A scene with the scaly humanoid beast (reminiscent of the golf ball-eyed monstrosity of Arthur C. There’s also elements of the 80s cult classic Humanoids From the Deep in having the creature need to copulate with human female victims as part of a hybrid reproduction. A couple, vacationing in an air bnb within a small coastal community, are unaware that the town is entirely comprised of a cult that has targeted the pair for a ritual worshipping an ancient sea god. I could not shake the feeling of a Rosemary’s Baby influence over the events unfolding. The plot, scripted by Ferrin and based mainly on Lovecraft’s 1931 novel The Shadow Over Innsmouth, borrows a bit from other horror works. This latter blueprint is what Ferrin does so well.
Still, it can be argued that the idea of less is more as avoidance of seeing the dreaded beasts in full light leaves the moviegoer’s imagination to run in full force and do much the same as full effects could, hooking them in completely. True that an eye for spectacle, even of the grotesque variety, is a key in luring viewers into the story. Now, the usual obstacle toward doing a filmization of a Lovecraft work is in having the ample budget to show the visual of the netherworld Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones inhabit. To really take an honest stab at the dark house and world of Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones, a penchant for largess and overtly visual is needed and Ferrin and company exude that in spades. When I recently caught word that Chad Ferrin and many others of the team behind the deliriously goofy and satiric chiller Exorcism at 60,000 Feet were next setting their sights on a Lovecraft project, it was an easy sell for me to view. I’d also found some fascination growing years earlier after watching Roger Corman’s attempt at bringing the writer’s The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward to life under the phantom guise of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem The Haunted Palace for the 1963 feature starring Vincent Price and Lon Chaney Jr. I’ve been an obsessed fan of Howard Phillips Lovecraft since being a boy of 16 and reading The Call of Cthulhu as part of a literary project on the author for high school. They soon discover to be in the grips of a mysterious cult and their ancient sea god. A married couple rents a beach side Airbnb only to be surrounded by peculiar neighbors and occurrences.