H. P. Lovecraft himself is visiting a monastery, where they store a copy of the Necronomicon. When he enters the place and meets some rather dubious monks, he asks if he can read the Alchemical Encyclopedia Vol. III, and manages to steal a key from one of them. He hurries to the cellar vault, where the Necronomicon is being held. Once inside, a vault door closes behind him. Taken aback by this he drops the key down a grating and into water, but he still proceeds to do what he came for, and sits down and starts reading.
And from here on the movie is separated into different segments, which Lovecraft is sitting there reading. The first one is called The Drowned, and supposedly based on The Rats in the Walls. The story is about Jethro De Lapoer who lost his wife and son. He uses the Necronomicon to bring his family back to life. Of course, we know that bringing back the dead always ends in even more misery. The next story is called The Cold, based on Cool Air. Here we meet Dale Porkel, a reporter who is investigating a string of murders in Boston which has taken place over several decades, and interviews a woman who lives in a freezing cold house. Next up is Whispers, based on The Whisperer in Darkness. This time we meet two police officers, Paul and Sarah, who is pursuing a suspect nicknamed “the Butcher“, where we go into creature-feature territory. And all the while Lovecraft has been reading these stories, seals have opened up to let in…something.
Necronomicon (also called H. P. Lovecraft’s Necronomicon, Necronomicon: Book of the Dead or Necronomicon: To Hell and Back) is an anthology horror film from 1993, featuring segments that are loosely inspired by some of Lovecraft’s stories. The segments are directed by Brian Yuzna, Christophe Grans, and Shusuke Kaneko, and they were written by Gans, Yuzna, Brent V. Friedman and Kazunori Itō. Animatronic effects and special makeup were supervised by Tom Savini, and were created by John Carl Buechler, Christopher Nelson and Screaming Mad George. So, yeah…it goes without saying that the effects here are kickass. The film won the award for Best Special Effects at the 1994 Fantafestival. The film did pretty well upon its initial VHS release in the US, and even better in Europe and Asia.
I found all the segments interesting and nice enough in their own way, but the film’s final segment, Whispers, is definitely my favorite, and the most insane and fast-paced of them all. It barely has jack shit to do with the original Lovecraft story, so if you want something more true to that you should check out The Whisperer in Darkness from 2012. Whispers is the darkest segment of the bunch, going into pure horror territory in an old abandoned house and a nasty feeding ground deep inside some creepy tunnels leading to a cave. We also get some cool body horror elements here, plenty gore and creature effects. But yeah, the segments are just veeery loosely based on the original stories, where I guess the first one regarding theme and atmosphere is probably closest to the vibe of a “cosmic horror“ Lovecraft story with sea people, rejection of the Christian God and a tentacled monster, while Cool Air is the one closest to the source material. I love Lovecraft’s stories, and I’ve gotten used to the fact that most movies based on them doesn’t really manage to capture them in a solid way. That being said, I also love the more loosely-inspired ones (and even some of the parody ones), I’m not picky. I can easily see how some of the more hardcore Lovecraft fans might wrinkle their nose like someone just farted in their face when seeing this film, though, despite how much fun I personally find it.
Jeffrey Combs plays the role as H. P. Lovecraft here, and for some crazy reason the makeup makes him look like Bruce Campbell’s twin brother. A little uncanny, to be honest. The ending/climax features of course some wrap-up with Lovecraft and the monks, which is fun. While some of the segments leaves a bit to be desired story-wise, the movie makes it all worthwhile with the awesome special effects. Plus Bruce Camb – er, I mean Jeffrey Combs, of course.
Necronomicon is a bit of a mixed bag, but it’s pure 90’s fun through and through with special effects from some of the best. It’s a little hard to come by, but we got the German Wicked Vision Blu-ray release which includes both the German dub and original English language + English subtitles.
Directors: Christophe Gans, Shûsuke Kaneko, Brian Yuzna
Writers: Brent Friedman, Christophe Gans, Kazunori Itô, Brian Yuzna
Country & year: USA/1993
Actors: Jeffrey Combs, Tony Azito, Juan Fernández, Brian Yuzna, Bruce Payne, Belinda Bauer, Richard Lynch, David Warner, Signy Coleman, Don Calfa, Judith Drake
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107664/
