, but the company certainly does well when it comes to H.P. Lovecraft, and while this film isn't up to the standard that Stuart Gordon went on to set with Castle Freak, Lurking Fear is still a good example of low budget horror. I've not read the Lovecraft short story that the film is based on, so I can't say how faithful to the original material it is; but the film features a number of Lovecraft's trademarks, and the central theme of a town overrun by strange otherworldly creatures is pure Lovecraft. The plot centres on the town of Leffert's Corners, which as mentioned, has a problem with strange otherworldly creatures. A man named John Martense also has a problem also as his criminal father happened to bury a corpse in Leffert's Corners, which is filled with money; and he isn't the only one that wants it. We then follow John Martense and a group of three would-be robbers who arrive at the town just as the locals are preparing a spectacular fight back.The main problem with this film really is that not enough happens. We focus on a claustrophobic church where the locals have holed up, and while the atmosphere is good and every now and then someone gets killed, the characters aren't interesting enough to pull it through as well as possible, and the creatures never take centre stage. But even so, I enjoyed this film as its PURE horror; we don't get mixed up in any needless subplots, and director C. Courtney Joyner (who has directed a slew of trashy horror flicks) keeps the focus on the central theme well. The acting isn't up to much, but the cast just about pull it through. Jeffrey Combs is never far from H.P. Lovecraft, and I always enjoy seeing him in films. Hellraiser's Ashley Laurence makes a welcome appearance and is actually very sexy, while Allison Mackie does well as her opposite number. The film gets better as it goes along, and the director just about succeeds in building tension on the way to the ending, which wraps everything up nicely. Overall, this is not a great film and I wouldn't recommend going out of your way to see it; but its fun enough and definitely worth watching.