Necronomicon

So... I'll watch pretty much any b-horror movie, and I've definitely seen my share. I also go to the Lovecraft Film Festival so I'm used to indie films. This was something else entirely. Firstly, it's like the makers of this film said "Hey. Let's use Lovecraft's name to suck people into". Then, it was like they hired a bunch of actors and gave them no guidance or direction. The narrator has no real emotion or intonation, its like he's reading cue cards off camera, Tom Sizemore clearly has 0 pronunciation coaching, and the lead is just boring as hell.

This is a movie that keeps referencing Aleister Crowley but it feels like someone read a wikipedia entry on Crowley and thought that was good enough research. In fact, they just read the wikipedia entry out loud in the film and then go "Gee whiz golly. How will I ever fight out more?"

And I haven't even begun to talk about how the CGI just looks like Inshot overlays...

This is a terrible film but not in any fun or redeeming way. Like its no "Manos: Hands of Fate" or "Birdemic" which have their merits as "so bad it's good" its just... bad.

As a card carrying member of the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, I will start by saying this is a hard pass. The makers of this film clearly have ZERO knowledge of the source material. Numerous characters in the film mispronounce the name of the Necromonicon... The titular tome... Multiple times. Also, aside from a character at the beginning of the film seemingly reading off the biography of H. P. Lovecraft from Wikipedia, there is virtually no mention of Lovecraft or Lovecraftian themes, tropes, etc. As a matter of fact, it's almost like the writers of the film wanted to make a film about Aleister Crowley instead but wanted to use the Lovecraft name to snag unsuspecting viewers like me. I can safely say, Aleister Crowley had nothing to do with Lovecraft's fictional Necromonicon, as it was written by the mad Arab Al Alhazzared. Also, the film is all wrapped up in Christian demonography which has zero to do with the elder beings and old gods of the actual Lovecraftian Necromonicon.

All of that aside, even as an enthusiast of schlocky B movies, I found this film to be horribly written, terribly paced, it had awful washed out audio throughout. The entire first twelve minutes is a weird Sin City-esque CGI car chase, complete with awful rear projection behind the driver who delivers a Frank Miller style monologue the entire time. There's also an awkward sex scene shoehorned in where you get to see Bai Ling's nipples if you're patient enough to get a half hour in. A lot of the "bigger name" actors don't even appear in the film and are simply dubbed into conversations with the main character.

If I could give this film a zero out of ten I would.

The movie focuses on the legendary Aleister Crowley for the most part, in very poorly lit rooms of no relevance. As said on other disparaging reviews here, the first thirty minutes and the last ten are harder to watch than it was for me to read your collective reviews of this film.

Depending on your mood, and if your interest in the Occult is fairly high -- be like Nike, and just do it already. It's not in the same league as far as good Lovecraft movies are concerned, Dagon is by far and away the best rendition of the man's written work and they did the best with had they had to work with there on that beauty.

So, the CGI driving scenes BREAK this movie for the majority of watchers because it's such shoddy work, and the would-be tough guy is some fat lamer with a feminine voice. Weak. But the dialogue discussing Crowley and the Golden Dawn's importance to Occultism, and occasionally throwing in the Necronomicon, is acceptably interesting to me...

I only watched this movie because the other reviewers regarded it so poorly. Surely, it couldn't be that bad? They were not wrong. Everything they wrote is accurate. I made it 6 minutes in before I started fast forwarding through the rest. While it never really got any better, I did notice some naked ladies about half way through it. So, it does have that going for it. I really can't think of any other reason to watch this movie. It is not satisfying on any real level. That being said, I am sure the people that made this movie had a fun time and learned a great deal in the process. Now, I need to type 11 more characters.

Right, well I have to admit that when I stumbled upon the 2023 horror movie titled "Necronomicon" and seeing that the movie had Lysette Anthony on the cast list, then of course I had to sit down and watch the movie. No doubt about that.

However, this movie is one of the worst Lovecraftian-inspired movies that I have stumbled upon. First of all, the movie starts off with more than 10 minutes of forcing the audience to sit through tedious monologue delivered by a man fully stripped of emotion, while he is driving recklessly through the streets while chased by the police. There was zero understanding of how laws of physics works in that long, long car chase scene, and it looked like discarded footage from a 1990s computer game. It was abysmal to watch.

Not even with the likes of Lysette Anthony and Bai Ling on the cast list did the movie stand a snowballs chance in Hell. The actors and actresses in the movie literally had nothing to work with in terms of script, dialogue or character gallery.

Then there was the prolonged dialogue, which was very repetitive, and the fact that someone pronounces the word "Necronomicon" as "Necromonicon" was just laughable.

The storyline in "Necronomicon" was rubbish, as were the majority of the acting performances and the delivery of the infantile dialogue. It felt like nothing more than an amateurish attempt at making a movie.

Do yourself a favor and stay well clear of "Necronomicon", especially if you enjoy the written works of Lovecraft.

My rating of "Necronomicon", from director Richard Driscoll, lands on a one out of ten stars. This was an abysmal affront to the legacy of H. P. Lovecraft.