Fantastic!

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

A Boston archaeologist sorts through his dead great-uncle's papers. He finds information about the Cthulhu Cult. The great-uncle was a psychiatrist. One of his patients was a young man named Henry Wilcox. Wilcox reported dreams; the shrink asked that he record the dreams for discussion. When Wilcox failed to appear one day, the great-uncle tracks him down to a mental ward. Wilcox had lost his memory of his obsession.The present day nephew skips to other parts of the great-uncle's stored papers, which included newspaper clippings, and visits to conferences. At one conference, a policeman presents an artifact to some scholars. One man had seen the same sort of piece in Greenland in Esquimaux (sic) territory. Another described odd goings-on in a swamp near New Orleans where children were disappearing. In both cases, there was a chant that named Cthulhu. A similar artifact was at the site of a cult fire dance where cannibalism was being practiced. The investigator came with police; the dance was dispersed; arrests were made.The nephew keeps reading. This seems to be a common mistake made by actors in Cthulhu films.He follows the notebooks, and goes to places described in the notebooks. He locates a Cthulu statue, and gains more information than what was in the notebooks.The effort eventually drives the nephew mad. -----Scores------Cinematography: 4/10 Presented in black and white in the 4:3 aspect ratio. Full of simulated scratches and floating dust. Ugly.Sound: 6/10 This is a silent film with musical accompaniment and inter-titles. The music was fairly good for the on screen action.Acting: 4/10 Without voice, these actors seemed to be lost.Screenplay: 4/10 Too many dream sequences and flashbacks. A lot of this looks like Freudian themes with visuals in the style of Dali.-----Post Script-----In graduate school at Indiana University, I saw a dozen or so silent black and white films at the Auditorium, which had a large screen and a huge pipe organ of fine sound quality. The organ player was not only a skilled musician, but also a BW film buff of broad experience. The films were A list when they were released, and were often in 1.85 or wider format. They looked like movie films, not television. The film actors and directors were experienced and skilled at making the best silent films. These experiences were rather rich; I felt like I was catching a glimpse of the silent era during its height.Why go to so much effort to make something that looks so bad? The black and white silent era is over. Go the route of The Artist instead.

H.P. Lovecraft was a prolific writer, and many films were made by or inspired by his works: Re-animator, Bride of Re-animator, Dagon, From Beyond, and many many more.If one were to do a movie during his time, it would look exactly like this one: black and white and silent. Neither takes away from the interesting story. What we see is a tale of hair-raising mystery full of bizarre dreams, murderous eskimos, and blood-thirsty cultists that culminates in the revelation of an unspeakable horror, just as it would have been made in 1925.With German impressionism prevalent, the music and shadows made this a terrifying tale.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. ~ "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."Maybe if you love H.P. Lovecraft you can find some delight in the film adaptation of his 1926 "weird tale".As with "The Artist" I was excited to see another modern-day silent picture. I have a lot of respect for people who maintain through practice traditions that have been pushed out by technological "progress". And at the end, to see a real clay-mation monster again - it was like time-traveling "jOtherwise, Andrew Leman's movie is little more than a fan-vid, trying to recreate the short story with precision rather than inspiration. By all means - never stop reading. The book will always be better than the movie.

I was born in the era of CGI so watching a black and white, silent movie with awful special effects is rare. I only watched this because I'm a budding Lovecraft fan and an admirer of cosmicism. The fact that it's a silent movie actually aids it,I think. It was a better ploy than going for dialogue , which, I think, would have made it too long drawn and complex. The fact that it's length is really short also means that the punch is greater than it would have been otherwise. The direction is good, the performances are good. The movie is made very well, but this is where the small budget hinders it. The effects are almost comical, and they do lower the punch. The scare factor would have been much more, for example, if the cyclopean cities would have been shown as something other than just props and Cthullu looking, well, less kiddish. But other than that, it was a very well made film.A solid 7.5 out of 10