The Curse (Trans World Entertainment, September 11, 1987) and In the Tall Grass (Netflix, October 4, 2019)

Yes, a new watch-a-thon, featuring me, a hopeless procrastinator, plumbing the depths of cinematic misery for your entertainment.

This time around, I will be watching Lovecraftian and Lovecraftian-adjacent films, and as usual they must be films I’ve never seen before (which makes the task trickier and bound for disaster).

If you don’t know anything about Lovecraft’s writings, cosmic horror, the Mythos, or Cthulhu, panic not. Onwards!

The Curse (AKA The Farm) (1987) – Tubi

Directed by David Keith (no, the other one), The Curse is a slightly faithful adaptation of ‘The Color Out of Space,’ just without any, um, colors.

The Crane family, led by an overbearingly religious patriarch played by Claude Akins, run a simple farm — not very well judging by their income. However, all that changes when a strange, blue object arrives from space, leaving a crater in one of their fields. It isn’t long before its internal goop has seeped into the soil, growing fruit and vegetables to healthy sizes (but unfortunately full of maggots), and infecting the water supply of an entire town. Before you can say “frozen airplane toilet waste,” the farmer and his wife are mutating and being downright unsociable. Plonked in the middle of all this is adopted son, Zach (Wil Wheaton), who has to negotiate his way out of this nightmare.

It’s a typical mid 80s affair, nothing fancy in the camerawork and lots of goo. Some of the effects are rather cheesy, but on the whole it’s an entertaining watch, and as much as I like Wheaton, it’s always fun to see him getting thrown around.

7/10

In the Tall Grass (2019) – Netflix

Based on a story by Stephen King and his sprog, Joe Hill, In the Tall Grass is directed by Vincenzo Natali (Cube, Splice et al) with a minimal cast and minimal locations. The basic premise concerns a supernatural plot of land, coated in high grass, with a mysterious rock at its center. This rock, which has been worshipped for seemingly hundreds, if not thousands, of years, is a malevolent force, possessing the mind of anyone who touches it, and is using the grasses as extensions of its body. Hapless travelers are lured into this ‘plant trap,’ the honey being the cries of previous victims.

Into this nightmare are flung Becky and Cal, siblings on their way to San Diego (still 400 miles away). Becky is six months pregnant with a child she is about to give up, and her overprotective brother wants to ensure she gets there safely. They stop for a while at an old church, and that’s when they hear the cries of a young boy, lost in the field. They enter, and all manner of wibbly wobbly timey wimey murder ensues.

I heartily enjoyed this one — Natali made grass bloody scary, and the cast did a great job. Hats off to Patrick Wilson who was great in this, and the production design, effects, and music were all top notch.

I vaguely recall viewers being divided over the merits of this film, but I really dug it, and think it’s a perfect addition to this cosmic horror watch-a-thon.

8/10

The Last Case of August T. Harrison (Hollinsworth Productions,
November 15, 2015) and Sea Fever (Signature Entertainment, 2019)

The Last Case of August T. Harrison (2015) – Tubi

Back to the low-budget affairs with this potboiler that has a decent enough idea, but squanders it through miscasting and uninspired direction.

August T. Harrison is a retired detective who is tasked by his artist son to help track down a missing fellow called Drake Johnson. In the process of detecting, Harrison learns of an insidious plot to summon the old ones to reclaim the planet and so on and so on.

A whole bunch of mumbo is jumbo-ed along the way and even HPL himself pops up in dream sequences, while our protagonist slowly loses his grip.

This one suffers from the usual zero-budget issues; much of it is talking heads or narration, a typical strategy for filmmakers who can’t afford locations or effects. However, that doesn’t mean your exposition dumps need to be shot as boringly as possible against plain walls. I see this all too often and this, combined with an apparent disregard for basic directing principles (line of action, composition etc.) drives me up the wall.

This one could have worked with a bit of flair in the shot choices, and a wholly different actor as the detective — no disrespect to Jerry Lacy who played Harrison, but he seemed more like a confused grandpa who had wandered into scenes. This film needed a grizzled, older, Mickey Rourke-type to sell the noir angle.

Oh well, I like the idea of capturing the images of the old ones on celluloid, but that was as far as my interest could stretch.

4/10

Sea Fever (2019) – Tubi

Not strictly cosmic horror, nor Lovecraft inspired, but it features a be-tentacled beastie and some madness, so that’s good enough for me considering how excellent this film is.

Connie Nielson and Dougray Scott are the captain and skipper of a fishing trawler looking for a big score to cover some debts and pull them out of their all-consuming grief for their deceased daughter. The trawler is crewed by a likeable bunch, and into the mix is thrown Siobhán (Hermione Caulfield) a marine biology student who is socially awkward but needs to study any anomalies they fish up for her final research paper.

Things get off to a rocky start when the crew discovers Siobhán is a redhead — a terrifically unlucky omen for sailors — and it isn’t long before Gerard (Scott) has steered them into an exclusion zone in the hopes of a massive haul. Something is caught alright, but it’s not a fish. The story then descends into a harrowing fight for survival amidst parasitic infection and superstition.

This film has all the hallmarks of a Covid allegory, but it was filmed before the outbreak, so the theme is entirely coincidental. It works really well though. The direction is taut, the cast are all brilliant and the effects are moist. Really enjoyed this one — recommended.

8/10

Spring (Drafthouse Films, March 20, 2015) and Starfish (3Roundburst Productions, 2018)

Spring (2015) – Tubi

Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci) is at a seriously low point. He has recently lost both parents, and now it seems he has lost his job through a spot of grief-induced violence. In desperation he books a flight to anywhere, and ends up in southern Italy. After a rambunctious road trip with a couple of Brits (and if you are squeamish about the C-word, beware) he meets a beautiful young woman, Louise (Nadia Hiker), who somewhat unexpectedly invites him home for a bit of slap and tickle.

She leaves before he wakes in the morning, but he bumps into her again, and they resume their friendship even though Louise does not seem as into it as Evan. It’s not long before we find out why, as we are witness to the monstrous transformations her body undergoes without the right suppressor, or fresh blood (second trigger warning for animal lovers). It’s a story that speaks about life and death and the choices we have to make in our grief, but it’s also a love story and a creature feature.

This is the second film on my list from Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, and it has cemented them among my favorite directors working today. As with The Endless, there’s such an authenticity to their camera work and direction, and they manage to make a fantastical tale grounded and emotional. The two leads are excellent, the moments of body horror are truly squirm-inducing, and the location is stunning.

Recommended.

9/10

Starfish (2018) – Prime

Another film that deals with grief, Starfish concerns Aubrey Parker (Virginia Gardner), a young woman who has just lost her best friend, Grace, to an illness. While grieving, she breaks into Grace’s apartment to rekindle the happy memories she had with Grace, but also to feed her pets and try to come to terms with her guilt for not keeping in touch more regularly.

After a night of mourning and self-admonishment, Aubrey wakes up to find the world has ended. Snow has fallen, monsters roam the streets, and the only sign of life is a disembodied voice on Grace’s walkie-talkie. It seems Grace was part of a group that realized secret signals were being transmitted through the media, and these signals have opened doorways to other dimensions. Via a final ‘mixtape,’ Grace instructs Aubrey to find a set of recordings that could be the key to closing the doors.

Starfish is a beautiful film, and certainly more thoughtful than your usual fare. Its central themes of grief and guilt drive the dreamlike narrative, and the casual viewer might find themselves fidgeting after 25 mins. However, stick with it, as it turns into a compelling study of one woman coming to terms with her own rationality against the backdrop of an indecipherable cataclysm.

Starfish is an interesting watch, full of surprises, and becomes its own mixtape of ideas. Gardner is good in the role, and the creature effects are excellent, reminiscent of Monsters (Garth Edwards gets a thank you in the credits).

Worth a look if you fancy something a bit more meditative.

8/10

The Empty Man (2020) – Disney+

And so we reach the end of this latest watch-a-thon, which started off a bit shakily, but finally unearthed some absolute gems. I’ve finished on a high note with a film that I really should have already seen, but failed to make time for. On the outside, The Empty Man doesn’t immediately appear to fall into the Lovecraftian cosmic horror camp, but once you have seen it, you will know that it most certainly embraces the Mythos.

The film begins with a hiking party in Bhutan who encounter something supernatural, resulting in tragedy. Fast forward 23 years and the story continues as we follow James Lasombra, a retired detective, as he is drawn into a missing persons case. The missing teen, Amanda, is seemingly infatuated with an urban legend called The Empty Man, your typical suburban boogeyman, but when Lasombra digs deeper he finds she is connected to a cult-like organization called Pontifex, who also seem to worship the same urban legend. What follows is an expected descent into madness, assorted ghastliness, and a massive tie-in to HPL’s writings in the form of a ‘mighty messenger’ (IYKYK).

Despite the stellar prologue, the film kicks off like a typical teen horror in the vein of Slenderman, but it isn’t long before the darker undertones start to bleed through, and we are thrown into a nightmare police procedural. Actually, the film really put me in mind of Angel Heart, and I’m a sucker for genre-blended noir, enshrouded in unavoidable doom.

The cast are all excellent (especially James Badge Dale as Lasombra), and first-time director David Prior really nailed the unsettling feel of the story. The cinematography and sound are top notch too, and my only gripe would be the almost 140 min runtime. Trim 30 mins off that and you’ve got a perfect film (although don’t ask me what to trim!).

I’ve kept this review extremely vague — there’s a lot more to the film, but you need to see it for yourself.

9/10

A great way to finish this list, and if you made it this far, thanks for coming along!

Previous Murky Movie surveys from Neil Baker include:

It’s All Rather Hit-or-Mythos, Part I
It’s All Rather Hit-or-Mythos, Part II
You Can’t Handle the Tooth
Tubi Dive
What Possessed You?
Fan of the Cave Bear
There, Wolves
What a Croc
Prehistrionics
Jumping the Shark
Alien Overlords
Biggus Footus
I Like Big Bugs and I Cannot Lie
The Weird, Weird West
Warrior Women Watch-a-thon

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Neil Baker’s last article for us was Part II of It’s All Rather Hit-or-Mythos. Neil spends his days watching dodgy movies, most of them terrible, in the hope that you might be inspired to watch them too. He is often asked why he doesn’t watch ‘proper’ films, and he honestly doesn’t have a good answer. He is an author, illustrator, teacher, and sculptor of turtle exhibits. (AprilMoonBooks.com).