The Thing on the Doorstep

I'm so used to movies based on Lovecraft's stories being utter crap that I went into this one expecting I'd be turning it off a few minutes later... but surprise! It was a pretty darned good take on its source material. It's obviously micro-budget and stylized to make up for it. A lot of the tale is told in narration... but I'd MUCH rather have that than a lot of awful CGI attempting to visualize things the story only hinted at. It's a subtle telling, one that's likely to draw the dreaded 'boring' descriptor from less patient audiences... but whatever. The Thing On The Doorstep is actually one of my favorite of Lovecraft's lesser Mythos stories... there are some genuinely creepy ideas going on in it and this movie caught on to them and even expanded them in ways that I felt were in keeping with the spirit of the tale. For instance, giving the protagonist a wife and child (not in the original story) was not just a tacked detail... their presence made the nature of the threat more personal and immediate and brought up new dimensions to how the goings on might have been interpreted. One thing that is particularly strong about the movie is the acting. The actors are not the usual crop of 20-somethings that get shoveled into most horror films. The characters here are older and with that carry a certain gravity the story deserves.

Just so I don't come off as a shill... there were a few things that bothered me. The movie takes place in modern times, which I was fine with... but there were places where the writer chose to used the language of the original story and those bits of dialogue feel a bit clunky. Thankfully most of that is early on and then stops... though it comes up again during the reading of Edward's note at the end. Also (and this is me being a picky Lovecraft fan) while the actress playing Asenath was perfectly fine and doesn't really appear that much on-screen, I did find myself wishing they'd gone the extra mile and found someone with a touch more of the 'Innsmouth look'. My last complaint is with the depiction of the 'thing' of the title. I know it's a low budget project but I wished they'd done it differently. As it is the camera spends to much time on the 'thing' and its really not ready for its closeup. I think they could have gotten away with the less-is-more approach that had been used for the visions and dream sequences in the earlier parts of the movie.

Still, I'm impressed... by the directing, the writing and the acting. I'd love to see these folks take a shot at 'Dreams In The Witch House' and erase my memory of the awful Stuart Gordon version.

What really made me get into this picture was the fact that I had that wonderful tingling working up my spine into my psyche, a quality you don't see in horror movies much anymore. The scenery, the music and the fantasy sequences all made for a fairly well made horror film. The use of not so famous actors made the story line more believable too. Of course there a lot of unexplained circumstances to the point where you didn't know you were dealing with the supernatural or just the ramblings of a not quite all there antagonist, as in Edward. I'm glad I watched this one. There aren't too many out there that I'll give the time to.

Of course it is impossible to be entirely faithful to a literary work when adapting to film, but The Thing on the Doorstep did an excellent job. What changes were made improved the story for the medium. The cinematography and narrative technique was compelling and eerie. If you're a fan of H.P. Lovecraft's Mythos fiction I think you'll really enjoy this retelling. However, if you're not familiar with Lovecraft and aren't familiar with this story, you might find it difficult to get into or even follow. The same is true of the story itself, which demands more than one reading before it shows you all of its secrets. This is certainly a subtle and engaging film that should be enjoyed if not adored by fans of the Mythos, though it probably isn't for everyone.

People seem to be praising this film simply because it is truer to the Lovecraft story than usual; but then is someone simply reading the story aloud a better film? If you can't make believable characters, can't think of any other narrative way to tell your story beside constant tedious voice-overs while a guy wanders around a poorly designed set, can't create tension or mood or illicit good performances from actors who are obviously trying then you haven't made a good film. One definition of "amateur" is "Lacking professional skill or expertise" and this is the perfect example of amateur with no budget. Horribly photographed, poorly directed (even the compositions are usually bad) and with some of the worst student level editing and "special effects" I've even seen. They might have followed the plot of Lovecraft but they failed at everything else.

I am a huge Lovecraft fan, and when I happened to come across "The Thing on the Doorstep" I must admit that I found myself instantly curious about the movie, especially since I had never heard about this movie in any way. But to be truthfully honest, then I was also somewhat hesitant about actually watching it, fearing that it would be suffering as most other Lovecraft adaptations do, and not really living up to the writer's product.

"The Thing on the Doorstep" turned out to be a very slow paced movie, and the fact that they changed the time setting of the movie, just took away some of the time period charm that adds so much to the theme of Lovecraft's writing. So it was sort of difficult to really get into this movie.

The acting in the movie was adequate, although there wasn't anyone in particular that stood out as being more memorable than the others. People were doing good jobs with their given roles and characters, but were somewhat hindered by the script and the pacing of the movie.

So was this a good addition to the adaptations of Lovecraft's immortal work? Hardly so. Sure, it had certain aspects and elements to it that had that particular Lovecraftian feel to it. But the whole picture wasn't particularly impressive.

This is hardly a movie that I will be returning to watch for a second time, because the movie just lacked appeal and didn't have enough solid contents to sustain more than a single viewing - provided you make it through the entire first viewing.

"The Thing on the Doorstep" scores a mere 3 out of 10 stars rating from me.