I'm middle-aged, gay and familiar with the Cthulhu mythos. The problem with this film is everything. It's technically lacking. Only the photography is decent, in an artsy-fartsy but lifeless blue-green two-strip Technicolor cliché-of-the-last-five-years kind of way. The sound mix is so atrocious, there are characters whose words you will never hear and the DVD doesn't come with subtitles so you can't speed-watch the really boring parts while still reading the words. In spite of this, I just had to fast-forward through the forced coupling with Tori Spelling. There is only so much I can take in the name of cinema. I have no problem with the main character being gay. But did he have to be a depressing and depressed highly-strung nellie whose only expression is a kind of impression of a terminally-menstruated Sigourney Weaver in "Alien 3" as rendered by Michael McDonald of "Mad TV"? It's hard enough to watch a film where the hero never manages a smile but must he also seem manic from too much caffeine or possibly crack and generally out of shape and unattractive? Hint to indie producers: Modern audiences generally prefer good-looking people. The editing makes a point of destroying your last chance of actually getting involved in the story and understanding what goes on from one scene to the next, uncomprehensible flashbacks and dream sequences included. The atmosphere is made all the more creepy by the fact that all the actors are extremely amateurish and undirected. Also, this film is not about Cthulhu at all but a failed adaptation of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth". Finally the gayest character in the whole lot is the hero's father, which is itself very troubling. I've only managed to muddle through 50 minutes of the 110 minutes of this film so far. It already seems like an eternity, in a non-Euclidian way. I don't know if I'll make it through... Wish me luck. If you don't hear from me again, please notify my next-of-kin - those that don't have scaly skin anyway. Thank you.
