Presented as an anthology of stories loosely tied together through vignettes featuring an investigative reporter researching the life and writings of horror/fantasy author H. P. Lovecraft, LovecraCked! The Movie is sometimes amusing, but often is too hard to follow or falls flat. There are some truly brilliant, wacky pieces throughout the movie, but not enough of them.
I’d tried to watch the movie twice before I finally got through it on the third attempt. Earlier, I figured the problem was me. I was distracted, too tired from work to concentrate, or really in the mood for something that was easy to get into. But I had the same problems the third time through. The movie is so disjointed in places that it’s almost like channel-surfing captured on DVD, although the stories all have to do with some aspect of Lovecraft, his work, or his Cthulhu Mythos so as not to be completely disjointed.
The stories featured on the DVD only pay passing homage to Lovecraft’s work. Key pieces and conceits were borrowed or cannibalized but the new stories didn’t really push into the deep thinking that lay behind those tales. Even though the movie is about Lovecraft, we don’t really get to know the author. There’s just not enough factual material in the presentation for someone unfamiliar with Lovecraft’s fiction to get the paradigm behind the pieces. There was no discussion as to why the writers, actors, and directors show the path they took to create their films.
The parts of the movie that really work are the ones that are over-the-top. I loved the investigative reporter shtick and would often laugh out loud at the actor’s antics. He had some really good stuff, and he was great with his expressions and dialogue delivery. He has a good sense of timing.
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