The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu (2009)

The cultists are at it again when they dig up one half of a relic that will set the elder god Cthulhu free from his underwater prison to wage war on the human race.  Lucky for us the other half of the relic is being kept safe by the council who send one of their own to give it to the last living relative of H.P. Lovecraft so that he can protect it.  Then again I’m not sure they would have done that if they had know that Jeff was such a slacker.  But when monsters and cult members show up at his house to murder him and take the relic back he is forced to try and stop them with the help of his friends. 

This is one of those horror comedies that is light on the horror and heavy on the comedy.  This automatically turns off many fans as they simply can’t handle some silly genre related fun.  Personally I like some humor now and am a huge fan of Lovecraft’s writing, so I was interested in checking The Last Lovecraft out as soon as I saw the trailer online. 

For the most part I really liked The Last Lovecraft.  The story is entertaining and has a lot of in jokes for H.P. Lovecraft fans as well as some humor that will appeal to non-fans as well.  And while you get the typical pick on the nerdy guy sort of jokes much of what is funny here is clever and witty.  They do some fun stuff with the cultists that is both funny and in one case genuinely creepy.  I don’t want to spoil the fun by giving too many spoilers, but the topic of fish rape does get discussed in some detail.  When not being funny the movie is still entertaining and paced well.  I had fun with the characters and never felt like the movie was dragging at any point, which was a huge plus.  Too many horror comedies end up being a series of gags with painfully slow setups in between them.  Thankfully that isn’t the case here.

I was also very impressed with the creatures in this movie.  You get some deep ones, Cthulu’s general, and on fish man that is seen briefly, but is really memorable.  All of them are latex and practical, but we do get some CGI tentacles (it is a Lovecraft movie after all!) that are pulled off pretty well on the budget.  All in all the creature design was more then I had expected from an independent movie.  Hell we even get some gut munching and mayhem, which is always a good thing from my perspective.

The only thing that I could even say negatively about the movie is that some of the acting is a bit rough.  This hurts some of the scenes and comedic bits as the delivery of the lines is noticeably off.  But this is a minor complaint that I don’t think really huts the movie that much at all.  With that in mind I do recommend that fans in the mood for some silly fun check out The Last Lovecraft:  Relic of Cthulhu.

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2011 John Shatzer