Necronomicon is a supposedly H.P Lovecraft inspired horror that was written, directed and produced by Richard Driscoll. I love anything lovecraftian, as that author was a master of horror (sadly also a master of racism also, as it always has to be said). The link with this movie is tenuous at best, with the titular Necronomicon being the only thing taken from the mythos he crafted. It is unfortunate the state the film was released in, as truth be told, it really did feel unfinished.
George Carney (Steven Craine - Shark Attack) is a graphic novel writer, whose agent, Martha (Lysette Anthony) has recently been able to get her hands on a text that was so legendary that it was thought it might not even actually exist. This text, called the 'Necronomicon', was said to have been written by Aleister Crowley, and was said to have the ability to grant those who could translate its strange writings all the power they could want, due to a pact Crowley had made with Satan. Martha hopes it will serve as inspiration for George to write a masterpiece, but first, she needs him to travel to New Orleans in order to get the book authenticated. Unknown to the writer, he has been tricked into an occult plan to use his soul to resurrect Crowley.
This sure starts on an abysmal foot, the first twelve minutes were so bad that I wanted to stop the film there and then, despite having paid £4 to rent it. This opening section consists almost entirely of the most fake looking CG car chase I have ever seen. In it, a narrator explains how he collects souls for the devil, with the man green screened into the passenger seat of the car, which is being chased by infinite numbers of police cars. His indestructible vehicle cause any car he hits to spin off into the air or explode in a ridiculously fake looking way, at one point a car that flies into the air just vanishes into thin air, a few of the chase sequences are repeated. This narrator and his baffling unending car chase, also pops up at the end of the film, thankfully for a shorter time. I really do not know what on earth the point of that section was. The dialogue (including a long monologue that is played in its entirety twice) had nothing to do with what was happening on screen, if it wasn't that the rest of the film takes itself more seriously, I would have assumed Necronomicon was intended to be seen as a comedy horror. I get the impression that it was a struggle for the film even to fill its lean seventy minute run time, maybe this intro sequence, as well as the repeated chunks of dialogue were inserted to try and stretch out the film's length.
The main story of George being tricked into heading to New Orleans fared slightly better. There was a film noir feel to the events, with most scenes taking place at night, often at seedy locations such as a brothel, and dark dank bookshops. The protagonist was a bit of an idiot though, early on for instance, he basically is told that he is being tricked into an occult plan, and specifically warned not to meet the woman he had planned to see as part of his research, and definitely not to let her touch him. The very next scene, he wakes up in his hotel room in the dead of night to see a very suspicious woman there, and promptly has sex with her, ignoring the warning completely, with no reason given why. Rather than it ever feel like the character is being cleverly manipulated, he always acts in such a bone-headed way that he becomes deserving of anything that happens to him. Most scenes have George with one other character only, the limitations of the budget made obvious, and heavy use of green screen that make every part of the movie feel artificial.
The plot wasn't handled well, with even the main thread not really being resolved. There was a key event in the third act that happened almost completely off screen. One second a character is in quite a dire situation, then one CG gun blast later and they are off driving a car in a random location with no explanation for how they got there.
It really felt to me that Necronomicon was unfinished, from the excess fat used to beef up the runtime, to the awful script, bizarrely bad look of everything, and some terrible special effects that relied far to much on CG. While this does feature Michael Madsen, Tom Sizemore, and Sylvester McCoy (The Hobbit trilogy, Doctor Who) in minor supporting roles, it is not worth the journey to see them. There is little here to recommend, and certainly barely has anything to do at all with lovecraftian horror, a real shame. Necronomicon is now available from DRagon Studios and can be rented or bought here.
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